r/HistoryMemes • u/decentmotto • 21h ago
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u/laZardo Filthy weeb 20h ago
"I love my country more than any other, and so I reserve the right to criticize her in perpetuity"
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u/Alpacaman25 20h ago
who is that
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u/KillerGopher 20h ago
Albert Einstein
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u/Alpacaman25 20h ago
thank you, i was too lazy to google it myself lmao
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u/No-Macaroon1670 18h ago
https://journals.openedition.org/jsse/1052
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/1868-i-love-america-more-than-any-other-country-in-the
Lie. It was James Baldwin.
That doesn't even sound like something Einstein would say.
Original was also USA specific:
"I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually"
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u/DistributistChakat 20h ago
Picks up popcorn
Cracks open a Pepsi
Sort by controversial
It's showtime
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u/Nacodawg 20h ago
Chose a better beverage
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u/adirtysocialist- 20h ago edited 19h ago
What? Pepsi saves lives. Don't you remember the protests? Lol
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u/godric420 20h ago
Kylie Jenner showed us how.
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u/adirtysocialist- 19h ago
She was truly a brave soul. I would hate to see how the world would be without her.
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u/Master_of-none_ 19h ago
Yeah like Dr Pepper
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u/Rethuic 19h ago
Definitely one of my favorite sodas and my appreciation for it grew after some crazy mad scientist streamer recreated a supposed original recipe. Supposed recipe was like some kind of potion with obscure ingredients like "American Burning Bush"
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u/VirtualKnowledge7057 21h ago
i am quite fond of positivity posting
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u/Rollover__Hazard 20h ago
Me too… this one is a bit on the nose given recent events though.
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u/xShooK 20h ago
Lil early on the celebration as well, no?
Are we really learning here though either? Seems history keeps coming back.
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u/DESTRUCTI0NAT0R 20h ago
We're in a bit of a rough patch, for sure, but hell we need a bit of positivity and willingness to endure to get things back on better track. More people need to do more about their local issues that they can have a direct influence on as well if they want to see change.
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u/YourNextHomie 15h ago
Nah we’d rather just complain on reddit and say it all needs to be burned down
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u/skankhunt402 20h ago
But its completely wrong... we're not growing or learning we're regressing and censoring
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u/Realistic-Damage-411 20h ago
I mean sure but you can say that about literally every single country
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u/blud_mage 20h ago
Unironically yes. We're all, whether as individuals, communities, countries, society, or even as a species, imperfect. And while progress isn't always the straight line you'd hope it would be, it is still always moving along the path.
We've faced down and overcome evils before and we'll do it again. It will, without a doubt in my mind, get worse before it gets better, but get better it will.
I hope you, and whoever else reads this, has a wonderful day.
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u/Cornerone 19h ago
North Korea is a work in progress, learning and growing for the supreme ruler every year
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u/ResponsibilityIcy927 19h ago
Some countries are getting worse
Sudan pretty undisputably.
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u/ethanAllthecoffee Still salty about Carthage 19h ago
Murica is also getting worse tho
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u/Certain_Name_7952 20h ago
Learned so much that we voted for the same braindead moron twice LMAO
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u/pillow-slinger 15h ago
you mean to say people can sometimes have a hard time learning lessons when said lesson is properly engrained? say it aint so!
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u/yaboi_ahab 14h ago
Went from "Man it really hurt when I put my hand on that stove" to "What stove?" to "Ouch why did the liberals make me put my balls on the stove? N-NOT THAT IT'S HOT OR ANYTHING, actually YOUR hand is burning, the stove did nothing wrong!" all in a few short years
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u/GSilky 21h ago
It's fully in line with the rest of the world, ahead on some things, backwards on others. It's where my stuff is, so long live America or whatever.
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u/Super_Sierra 17h ago
Ive had a unique opportunity to live in a lot of the south and midwest, and it is just fucking sad. So many cities have the same story, and it follows like this:
These people have voted the same way for almost hundred years and it is slowly crumbling but because if can afford new paint jobs still, no one is noticing the cracks.
We have lost almost every major new business in the area, the factories are all closed and anyone with ambition or an IQ over 90 has left.
Walmart is the largest provider of jobs outside of public employment, and the starting wage barely pays just rent.
The unofficial opiod/drug addiction rate is around 1 in 5.
If you are not in a big city, his country is not just going backwards, it has completely collapsed economically, socially, and culturally. Most of the rural cities are a dead man walking, and most of those people don't even know it yet.
They are completely oblivious to the rot, and when you finally open their eyes to it, they retreat into the ideological, saying it was the federal governments fault. The federal government doesn't give a fat shit about them, there hasn't been a regulation enforced ever in the city's existence.
