What keeps Americans from being mad about the state of their country?

Most of my countrymen are very, very fucking stupid.
- The rest are generally angry
  
  The stupid ones are angry too... They're just so stupid they are angry at the wrong things/people
  
  Oh, my baseline emotional state these days is fury, but it’s because I know where this road leads, and it damages my calm constantly to know that the powers that be don’t seem to give a fuck.
  
  See, I don't know where I fall on this list. Because I'm angry everyday, but I'm also pretty stupid. Then I see how stupid OTHER people are.
  Like I'm over here wondering if the universe is infinate, how is it expanding? Doesn't that negate the concept of it being infinite? Or, if it's not infinite, but it is expanding, doesn't that suggest that the galaxy is, in perspective, very very young? We've found other planets that can support life. We have no evidence that life is on those planets. I'm willing to bet there IS life on those planets. It may be microscopic, and maybe it's still in the water, but I bet it's there. Which then raises the obvious question which we have no way in our lifetimes to accurately answer. Will those planets generate a naturally evolved set of humans completely unrelated to earths humans? I mean, logic says no, right? Theres so many variables, that they would evolve to cater to the needs of their planet. Right?
  Then I see guys get on the bus, and rummage through the trash can, and yell "WHY DOESN'T ANYONE THROW OUT GOLD OR DIAMONDS, OR MILLIONS OF DOLLARS???"
  That is a true story. I saw that.
  And I wonder to myself, am I as stupid as I think? Is the whole scale slanted? I feel smarter than those around me.....but I also feel like those around me are a few brain cells away from being medically classified as mentally retarded. So it doesn't feel like I've cleared an especially high hurdle there.
  But we all know the government lies to us. If they DO know of another life form out there, would they even tell us? I don't think so. That makes me angry, because I know we don't have the technology to visit those planets. They're hundreds of light years away.
  So realistically, we would have to start development on a transportation method that travels hundreds of thousands times faster than the speed of light to be able to get there with any realistic time frames. Nobody is going to sit on a space ship traveling for 4 years straight. But that kind of speed in an astroid filled space, with rocks just floating about? You'd have no ability to fly that fast. Any crash would be lethal, and it would happen virtually instantly if you're traveling like 400,000x the speed of light.
  So what did we do before here on earth when traveling long dangerous distances? We built permanent solutions that are still in place today, hundreds of years later. Train tracks!
  YES!!!! LETS BUILD BULLET SPACE TRAINS!!!! AWWWW YEAH!!!
  In space, nobody can hear you choo choo motherfucker!

Nothing. Everyone I know is very mad about it. The people who aren't mad about it aren't mad because they're being lied to and told that all their racism, homophobia, xenophobia and just plain mean spiritedness is somehow normal and good.
I assure you that anyone who isn't a monster is very unhappy about the whole situation
- I dunno, I walk through my day and most people's demeanor hasn't changed in the slightest. The way we suppress all this is very severancesque. Like sure we have our outies memory's but seems we don't have their emotions.
  
  I walk through my day and most people’s demeanor hasn’t changed in the slightest
  I'm unhappy and angry at the situation. But, am I supposed to mope around all day or have depressing conversations with everyone I meet? Should I start fighting every Trump supporter in my small town?
  
  Most people won't talk politics unless they know the other person's opinions already. I've had discussions about every day with my friends and wife, but there is no way I'm going to get into a discussion with my parents or maga coworker. I don't have the energy to debunk every stupid thing they say when they won't change their mind.
  
  Because most people are blissfully ignorant. They're going about their day and if anything they're possibly reminded that Trump is president by some news channel they pass over on their way to the newest true crime show or whatever the hell is on tictok.
  Most people couldn't be forced to care if you had a gun to their heads as evidenced by our disgusting voting numbers. "Didn't vote" would win every election if it was a candidate.
  Most people "aren't political" which is nice if only politics didn't affect your life so deeply. :/
  
  I mean, you don't just randomly bring up politics. You never know if the other person is a nazi that would report you for "being a communist". Also, if you do this at work, you'd probably get fired because you get reported for "harassment" and now you're evicted and on the streets, and starving.
  I mean, if you have a pride flag or some other symbols that you wear, I might talk to you because I think you're safe to talk to.
  So, if you want to have conversations about this nazi government, wear a pride flag pin thingy (idk what those are called) or something like that, to signal you aren't a magat.

