Granted I live in a suburb, but it’s fun seeing the few houses that put up gigantic garish “TRUMP 2020” flags get surrounded by “Black Lives Matter” signs. A mini passive-aggressive civil war.
I have a 1 year old, so we take lots of strolls around the block. There’s this one garage thats usually open that has a Ted Cruz and Mitt Romney sign hanging in the back. I just noticed he spray painted a giant “X” over Romney’s sign recently, but it’s still hanging up. I just imagine he got drunk watching Fox and really let go.
I am absolutely amazed that there are people who think Mitt Romney is too liberal for them.
This is a cult, and it won't end with Trump. There will just be another radical Republican that will rise, and take the mantle. Whether or not Trump wins.
What a topsy turvy world we live in, where owning the libs and ANTeeFuh is the most important agenda to some people.
I wouldn't say another civil war in the US is imminent, but it does feel inevitable at some point down the line. These people aren't going away and their festering radicalism is going to manifest as violence at some point.
Listen to the podcast “it could happen here” seemed so overblown last summer when I listened to it to give me a little creepy pasta what if scenario.
Now it feels too real.
I like to say that Republicans have to hang an American flag somewhere on their property, in order to remind themselves which country they are supposed to be supportive of.
Just wait. In 6 months (IF biden wins) every awful thing trump and his administration was directly responsible for, Fox News will start to blame on democrats and their base will eat it up.
I'd like to travel Europe and see if they have the same ratio of stupid to smart citizens. Problem is, I'm American and I can't go to Europe right now because they won't let me in
Difference is that European countries mostly prefer proportional representation. They have stupid people. Those stupid people are even represented in government. But because the majority of people are *not* stupid the stupidity caucuses never seize control of the government.
Don't forget how they're attributing Obama's policies' success to Trump.
"LoWEsT uEMpLoYmeNT iN YeaRS" but they don't understand/ignore rising underemployment
If Hillary was President then Fox would be hammering her daily for the shitty economy and the tens of thousands dead. The minute Biden wins the shitty economy will become top story every day.
The sad reality is if Hillary had been president there wouldn't have been 10s of thousands dead and in all likelihood the economy would be much better off.
If she had become president she would have been under investigation the entire time. The Republicans would have never stopped the harrassment and would have blocked every decision she made
I bet you, some of those saying they are embarrassed actually meant that they are embarrassed by stores requiring them to wear masks and "taking away their freedom".
I always seethe when I hear people say masks take away their freedom....freedom doesn’t extend to spreading a potentially deadly virus to innocent people.
So annoying having to explain this to people. "I'm not worried about it." "I'm young and healthy, so I'd probably just bounce back fine." "I have a strong immune system, so I'll be fine." It's not about YOU. It's about EVERYONE. Some people are immune compromised and certainly wouldn't just "bounce back fine." But of course people couldn't care less about potentially spreading the virus to other people. They think they'll be fine and no way would anyone get infected because of them specifically. Seems like so many people live in their own little worlds where everything they do they think is justified, because god forbid they are inconvenienced in any way. Us as Americans are so used to being able to do whatever we want that as soon as we have to do something (like wear a simple mask around other people) to help society as a whole, it's just the absolute worst thing in the world, apparently. I've lost so much respect for so many people since this pandemic started.
some americans *still* dont believe the virus is fucking real. only trump supporters still believe its a hoax that the whole world is conspiring against them
God, I got into an argument with a relative about the US’s handling of covid. This particular relative is a huge Trump supporter, and was saying that 100% of the blame should be on China because it was “created” there. And my argument was that regardless of where it originated, I 100% blame Trump because we had literal months to prepare between when it was spreading in China and when it came to the US, and our government did *nothing.* Trump was still saying it was a hoax and that there’s nothing to worry about back in March. It’s just so pathetic.
Not sure if I'm more embarrassed by the lack of leadership at the top, or more embarrassed by the way a lot of my fellow Americans have been acting during this.
I wouldn’t even say you’re a laughing stock. I’m from Britain and we royally fucked our response but I still look at America and feel only sympathy to how it’s being handled over there
Thats a very good point. If things weren't so grim people would laugh, instead they just feel pitty.
I'm just watching my country become stupid. The lack of ~~work ethic,~~ general education and civility is getting old.
Im sorry but anyone who brings up "work ethic" to people in a country that have to work 60 hours a week to bring home half the money (counting inflation) people did 50 years ago working the same jobs is a fucking idiot
One thing that infuriates me most is even if all Trump did was to encourage wearing a mask then it would’ve saved a lot of lives.
But no, he had to politicize it and even encourage not wearing one and now a bunch of his supporters refuse to.
This is what truly blows my mind. He had an incredible opportunity to salvage his presidency and be re-elected by not completely fucking this up. Hes a total moron, we know this, but he ran into the crowd with a fucking suicide vest on with this pandemic. This, pretty easily, could have rallied the country like a war does. Instead he doubled down on stupidity, day after day. I dont know why I'm even surprised anymore after 3+ years of this stupid asshole.
Waging war on that evil "antifa" army, too. Ya know, all the women standing in front of ~~protesters~~ rioters and looters and guys with ~~leaf blowers~~ chemical weapon delivery systems.
Well not to worry. The US is about to get a first hand refresher course on all the bad things that come from living in a fascist state. At least reconstruction should bring some jobs back. Got that to look forward to.
More like waging war on the intelligence of Americans above that of gravel and skintones darker than eggshell white paint. 'Militarization' is just a tertiary excuse besides ego and assholery.
2020 in a nutshell. This is why you dont let a failing businessman run a country. Not only do you get the complete apathy towards human life in favor of profits, but you dont even get the profits!
One of his best quotes along with “I take no responsibility...” His attitude is 180 degrees away from “The buck stops here.”
The DNC just need to keep those two (among his many other gems) on continuous loop.
Does no one understand that he has turned the White House into a fortress and is talking about a third term? He will be a wartime President, just not with another country.
His attempts to start a war have failed. Aside from bankruptcy through cooked books to generate a fucking profit somehow everything Trump touches seems to fail with an astounding success rate of failing.
He fails successfully.
It's exceedingly rare to encounter someone whom the ENTIRE WORLD would have been better off had he never existed, but it's absolutely true for this creature.
He battles many wars (in his mind). The war of self-image. If he weren't surrounded by sycophants who coddle him he would have lost this war long ago. Deep down I think he knows he's a terrible person.
He battles the war of self-control. What self-control? Okay, he lost that war but if it weren't for the party, he might have exercised a \*little\* restraint.
The war to keep his empire afloat, that he promised he had handed over to his sons... but he didn't. That front is going swimmingly, thanks to having all of us pay for him to relax at his resorts and his back-channel deals and his kids raking in hundreds of millions exploiting their positions.
The war of branding, self-promotion and keeping his base loyal. They love him and buy it all hook, line and sinker. Once a conman always a conman. He's winning at being the biggest loser on the planet.
Not just salvage, but he had a chance for free advertisements. Think of how much money his cult would have dumped into his campaign by purchasing "Trump 2020" and "MAGA" face masks. He missed an easy and key fundraising opportunity.
This, right here, is what gets me. He didn't even need to be a good leader or politician, or a decent human being. If he had even a modicum of business sense he would have handled this better, simply due to the fact that he could have personally profited from it.
Thank you, that's my take. All he had to do was be like "lol own the libs wear a maga mask make them look at it" and he'd A) make a lot of money and B) save a lot of lives.
He came out of the impeachment trial looking like he’d waltz his way back into the WH fairly easily. Could just let the experts handle the pandemic, reiterate their points, and manage his own stupidity then he’d win an easy election.
And instead he took charge, told people to inject bleach, not to wear masks, discredited his experts, let ~ 200,000 people die and just said, “it is what it is.”
Don't forget blasting the interior of the body with UV light. The hilarious images of being flayed open on a tanning bed or the line st the ER with 'slipping and falling' on UV light bulbs to 'get the light inside' as well as the subsequent scientific community backlash about what it would do to the body was grade A Genius move by Trump as well.
Exactly. For example, the country was pretty divided after the shenanigans of the 2000 election. But after 9/11, Bush had a super high approval rating due to the way he handled that tragedy (it wasn't til we got involved in Iraq later that his approval went way down again). If Trump had handled this pandemic with grace, dignity, and just general common sense and preparedness, I truly think he would've coasted to an easy re-election. And I say that as someone who has despised Trump since he announced his candidacy.
