This is applicable to Americans in the country and better answered if you actually live in it. The question stands - have you given up on America or do you really think there is a shred of a chance for a turnaround?
I think I have given up on America for it to do anything better for itself. I think the passing general election nailed the final nail in the coffin, that people who voted wrongly, wanted to worsen things in general to appease selfish personal agendas.
I think Americans in general really are set in stone about baking a cake and having it too with their interesting levels of double standards. They complain about big tech having your information, but turn around wanting you to sign a petition that asks for your information. They complain about commercials all year long, but will tune in by the millions for a Super Bowl. They complain about unfair wages, bad workplace environments and shitty bosses but didn’t make so much of a fuss during the pandemic.
There’s just too many things internally wrong with this country, that dampens what hope I ever had for it. Politicians and the “Real Owners” want to keep Americans dumb, complacent, tight and stressed to do anything. But if you give Americans a bit of leverage that could chip at those odds, they shit the fucking bed with their own incompetence.
So what gives, really? Live your life, do the best you can for yourself and those around you. Live another day but god damn fuck the majority of Americans and this country in general.
I’m not your target audience (sorry), as I left in 2021, but I left because I had given up on it during the pandemic when people couldn’t muster up enough care for each other to just mask up in public during a deadly pandemic. It was a combination of that and the realization that living in close proximity to my loved ones didn’t ensure I could visit them with any regularity, but that I could socialize with them from afar, so the pandemic gave me an impetus for and removed the main barrier from my emigration.
I was really missing a sense of community in a societal sense that I’ve found in Germany. My social circle is definitely smaller here, as I was pretty firmly rooted in the US, but strangers on the street are kinder (though not necessarily friendlier or nicer) to each other here and they take care of each other better. I live in an area with a specialized clinic for a certain handicap, so that plays a role, but there’s especially a lot of care taken for disabled people and the elderly, who are therefore a lot more present in the community. There are a lot of ways in which Germany is a lot more sink-or-swim than the US, but the most vulnerable people are embraced in a way that I find comforting and refreshing.
When freaking Germany offers a better sense of community than the USA, you really know Americans are cooked. Congrats on the move, I commend your brave spirit and I’m glad you’ve found your tribe/somewhere you’re comfortable in. 👍
Germans are exceptionally friendly in my experience.
source: I’m Italian and I’ve been to Germany several times for business and pleasure