Busy with day to day affairs, gotta pay rent/mortgage/medical bills, gotta feed the family, gotta keep working, can't take risks, ...
- People only revolt when they can no longer do those things. Literal starvation is often the cause of revolution in history. Let’s face it America is not there. Yes life is becoming a crushing grind. Yes we have statistics from policy institutes about food insecurity blah blah. But America is not fucking starving. If a few are, they do not have the strength to overpower the many others who still have something left to lose.
- That sounds like it should make you mad
  
  It does, but I'm busy with day to day affairs, gotta pay rent/mortgage/medical bills, gotta feed the family, gotta keep working, can’t take risks, …

The sitting around, waiting for “someone” to stop the madness, instead of organizing …fucking 10 years ago.
- There was a TON of organizing happening 10 years ago. Then Obama got reelected and everybody, except the people trying to do the organizing, went back to watching dancing with the stars
  Nobody wanted to listen then, so now we are all getting to enjoy the same hand basket
  Oh, and I forgot about the select few who decided that THEIR perspective outranked everybody else's, and used their petit tyranny to remove some very good willed people from certain organizing spaces
  So, now some of us get to at least watch while those select few get hammered by this bullshit first.
  Looking at YOU Monica
- As someone who has been paying attention and organizing for much longer than that, I will say that a lack of leadership is a legitimate part of the problem. This is just as much a case of the Left selling out to neoliberalism as it is the Right gaining strength. Without unifying leadership, minor groups run the risk of working against each other or more likely wasting their strength pulling in different directions.

A lot of people are mad. A lot of people are tired. A lot of people have lost hope. A lot of people feel betrayed. A lot of people see no path for change. A lot of people want to just be left alone.
To me that’s what this is really about. I’m so tired of having to be so actively(or passively) involved with politics and have the “party” I support constantly drop the ball. It’s so incredibly exhausting putting this much mental wherewithal into people and ideas that are just tossed aside.
I feel like everything is turning to shit so fast and “this is what people wanted” cause they supposedly voted for him; but I feel like the time to really rally and strike isn’t here yet.
It still feels like everyone is getting their bearings and figuring it out. You can see people are starting to plan. It’s clear we can’t just REACT. There needs to be clear plans and action to stop this and prevent it from happening again.
I think a lot of people are very angry, but we need to focus and formulate a proper way to retaliate.
- The time for rallying is now, every state had a protest this month on the 5th (50501). There's another one happening on President's Day. Attending these shows that people who are fed up are real and are here. I don't think peaceful protests will necessarily effect change BUT they are a place to gain visibility, meet like minded individuals, and build support groups. It won't grow if people don't show up!

I challenge your premise: They are mad. Not all of them, but plenty of people are upset and angry. More to follow the way things are going: The worse things get, the angrier they'll get.
- If you're not angry enough to even mention it in your daily life, are you really angry?
  
  Who the fuck said they aren't?
  You?
  Fuck outta here.
  
  I again challenge your premise: People are absolutely talking about it on a regular basis. It seems to be that you are living in a bubble. How many people do you even interact with and have open conversations with every day anyhow?