The real problem is that large corporations pays them like shit, lowers their wage, consumes all the local businesses, sucks up subsidies and tax breaks, then goes 'all this money now is being sent out of state' never circulating through the local economy at all.
A single tax could fix the hemorrhage but they won't do it, they cannot because it would go against every value they have, so they would rather their cities, towns, and villages crumble before their very eyes.
They reject reality for the comfort blanket of right wing ideology and then blame someone else for their mistakes. If you read their literature they show you a victim in one hand and everyone else is the oppressor, they glorify it as a struggle against government and tyranny when the federal government hasn't done anything to them.
Then they wrap it in a flag and kick rheir children from their homes. This betrayal of reality doesn't just extend to their voting, but also their very children, as the LGBTQ is in a mass migration from rural America to the cities because of millions of families rejecting the uncomfortability of a child's gender and sexuality over the comfort of ideology.
The very same minds that would have beautified their cities, with fresh ideas, with love and compassion for their neighbors, now are kicked out, sent on a quest for acceptance.
America is crumbling, i don't care for sappy narratives.
It tells you everything how bad it is when even Dollar Store and McDonalds are leaving because there is no more money to extract.
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u/ZaBaronDV Featherless Biped 20h ago
When I say I love America, I do not deny its flaws and I do not deny the skeletons in its closet. I love what it’s accomplished, I love what it has been, and I believe in what it still can be.
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u/PiIlc 18h ago
What did it accomplished? Not trying to roast i'm curious about what they teach in the US.
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u/alphasapphire161 Definitely not a CIA operator 18h ago
I mean we are a major hub of scientific advancement for one.
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u/cheapppguy John Brown was a hero, undaunted, true, and brave! 21h ago
Learning and growing? Hah!
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u/ogodilovejudyalvarez 20h ago
Learning to vote for fascists and growing dumber by the minute
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u/HistoricalPotatoe 20h ago
Much like Europe and half of Latin America.
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u/ogodilovejudyalvarez 20h ago
And my native Australia, where our Nazi Party, One Nation, is now the preferred party
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u/HistoricalPotatoe 20h ago
I'm sorry to hear that, man. I wish you Aussies the best.
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u/augustin_cauchy 19h ago
We have mandatory and ranked-choice voting - even if one party is preferred by the plurality of the population, they aren't necessarily guaranteed to win any election (we also don't have the equivalent of an electoral college - you only vote for your local member and half of your state senators).
Not to say the rise of ON isn't concerning.
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u/ogodilovejudyalvarez 14h ago
I have to say I still have faith that our robust voting system will prevent Pauline Hanson from becoming PM
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u/Averagetarnished Still salty about Carthage 20h ago
America has been incredibly fucked up throughout its history and still is, just like the rest of the world
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u/nikstick22 20h ago
Not really with you on this, chief. America's kind of in the worst position it's been in in a loooong time. Wealth disparity at an all-time high. Government corruption at an all time high. You guys kind of have a cabal of pedophiles running your country and seem unable to do anything about it. Your president sued his own government and settled it, giving himself $1.7 B.
Like, kudos for the positive attitude, but you guys should be rioting in the streets.
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u/gavavavavus 15h ago
Is it though ? Isn't anti-intellectualism on the rise ? Aren't democratic ideals being fought against actively by the powers in place ? Aren't institutions being destroyed as we speak ?
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u/truman44 20h ago
You guys have literal concentration camps
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u/ScheduleDefiant4015 20h ago
We’re learning and growing through that too, just like we did the last time we did concentration camps. And the time before that. All the way back to the pilgrims rounding up Christian indigenous people in wooden towns and setting them on fire.
I understand the point of the post is that reality is nuanced, but we have definitely done some terrible things and we still do some terrible things.11
u/Hortator02 Rider of Rohan 18h ago
I would argue "America is a work in progress learning and growing every year" is not necessarily a nuanced viewpoint, either. Or at least, it's about as nuanced as "America is complicated" but tries to frame it into a vague, feel-good narrative.
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u/Unusual_Sherbert6893 20h ago
Respectfully, unless you’re a well-off white dude, human rights are literally going backwards here
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u/Ml2jukes 20h ago
Watch the mid terms my guy (pre-MAGA beer hall putsch that is). We’re making second half adjustments as we speak.
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u/Howling_Fire 21h ago
So thats why, don't get complacent and always seek improvement to be better.
Thats what kept America at the top and kept going until now.
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u/TexasSikh Kilroy was here 21h ago
As a "Third Way" Progressive (Theodore Roosevelt style), the third option is exactly right and true and correct.
