Comment by _DeadFred_
5 days ago
What's the point of this doomerism? Do you want people to just give up? Or are you not willing to build back institutions, and try to make them stronger? I don't understand the point of your comment other than apathy/negativity?
> What's the point of this doomerism?
It's absolutely _not_ a "Doomerism" comment - it's a short, sharp, somewhat wry assessment of exactly where the US currently is on the task of undoing the damage caused by gutting longstanding institutional services.
USAID, VoA, Government overwatch, Environmental monitoring, Departmental independance, the US DoJ, et al ... have all been broken in ways that will take much longer to reverse than the time taken to break them.
See "Arrow of Time" and shattered vase examples that go back long in time.
> Do you want people to just give up?
Which people? I don't think the ones doing that damage will "just give up" - it'll take effort to vote them out, it will likely take more effort to actually remove them if they stay on trend and refuse to follow court orders and established procedures.
> Or are you not willing to build back institutions, and try to make them stronger?
Weird take, I've been backing my people and country for 60 odd years. In that time I've even backed the USofA on the odd occassion.
> I don't understand the point of your comment
Hopefully that has clarified things a little - you may still need to do some work on that on your side.
> other than apathy/negativity?
because takes such as this are way off the mark.
Still, best of luck getting the US reputation back on track - it'll take time and concerted effort.
Got it. Nothing constructive intended on your part then. Just a pointless negative unproductive internet post that Trumpers won't care about but lowers the moral of people trying to deal with the fallout of all this and get people on board to push back and figure out how to rebuild.
You can keep your empty disingenuous best of luck. You sound like the guy that tells his neighbor whose house burnt down 'man, you are fucked'. Yeah, no shit. Such insight.
Wrong on multiple counts. Way to many assumptions and zero cross cultural understanding.
> Got it.
You've said this multiple times to multiple people with little to no evidence on close reading that, in fact, you "got" anything of their positions and viewpoints.
Your PoV is projecting hard on others to the deteriment of any actual useful communication.
I am of the people that happily rebuild their neighbours house routinely.
What I have said, in short, is that reversing the damage done to the US in the past year will take more than simple reversals via court decisions.
It's an observation about the nature of the problem coupled with a hope that sufficient work be done to fix things.
If you want to do something useful, scroll back and perhaps check your own attitude in multiple posts and worry less about the perceived mote in my eye.
Good luck.
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Because of both how the senate is set up where South Dakota has 2 senators just like California, gerrymandering and to a lesser extent the Electoral College, the 40% of America who like these policies will always have outsized power.
Despite the naive optimism of liberals like Michelle Obama saying “this is not who we are”, what you are seeing now is who this country has always been.
Got it. Doomerism will fix the fact that there will always be assholes/people trying to break systems for their own gain. Or maybe doomerism will lead to rolling the dice and hoping we somehow magically get a better system where no people suck?
This is not who we have historically been. Hence why gerrymandering is an issue today, because they are doing it today. But we have to put in the work to challenge the assholes. The world will always have assholes I don't think giving up/burning it all down and hoping they then magically go away is a political philosophy. The current Republican 'dixiecrats' are an extension of their traitor ancestors that WANT to burn it all down. Seems idiotic to help them in their goal. Fuck these loser traitors I'm keeping my country.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Kjah99E1fIo
Edit because I'm throttled:
You completely jumped talking points.
Gerrymandering is an issue today, meaning it is a new issue, that we need to fight, today.
But I got it. You think/see America as irredeemable. I see us as constantly improving things, and don't see how a different country name/system of government would change/fix the horrible things you bring up, or make the worse elements of our society better. I have seen an America that fought to remove the cancer of slavery. That is ashamed of the internment camps. The doesn't give af about interracial marriage. And that America has been steadily winning WHEN PEOPLE FOUGHT FOR IT. But maybe you are right. Destroy the USA, change the name to 'Super Friendly Nice Perfect Land', get rid of democracy, and maybe racists will stop being racist.
Looks like you are a surgeon. You would know we have many Jewish hospitals because Jewish people weren't allowed to be doctors. So Jewish people worked around that and changed things. Our system allows for improvement. There is no indication a random new one will. I have seen videos of Muslims talking about how they won't allow Jewish doctors to treat their kids, so yes, things can go backwards. Doesn't mean we give up. We need to challenge backwards people and backwards thought, not give up because they suck.
You basically support the policy of the crappy 'dixiecrats' that run the Republican party, whose ancestors have been anti-America since they started then lost the civil war of burn it all down.
Edit2: Again, you see America as irredeemable because there are crappy people in the country and because historically people were much crappier than today. I see America as one of the best tools in history for changing things to the better. You aren't going to make me give up/think a name change/rebrand will actually change the issues you have. I think America is the best way to resolve it. How recently were Irish/English killing eachother/hating eachother. 1990s? People love to hate others. You just keep listing 'people suck' as 'America sucks' as if somehow a rebrand/name change will change your complaints. Lots of people just generally suck. We Americans work to improve that. I can see how Black people have given up on it. But I don't see how that is productive for you long term/gives you better results. Better results would be to do what Jews who wanted to be doctors did, bypass the assholes, freeze them out. That is the dixiecrats anger today, they can see they are being left behind. And you want to just give in to them because???