Lack of organization. We're many of us individually mad, but there is no organization.
Say what you will but Jan 6th and then some is what we should be doing, but we aren't.
All I'm doing now is hoarding ammunition and periodically buying more guns because I 1000% believe we're going to see war soon.
I'm also donating money to charities, helping people in my community that are struggling, and telling fascists to fuck off.
- I don't own a gun and, personally, I find the idea barbaric.
  But at this point I acknowledge that it's time to arm myself. This is how far our society has degenerated.
  However, I 100% disagree with Jan 6. That was a bunch of children with absolutely zero understanding of what they were doing. That was an example of how NOT to have a meaningful rebellion against an oppressive system. Those were fools behaving like fools and cheapening the idea of activism. They had no grasp of what they were doing or why. They were the antithesis of a true patriot that wants what is best for their society and goes about achieving that in a responsible, effective manner that inspires people to be the best version of a democratic citizen. They should not be idolized. They are an embarrassment to our nation.
  We should be setting a better example. We are shaming this democracy in a way that makes me physically ill. We are acting in a way as to paint us as failures in a historical context to future generations and it is truly shameful. This is our legacy.
  
  How do we set a better example / take the high road but actually make progress though?
  Lawsuits and protests are going to do nothing at this point.

We all are. The left and the right.
We have all been told from different sources who or what to be mad about.
Some were so mad about contrived issues they voted in someone who campaigned on destroying the federal government.
Others are pissed off that that person who was voted in is destroying the federal government.
The outrage machine literally is why the fascist pig is in the Whitehouse in the first place.
What you might be asking is why we aren't rioting in the streets. Just know that some of us are 4 times as far from our countries capital as London is from Berlin. In a blue state, who would I be protesting to? The people who already agree with me?
- Protests don’t work if the people in power don’t care. One dude with a gun did more to shake up people in power than any recent protest has. Look how Elon wears his kids as human shields now. Protests are to bring awareness, the world is aware. We are now in need of people willing to take action.
- So, logistics?
  If you ever need a ride ;-) <3

I'm not American, but from what I can see, its mostly:
Apathy
Not being clued in
Beliving nothing can be done
- The last one is insistent. Probably because there is a lot of truth to it but it's also obviously flawed and deserves more nuance.
  
  It feels like there is little that can be done individually, but collectively everyone can do a lot.
- Not being clued in is a serious problem here. A lot of people dont take in any form of news whatsoever
- Beliving nothing can be done
  This one in particular has been so corrosive. I believe if people believed in their vote, something would change. But the electoral college does more harm than good by diluting the vote. Couple that with gerrymandering to completely erode people's trust in the system.
- and #4: we dont believe if we take a bold step forward that our neighbors will show solidarity and endurance, which then puts us at risk of prosecution. A lot of us have kids to protect.

I’m mad. I’m very mad. I’m also very tired of watching political movements get shut down by the people who respond with “yes, we need to do better” followed by a handful of performative actions, and absolutely no substantive change.
I believe in a general strike. Wholeheartedly. I believe it would make real change. How the hell do I organize one safely? How do I trust any of the other people online who claim to be organizing them?
- Jane McAlevey No Shortcuts: Organising for Power in the New Gilded Age is a great book to learn about unions and union strategy
- You don't? We were talking about a general strike in much larger numbers when r/antiwork fractured and we would hear the same thing, "we need time to prepare, we need to orginize." Years later, it's all the same excuses. The time to strike is now. You won't be ready in 5 years you won't be ready in 5 months. You're only ready when your courage surpasses your doubt.
  
  A strike takes a lot of preparation, most of which is unionising and convincing your coworkers to join the strike when it’s time. A strike at a workplace is only successful if 75% of workers join in on it. Some US unions are ready for it, but a lot aren’t. If you want to contribute, join a union or start unionising. Resistance is built from the bottom up and strong unions are the most effective method.
  Read Jane McAlevey No Shortcuts: Organising for Power in the New Gilded Age to learn about how to make a successful union and how powerful a successful union can be.
  
  You're only ready when your courage surpasses your doubt.
  This. The real answer is that Americans won't come together in solidarity to address this situation until almost every non-wealthy citizen in this country has their quality of life decline so much that they have nothing left to lose. We're going to have to lose all our creature comforts before we take this seriously as a society. And honestly, by then, we'll have lost so much power that it'll be too late.
  Realistically, the time is right now, and, if we're being candid, it probably already past.
  We are sooooo fucked.