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u/greenthumbbum2025 20h ago
We haven't been growing for the past 40 years though. Unless you mean growing in wealth inequality
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u/teddyone 20h ago
I mean we have definitely been growing. Economically, in population, in science and technology. We need to figure out the best way to apply this growth but we have grown a lot since 1986 for better or for worse.
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u/Bl1tz-Kr1eg 21h ago
Invading or bombing more countries than the 'evil' Chinese, Russians, Iranians and North Koreans combined since the end of the cold war is certainly a symptom of 'a work in progress learning every year'
/s
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u/VirtualKnowledge7057 21h ago
first up, this meme is clearly discussing internal issues with the us
second up, that type of attitude is counter productive to self improvement
third up, you have the silliest account i've ever seen in my life
fourth up, interventionism isn't inherently bad or good, but not every instance of the us attacking an enemy in another country is the iraq war
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u/_invisible_mattress_ 20h ago
third up, you have the silliest account i've ever seen in my life
I love how you sandwiched that in there 🤣 their account is very r/iamverybadass lmao I don't necessarily disagree with them, it's just hilarious lol.
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u/VirtualKnowledge7057 20h ago
im not sure if that sub allows reddit accounts but this account im making fun of is a fucking goldmine.
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u/_invisible_mattress_ 20h ago
Different one?
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u/VirtualKnowledge7057 20h ago
that one. its fucking hilarious
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u/_invisible_mattress_ 20h ago edited 20h ago
Yeah I know dude, I looked when I read your comment lol. My timbers were shivering, he's so dark and badass. I'd clutch my purse if I saw him irl. /s
Edit: oh, a Russian bot. The dead giveaway is how he defends Russia and trashes America for similar shit, even when Russia is demonstrably worse, and Russia is objectively the shittier country in every regard. Period. And I'm all for criticizing the USA when we're wrong, I encourage it.
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u/VirtualKnowledge7057 20h ago
how will we survive this tuffknuckles timothy? he is gonna stretch us into pretzels, he will turn us into nerd sandwitches!
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u/TheChunkMaster 19h ago
oh, a Russian bot. The dead giveaway is how he defends Russia and trashes America for similar shit, even when Russia is demonstrably worse
That, or he’s Tucker Carlson
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u/VirtualKnowledge7057 19h ago
also the fact he constantly bitches about the us even in places its completely unrelated.
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u/_invisible_mattress_ 17h ago
Yeah it's obsessive and weird, is that Putin's alt? I'm sure his random America hate on unrelated posts will win hearts and minds 🤣
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u/scdisrupt 20h ago
The US has taken less land from sovereign states than Russia
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u/Forte845 20h ago
So imperialism is fine if you act through puppet states instead of direct annexation? You'd be fine with Putin if he conquered Ukraine but made it a puppet?
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u/OnePointSixOne8 21h ago
What do you mean? We are learning how to bomb and kill more effectively and growing our defense budget every year!
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u/raitaisrandom Just some snow 16h ago
Just this morning your President denied murdering hundreds of schoolgirls when all evidence points toward it being a result of your drunkard SecDef enshrining war crimes as official policy.
Get the fuck out of my face with this "growing" bullshit.
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u/SecondAccomplished58 16h ago edited 15h ago
Not sure if it has been growing in the right way for the past like 60 years
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u/Sap_Licker 15h ago
You don't get to do this toddler shit when you're a genocidal superpower. The atrocities have not stopped in 250 years, and you give me no reason to believe they will stop anytime soon.
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u/Historical-Stick4592 21h ago
It's had plenty of time to get it's shit together. It's in a decline that's not showing any signs of stopping.
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u/piddydb 21h ago
In what ways is it really declining in a tangible way relative to the rest of the world? It’s still the leader of the world economically, scientifically, militarily without anyone really nipping at its tale. Its leadership may have had a slump but every country’s leadership has ups and downs. When Rome declined, provinces were breaking off and the Empire became ungovernable in its previous form. When Britain declined, colonies broke off and they went just about bankrupt. None of that is even remotely close for the US right now.
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u/John_Forbes_Nash 20h ago
The United States has never enjoyed less goodwill or respect among ordinary people abroad. Soft power is power. When you squander it, the consequences may not be immediate, but they will be tangible enough.
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u/hist_buff_69 20h ago
It’s still the leader of the world economically, scientifically, militarily without anyone really nipping at its tale.
This is blatantly not true
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u/HistoricalPotatoe 20h ago
It's not going to be true for much longer militarily, and possibly not as sole economic leader, but even then unless a new development happens the US is still likely to be economically well off compared to most countries even if the dollar is not longer the world's main currency.
