The plan is that the United States will gut Europe, and use the remains to bolster it’s lack of industry.

Yes.

I could cite some dry statistics and display some graphs but plenty of other people have done that. I am going to give the perspective of a 52-year-old who has seen a great deal of change, some of it for the better, most of it for the worse. I am going to share what has led to my misanthropic nihilism and negativity concerning the current “state of affairs.”

1. When I was growing up I literally never heard of mass shootings. This does not mean they did not happen. It means they were very rare. Now, they are so commonplace as to be discussed with barely a nod. “Ten people dead; sixteen injured. Pass the potatoes, please.” We must get to the root of this epedemic, and there are multiple causes. A solution is not easy. The non-glorification of violence would be a good start. Unfortunately, Americans are not only desensitized to the horror of violence and death; we are entertained by it. We have cultivated a culture of violence appreciation. I am further alarmed that so many people completely dismiss this phenomena because it hasn’t happened to them or someone they know. We have dismissed and accepted this with a shrug.
2. Republicans: Beginning in the middle part of the 20th century, GOP conservatives went so far to the right that they no longer resembled their former somewhat progressive selves.They became increasingly less liberal and more racist. Dixiecrats saw this and were incensed. Going forward, more and more conservatives and racists joined the Republican Party. Ideologies flipped. Republicans became the party who swung to a racist extreme, enshrined guns to a bizarre extent, and demanded their religion be legislated into law. In addition, their every effort has been to take from the poor and give to the wealthy. This became abundantly clear during the absolutely ridiculous “trickle-down-economics” era of Ronald Reagan. The rich can never be rich enough. Medicare, Medicaid, and Social security are all in danger. The gulf between the poor and the rich widens every day. The time grows nearer when the 95% will not be able to put roofs over their heads, even as the very rich, who should be paying more, lounge on their sun-drenched pool decks contemplating their wealth. I do not advocate “taking their money away,” as so many people suggest. I advocate a fairer playing field where the poor and the wealthy pay a more equal percentage in taxes rather than allowing the wealthy unfair advantages that have them paying less. And, big news flash here; we need to tax everyone fairly across the board and bring down our overall spending to decrease the deficit, rather than cut social security, and Medicare. Why are the poor the first people we think of when we consider cutting costs? Even the legendary investing guru Warren Buffet once said that his secretary’s tax rate is higher than his own, and Buffet is a multi-billionaire. We are an oligarchy, folks. Republicans have now become the number 1 problem, as they have enabled and backed Donald Trump and begun destroying voting rights in the wake of his lost bid for reelection. Republicans have become a much bigger threat than Democrats ever since they refused to allow Dems to seat Supreme Court justices and proceeded to stack that and other federal courts with super-majorities. The Supreme Court has now become nothing more than a partisan tool. Many progressive rulings will be overturned in time. This is a terrible development.
3. Democrats: ( I am just left of center myself) have swung so far out into fantasy land that we have to be careful of everything we say and do. Literally everything is offensive. We have taken equal treatment and turned it into some kind of weird Frankenstein’s monster. Everyone deserves equal rights but political correctness has run amok. I am on the liberal side, but we need to tone down the anger. SJWs care about the welfare of all but are often so angry they can’t even be engaged in a polite debate without wanting to call in a firing squad. Wokeness, cancel culture, and censoring free speech needs to stop. Fight bigotry and hate where it exists, but don’t see it in every corner, jumping to identifying it as such until you know for sure what it is. Treat everyone equally. Use common sense and learn to identify some extreme left ideas from fringe groups as the bizarre notions they are. Up to 100 different genders? Seriously? I am also very unhappy with my party’s new tendency to try to destroy individuals by digging up comments they made 35 years ago. All of us have said something risque’ or controversial at some point. Doing this is plain ridiculous. Even with all this said, at least the Democrats mostly shed their past racism (even as it was embraced by many conservatives) and have been the leaders in advancing minority rights for decades. They have made mistakes, but I fault them far less in current times than Republicans.
4. Politicians are bought and paid for. They should be forced to wear the names of their contributors on their suits, like those ads that are printed on the sides of racing cars. I saw this suggestion on Facebook and it is so true. How can politicians properly serve the people when they are beholden to the wealthy benefactors and corporations who donate money to them? Capitalism isn’t necessarily bad but it must be overseen and regulated. Unchecked, it produces tremendous wealth inequality and political corruption, as noted above. We need strict limits on political donations and a restructuring of how they are made, perhaps with a government supplied stipend distributed equally.
5. Religion still rules the masses, much more so than other highly developed countries of the world, allowing bigotry and anti-science to flourish on into the 21st century. Politicians (especially conservatives) pander to this because it is one way to ensure continued support. Give your voters a couple of the things they want most and they will overlook the crooked bigger things (like tax cuts favoring the super rich.) I am not against religion: I am against having it in politics. Separation of church and state has always been a nifty idea in America but has never been a real thing. That is sad.
6. Housing costs are out of control. One must mortgage away many decades of one’s life to buy a house that is too large and too expensive. It’s ridiculous. Small, modest homes could be purchased for much less money, but that would meet with the dissatisfaction of city ordinances and neighbors. It’s a big, fancy house in many cases or nothing. The alternative is sky-high rent on an apartment. Gone are the days when renting was cheaper than owning. Now, even modest apartments are so expensive they leave little money left for food. No one seems to advocate rent control anymore because greed is master. A livable wage is not high on the agenda either. Meanwhile, more and more people are pushed out onto the streets and homelessness increases. We find it easy to put the blame on the victims. Yes, many homeless have made mistakes but not all of the onus is on them. We have a system that is, by its very nature, generating more and more of this problem.
