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Direction of the USA

Discussion in 'BBS Hangout: Debate & Discussion' started by FranchiseBlade, Sep 27, 2025.

  1. FranchiseBlade

    Supporting Member

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    1. Does what's happening in today's USA feel more like the idea for the nation you had growing up?

    2. Why or why not? (In the interest of keeping the discussion issues oriented rather than person-centric, please discuss issues and/or policies without naming presidents or past candidates)

    It is less like what I imagined or hoped for.

    The reasons- actions with ICE, troops sent to various cities and states from primarily one political side, targeting of Judges, and attempts to interfere with checks and balances, attacks from the executive branch on free speech based on political ideology.
     
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  2. Nook

    Nook Member

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    The USA is different and I would say overall not as great as I hoped. I feel the same about Europe as well, I have spent a lot of time in Europe and it is not great.

    The level of corruption and incompetence in our government is alarming to me. The country is not united at all. While the standard of living is still quite high- it has come at great cost. Both parents work, there is little time for recreation and “family” has changed.

    I don’t believe that society has fully adapted to both parents working and social media. I am getting older - but I am well aware that there were were plenty of problems 25 years ago as well.
     
  3. El_Conquistador

    El_Conquistador King of the D&D, The Legend, #1 Ranking

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    I could not be happier with the direction of the country.

    Investing in AMERICAN manufacturing.

    Prioritizing the AMERICAN worker

    Prioritizing the AMERICAN citizen

    Prioritizing the AMERICAN economy

    Prioritizing AMERICAN needs and not the needs of war-torn foreign countries.

    Lifting up the AMERICAN economy to never before seen heights

    Restoring power to the AMERICAN voter, and not unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats in DC

    AMERICA FIRST
     
  4. CCorn

    CCorn Member

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    The internet has ruined everything.
     
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  5. Space Ghost

    Space Ghost Member

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    There has never been a better time to be alive. The opportunities are endless.

    we just came off a 4 year experiment proving our country can run 4 years without a president.

    we also discovered the sheer power of the American economy rules the world, not these clowns we call politicians.
     
    #5 Space Ghost, Sep 27, 2025
    Last edited: Sep 27, 2025
  6. DaDakota

    DaDakota Fight Facism
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    We are moving towards facism, but it can be stopped, we have to all come together or the USA that we all grew up with and love will dissappear like every other empire before has.

    DD
     
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  7. Amiga

    Amiga Member

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    Outside of a politically stable and ethical system, which I believe is foundational, there are many issues we aren’t dealing with well. In some cases, we are even self-sabotaging in ways that will hurt us.

    Pushing talent away instead of attracting the best.

    Increasing spending on the military instead of reducing it.

    Slowing down investment in renewable energy, which is critical infrastructure for technological advancements (AI and beyond) and for maintaining a high standard of living.

    Destroying the best public health and resarch institution in the world, the CDC/NIH/etcs , along with our public/private infrastructure that produced world-leading health science and its application. Cutting funds for cancer research, a problem that will affect all of us, is especially harmful to advacing our health care. Reform, not destroy.

    Allowing the cost of living to spiral- health care, college, housing, insurance, and child care costs are growing much faster than income, with no solutions. Massive across-the-board tariffs now risk increasing costs on everything.

    Spending far too much to round up nonviolent immigrants instead of laser-focusing on violent criminals. That money could be redirected to address the problems above or pay down the debt.

    Removing information, hiding data, and striking out anything related to climate change, ensuring a failure to plan for and adapt to what is likely the number one cost driver in the coming years, is shooting ourselves in the foot.

    All of these issues are happening while the national debt continues to rise, driven yet again by recent tax relief that mainly benefits top earners and increased spending policies projected to add another $3.4 trillion to the debt over the next 10 years.
     
  8. isaacjunk

    isaacjunk Member

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    Great questions. I think it's key to remember that post WWII Bretton woods was maybe the single longest period of large-power peace and prosperity the free world has ever seen. We are really just coming back to historical norms. Just like boom-bust cycles in emerging markets like Argentina, there are such supercycles even for superpowers. And that's not to say US inveitably must dissolve or become Nazi Germany, but the idea we will easily revert back to that peace and propserity overall is a real historical outlier and should not be the base case
     
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  9. Newlin

    Newlin Member

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    We have a President that is constantly trying to divide the people of this country. I’ve never seen that before. Hopefully, the good people of this country will send a message that is loud and clear that this is not acceptable.
     