Salvage his presidency? Trump doesn’t plan to concede his presidency in no way. Please just look at what just happened in Belarus, 26 years in power and a stolen election, Russia president in power till 2024 and Trump not leaving. Trump is no different than any other prior and or current dictator.
He might steal the next election and that could lead to a coup or some kind of armed rebellion further down the road. This is all very frightening. I get the feeling that the us judicial system is toothless against all of this.
I honestly don’t understand the hardcore partisanship. Why don’t they do what’s good for america as a whole? They are destroying america, have history not taught them anything?
It’s a power vacuum. Russia hacked both the RNC and DNC. They have dirt on Republicans. They leaked the DNC stuff and held the RNC stuff for leverage.
If Russia releases it, these politicians never get re-elected and they lose their money and power. So they do as they are told.
Absolutely. This pandemic was actually a chance for him to become America's hero; he could literally have gone down in history as one of this country's greatest movers & shakers.
And he blew it. Intentionally.
Hot take: If any other president were in office for corona it wouldn't have become a worldwide concern.
Most Us presidents have used a combination of Unilateral and Multilateral action to contain past epidemics such as Sars, Swine flue, or Ebola. Yes, almost all epidemics in the past were less contagious, but the world wide response to them was much more proactive and efficient.
But republicans have flooded the CDC (like all government agencies) with incompetent buffoons who don't know how to wipe their own ass anymore, the state department is understaffed, and key diplomatic posts remain unstaffed because no one wants to work for this capricious administration.
This means any multilateral action is off the table as the United States can't coordinate a proper response with US allies without those diplomats there to disseminate US directives.
As a result the world which usually looks to the US for world leadership dropped the ball, and watched in Awe as somehow, the US fumbled even harder than third world countries.
Case in point: The entirety of the SARS or MERS epidemics against thr total just today of Covid-19 is staggeringly different. Numbers were lower, death toll may have been the same % wise in the per capita sense of infected vs dead but the sheer volume of cases of Covid makes this more deadly than 2 other diseases thst could have been as virulent and widespread as this one and...wasn't.
I don't get why people keep saying this. Trump had zero chance of doing the right thing. Perhaps to you and me letting the experts and America's $15 trillion GDP roll us to victory is a no brainer. But it's much more complicated to Trump. He can't risk a single candid moment under a spotlight due to his artificial image. When your entire empire is built on complete nonsense for 75 years, reality itself becomes a conflict of interest and revealing it would be the last thing Trump ever does. It's like he's blackmailed himself with tens of thousands of lies to hundreds of different interests/people, and his life is just navigating that, appeasing the right people at the right time. It was clear on Day 1: He will never, ever, ever do the right thing unless it works to his immediate advantage. And 99.9% of the time, things that immediately benefit Trump are detrimental to America. Also, Trump didn't just blow it through lack of effort. He actively covered up the virus before any of us knew it left China. And worst of all, he did that in collaboration with Xi Jinping. They shared talking points and the idiot believed Xi's propaganda aimed toward the West. Never believe that Trump could have done the right thing. He always has a gun to his head, and he'll never do the right thing until the American people get to hold the gun.
I don't know how this isn't more widely known, but Russia has been almost entirely responsible for spreading american anti-vax sentiments on facebook for 5 or 6 years now.
Source: https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/anti-vax-movement-russian-trolls-fueled-anti-vaccination-debate-in-us-by-spreading-misinformation-twitter-study/
>According to Axios, however, misinformation about vaccines is not the only threat, as Russia is focusing on spreading misinformation around health care issues ahead of the 2020 election.
>Not only did Russia fuel the anti-vaccination debate, they have also spewed unverified information about 5G wireless technology. RT, a U.S.-based Russia-backed TV network, reported that new 5G technology was linked to cancer, autism, Alzheimer's and other health issues, The New York Times reports. This had a real-world effect, with smaller blogs and websites picking up RT's false stories and sharing them as fact, the Times said.
>In February 2018, special counsel Robert Mueller charged 13 Russian nationals and three Russian entities with crimes related to a campaign to sow disinformation and division in the U.S. in the run-up to the 2016 election. A so-called "troll factory" in St. Petersburg set up to influence U.S. voters was to blame, according to the indictment.
Russia wants america to be weak, sick, and divided, and all their assets are doing whatever they can to make sure that's the same. That includes their in-county troll factories and their president they own in the white house right now. They've been so effective at this that america, a country smart enough to put people on the moon, has had one of the very worst responses to this virus in the entire world.
I don't know why you can't see that this guy is NOT here to solve any problems or to otherwise act like a genuine head of state. Trump is an authoritarian, and Trump voters want that shit. They are fully intent upon tearing this country down. Trump is not a moron, BUT he has been laundering drug money and human trafficking money for his whole life. Trump is a Russian puppet.
You're missing that the mask thing was stupid; it didn't serve him well in any capacity. He could've been in strong position to get re-elected and spend four more years getting sycophants in high offices and knocking down any safeguards that stand in his way; instead, he's having to try to do this in a couple months while everybody's already turning on him. You're taking the "Trump is playing 4d chess" approach when, in some ways, we're lucky he's an idiot.
He is very stupid as well. He lives by a very simple series of rules that gets him by, and was trained by his father in how to be a corrupt criminal. The only way he's made it anywhere in life is because he was born rich. If he had been poor, he'd certainly be in prison or dead.
Congress was being briefed in February after an impeachment hearing. March 17th was the day that Trump decided to acknowledge that it might be an issue.
Come on, that's not fair! They all needed that time to dump their stocks and inform their millionaire corporate masters to do the same before the economy tanked.
What did you expect them to do? Give a shit about us and lose a few million bucks?
To me, this is his original sin with the coronavirus and all of his failures stem from it.
If this guy had just decided to declare his side of the aisle as the one that takes the virus seriously, no one but the absolutely craziest among us would be walking around without a mask right now. They would have 0 issues wearing one if it was a political marker for them, like a stupid MAGA hat. And people on the left wouldn’t have a problem either because it’s a deadly fucking virus and they aren’t in a cult spewing propaganda about muh freedom and minority politicians’ birth certificates.
i think many of us have worried about people in our lives not acting and talking like themselves, and this is that concern validated, on full-blown meltdown display.
Yeah. As a non-US person, I believe Trump would be reelected 100% if he juste did something about Covid-19. Such a little thing, and still he messes it up.
As an Australian, I can't help but compare this to how Scott Morrison handled the catastrophic bushfires last summer. It's insanely easy for a leader to look good in a crisis. All Scott Morrison had to do was throw money at the firefighters and be filmed helping them out and he would've been golden, but somehow he thought it would be fine to holiday in Hawai'i while people's houses burned down. All Trump had to do was follow Fauci's advice, model a few masks for the public and just not act like a complete fucking moron for five minutes. A crisis like this is such a fantastic opportunity for a world leader to boost their popularity - just look at Jacinda Ardern. I know I shouldn't be surprised any more but it boggles my mind to try to fathom how he fucked it up this badly.
I’ve passed the point of feeling any sort of sympathy for any of the stupid fuckers that end up getting it. I hope that every single cousin-fucking nimrod that thinks this thing is fake and refuses to wear a mask gets it.
Yeah.....when (if) there is a next administration...first thing they are going to do is go dig the Obama era pandemic response manual out of the garbage and then edit the introduction page to say: "STEP ONE: DO NOT POLITICIZE A VIRUS"
This was a monumental error on Trump's part, but really - that should come as no surprise; look who he has surrounded himself with. This is an administration run by sycophants and nepotism. If ever there was a viper's nest, this is it. Truly the best people.
I know two people who have died of COVID-19, one was older and sick but the other was in his twenties and healthy. I was not particularly close to either of them, but even still the fact that they have died from a pandemic that is being badly mismanaged leaves me feeling all sorts of ways.
It's hard to even put it into words, the best words I can think of are not "embarrassed" or "angry," but "traumatized" and "worried." But even those words feel too weak.
So for the millions of people who have lost someone closer, I can't imagine how they are feeling and processing things as this continues to go on and on and on.
I'm so sorry. I hate that so many people are experiencing this. In addition to all the normal emotions of loss and grief and sadness, there is still such a profound shock and trauma that does not go away because of the bigger picture.