Brainwashing from the moment they were born
- My education in California was only to facilitate me becoming a wage slave.
  
  Prussian schooling everywhere.
  https://www.quora.com/Do-you-think-public-schools-in-your-country-are-designed-to-make-kids-docile-obedient-workers-for-the-upper-class/answer/Harri-K-Hiltunen

Fatigue.
We're too distracted by struggling to survive our small local daily struggles to even SEE the big picture.
If there's a time bomb in the room ticking down before your eyes, yeah that's a big deal. If, in that same room, you're also being attacked by a pack of rabid dogs though, chances are you've stuck a pin in the whole "what about the bomb" thing.
And if there's a sniper outside the room preparing to shoot you without even a moment's notice that you KNOW is there and that you can't even see AS WELL, all you can hope for us that all the moving around you're doing to avoid being dragged down and torn apart by the rabid dogs will throw off their shots.
They have BLINDED US WITH TRAUMA.
Normal people are fighting for their lives on a daily basis JUST contending with their landlords, their bosses, their financial institutions, their utility expenses, their groceries. They don't see the ways in which these challenges are driven by the federal government's policies on a national scale.

I'm not even American and I'm mad. Most of what I've heard from Americans is that they're mad.
- Same. I'm so mad and disappointed in America, but I can't let that override my compassion for its people. This whole thing is so frustrating to watch. Look at how the French do it, Americans! It's time to break some shit.
  
  You have compassion for us Americans, and that’s nice, but bear in mind we voted for this. As much as the people who voted for Trump may have done so out of desperation, we still made a catastrophically stupid decision. Trump isn’t the problem, he’s a symptom. The problem lies in the American people. We have been squashed by both our government and our corporations. We need a wake-up call, and if that means we need to suffer from our own choices then so be it. Maybe we haven’t suffered enough yet. If we’re so dumb that we vote for a malignant narcissist like Donald Trump, maybe we need to be squashed a bit more. We have the power to take back our country, we just need the will to do it. Maybe that comes from more hardship and regret. Maybe that comes from more suffering.
  But maybe not. Maybe I’m wrong. I’m so disappointed with my own countrymen right now, maybe I’m not seeing things clearly. I don’t know. But I know we deserve what we voted for. The world doesn’t, and that’s a tragedy, but maybe America needs to take a hit and the world needs to rely less on us for both America and the world to be better. Again, I don’t know.

Real talk?
Because I'm tired. So absurdly tired. Tired of the stupid and the sensationalism and the faked anger and the real suffering and pain.
Am I mad? Yeah. But unfortunately I'm way more tired.
- I'm tired too. Come on, let's get this thing over with.

What makes you think we aren’t mad?
- Just the general resistance to taking action.
  
  we are leaderless. acting individually looks like a public tantrum. acting as one makes a movement.
  
  There's a sort of depression and malaise there.

Was reading r/conservative to see what's on their minds regarding the events of late, and they are in there celebrating.
- r/conservative is a highly curated indoctrination machine. It's purpose is to pull in conservative leaning people and teach them party line. If your on r/conservative you're acquiescing to the group think or you stay silent.
  
  But that's still an answer for you. It's easy to fight back if we're united, but they have a huge contingent of armed absolute morons celebrating the Nazification, rape, and pillaging of the country.

Visibly queer minority here! I’m probably gonna go to jail sometime in the next year for being trans in public. Until I do though, I’ve been lobbying state congress about some of the bills on the docket.
- Please reach out if things get desperate. I probably can't help but sure as shit would try.

Your core supposition is wrong, basically everyone is mad about the state of our country. We just have several different ideas on how to fix it and two parties who are dedicated to making it worse.
- And that's the problem. The two party system is flawed. It's either one extreme or the other. Moderates no longer have a say. As long as it's seen as my team vs yours and no side is willing to compromise this will always be the problem.
  
  Moderates no longer have a say.
  Many view the democrats as being right of centre already and that "moderates" are largely unrepresented because both parties lean right.
  