7. A college education has gone completely into the stratosphere with its exorbitant cost. It’s unbelievable. A text book can cost several hundred dollars and full-time tuition for a single semester well into the thousands. Small non-traditional for-profit “colleges” didn’t help the situation any either. Though some are at least somewhat legit, many are not, and nearly all are far too expensive, thereby producing many graduates with overpriced degrees that are not likely to be valued at what they cost. And what about the large percentage of dropouts who aren’t likely to benefit at all from what they have spent? In the 1980’s college was still affordable. I signed promisory notes and managed to pay the 4 or 5 hundred dollar costs by the time the term ended. I could not afford to go to college today. It would not be possible. People are exiting universities (not necessarily graduating) many thousands of dollars in debt. Even upon graduating, most students have depressingly low chances of landing jobs in their chosen fields. Competition is greater than ever. Young people are depressed. They are sarcastic and prematurely cynical; and they have every right to be. This generation is yet another that promises to perform more poorly, save less money, have less opportunity, and be more dysfunctional than their parents and grandparents; yet, the bulk of our politicians do not appear to care. A country that wants to offer hope to all people, grant a good standard of living, and preserve this standard for the future, understands the value of turning out well-educated citizens. Yet, we make it ridiculously expensive to become educated. Why are we doing this? We must take greed out of higher education. Should profit be the top priority? * I would also add that we need to stop housing students in luxury apartments while they attend college. Living in an efficiency or a dormitory is good for you. It builds character to live simply and humbly while going through school.*
8. Infrastructure has begun to suffer. Our city roads aren’t built to withstand the burgeoning population. Roads most everywhere are in terrible shape, and bridges are a nightmare, old and deteriorated as they are, and in need of expensive care. I am amazed, after having traveled a fair amount, that many of our states have some of the worst roads in the developed world. The power grid as well is old and crumbling in many areas. This is embarrassing and we can do better. At least in 2022 we have a president willing to put a trillion or two into tackling infrastructure. Sounds expensive, but it’s grossly overdue. * as of April 2022, money has finally been allocated for this. Perhaps that will be one step in the right direction.*
9. My newest edit in this piece is to mention the problem we have with illegal drugs in this country (and I do not refer to pot, which I consider less dangerous than alcohol). The illegal use of powerful, lab-created drugs has reached wide-scale pervasiveness both in cities and rural communities. It is a huge problem that ruins lives, costs a great deal of money, creates crime, violence, and too often results in death. Elderly folk lose their life savings (and sometimes their lives) to some charismatic stranger who cons them for drug money. Many addicted people will stop at nothing to get their fix. Drugs become these people’s lives. Only the lucky few benefit from some sort of intervention/rehab, while the majority do not. On top of this, it has now become harder for people who desperately need pain medications to be prescribed them because of the violence and crime that people are willing to commit in order to obtain, sell, and use them. One of our mistakes (in less violent cases) has been to over-incarcerate. With the exception of violent and murderous offenders, this hasn’t helped much, if any. Drug-users also enter the work force and cause constant problems. I have had the displeasure of working with them. In some industries this is dangerous. One thing we need to do is stop romanticizing drugs and to stop treating those of us who recognize the problem as being uncool nerds. Many of the other items on this list, such as cost of living and the political divide, cause depression and hopelessness, and these things make drugs more appealing. Reduce the pain caused by many of our other problems and you do, to some extent, reduce the desire to take drugs. We must examine the pharmaceutical industry as well and look into its marketing practices to determine the extent to which it has contributed to the problem.
10. U.S. companies relocate to other corners of the world in order to pay their employees very little and government encourages this. Good employment opportunities domestically are shrinking and I am not talking about the many low pay service jobs. Many people who would have formerly held these higher paying skilled jobs are forced into the only careers available; retail, restaurants, and other service jobs where the pay does not meet one’s needs. While unions were desperately needed at one time, their demands grew out of control, demanding ever-higher pay and benefits even in sectors that were no longer profitable. They are partly to blame. We also need officer salary caps, especially on publicly traded companies. More profits need to be handed down to shareholders and lower tier employees rather than having officers make 100 million or more salaries. To the fat-cats of corporate America, this is a big grown-up game of Monopoly where they horde as much wealth as possible while everyone else suffers. I am not against capitalism, but (like any system) it has to be monitored and governed; otherwise, it becomes capitalism out of control, and that is what we have now. The operative word is GREED.
11. Our health care is still unaffordable. The Health Care Act is a start but is flawed, largely due to the concessions that had to be made to pass it. Greed is absolutely rampant in this industry in which a simple pill can cost hundreds of dollars. The very sick must worry about medical bankruptcy while trying to battle their illnesses. Some of the most broadly advertised physician-prescribed medications are the most expensive ones still under patent. When was the last time you saw a commercial for an older unpatented inexpensive medication? Any minor move made on a patient’s behalf in the hospital is ridiculous in its cost. Greed is master above all else. Now, it is quite likely that Republicans will remove protections for people with pre-existing conditions as well as other features of the health care act. Additionally, a little-known consequence of the health care act is that it forces people who might otherwise retire early to remain in the work force into their late 60s in order to receive health care. Medicare and Medicaid will not kick in yet (in most cases) if you retire at 58 or 60. This is one item that tells me that the government is worried about the lack of enough workers in the next few decades.
12. By the 2030s or early 2040s things will be gravely worse, with an ageing population and fewer people paying into social security than drawing from it. Thanks to government’s redistribution to the wealthy, the problem is exacerbated. We will initially lose a chunk of those payments and will eventually lose this and other programs completely. This initiates our entry into third-world status.
13. I think what disturbs me most is the complete unwillingness of our two major parties to work together for the good of the nation. And yes, (due to individuals like the hateful obstructionist Mitch McConnell), I fault the conservative party more for this than the other, although fault lies on both sides. A few decades ago, we had some caring politicians who went to the table with honest intentions of compromising and reaching a solution, even when they strongly disagreed. Even with this disagreement, we often respected eachother. Now, we have a complete unwillingness to cooperate, even going so far as to refuse to allow the opposing party to put judges on the supreme court. This hateful divide hurts everyone. The parties have opposing views, but they should not be enemies. Their goal should be to unite in promoting as good a life as possible for all citizens. Additionally, we have tactics and tricks like gerrymandering and voter-suppression as well as the grossly outdated electoral college that suppress the will of the actual majority of people.