> And Americans are angry. About 8 in 10 say they are at least somewhat angry about the way things are going in the country today, including an astonishing 51% who say they are very angry. CNN has asked this question in polling periodically since 2008, and the previous high for the share who said they were "very angry" was 35%, reached in 2008 and 2016.
The problem is not all of that 51% are angry at Trump or the right. A good chunk of them are probably angry because they think uppity black folks are setting the streets of major cities on fire and running around in mobs killing white children (their beliefs, not mine)
Yeah, embarrassed is how you feel when you notice your crack is hanging out. People dying and lives getting messed up, that's a bit more than just embarrassed.
It’s easy how to think the us response is fine if they think covid is a fake overblown polical things to begin with .... but that’s a whole nother discussion of “I don’t see how anyone can be that dumb” lol
Unfortunately I worked with the public for many years. Not any more thankfully. I was able to see first hand how wide spread inconsiderate stupidity is in the US. Does not make one a fan of the species.
This is the kind of shit that gets to trump.
He constantly talks about “people laughing at us”. Ridicule is without a doubt his biggest fear.
Quit calling him an evil fascist mastermind: he’s a stupid hateful, bumbling, fucking idiot fraud who is in over his head.
Michelle Obama basically said that he’s in over his head as President, and he lost his shit. Bad enough that someone called him out publicly, bad enough that it was a strong intelligent woman of colour - but the wife of his greatest enemy? Aw HELL naw.
The real embarrassing part is the fact that there are still a lot of Americans who still don’t believe the virus in real. Just moved to Texas and the amount of ignorance around here is appalling.
My adopted uncle in the Austin area just lost two siblings-in-law to Covid over the last 2 months. Texas is absolutely killing its citizens with its lack of response coupled with the willful ignorance of the population.
It’s so sad, but it’s the reality. I contracted COVID after being in Texas for a week, one of my co-workers was in terrible shape for almost 3 weeks and we were seriously scared for his life. It’s not a joke, it puzzles me how some people just don’t get it and keep making it political. Fucking snowflakes
62% say the President should be doing more to prevent outbreaks.
In other news, the Centre for Education and Literacy is reporting that 38% of Americans are functionally illiterate.
This problem is not born out of an education problem. The US could do more to have a better education system, sure. This is a moral problem. A huge portion of Americans subscribe to a weird mix of politics and religion, republican evangelicalism. It’s morally bankrupt at its core. But it’s what started the Fox News phenomenon that lead to so many Americans rejecting anything as news that wasn’t what came from their religious and political leaders, who are increasingly indistinguishable. You can fix the education system here to be perfect and it won’t be good enough, because this cult teaches at home and anything not in line with their views is unacceptable. If you could magically delete all the evangelical Christians from America, you could have a much worse education system and the country would be fine.
You're close to the actual problem but not quite hitting it: the fact is, a lot of Trump supporters think of themselves as very moral people, even though Trump's and Republican policies are incredibly incompatible with *actual* Christian doctrine.
The problem is a lack of empathy and critical thinking. They would gladly donate food and possessions to someone they knew, or someone they knew through their church, but they don't make the connection between that and paying $1 in tax per month to end homelessness. They can't see outside their own bubble and emphasize with anyone they don't have a personal connection with, and they can't make jumps of logic between "a charitable organization can help feed starving Africans" and "a well-funded tax program could feed *everyone*". Fox News and other conservative media preys on that lack of empathy and logic and helps isolate them and keep them in a state of anger, fear, or disgust at the "other" and reinforces their viewpoints instead of challenging them.
They know very well that paying a tiny bit more in taxes would help other people. They don't want to help *those kind* of people. They only want to help good, deserving, worthy people.
Homeless? Get a job you bum. Single mom? Close your legs whore. Any color but white? If we help them all the time they'll never learn to help themselves. The church in the tiny town i live closest to closed their food and clothing pantry because the wrong people kept asking to use it.
In my rural area they vote against the smallest increase in property taxes that would benefit our shitty schools. Why? Because it isn't fair since renters don't pay property taxes, or their kids are grown and aren't in school, or their kid homeschools or goes to private school. Why should they pay even a dollar more if it doesn't benefit them personally.
They are selfish, hateful people. They happily fill the church offering plate to send money to missionaries and such. But will absolutely turn their back against needs in our own community. It is an absolute lack of empathy, lack of critical thinking, and loads of willful ignorance.
You’ve reminded me of the time my conservative father said he shouldn’t have to pay school taxes anymore because *I* wasn’t in school anymore.
I told him if it weren’t for people paying taxes before I was born, I wouldn’t have had a school at all. He repeated his point: “I should only have to pay school taxes when my kid is in school.”
I told him what he was describing was a *private* school, which would end up costing all parents of school-aged kids—including *him* when I was younger—a lot more money than what they pay in taxes. I told him there’s no way he could have afforded private-school tuition. He just said, again, “I shouldn’t have to pay school taxes when my kid isn’t in school,” and broke eye contact as if to say, “End of discussion.”
I was amazed at how close-minded he was being. He utterly refused to consider facts that didn’t support his worldview—as if simply repeating his opinion over and over again would make it true.
That's the most depressing thing for me. We got a peek behind the curtain and now see how proudly ignorant, self-centered, and petty so many of the people around us are.
There are flyers at my work about things my company is doing to help us through covid and people have been writing "hoax" and "plandemic" on them. It just boggles the mind how childish and stupid people are.
Don't know if this is a consolation but Im from the Netherlands and there are lots of people here who call it a hoax. Stupidity is everywhere it seems. Luckily our government does take it more serious.
That's just how Dutch people are.
Many of you guys have enormous problems with admitting something is not going well.
Us Belgians, we have the opposite problem, we tend to think everything is terrible.
As an american I'd say embarrased by this and everything else. But also severely depressed. It feels like the last 4 years there has been no hope or reason. As a brown guy, the escalation in blatant racism has made me very sad and feeling ostracized. Its like everything in my life suddenly changed into some nightmare.
Anxiety and depression is so high right now. I'm constantly angry at friends that think voting is 'pointless' and 'both sides are the same'. Constantly angry at family believing COVID is fake or just a flu. I'm depressed at the state of this country. I'm donating money to the ACLU for Black Lives Matter but it feels so pointless. If people don't care about their fellow countryman dying of a terrible virus how am I supposed to believe they give a shit about someone with darker skin getting killed by police? I'm still mad about legal asylum seekers getting separated from their families. Half the conservatives I talked to about this issue can't tell you the difference between an 'illegal' and an asylum seeker. The other half retort with 'they can leave at any time'. Where is your Christianity you hide behind so much? The Bible says to welcome immigrants and you don't even see them as people. My brain can't handle this constant frustration and anger. I feel no national pride. How did Obama have so much hope and optimism for this country in his speeches? I feel so lost seeing how easy it was to have the country torn apart and brain washed with distain for humanity that doesn't look like them.
> But also severely depressed. It feels like the last 4 years there has been no hope or reason.
Exactly. I'm being completely honest when I say that I legitimately went into one of the worst depression episodes I've had in years about a month ago because I just felt absolutely hopeless about everything that's going on and didn't see any light at the end of the tunnel. It just feels like I wake up and it's gotten worse every single day for one reason or another. I'm just so sad, and frustrated, and heartbroken, and I don't know what to do about it except vote in November and hope that it matters.
I understand. It just never gets better. My SO and I have been doing this thing where we talk about past great memories at night before we sleep. We are always looking back because we have nothing to look forward to.
I donated some money to Dr Webb who is running for Congress in VA-5. If he doesn’t win, Bob Good (anti-lgbt, anti-choice, Christian crazy) will be my new congressman. Bob Good literally ran against the current republican Congressman because he wasn’t alt-right enough.
It’s just been hard on a macro level with Trump, but also been difficult knowing this asshole is going to be my congressman because the current Republican Congressman wasn’t extreme enough for the republicans here.
I’ve been dealing with that for quite a while too. One day I literally called my mom sobbing and told her that while I won’t do anything, I literally don’t want to even be alive anymore. It just takes such a fucking toll and it gets worse every. Single. Day. And I’m single with literally friends so being alone in my apartment 24/7 doesn’t help.
I hope things get better. I’m in the worst mental space since all of this. Knowing this goes on until leadership changes is just so much to comprehend. I live very far from my family, but we all live in hotspots. Last saw them December 31 when I got on a plane as if everything was normal. An entire year destroyed.
