Comment by spicyusername

This is probably going to be an unpopular opinion, but most places for most people are fine. Good even. Great, by historical standards. But that just goes to show how much room the US has to decline, and how well off the average American really is by global standards, even if they don't subjectively feel that way. Donald Trump and the politics of the last few decades have definitely been pushing things the wrong direction, but most people in most places live relatively well, by global standards. As it is, all we would need is a decade of politics and policies gently tugging the right direction and we'd be good to go.

    Is stuff really as bad as it looks or are media somehow exaggerating things?

Kind of both at the same time. America is a huge place. So if you live in Minneapolis, or in one of the cities where ICE is heavily targeting immigrants and are non-white, it's as bad as the media makes it sound.

If you live anywhere else, which in most cases are places thousands of miles away, it's business as usual. You have money, you go to work, the grocery store is full, you see your friends on the weekends. The only bad things in life are home prices and the news.