  Respectfully, I disagree. I struggle to think of candidates more milquetoast than Biden and Harris of all people.
  I think the problem is that we have no progressives. The right moves things right, the center does nothing, and there is no left.

Bread and circuses

Who says we aren’t? Do you know how big this country is, and how much money it takes to fly to DC to protest? Do you understand that nobody wants to die for taking a shot at Trump or Elon?
- I don't think many outside of here do.
  Many people here stay in the place they were born. Even when they hate it. It's hard moving and leaving everything behind. It's tough moving to a new part of the country without any contacts.
  I've relocated a few times, there's always a culture shock. You'd think it would be pretty much the same everywhere due to our saturated commercial culture, but it really is different everywhere. Sometimes just a few hours of separation between places can be two completely different worlds
  We're a nation full of smaller countries, cultures and customs. It's hard to see that on the outside looking in due to so many of us parroting things online, as well as the media that we distribute throughout the world (movies, tv, music ect)
  But it's a VAST nation of many different ways of life.

It gets said over and over but the country is huge and your experience can vary greatly. If you are a govt employee work is likely more chaotic, some more than others. Telework people coming back to the office, looming layoffs, people resigning/staying, big organizational shifts etc.
If you know a person deported of who may be deported you are probably very concerned for them and the world feels turned upside down.
But for most people the gas prices are about the same, groceries are about the same and their life is about the same. If it wasn't for the news/internet most people probably couldn't tell the difference between administrations so far. It takes a big event you can't easily ignore (Covid 19, Hurricane Helene, LA fires) for even ONE REGION of the country to focus on a problem for a while.
And even then if you are outside of that area people probably won't change their routine beyond posting about it.
- But conditions everywhere are bad. Just because we've grown use to it doesn't mean the constant drain on your heart, body, and mind has gone away. I've never lived in a time where the world around me wasn't eriely cold and uncaring.
  
  I guess it's storytime! The rural area I grew up in was full of unionized industry jobs that shut down in the 80s, and then the auto industry followed in the 2000s. Many moved and for those that stayed life had sucked for a long while.
  But the local mall stayed relevant (there's not a whole lot else to do) and is now being filled with all kinds of new restauraunts and stores where old dead ones were. This was to meet demand since electric vehicle factories were built as well as amazon warehouses and other stuff. Then the taxes led to libraries and schools being built and upgraded.
  Now it's not all sunshine and rainbows of course but for the people there the world seemed cold and uncaring for decades. Now in their eyes it's starting to come back and the federal government had little to do with it. I guess what I'm saying is that it's all pretty subjective

Republicans have majority control over the media. They don't know what's happening because their news doesn't cover it.

We're all mad at each other.
- Wrong people to be mad at. I know though. I see it on here everyday.

Who said we aren't mad?
- I think everyone's news feeds are full of everything Trump's administration is doing. I personally have not seen a single mention of anything being done against that, though to be fair I am not American. If there are indeed protests of any kind maybe it would be worth mentioning them, it'd certainly help me and I assume others feel a bit more optimistic.
  
  The reason you see little official pushback from within the US is because things are far more dire here than you might imagine, as an outsider. The US Republican Party (aka GOP - Trump's party) is currently in control of all three branches of the US federal government. Ever since Trump took office, it's been one step toward constitutional crisis after another, and apparently the Republicans don't give a shit about rule of law when it comes to policing their own. The Democrats (our nominal "opposition" party) can't really do shit right now except at the local level. We have an unelected CEO compromising every branch of our nation's government with all the Republicans looking the other way. To be honest, I'm past the point of expecting a fair election in four years. As an American who grew up learning to value the ideals of personal freedom and liberty, to see what is happening to my country leaves me OUTRAGED.
  
  There was a protest in every single state capitol on February 3rd and many more cities like San Francisco as well. There will be another 50+ protests on Monday.
  
  All major US news outlets are in the pockets of the oligarchs. The revolution will not be televised.