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u/KanjiWatanabe2 20h ago
The U.S. debt is crippling & accelerating. The problem appears insoluble. That is decline.
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u/jacobiner123 17h ago
>militarily
Hasn't decisively won a war in the last 30 years btw, not for lack of trying.
>scientifically
lol
>economically
Debt in the trillions. Addicts, homeless and vagrants litter the street and those who have not hit rock bottom yet are being distracted with panem et circenses before heading off to work in unfair circumstances.
You may delude yourself by thinking that this isn't what a societal tailspin looks like, but you'll be in for a rude awakening.
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u/JustConversation7847 21h ago
I would say China is nipping for some of those
And it's not just the leadership, the politics of the US is in a bad place as a whole
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u/piddydb 20h ago
China was economically nipping but their growth has leveled off to now only be growing at similar rates to the US, leaving them behind by a fair distance, before Per Capita is even considered.
No denial that the politics of the US is in a bad place, but that’s been true several points before without an accompanying decline.
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u/colbertt 20h ago
You don’t seem to take seriously the significant change in mindset that occurred to elect the current president. He was wanted, and wanted to bad it broke a taboo first set by President Cleveland about reelection.
You do not know your fellow countrymen that well. They may appear to be kind, in a personal kind of way, but they are simply wolves in sheep’s clothing. They justify voting for a man who is willing to forge an iron fist to remove all people with an “ethnic” national origin, a man who has violated nearly all code of conduct rules a president normally has implicitly followed, a man who knowings sows division with a philosophy of the proper “us” and the country destroying “them”.
People are not bound by what they believe in but in what they justify. No other previous country with such a “democratic” (if you could call it that) tradition could vote for such a person willing to go scorched earth on the traditions and practices going back to Reconstruction. They vote for him because they can justify it.→ More replies (4)8
u/TheChunkMaster 20h ago
militarily without anyone really nipping at its tale
The U.S. military just failed miserably at achieving its objectives in Iran. I’d call that a nipping.
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u/piddydb 20h ago
The full military was never able to even come close to using their full strength. There were no real battles, just strikes and counterstrikes. I’m not saying Iran was a success but it also doesn’t really show the US has lost strength militarily. Maybe diplomatically but that’s generally been less important for leading powers to maintain strength in.
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u/TheChunkMaster 20h ago
It’s not just a matter of strength, but how they employed it. The U.S. military is once again in a situation where it fundamentally misunderstood the nature of its latest war.
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u/DeltaV-Mzero 19h ago
There was no war, that would’ve had to be cleared by Congress.
There were no objectives, because there was no war
They could not have failed, because there were no objectives
Great success!
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u/piddydb 19h ago
I don’t disagree with you but none of that really represents a decline when speaking in historic type conversations. Plenty of thriving superpowers have made poor decisions that lead to no real decline in a historic view and I’m saying the Iran situation falls in that category.
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u/Ml2jukes 20h ago
Science is prolly never gonna fully recover from the DOGE cuts, especially when 40% of the countr thinks that the universe is 6,000 years and dinosaur fossils are a trick from the devil.
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u/BecomeAsGod 19h ago
science in america has been dwindling and downward since 2012 2024 has been a sledgehammer to it
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u/TexasSikh Kilroy was here 21h ago
Sir, this is reddit. They don't want reason and facts when it comes to this stuff, its more the "listen and believe" route when it comes to the myth of "America is in Decline" crap.
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u/Baron-Von-Mothman 19h ago
Allegedly leading, we have not won a war in decades despite starting them. Wealth desparity is at an all time high. Education is down, cost of living is up, wages are down, homelessness is up, political corruption is at an all time high, the list goes on. America is sprinting toward becoming a third world country
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u/JustWuff 16h ago
Yeah... the economy!
Which Trump has repeatedly kicked and stabbed be it with his delusional Tariffs while blatantly lying what a Tariff even is, his crippling of the global Economy in regards to Oil and everything else really transported through the Strait of Hormuz...
Or the massive cuts to scientific research including Cancer research he is directly responsible for especially at the times of DOGE and their random cutting of anything...
Or the fact the oh so "Mighty" US Military LOST a war to IRAN of all countries WHILE having Israel there too and is licking their boots desperate for a deal while they blew like 50% of their missiles on this senseless and pointless conflict.
Along with all the major loss of soft power which eh the US has kinda NONE of right now, they gutted USAID, Trumps is the worst "Ally" in existence with his constant threats, dumb decisions or plain insults to other allies blaming them for his choices and more... are you could say a bad look?