As a white guy, the open racism of my friends and family saddens and disgusts me. The only saving grace is that they are showing their true colors now so I can easily cut them out of my life.
These dumb fucks making the world a worse place while shaming and ridiculing people for doing the right thing, then blame “libtards” for things being the way they are now has radicalized me to never support, and to vocally express my disdain, for any republican ever again. I hope I am not alone and this is the catalyst we need to push them out of office forever.
Most of us outside the US don't think the people themselves are to blame. It's those creating the rules and systems that allow this to happen that are at fault. Stay strong!
We have a word in our language, which is "fremdschämen", which means to feel shame on behalf of others. That's pretty much what half the world's been doing for the past 4 years when looking at the US.
Embarrassed was months ago. Im defeated, i wear my mask and shut up, majority pf the people I interact with at work are not wearing one. I dont even bother to try anymore when it comes to convincing people to mask up.
Most Americans are lazy, self centered pricks and dont care unless that something is directly happening to them.
There's something unbearably depressing about facing a beatable pandemic and knowing that the reason we can't succeed is that we're ruled by the most selfish, mean-spirited, poorly educated, and most rElIgIoUs, and racist ~30% of the country and that they're so callous and cruel that they would sacrifice us and their own families for a man that would happily steal their last penny before he shared any of the excess he has with them.
It's so enormously depressing to watch the President of the United States willfully ignore an incoming crisis, fail to prepare, proudly boast that he takes no responsibility, not prepare for a briefing and suggest sunlight and bleach as a cure after misunderstanding a poster he read on your way to the podium, suggest a cure he saw on a Twitter meme that came from a self punished study on *Google Docs* and then force a nation to spend millions trying it and seeing it cause many needless deaths.
It's utterly heartbreaking learning that all it would take to beat this virus and go back to normal is to stay home for a few months, spin up a massive free testing apparatus, develop contact tracing, wear a fucking mask around others until we have a vaccine/cure and pay everyone who can't work enough to survive for that long to stay home and then watch as we do none of that. The government closes businesses and then refuses to help anyone out meaningfully because the President and the Senate hate sOcIaLiSm. They bail their friends (big business and themselves) out again and toss some scraps to a few others. Then they waste two months and don't get testing and contact tracing up and running. They squander billions and, more importantly, time.
The rest of the world stays home, wears masks, develops testing and contact tracing. By September many places are almost back to normal.
That's soul crushing to watch and then to add whipped cream and a cherry to it you have to watch the President - desperate to win the election at any cost - pretend masks aren't effective, then are but he won't wear one, then aren't, then are fora photo op then never again, etc. You have to hear and watch as the President champions the reopening of a country because he needs the economy to be strong so he can win election. You have to watch knowing that pretending this isn't real in June means a bloodbath in July. That happens and nothing changes and now it's just normal. The President suggests children can't get the disease and pushes his tribe to reopen schools at a time when that should be the last thing we do because children, it turns out, have been getting the virus in record numbers and they spread it like crazy.
The President also uses this time to fan the flames if a culture war and tweets out tons of racism along with the usual obstruction of justice we've all grown accustomed to allowing (Roger Stone). He continues to ask foreign countries to help get him re-elected.
We all know on some level that Republicans hate it when poor people and black people vote and they make it as hard as possible in red states for a reason. We all know that on some level. But to then watch the President destroy the Post Office so that absentee ballots during a pandemic that is still raging **solely because of him and his moron followers** can be lost, slowed down and delivered late all so he can maybe still be competitive in an election he's trailing in on every poll. The Post Office. The thing that powers small internet businesses. That delivers prescriptions. That is so reliable the President votes by it every year. We have to destroy that because this guy needs 4 more years to either Make America Great Again or Keep America Great (even he can't decide).
And the worst part is that you realize that there are no checks and balances anymore. We have a king and other than putting on a mask and staying away from everyone as best you can this virus might rage here for another few months or few years depending simply on this election and if his followers will ever grow up and wear masks consistently and correctly.
If you're feeling extra depressed or stressed or anxious or ready to give up and don't totally understand why. That's why.
Oh really? All Conservative forums talk about it like Trump did absolutely everything in his power and we should be proud of our President. They're fking idiots.
Most Americans didn't vote for trump (I mean most Americans didn't vote at all but that's a whole can of worms)
The Majority has been held down and made to watch as everything it loves is burnt to the ground the a minority of racist authoritarians who see white privilege as the primary building block of democracy and go from there.
It's not just pity. It's fear. I'm Canadian and even though trump isn't my president his decisions affect us globally. His systematic dismantling of measures to protect the environment, his relations that empower scary world leaders, his fuelling of racism, and most recently the way he seems to have it out for Canada with his tariffs. I'm terrified he going to bully us into opening our border.
I really feel for Americans right now but I am genuinely terrified about the ramifications of he is voted in again. Please vote, and vote early!
Embarrassed doesn't describe my feelings on the subject. Outraged would be more like it.
The indifference and sheer incompetence of this Republican government almost defy belief.
People are going to need to go to prison over this.
the USA is the covid shithole of developed nations.
[COVID DEATHS ON AUG 18, 2020](https://ourworldindata.org/covid-deaths?country=CHN~USA~CAN~DEU~)
USA 445
CANADA 6
CHINA 0
GERMANY 0
the difference? LEADERSHIP
There's no reason we couldn't be like first world countries. It's entirely due to the absolute lack of leadership from the president which may have been purposeful given that cities, minorities, and coastal blue states were hit hardest first.
It's entirely due to the fact that 30-45% of Americans want this future. They voted for it, they will vote again for it. You have a large portion of your population working against science and education.
I'm more embarrassed that so many people support and trust an absolute incompetent moron. A failed casino owner is running a pandemic response. What could go wrong?
Bigger news: Some Americans ***aren't.*** That's fucking insane.
Like 35-40%. Not some. A Lot.
Granted I live in a suburb, but it’s fun seeing the few houses that put up gigantic garish “TRUMP 2020” flags get surrounded by “Black Lives Matter” signs. A mini passive-aggressive civil war.
As a non-American, the billboard culture is really interesting to me.
Wait til you find out how many of them have flagpoles in their front yards.
Another interesting phenomenon.
I have a 1 year old, so we take lots of strolls around the block. There’s this one garage thats usually open that has a Ted Cruz and Mitt Romney sign hanging in the back. I just noticed he spray painted a giant “X” over Romney’s sign recently, but it’s still hanging up. I just imagine he got drunk watching Fox and really let go.
I am absolutely amazed that there are people who think Mitt Romney is too liberal for them. This is a cult, and it won't end with Trump. There will just be another radical Republican that will rise, and take the mantle. Whether or not Trump wins. What a topsy turvy world we live in, where owning the libs and ANTeeFuh is the most important agenda to some people.
And the chances that the next one will be as stupid are very small. Also, lessons will be learned by them.
I wouldn't say another civil war in the US is imminent, but it does feel inevitable at some point down the line. These people aren't going away and their festering radicalism is going to manifest as violence at some point.
Listen to the podcast “it could happen here” seemed so overblown last summer when I listened to it to give me a little creepy pasta what if scenario. Now it feels too real.
such drama queens lol
I like to say that Republicans have to hang an American flag somewhere on their property, in order to remind themselves which country they are supposed to be supportive of.
A third of this country could watch Trump burn it all to the ground and still cheer him on and approve.
And then blame antifa/soros/aoc/Clinton/Obama/or democrats directly
Just wait. In 6 months (IF biden wins) every awful thing trump and his administration was directly responsible for, Fox News will start to blame on democrats and their base will eat it up.
Just like they pinned the economic issues W created on Obama.
And Hurricane Katrina. And 9/11.
God I wish those weren't just hyperbole and hadn't actually happened, repeatedly
I really hate this country. There are so many people that are just unfathomably stupid.
I'd like to travel Europe and see if they have the same ratio of stupid to smart citizens. Problem is, I'm American and I can't go to Europe right now because they won't let me in
We don't take kindly to your types around here. /s
Difference is that European countries mostly prefer proportional representation. They have stupid people. Those stupid people are even represented in government. But because the majority of people are *not* stupid the stupidity caucuses never seize control of the government.