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  10. astros123

    astros123 Member
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    Look at the MAGA infested crowd at the ryders cup embarrassing the country by screaming cuss words and throwing beers at players.

    This is what Trump has enabled in America. Low iq individuals
     
  11. No Worries

    No Worries Member

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    Born in 1960.

    I grew up with the Vietnam War, political assassinations (JFK, RFK, MLK), Watergate, Nixon resigning, Hippies, Beatles, Civil Rights marches, etc.

    The decade before me in the 1950s had the Joseph McCarthy hearings, the Red Scare, segregation, adding “under God” into the US Pledge of Allegiance, adding "in God we trust" to the US money, backyard failout shelters, Reagan's "Morning in America", etc.

    Today feels more like the 1950s than the 1960s.
     
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  12. ThatBoyNick

    ThatBoyNick Member

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    The direction is down
     
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  13. StephenAdams

    StephenAdams Member

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    if anything the internet is what has been ruined by algorithms, enshittification, corporate greed

    You cant name a platform thats better than what it once was
     
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  14. cheke64

    cheke64 Member

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    I had the meta quest vr and I was in those social chat rooms, there was no fighting just agreeing. They all agree they've never seen corruption like this.
     
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  15. Nook

    Nook Member

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    This sadly extends across most the globe. Europe is having a really hard time as well. The areas I have recently been that haven’t been as impacted border countries that have been. Even the UK is drifting towards most extreme politics.
     
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  16. Dairy Ashford

    Dairy Ashford Member

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    I think the cold war was still ongoing, violent crime was still increasing and gang violence was penetrating out of alpha city centers to flyovers and the suburbs. economic growth, technology and telecommunications were rapidly expanding. making more opportunities for larger groups. the latter has reached its upper limit, but there's always some kind of positive self-correction after jobs and capital are freed up from old oeople, and recessions allow for cheaper opportunities or economic efficiency. white America seems hellbent on undoing the New Deal and consciously preempting positive outcomes for or integration with blacks and migrant hispanics, so that's gonna suck.
     
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  17. FranchiseBlade

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    One additional thing with the USA currently is the step back in health care. Vaccinations had made measles, and many other diseases almost a non-issue. Sadly that isn't the case anymore. And it seams the arrow is headed the wrong direction with that.
     
  18. Exiled

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    I still think it's the late roaring 1920s , before a total meltdown
     
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  19. ThatBoyNick

    ThatBoyNick Member

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    Globally there seems to be roughly 3 reoccurring problems I see (in highly develop nations, at least).

    1. Globalized capitalism is becoming pretty stream lined and efficient, money is being extracted from the many to the few with less and less room for the normal person to survive as every day passes.

    2. Birthrates and native populations are aging out and declining, our economies are built around growth. This makes mass immigration necessary to deal with the doomsday inverse population tree's. Which then leads to social/cultural/economic turmoil.

    3. The internet/social media/technology is disrupting cultural (and flat out human) norms to an extreme degree creating a vast array of societal issues.


    All 3 of those are pretty connected as well. It's quite a pickle.


    That being said, the US is still a pretty odd cookie that has pretty damn upsetting problems and trends that most other developed nations haven't plunged into so deeply... yet

    The obesity, the violence, the addiction, the extreme wacko individualism that turns its back on family, community and country is especially if not uniquely f*cked here. If the western world were a country and the US a city within it, this would be Vegas... or Sodom.

    All our family is here, it's all we've ever known, economically it's easily by far the best option for us, I know uprooting our life here would be extremely hard and would set back my family significantly from an economic and materialistic standpoint, but I can't shake the feeling that staying here is dooming many future generations to avoidable misery and hardship... I don't think I can accept that.
     
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  20. GOATuve

    GOATuve Member

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    Hopefully not toward Demotrash
     

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