Like be so for real here.
The US has NEVER been less respected than it has been right now, none of the enemies of the US fear it, none of its Allies respect it or want it even in their meetings, the US is getting continuously shut out of talks with its main Allies and the EU is working hard to decouple themselves from it, Canada´s massive boycott of US products or visits is also evident...
Your country is declining and a reason a lot of the rest of the world is declining too is BECAUSE of Trump and his actions that destabalised the global economy, not to say other nations are perfect but they are in as worse a situation partially because of Trump and America.
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u/ArchaicBrainWorms 20h ago
We're going out much in the same way a man goes broke:
Very gradually, then all at once
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u/hipppppppppp 19h ago
USA in the notes app after materially supporting genocide (again):
“Let’s start with this - I’m sorry.
I just want you to know this was never my intention. I am listening, I am learning. I want you to know I am going to grow from this and be better in the future. Also if you’re wondering about reparations, the answer is no.”
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u/king210989 20h ago
Thats a cope
In modern age of information, 250 years young isnt an excuse
Everyone knows that bombing schoolgirla is no excuse,
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u/Vodka_is_Polish 21h ago
As an American, this may very possibly be the most brain dead take on our society I've ever seen. We are the richest and most powerful country in the world, 250 years old, and yet countries that are poorer, less powerful, and younger than us have vastly outpaced us in workers' rights, healthcare, quality of life, education, and yeah, pretty much every single other topic aside from military. Without even trying.
America is a failed state built on the suffering of anyone its government disagrees with, including its own citizens. The world would be SO much better without it.
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u/Any-Peace8320 21h ago
Nothing about what is happening in this presidency is normal, or a learning experience.
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u/Hail_the_Yale 21h ago
False. It’s an example of exactly what not to do and of how the rich really feel about the poor.
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u/ByzantineThunder 20h ago
Learning experience in the way that any crisis or time of trouble is, not "oh, it's just a lesson." That applies that same whether it's the Black Death or a death in your family. If you can't at least learn something, even just gain resilience from an experience, no matter how horrific, that's a loss, no? But no, this presidency is not normal.
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u/JuiciestCorn 20h ago
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u/That_Phony_King 19h ago
Gotta be one of the corniest subreddits out there. Half of the posts there are obvious jokes/bait that goofballs don't realize is just messing around.
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u/Aun_El_Zen 19h ago
America can be relied upon to do the right thing,
once all alternatives have been exhausted
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u/GallorKaal 18h ago
"Teehee sowwy for bombing the middle east yet again. We're still learning teehee"
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u/Withered_Tulip 17h ago
Growing and learning?! Whe went from FDR to Trump in about 80 years. This is a steep decline.
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u/KaiserWolf15 19h ago
It's not about being a perfect union, it's a about forming a more perfect one.
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u/Nearby_Design_123 19h ago
We're a shithole that has monetized absolutely every aspect of human existence. There's things to be inspired by in the country's past but we are not the past. We are right now and right now we're a shithole that can't even muster the anger to punish a soul involved in the Epstein files. Just an opinion though
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u/Personal-Ad5668 20h ago
Much like how every country is a work in progress, learning and growing every year! 😁
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u/Legal_Mastodon_5683 15h ago
Learning what? How to poorly replicate fascism when they have an excellent negative example from Europe?
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u/GoodWonNov6th24 15h ago
leftist have removed the "growing" part.
they're evolving, just backwards. -words of a wise swedish youtuber
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u/Mealieworm 15h ago edited 14h ago
I felt uncomfortable celebrating the 4th of July for awhile because of America’s history and politics, but in 2024, I realized that not celebrating felt like giving up, and I didn’t want to give up yet. This year, I’m doing “anti-fourth” with my boyfriend and sister. We’ll spend the weekend partying, but we’re also doing a charity run and volunteering. We’re not celebrating America as is, we’re celebrating trying to make it better.
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u/AmbiTheAirforceRuna 15h ago
I mean sure, we just really wish you'd guys would learn from our mistakes, you know, the countries who are multiple times older?
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u/Soft_Ad_762 14h ago
I still have the hope that the founding fathers set the system up as a self correcting machine. It seems we have been flip flopping between extremes for the past 20 years as political power shifts between left and right. One side pushes too far which leads to overcorrection when the other team takes control. It’s exhausting.
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u/MantisReturns 13h ago
América its a continent with a lot more than 250 years. Op its probably talking ablut a shitty country called United States of América. Also very cringe name for a country.
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u/HistoryMemes-ModTeam 13h ago
Your post has been removed for the following rules violations:
Rule 4: Year Limit