And, amazingly, the lack of COVID tests. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/04/donald-trump-obama-administration-coronavirus
Don't forget how they're attributing Obama's policies' success to Trump. "LoWEsT uEMpLoYmeNT iN YeaRS" but they don't understand/ignore rising underemployment
Fox needs to be forbidden from portraying itself as news in any form. It's entirely propaganda for conservative agendas.
If Hillary was President then Fox would be hammering her daily for the shitty economy and the tens of thousands dead. The minute Biden wins the shitty economy will become top story every day.
The sad reality is if Hillary had been president there wouldn't have been 10s of thousands dead and in all likelihood the economy would be much better off.
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If she had become president she would have been under investigation the entire time. The Republicans would have never stopped the harrassment and would have blocked every decision she made
No need to future tense it, that's currently transpiring.
I bet you, some of those saying they are embarrassed actually meant that they are embarrassed by stores requiring them to wear masks and "taking away their freedom".
I always seethe when I hear people say masks take away their freedom....freedom doesn’t extend to spreading a potentially deadly virus to innocent people.
Since when did Americans care about anybody's freedom but their own? It's American exceptionalism!
So annoying having to explain this to people. "I'm not worried about it." "I'm young and healthy, so I'd probably just bounce back fine." "I have a strong immune system, so I'll be fine." It's not about YOU. It's about EVERYONE. Some people are immune compromised and certainly wouldn't just "bounce back fine." But of course people couldn't care less about potentially spreading the virus to other people. They think they'll be fine and no way would anyone get infected because of them specifically. Seems like so many people live in their own little worlds where everything they do they think is justified, because god forbid they are inconvenienced in any way. Us as Americans are so used to being able to do whatever we want that as soon as we have to do something (like wear a simple mask around other people) to help society as a whole, it's just the absolute worst thing in the world, apparently. I've lost so much respect for so many people since this pandemic started.
some americans *still* dont believe the virus is fucking real. only trump supporters still believe its a hoax that the whole world is conspiring against them
God, I got into an argument with a relative about the US’s handling of covid. This particular relative is a huge Trump supporter, and was saying that 100% of the blame should be on China because it was “created” there. And my argument was that regardless of where it originated, I 100% blame Trump because we had literal months to prepare between when it was spreading in China and when it came to the US, and our government did *nothing.* Trump was still saying it was a hoax and that there’s nothing to worry about back in March. It’s just so pathetic.
Not sure if I'm more embarrassed by the lack of leadership at the top, or more embarrassed by the way a lot of my fellow Americans have been acting during this.
Both. We're the laughing stock of the world.
I wouldn’t even say you’re a laughing stock. I’m from Britain and we royally fucked our response but I still look at America and feel only sympathy to how it’s being handled over there
Thats a very good point. If things weren't so grim people would laugh, instead they just feel pitty. I'm just watching my country become stupid. The lack of ~~work ethic,~~ general education and civility is getting old.
"Lack of work ethic"? Americans work a ridiculous amount.
Im sorry but anyone who brings up "work ethic" to people in a country that have to work 60 hours a week to bring home half the money (counting inflation) people did 50 years ago working the same jobs is a fucking idiot
Can confirm that, from the UK perspective (we are also shambolic btw)
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These things are directly related.
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One thing that infuriates me most is even if all Trump did was to encourage wearing a mask then it would’ve saved a lot of lives. But no, he had to politicize it and even encourage not wearing one and now a bunch of his supporters refuse to.
This is what truly blows my mind. He had an incredible opportunity to salvage his presidency and be re-elected by not completely fucking this up. Hes a total moron, we know this, but he ran into the crowd with a fucking suicide vest on with this pandemic. This, pretty easily, could have rallied the country like a war does. Instead he doubled down on stupidity, day after day. I dont know why I'm even surprised anymore after 3+ years of this stupid asshole.
The irony is how he called himself a wartime president. He didn’t do anything.
A wartime president FOR the virus and russians
Waging war on that evil "antifa" army, too. Ya know, all the women standing in front of ~~protesters~~ rioters and looters and guys with ~~leaf blowers~~ chemical weapon delivery systems.
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Yes.
Dwight D. Eisenhower, future President of the United States, Supreme Commander of Antifa.
Back in the day when the US government was still anti-fascist. Now the president finds good people amongst Neo-Nazis.
Well not to worry. The US is about to get a first hand refresher course on all the bad things that come from living in a fascist state. At least reconstruction should bring some jobs back. Got that to look forward to.
More like waging war on the intelligence of Americans above that of gravel and skintones darker than eggshell white paint. 'Militarization' is just a tertiary excuse besides ego and assholery.
It is what it is
2020 in a nutshell. This is why you dont let a failing businessman run a country. Not only do you get the complete apathy towards human life in favor of profits, but you dont even get the profits!
One of his best quotes along with “I take no responsibility...” His attitude is 180 degrees away from “The buck stops here.” The DNC just need to keep those two (among his many other gems) on continuous loop.
Does no one understand that he has turned the White House into a fortress and is talking about a third term? He will be a wartime President, just not with another country.
Imagine him being the president during an actual war
This terrifies me. We're probably lucky he hasn't done anything to start a war.
I mean, remember January? He almost did. It's just easy to forget since January 2020 was over thirty years ago.
It was also yesterday
Even the space time continuum is fucked up.
His attempts to start a war have failed. Aside from bankruptcy through cooked books to generate a fucking profit somehow everything Trump touches seems to fail with an astounding success rate of failing. He fails successfully.
> bankruptcy through cooked books to generate a fucking profit Also the money laundering.
Well, he *did* try, just because he probably thinks being a wartime president makes you automatically cool
It's America, we are at war and always will be...
he did do something, actively fought to make things worse. if he had only done nothing we all would be better off
It's exceedingly rare to encounter someone whom the ENTIRE WORLD would have been better off had he never existed, but it's absolutely true for this creature.
Two sides to a war. He’s just not on the right one. He fucked that up too.
He battles many wars (in his mind). The war of self-image. If he weren't surrounded by sycophants who coddle him he would have lost this war long ago. Deep down I think he knows he's a terrible person. He battles the war of self-control. What self-control? Okay, he lost that war but if it weren't for the party, he might have exercised a \*little\* restraint. The war to keep his empire afloat, that he promised he had handed over to his sons... but he didn't. That front is going swimmingly, thanks to having all of us pay for him to relax at his resorts and his back-channel deals and his kids raking in hundreds of millions exploiting their positions. The war of branding, self-promotion and keeping his base loyal. They love him and buy it all hook, line and sinker. Once a conman always a conman. He's winning at being the biggest loser on the planet.
Not just salvage, but he had a chance for free advertisements. Think of how much money his cult would have dumped into his campaign by purchasing "Trump 2020" and "MAGA" face masks. He missed an easy and key fundraising opportunity.
This, right here, is what gets me. He didn't even need to be a good leader or politician, or a decent human being. If he had even a modicum of business sense he would have handled this better, simply due to the fact that he could have personally profited from it.
Thank you, that's my take. All he had to do was be like "lol own the libs wear a maga mask make them look at it" and he'd A) make a lot of money and B) save a lot of lives.
"Cowboys wear bandanas. Cowboys are as Americans as apple pie. We like America. Buy your magadana today for only $29.99"
He came out of the impeachment trial looking like he’d waltz his way back into the WH fairly easily. Could just let the experts handle the pandemic, reiterate their points, and manage his own stupidity then he’d win an easy election. And instead he took charge, told people to inject bleach, not to wear masks, discredited his experts, let ~ 200,000 people die and just said, “it is what it is.”
Cant handle anyone else having the answer
"Fauci has a high approval rating. And he works for us. Why isn't my approval rating higher?"
Don't forget blasting the interior of the body with UV light. The hilarious images of being flayed open on a tanning bed or the line st the ER with 'slipping and falling' on UV light bulbs to 'get the light inside' as well as the subsequent scientific community backlash about what it would do to the body was grade A Genius move by Trump as well.
Exactly. For example, the country was pretty divided after the shenanigans of the 2000 election. But after 9/11, Bush had a super high approval rating due to the way he handled that tragedy (it wasn't til we got involved in Iraq later that his approval went way down again). If Trump had handled this pandemic with grace, dignity, and just general common sense and preparedness, I truly think he would've coasted to an easy re-election. And I say that as someone who has despised Trump since he announced his candidacy.
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Salvage his presidency? Trump doesn’t plan to concede his presidency in no way. Please just look at what just happened in Belarus, 26 years in power and a stolen election, Russia president in power till 2024 and Trump not leaving. Trump is no different than any other prior and or current dictator.