The majority aren’t at the point where they are willing to sacrifice everything yet. They have families, homes, food, friends. Currently the administration hasn’t taken away enough from enough people to get it really going. It will be coming though. People just haven’t felt the affects yet
- As a young man (I’m under 30) with 2 kids I feel stuck like this. A lot of the protesting actions I would have taken are tapered by “I have to be around for my kids”, but at the same time this country is not how I want my kids to be raised in and I don’t know my own red line for this. Suffice to say if I’m thinking about this 3 weeks into Trump’s America, then I hope I will feel compelled to be more active. NYC might be coming to a heat with the Mayor Adam’s BS so I’m keeping my eye out for any manifestations in the city.
- Why not?
  
  Because people believe that they might be able keep what they have if they keep quiet and also believe they might loose their way or life or in general their life if they take up arms

everyone I know is mad. disgusted. ashamed of our country and it's election systems that allow this incompetent clown show to destroy our democracy.
meanwhile joe joe could have had the cia murder trump et al, and probably gotten away with it considering the supreme court's bullshit.
strange thing to wish had happened.

Most of us want someone else to do what needs to be done because we're too busy simply making ends meet. Sure, let me just call out of work to do some protesting, oh shit, now I can't afford rent, or food, or my meds, or paying off my last Dr visit, etc.
- And I guess the world around you could be burning and that's like, not a big deal.
  
  Would you like me to be homeless or in the hospital from not being able to afford my medications? You seem pretty willing to sacrifice people like me at the altar.

I'm pissed off. I don't know what I'm supposed to do about it. If there's a protest near me I'll join it. If I see somebody getting fucked with by a Nazi I'll step in but I have responsibilities and a job and can't really afford to travel. So until shit really kicks off I'm kind of stuck in this state where I can't do anything.
- All this is happening thousands of miles away from me behind locked doors.

- USA just needs more luigis.
  What do you mean?

I'm mad, but what? Once we pull out the guillotines there's no going back, so right now I'm hoping that checks and balances thing starts to kick in soon.
- I agree. I fought very hard for harm reduction. I just think the time for that has came and went. Now we have to mobilize the population and that's like a 10 year ordeal, if it's possible at all. It's slow going but we gave the democrats 8 years to do something I think 10 years for the people to get their act together might be doable.

What makes you think we are not mad?
- You just don't seem mad. Maybe upset but like you'll get over it in like 4 years or what ever.
  
  I’m optimistic that in four years we’ll have an opportunity to start rebuilding. I can only hope our friends abroad have patience while we go through our meltdown, that somehow there’s enough economic inertia to control acceleration of climate change, and that most of us can keep our heads above water.
  Then again, I’m trying to figure out how to tell my son we can’t afford his first choice college because of financial aid changes made by republicans during trumps first term, taking effect now. Sacrificing the future is getting personal

Decades of very effective propaganda combined with intrinsic ideological biases.

30 years of watching progressive movements flounder and civil action lead to absolutely zero substantial changes has given me a defeatist attitude. What good is getting mad? It's not like it will change anything.
- From the outside it seems that your progressive movements were a pretty good tool to spread thin the effort that could have gone someplace right, and also to weaken movements which were targeted at the real problems (for example, in the small world of FOSS it's how FSF and GNU were slowly marginalized into something perceived as unreasonable and Stallman specifically pressed out, and no, his logically correct defense of some kinds of pedophilia and him being generally cringe were not the reason).
  Also let's please remember that everyone flocking to centralized platforms was welcomed by those progressive movements, their activists for whichever reason thought that the scale and the censorship will work in their favor and not those calling to fell the tall trees.
  So - this is the logical outcome of what various movements have been doing. This part should make you optimist. And the feeling that you can't certainly show at something at say that it will succeed should be liberating, not depressing.
- Why cling to the defeatist attitude? It defeats itself. Why have a defeatist attitude when defeat is inevitable?

I think internet in general specifically social media. It allows you to vent your frustrations without doing actual damage. It's also easy to disconnect compared to marching to the streets.
- I think social media has done tons of damage. It think it brought together a group of people who would have never found each other, because they don't have any decernable skills, and let them spread and consume misinformation at alarming rates.