Thank you for responding. It's good to understand you support/promote doomerism because you think the US is just irredeemable as a nation. I always just assume it's someone frustrated with things. Interesting to hear from someone who really thinks destroying it all is a better solution and that we aren't redeemable as a nation.
Final edit I promise. Read my history and you will see I am very against the American justice system. If you look closely you will see I have fallen from the top to the bottom. In that time I have been physically abused by officers and seen how broken the justice system is. I've made friends who were amazing people who never had a chance from day 1 simply because of their race, who opened my eyes to a lot. I have my own personal reasons to hate aspects of this country, but I still think the best option is to work within the system to improve it. I still think this is not who we are. Glad you aren't racist to you daughter in law. My dad didn't pass my mom's parents whiteness test and that sucked.
So do you think that “prayer changes things” and we can “reach their hearts and minds”?
“This is not who we have historically been.”
Should I start with slavery? Japanese internment camps? Legalized segregation that my still living parents grew up in? Sundown towns that still existed until the 1990s (see Oprah visits Forsyth county)? Laws against interracial marriage? Laws “protecting the sanctity of marriage” because God forbid a same sex couple gets married? How the justice system today still statistically gives harsher penalties to minorities for the same facts? The continued demonization of foreigners and LGBT?
There were places in the south that held their first integrated prom in 2013.
If you have 10 friends and ask them where they want to eat and 6 say let’s go to this nice Mexican restaurant and the other 4 say “let’s kill Bob and eat him”, you still have a shitty group of friends.
> Got it. Doomerism will fix the fact that there will always be assholes/people trying to break systems for their own gain.
I know you put a lot of effort into typing all that, but I just stopped reading at sentence #2.
Doomerism isn't about fixing things. It is about knowing when you are beaten and just give up. The Serentity Prayer says "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference."
I really wanted to believe that people were better, but they just aren't. My white brother married a Chinese girl in summer of 2016. My parents were so happy for their first child to finally get married. By 2018, they told him that if he had a "mongrel" baby, they would never come to visit.
People were always this evil, they just hid it better. In 2016, they gave themselves permission to be evil in the open, and they ran with it.
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Okay (weird as this is) third reply
> I see America as one of the best tools in history for changing things to the better.
Ask that to the people in Iran, Iraq, the Kurds, Venezuela and most of the Muslim world or even Canada and Mexico or any foreign country do they see the world as a tool for good?
> Better results would be to do what Jews who wanted to be doctors did, bypass the assholes, freeze them out.
The government has a “monopoly on [legalized] violence”. You can’t work your way around a corrupt justice system or cops that can shoot you with “qualified immunity”.
Have I given up on America? Yes. I’m planning my exit strategy now and in fact in the country I might retire to now for two months to see what’s it like living here and we have involved ourselves with the local ex-pats community.
But while I’m still working I’m going to extract as much as possible from corporate America and keep “taking things to parking lot” and “double clicking on topics”.
I am responding to your edits
> “But I got it. You think/see America as irredeemable. I see us as constantly improving things.”
So tell me how things are better today in 2026 for immigrants than they were a decade ago? Minorities? LGBT? Hell even rural White America who continues to vote against their own interests as long as they can “own the libs”, see the President abuse brown people, and bring God into the school?
> The doesn't give af about interracial marriage.
My (Black) son is engaged to a white woman. You damn sure better believe that people still care. Me personally? I love her to death.
But for a less anecdotal answer.
https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2017/05/18/2-publi...
> That is ashamed of the internment camps.
What do you call what ICE is doing right now?
> I have seen an America that fought to remove the cancer of slavery
Four states still officially consider “Confederate Memorial Day” a state holiday and two others combine MLK and Confederate Memorial Day.
> Like I said, you basically support the policy of the crappy 'dixiecrats' that run the Republican party, whose ancestors have been anti-America since they started then lost the civil war.
They weren’t “anti-American” at all. They fought for the America that had slavery in the constitution, and considered a black person as 3/5th of a person and that enshrined “separate but equal” into law until the 50s.
This is who America always was
> Looks like you are a surgeon. You would know we have many Jewish hospitals because Jewish people weren't allowed to be doctors. So Jewish people worked around that and changed things.
I’m a 52 year old software developer/consultant. Both of my parents went to what we now call a “historically black college” because that’s all they were allowed to go to. My mom was one of the first Black teachers allowed fo teach in a formerly “White” school.
I am not here screaming that I can get ahead in corporate America because of the color of my skin. I’ve had quite a good track record in corporate America from startups, to BigTech to now a customer facing consultant who can “add on to what Becky said” and “step back and look at things from the 1000 foot view” with the best of them and never experienced discrimination.
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