I’m getting quite strained from the sentiment I’m gathering from people who possess a level of cynicism to where, they believe all Americans deserve what’s happening and been happening. I don’t agree with that.
There are 75 million Americans, who tried, really tried to get out there and prevent what was to come. We just didn’t expect to be outnumbered by two million more people. But I think it’s unfair to say that those 75 million americans who tried to prevent the floodgates from opening, deserve this. Because they don’t.
There are other countries out in the world right now, who have just as bad leadership if not worse. Should we just assume the people there deserve it? No. Because there are probably people who are likely against their corrupt leaders. America is no different in that field.
We will try again come mid-terms, provided there are mid-terms. Hopefully the 77 million americans who did in fact vote for trump, have gotten enough of a wake-up call, that maybe their poor judgment and poorer decision making wasn’t as good as they thought. Because it is they that have damned us to this mess and we know it, we’ve seen it.
But don’t get this idea in your head that every American endorse the idea that we like what we have.
My read on this is that since the end of the cold war, America has had a monopoly on decisionary power, and news media around the world has assigned responsibility for geopolitical events accordingly: whatever happens, wherever it happens, America has, at minimum, assented to it, and is therefore responsible for it. The first truly bizarre application of this reasoning that stood out to me was assigning blame for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on NATO. Since Russia lost the cold war, it is relatively weaker than its western neighbors, propped up by the US, and somehow that turns its acts of aggression over its former territories into defensive measures. It’s a unipolar read of geopolitics, where only one dominant power exists at the global scale, and any local complications in the balance of power are simply ignored. The same applies to the US’s internal politics. The US decides, so the US is responsible. Never mind all the attacks on democracy, representativity, and citizens’ safety and security. In the case of Milei, Orban, Bolsonaro, Putin, etc., people are more willing to see citizens as victims of their failing democracies; with the US, there is a failure to distinguish between the country’s global power and its citizens’ individual power.
Add to that longstanding resentment over the US’s hegemony and you end up with a lot of people who have sincerely been looking forward to this shitshow. You’re just one more piece of tinder in the bonfire they’ve been waiting for their entire lives
My point being, you’re expecting too much of most people if you’re hoping for a compassionate, nuanced read on the situation.