Complacency

We're all mad

Because a third of Americans are uninformed, another third is misinformed and thinks the current administration is in line with their goals, the other third is being gaslit by the other 2/3s that this is normal... And for those not buying the gaslighting, they are ignored and still too small of a group to do much.

Culture war.

Who tf says we're not mad? We're fucking furious.
- Maybe, act more like it?
  
  There's more protests on Monday, and we're only getting more angry.
  
  By doing? The government doesn't care about protest, and anything more extreme than protest is met with extreme violence.
  What actions are you doing that validates your superior sense of self worth?

own the libs is more important than progress

Everyone is mad and everyone can't agree why were mad so now were more mad.

One day
- Stupid snake, what would you do with a boot?

I AM mad. So are my close friends and family

I’m plenty mad but every solution short of REDACTED feels like a waste of time.
- Even suggesting REDACTED repulses the people who it would serve the most. Completely uninformed and lack of critical thinking.
- I'd do REDACTED if everyone else was down. I'm so bored of this mouse trap they built. I'd literally do anything else.

Ignorance and apathy.

I'm mad as fuck. Get me one (or more) of those traitorous bastards within arm's reach and they'll find out precisely how mad.

Gaslighting?

i think they are. they just been propagandized so hard with anticommunism that they are at a loss of what to do. thats not even just the us.

We are mad but we are also distracted and overwhelmed. You can't get mad at work because you might get fired. Then there goes your housing and food and healthcare. It's going to have to get a lot worse before things pop off.

I dunno, they seem to be mad. It's just most of them are wrong about who they should be mad at and why

Everyone I talk to is mad, my family is a bunch of Tumpers and beloeve everything he says.

I think we're just on a down wave globally. In early 00s we got social media which helped to organize people and lead to real actionable ideas. The bad actors figured it out and took control of our tools and now people are waiting for a new opportunity.
I think Americans need a strong leader and something to break the camel's back. Everyone's who's angry now doesn't have a good "deal" for risking exposure and their complacency because the failures are just too recent.
- "Wanting a strong leader" is what gave us trump. You be a leader or allow yourself to be led by people in your local community. There is no perfect leader that could ever check everyone's boxes. If there was one thing we could all agree on I'd like to know what it fucking is.
  
  trump isn't a strong leader, he's a very accomplished con artist.
  He allows people to project their vision of who he is on him.
  You say I'm christian? Sure I'll pretend I am
  You say I'm anti abortion? Sure I'll pretend that I am
  You say I'm for the little guy? Sure, I'll pretend that I care about them
  You say I'm anti-vax? Sure, I'll tell you that I am
  You say I'm the second coming of Christ? Okay, I'm good with you thinking that about me
  You say I'm a strong patriot? Sure, I'll hug the flag and say the words you need me to say
  He is everything to everyone of his supporters because he never tells them that they are wrong about who he is.
  A strong leader is someone that has strong convictions and articulates them in a way that resonates with the population. They are not people that waffle in their ideals, you either like their stance or you don't. Smart ones will adjust their ideas over time but they do this from a strong ideological foundation. Some are genuinely good people like MLK, jr. others are more despotic. What America needs is one or two genuinely good strong leaders.

I've gone through all the stages of grief and I don't live there. I honestly don't know why it does or even should bother me. I guess there is some part of me that hates injustice and has some nostalgia for an America, real or always imagined, that was trying to do its best for the free world (even though that was, in many cases, found to be objectively not true later).
If anything, it seems like they may finally get rid of some of the stuff that makes it difficult to impossible for US people living overseas to use certain retirement vehicles without committing tax fraud (PFICs; PFICs everywhere and I can't put income into my US tax-advantaged vehicles due to rules on that side), but potentially doing one thing that helps me does not do anything to assuage my revulsion and rage at the current situation.

The combination of hopelessness and misinformation is very powerful
- Probably true

Everyone's angry, nobody can agree on what the problem is or what to do about it.