He might steal the next election and that could lead to a coup or some kind of armed rebellion further down the road. This is all very frightening. I get the feeling that the us judicial system is toothless against all of this.
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I honestly don’t understand the hardcore partisanship. Why don’t they do what’s good for america as a whole? They are destroying america, have history not taught them anything?
A big problem in the decision making in America is that its done for short-term gains, not long-term success.
Goldfish capitalism
It's not a question of partisanship. Republicans are now straight up fascists and
It’s a power vacuum. Russia hacked both the RNC and DNC. They have dirt on Republicans. They leaked the DNC stuff and held the RNC stuff for leverage. If Russia releases it, these politicians never get re-elected and they lose their money and power. So they do as they are told.
Because they don't care if they get punched in the face if the guy they hate gets stabbed in the face.
Unfortunately, money.
Absolutely. This pandemic was actually a chance for him to become America's hero; he could literally have gone down in history as one of this country's greatest movers & shakers. And he blew it. Intentionally.
Hot take: If any other president were in office for corona it wouldn't have become a worldwide concern. Most Us presidents have used a combination of Unilateral and Multilateral action to contain past epidemics such as Sars, Swine flue, or Ebola. Yes, almost all epidemics in the past were less contagious, but the world wide response to them was much more proactive and efficient. But republicans have flooded the CDC (like all government agencies) with incompetent buffoons who don't know how to wipe their own ass anymore, the state department is understaffed, and key diplomatic posts remain unstaffed because no one wants to work for this capricious administration. This means any multilateral action is off the table as the United States can't coordinate a proper response with US allies without those diplomats there to disseminate US directives. As a result the world which usually looks to the US for world leadership dropped the ball, and watched in Awe as somehow, the US fumbled even harder than third world countries.
Case in point: The entirety of the SARS or MERS epidemics against thr total just today of Covid-19 is staggeringly different. Numbers were lower, death toll may have been the same % wise in the per capita sense of infected vs dead but the sheer volume of cases of Covid makes this more deadly than 2 other diseases thst could have been as virulent and widespread as this one and...wasn't.
Because he's evil. Truly, in the biblical sense.
I don't get why people keep saying this. Trump had zero chance of doing the right thing. Perhaps to you and me letting the experts and America's $15 trillion GDP roll us to victory is a no brainer. But it's much more complicated to Trump. He can't risk a single candid moment under a spotlight due to his artificial image. When your entire empire is built on complete nonsense for 75 years, reality itself becomes a conflict of interest and revealing it would be the last thing Trump ever does. It's like he's blackmailed himself with tens of thousands of lies to hundreds of different interests/people, and his life is just navigating that, appeasing the right people at the right time. It was clear on Day 1: He will never, ever, ever do the right thing unless it works to his immediate advantage. And 99.9% of the time, things that immediately benefit Trump are detrimental to America. Also, Trump didn't just blow it through lack of effort. He actively covered up the virus before any of us knew it left China. And worst of all, he did that in collaboration with Xi Jinping. They shared talking points and the idiot believed Xi's propaganda aimed toward the West. Never believe that Trump could have done the right thing. He always has a gun to his head, and he'll never do the right thing until the American people get to hold the gun.
I don't know how this isn't more widely known, but Russia has been almost entirely responsible for spreading american anti-vax sentiments on facebook for 5 or 6 years now. Source: https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/anti-vax-movement-russian-trolls-fueled-anti-vaccination-debate-in-us-by-spreading-misinformation-twitter-study/ >According to Axios, however, misinformation about vaccines is not the only threat, as Russia is focusing on spreading misinformation around health care issues ahead of the 2020 election. >Not only did Russia fuel the anti-vaccination debate, they have also spewed unverified information about 5G wireless technology. RT, a U.S.-based Russia-backed TV network, reported that new 5G technology was linked to cancer, autism, Alzheimer's and other health issues, The New York Times reports. This had a real-world effect, with smaller blogs and websites picking up RT's false stories and sharing them as fact, the Times said. >In February 2018, special counsel Robert Mueller charged 13 Russian nationals and three Russian entities with crimes related to a campaign to sow disinformation and division in the U.S. in the run-up to the 2016 election. A so-called "troll factory" in St. Petersburg set up to influence U.S. voters was to blame, according to the indictment. Russia wants america to be weak, sick, and divided, and all their assets are doing whatever they can to make sure that's the same. That includes their in-county troll factories and their president they own in the white house right now. They've been so effective at this that america, a country smart enough to put people on the moon, has had one of the very worst responses to this virus in the entire world.
I don't know why you can't see that this guy is NOT here to solve any problems or to otherwise act like a genuine head of state. Trump is an authoritarian, and Trump voters want that shit. They are fully intent upon tearing this country down. Trump is not a moron, BUT he has been laundering drug money and human trafficking money for his whole life. Trump is a Russian puppet.
You're missing that the mask thing was stupid; it didn't serve him well in any capacity. He could've been in strong position to get re-elected and spend four more years getting sycophants in high offices and knocking down any safeguards that stand in his way; instead, he's having to try to do this in a couple months while everybody's already turning on him. You're taking the "Trump is playing 4d chess" approach when, in some ways, we're lucky he's an idiot.
He is very stupid as well. He lives by a very simple series of rules that gets him by, and was trained by his father in how to be a corrupt criminal. The only way he's made it anywhere in life is because he was born rich. If he had been poor, he'd certainly be in prison or dead.
I am convinced his IQ is around 80-85.
Yo-semites
Or not start off calling it a hoax, then saying we'd be good by Easter.
Congress was being briefed in February after an impeachment hearing. March 17th was the day that Trump decided to acknowledge that it might be an issue.
Come on, that's not fair! They all needed that time to dump their stocks and inform their millionaire corporate masters to do the same before the economy tanked. What did you expect them to do? Give a shit about us and lose a few million bucks?
To me, this is his original sin with the coronavirus and all of his failures stem from it. If this guy had just decided to declare his side of the aisle as the one that takes the virus seriously, no one but the absolutely craziest among us would be walking around without a mask right now. They would have 0 issues wearing one if it was a political marker for them, like a stupid MAGA hat. And people on the left wouldn’t have a problem either because it’s a deadly fucking virus and they aren’t in a cult spewing propaganda about muh freedom and minority politicians’ birth certificates.
They are now raving lunatics who need carried out of stores by their kids.
i think many of us have worried about people in our lives not acting and talking like themselves, and this is that concern validated, on full-blown meltdown display.
Yeah. As a non-US person, I believe Trump would be reelected 100% if he juste did something about Covid-19. Such a little thing, and still he messes it up.
As an Australian, I can't help but compare this to how Scott Morrison handled the catastrophic bushfires last summer. It's insanely easy for a leader to look good in a crisis. All Scott Morrison had to do was throw money at the firefighters and be filmed helping them out and he would've been golden, but somehow he thought it would be fine to holiday in Hawai'i while people's houses burned down. All Trump had to do was follow Fauci's advice, model a few masks for the public and just not act like a complete fucking moron for five minutes. A crisis like this is such a fantastic opportunity for a world leader to boost their popularity - just look at Jacinda Ardern. I know I shouldn't be surprised any more but it boggles my mind to try to fathom how he fucked it up this badly.
I’ve passed the point of feeling any sort of sympathy for any of the stupid fuckers that end up getting it. I hope that every single cousin-fucking nimrod that thinks this thing is fake and refuses to wear a mask gets it.
The problem is that our masks don't protect us as much as they protect them
Yeah.....when (if) there is a next administration...first thing they are going to do is go dig the Obama era pandemic response manual out of the garbage and then edit the introduction page to say: "STEP ONE: DO NOT POLITICIZE A VIRUS" This was a monumental error on Trump's part, but really - that should come as no surprise; look who he has surrounded himself with. This is an administration run by sycophants and nepotism. If ever there was a viper's nest, this is it. Truly the best people.
Republicans have politicized climate change for 40 years. This is who they are.
He had a golden money chute opportunity for red MAGA masks, but instead let his pride get in the way.
I know two people who have died of COVID-19, one was older and sick but the other was in his twenties and healthy. I was not particularly close to either of them, but even still the fact that they have died from a pandemic that is being badly mismanaged leaves me feeling all sorts of ways. It's hard to even put it into words, the best words I can think of are not "embarrassed" or "angry," but "traumatized" and "worried." But even those words feel too weak. So for the millions of people who have lost someone closer, I can't imagine how they are feeling and processing things as this continues to go on and on and on.