Even with our greater technology, I-Phones, computers, medical advances, and other luxuries, these problems lessen us every day, and not enough people care to do a damn thing about it. Obsessive greed is one of the things we most need to tackle, from big corporations to medicine and higher education. Money is important but we have allowed that obsession to get in the way of the higher interest of caring for all our citizens. Making all their needs more affordable and obtainable is a good start. I am thankful I do not have kids. I would grieve incessantly now to think of the world I have brought them into. I only hope that younger people are observing this disaster and that they will take the reigns and make some needed changes. It may be too late.

* To the few folks (including a lady who was so rude I deleted her comment) who think we should love the country as it is or “get out,” I say this. Such reactions are naive and juvenile. I love my country and I wish to see it become better. Civilizations do not progress through complacency. They advance when folks sound alarms and encourage change. That is why women and minority groups now have rights they would never have enjoyed had they just “loved it or got out.”

In response to people both in this thread and in their own answers who keep pointing out that the U.S. is a world leader, has a great military might, has abundant freedom and influence, etc.. this is my reply.

• I am largely talking about internal conflict here. I am discussing problems that are dividing us from within, and this includes the aforementioned two-party system of hatred and divide. There is more to being a success than having a great military or a high GNP or world influence.
• I am talking about the hate that has nearly taken us over, and of the increasing unaffordability of the cost of living.
• We are disintegrating. We still lead the world in many ways, perhaps, but even the rest of the world sees the problems we are experiencing that are collapsing us from within and are appalled. We lose the world’s respect more every day.
• Some of the horrendous politicians and presidential administrations of recent years (including Trump in particular) have greatly contributed to the problem. What one administration accomplishes, the other tears down with the next election. We can’t even be trusted to remain in a peace agreement or environmental agreement anymore. The two-party hate is palpable.
• *Years later, I now look upon the blatant attempt by one narcissist and his legion of worshipers AND legislative enablers to overthrow our government to install a backward dictatorship and I am more pessimistic than before. Our representative democracy is in dire trouble and the unpleasant marriage of government and religion threatens to roll back decades of progress.
• What happened to us?

Butch DeConcini attacks Tony Soprano

https://youtu.be/nRNpOuVGh4U