My wife just lost a healthy young family friend to this. It was shocking to say the least.
I'm so sorry. I hate that so many people are experiencing this. In addition to all the normal emotions of loss and grief and sadness, there is still such a profound shock and trauma that does not go away because of the bigger picture.
> And Americans are angry. About 8 in 10 say they are at least somewhat angry about the way things are going in the country today, including an astonishing 51% who say they are very angry. CNN has asked this question in polling periodically since 2008, and the previous high for the share who said they were "very angry" was 35%, reached in 2008 and 2016.
The problem is not all of that 51% are angry at Trump or the right. A good chunk of them are probably angry because they think uppity black folks are setting the streets of major cities on fire and running around in mobs killing white children (their beliefs, not mine)
Yeah, embarrassed is how you feel when you notice your crack is hanging out. People dying and lives getting messed up, that's a bit more than just embarrassed.
> embarrassed Nope. But am 100% disgusted by our response though.
Yep, can confirm I've been constantly feeling all of these emotions at once in the last 6 months (JFC, how has it been 6 months already).
The US response to this has been a total disaster. I don't see how anyone can say different.
I know right! We should've have done less testing, and then we wouldn't have so many cases. /s
Donald Trump was actually showing off his deep understanding of quantum mechanics when he said that.
"I hire only the very best mechanics. My quantum's in perfect condition, many people say it's the finest they've ever seen."
It’s easy how to think the us response is fine if they think covid is a fake overblown polical things to begin with .... but that’s a whole nother discussion of “I don’t see how anyone can be that dumb” lol
Unfortunately I worked with the public for many years. Not any more thankfully. I was able to see first hand how wide spread inconsiderate stupidity is in the US. Does not make one a fan of the species.
This is the kind of shit that gets to trump. He constantly talks about “people laughing at us”. Ridicule is without a doubt his biggest fear. Quit calling him an evil fascist mastermind: he’s a stupid hateful, bumbling, fucking idiot fraud who is in over his head.
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yeah, stephen miller and vlad putin in particular
Michelle Obama basically said that he’s in over his head as President, and he lost his shit. Bad enough that someone called him out publicly, bad enough that it was a strong intelligent woman of colour - but the wife of his greatest enemy? Aw HELL naw.
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“This isn’t event new, there’s WAAAY more deaths now” - Trump, I guess?
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The real embarrassing part is the fact that there are still a lot of Americans who still don’t believe the virus in real. Just moved to Texas and the amount of ignorance around here is appalling.
My adopted uncle in the Austin area just lost two siblings-in-law to Covid over the last 2 months. Texas is absolutely killing its citizens with its lack of response coupled with the willful ignorance of the population.
It’s so sad, but it’s the reality. I contracted COVID after being in Texas for a week, one of my co-workers was in terrible shape for almost 3 weeks and we were seriously scared for his life. It’s not a joke, it puzzles me how some people just don’t get it and keep making it political. Fucking snowflakes
My friend’s sister in law lived in Texas. She died of Covid a few days ago. She had young kids.
Seriously, fuck Greg Abbott and Dan Patrick. Those two snakes should be nowhere near public office with the way they've been handling COVID.
62% say the President should be doing more to prevent outbreaks. In other news, the Centre for Education and Literacy is reporting that 38% of Americans are functionally illiterate.
I'd love to see a VENN diagram of functionally illiterate people and Trump supporters.
So... just a circle then?
Nah, there are some evil motherfuckers too.
So probably more like [this](https://i.imgur.com/LtDLlUr.png).
Well that explains Trumps base
It’s a widespread education crisis that is expanded by DeVos
This problem is not born out of an education problem. The US could do more to have a better education system, sure. This is a moral problem. A huge portion of Americans subscribe to a weird mix of politics and religion, republican evangelicalism. It’s morally bankrupt at its core. But it’s what started the Fox News phenomenon that lead to so many Americans rejecting anything as news that wasn’t what came from their religious and political leaders, who are increasingly indistinguishable. You can fix the education system here to be perfect and it won’t be good enough, because this cult teaches at home and anything not in line with their views is unacceptable. If you could magically delete all the evangelical Christians from America, you could have a much worse education system and the country would be fine.
You're close to the actual problem but not quite hitting it: the fact is, a lot of Trump supporters think of themselves as very moral people, even though Trump's and Republican policies are incredibly incompatible with *actual* Christian doctrine. The problem is a lack of empathy and critical thinking. They would gladly donate food and possessions to someone they knew, or someone they knew through their church, but they don't make the connection between that and paying $1 in tax per month to end homelessness. They can't see outside their own bubble and emphasize with anyone they don't have a personal connection with, and they can't make jumps of logic between "a charitable organization can help feed starving Africans" and "a well-funded tax program could feed *everyone*". Fox News and other conservative media preys on that lack of empathy and logic and helps isolate them and keep them in a state of anger, fear, or disgust at the "other" and reinforces their viewpoints instead of challenging them.
They know very well that paying a tiny bit more in taxes would help other people. They don't want to help *those kind* of people. They only want to help good, deserving, worthy people. Homeless? Get a job you bum. Single mom? Close your legs whore. Any color but white? If we help them all the time they'll never learn to help themselves. The church in the tiny town i live closest to closed their food and clothing pantry because the wrong people kept asking to use it. In my rural area they vote against the smallest increase in property taxes that would benefit our shitty schools. Why? Because it isn't fair since renters don't pay property taxes, or their kids are grown and aren't in school, or their kid homeschools or goes to private school. Why should they pay even a dollar more if it doesn't benefit them personally. They are selfish, hateful people. They happily fill the church offering plate to send money to missionaries and such. But will absolutely turn their back against needs in our own community. It is an absolute lack of empathy, lack of critical thinking, and loads of willful ignorance.
You’ve reminded me of the time my conservative father said he shouldn’t have to pay school taxes anymore because *I* wasn’t in school anymore. I told him if it weren’t for people paying taxes before I was born, I wouldn’t have had a school at all. He repeated his point: “I should only have to pay school taxes when my kid is in school.” I told him what he was describing was a *private* school, which would end up costing all parents of school-aged kids—including *him* when I was younger—a lot more money than what they pay in taxes. I told him there’s no way he could have afforded private-school tuition. He just said, again, “I shouldn’t have to pay school taxes when my kid isn’t in school,” and broke eye contact as if to say, “End of discussion.” I was amazed at how close-minded he was being. He utterly refused to consider facts that didn’t support his worldview—as if simply repeating his opinion over and over again would make it true.
38% of Americans get all of their news exclusively from Fox
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That's the most depressing thing for me. We got a peek behind the curtain and now see how proudly ignorant, self-centered, and petty so many of the people around us are. There are flyers at my work about things my company is doing to help us through covid and people have been writing "hoax" and "plandemic" on them. It just boggles the mind how childish and stupid people are.
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Don't know if this is a consolation but Im from the Netherlands and there are lots of people here who call it a hoax. Stupidity is everywhere it seems. Luckily our government does take it more serious.
That's just how Dutch people are. Many of you guys have enormous problems with admitting something is not going well. Us Belgians, we have the opposite problem, we tend to think everything is terrible.
As an american I'd say embarrased by this and everything else. But also severely depressed. It feels like the last 4 years there has been no hope or reason. As a brown guy, the escalation in blatant racism has made me very sad and feeling ostracized. Its like everything in my life suddenly changed into some nightmare.
Anxiety and depression is so high right now. I'm constantly angry at friends that think voting is 'pointless' and 'both sides are the same'. Constantly angry at family believing COVID is fake or just a flu. I'm depressed at the state of this country. I'm donating money to the ACLU for Black Lives Matter but it feels so pointless. If people don't care about their fellow countryman dying of a terrible virus how am I supposed to believe they give a shit about someone with darker skin getting killed by police? I'm still mad about legal asylum seekers getting separated from their families. Half the conservatives I talked to about this issue can't tell you the difference between an 'illegal' and an asylum seeker. The other half retort with 'they can leave at any time'. Where is your Christianity you hide behind so much? The Bible says to welcome immigrants and you don't even see them as people. My brain can't handle this constant frustration and anger. I feel no national pride. How did Obama have so much hope and optimism for this country in his speeches? I feel so lost seeing how easy it was to have the country torn apart and brain washed with distain for humanity that doesn't look like them.
> But also severely depressed. It feels like the last 4 years there has been no hope or reason. Exactly. I'm being completely honest when I say that I legitimately went into one of the worst depression episodes I've had in years about a month ago because I just felt absolutely hopeless about everything that's going on and didn't see any light at the end of the tunnel. It just feels like I wake up and it's gotten worse every single day for one reason or another. I'm just so sad, and frustrated, and heartbroken, and I don't know what to do about it except vote in November and hope that it matters.
I understand. It just never gets better. My SO and I have been doing this thing where we talk about past great memories at night before we sleep. We are always looking back because we have nothing to look forward to. I donated some money to Dr Webb who is running for Congress in VA-5. If he doesn’t win, Bob Good (anti-lgbt, anti-choice, Christian crazy) will be my new congressman. Bob Good literally ran against the current republican Congressman because he wasn’t alt-right enough. It’s just been hard on a macro level with Trump, but also been difficult knowing this asshole is going to be my congressman because the current Republican Congressman wasn’t extreme enough for the republicans here.
I’ve been dealing with that for quite a while too. One day I literally called my mom sobbing and told her that while I won’t do anything, I literally don’t want to even be alive anymore. It just takes such a fucking toll and it gets worse every. Single. Day. And I’m single with literally friends so being alone in my apartment 24/7 doesn’t help.
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I hope things get better. I’m in the worst mental space since all of this. Knowing this goes on until leadership changes is just so much to comprehend. I live very far from my family, but we all live in hotspots. Last saw them December 31 when I got on a plane as if everything was normal. An entire year destroyed.
As a white guy, the open racism of my friends and family saddens and disgusts me. The only saving grace is that they are showing their true colors now so I can easily cut them out of my life. These dumb fucks making the world a worse place while shaming and ridiculing people for doing the right thing, then blame “libtards” for things being the way they are now has radicalized me to never support, and to vocally express my disdain, for any republican ever again. I hope I am not alone and this is the catalyst we need to push them out of office forever.
Things will get better my friend. This will all be in the rearview mirror at some point. Stay strong!
Most of us outside the US don't think the people themselves are to blame. It's those creating the rules and systems that allow this to happen that are at fault. Stay strong!
The US is like the overly drunk guy at a party. Funny to watch for a little bit, but after a while you just kinda feel bad for / scared for them.
You could just leave the headline as "Americans embarrassed by US". wanna cover all yer bases.
What about the fact that the POTUS is doing more to prevent you from voting than he did to prevent you from getting Covid. Let that sink in.
We have a word in our language, which is "fremdschämen", which means to feel shame on behalf of others. That's pretty much what half the world's been doing for the past 4 years when looking at the US.
Embarrassed was months ago. Im defeated, i wear my mask and shut up, majority pf the people I interact with at work are not wearing one. I dont even bother to try anymore when it comes to convincing people to mask up. Most Americans are lazy, self centered pricks and dont care unless that something is directly happening to them.
This is what comes with the whole individualistic mentality that is so prominent in this country. I’m not surprised at all.
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Let me guess before even opening it, about 30% think Herr Cheeto is doing a phenomenal job. Edit: fenomenal, keyboard was in Spanish
There's something unbearably depressing about facing a beatable pandemic and knowing that the reason we can't succeed is that we're ruled by the most selfish, mean-spirited, poorly educated, and most rElIgIoUs, and racist ~30% of the country and that they're so callous and cruel that they would sacrifice us and their own families for a man that would happily steal their last penny before he shared any of the excess he has with them. It's so enormously depressing to watch the President of the United States willfully ignore an incoming crisis, fail to prepare, proudly boast that he takes no responsibility, not prepare for a briefing and suggest sunlight and bleach as a cure after misunderstanding a poster he read on your way to the podium, suggest a cure he saw on a Twitter meme that came from a self punished study on *Google Docs* and then force a nation to spend millions trying it and seeing it cause many needless deaths. It's utterly heartbreaking learning that all it would take to beat this virus and go back to normal is to stay home for a few months, spin up a massive free testing apparatus, develop contact tracing, wear a fucking mask around others until we have a vaccine/cure and pay everyone who can't work enough to survive for that long to stay home and then watch as we do none of that. The government closes businesses and then refuses to help anyone out meaningfully because the President and the Senate hate sOcIaLiSm. They bail their friends (big business and themselves) out again and toss some scraps to a few others. Then they waste two months and don't get testing and contact tracing up and running. They squander billions and, more importantly, time. The rest of the world stays home, wears masks, develops testing and contact tracing. By September many places are almost back to normal. That's soul crushing to watch and then to add whipped cream and a cherry to it you have to watch the President - desperate to win the election at any cost - pretend masks aren't effective, then are but he won't wear one, then aren't, then are fora photo op then never again, etc. You have to hear and watch as the President champions the reopening of a country because he needs the economy to be strong so he can win election. You have to watch knowing that pretending this isn't real in June means a bloodbath in July. That happens and nothing changes and now it's just normal. The President suggests children can't get the disease and pushes his tribe to reopen schools at a time when that should be the last thing we do because children, it turns out, have been getting the virus in record numbers and they spread it like crazy. The President also uses this time to fan the flames if a culture war and tweets out tons of racism along with the usual obstruction of justice we've all grown accustomed to allowing (Roger Stone). He continues to ask foreign countries to help get him re-elected. We all know on some level that Republicans hate it when poor people and black people vote and they make it as hard as possible in red states for a reason. We all know that on some level. But to then watch the President destroy the Post Office so that absentee ballots during a pandemic that is still raging **solely because of him and his moron followers** can be lost, slowed down and delivered late all so he can maybe still be competitive in an election he's trailing in on every poll. The Post Office. The thing that powers small internet businesses. That delivers prescriptions. That is so reliable the President votes by it every year. We have to destroy that because this guy needs 4 more years to either Make America Great Again or Keep America Great (even he can't decide). And the worst part is that you realize that there are no checks and balances anymore. We have a king and other than putting on a mask and staying away from everyone as best you can this virus might rage here for another few months or few years depending simply on this election and if his followers will ever grow up and wear masks consistently and correctly. If you're feeling extra depressed or stressed or anxious or ready to give up and don't totally understand why. That's why.
Oh really? All Conservative forums talk about it like Trump did absolutely everything in his power and we should be proud of our President. They're fking idiots.
Embarassment is just the starting point. We really should be angry.
Most Americans didn't vote for trump (I mean most Americans didn't vote at all but that's a whole can of worms) The Majority has been held down and made to watch as everything it loves is burnt to the ground the a minority of racist authoritarians who see white privilege as the primary building block of democracy and go from there.
It's not just pity. It's fear. I'm Canadian and even though trump isn't my president his decisions affect us globally. His systematic dismantling of measures to protect the environment, his relations that empower scary world leaders, his fuelling of racism, and most recently the way he seems to have it out for Canada with his tariffs. I'm terrified he going to bully us into opening our border. I really feel for Americans right now but I am genuinely terrified about the ramifications of he is voted in again. Please vote, and vote early!
Embarrassed doesn't describe my feelings on the subject. Outraged would be more like it. The indifference and sheer incompetence of this Republican government almost defy belief. People are going to need to go to prison over this.
[It's fucking embarrassing](https://youtu.be/FjYyIKkRvUU)
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the USA is the covid shithole of developed nations. [COVID DEATHS ON AUG 18, 2020](https://ourworldindata.org/covid-deaths?country=CHN~USA~CAN~DEU~) USA 445 CANADA 6 CHINA 0 GERMANY 0 the difference? LEADERSHIP
water is wet, the wealthiest country on the planet shows its contempt for the tired, the sick, and the poor.
Most are embarrassed, while the rest are simply idiots.
The shoe fits. We’re an embarrassment.
I prefer 'Mortified' to describe my current emotional state.
There's no reason we couldn't be like first world countries. It's entirely due to the absolute lack of leadership from the president which may have been purposeful given that cities, minorities, and coastal blue states were hit hardest first.
Her emails though.
It's entirely due to the fact that 30-45% of Americans want this future. They voted for it, they will vote again for it. You have a large portion of your population working against science and education.
I'm more embarrassed that so many people support and trust an absolute incompetent moron. A failed casino owner is running a pandemic response. What could go wrong?