The United States is so unhappy now, it’s not the same anymore

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve been all over the place from East to west coast. Everywhere seems depressed and dead. I keep asking everyone where the people are. Last week I was in New Orleans and there were barely any people out in the French quarter. I asked a waiter at cafe du monde what’s up (I know summers there are slow but not this slow) and he said he’s never seen it so bad. I tipped him a $20 on a $7 bill and he nearly cried. A month before I was in San Francisco and it was the same thing. Dead streets and the tourists that line up to watch the sea lions at the pier were non existent. I asked an uber driver what’s going on and he basically they said the foreign tourists didn’t come this year and everyone was hurting plus people who left during covid didn’t come back. Everyone seems depressed and hopeless. I am not pinning it squarely on Trump though. Things are not the same since Covid and this country feels like it’s never going to be the same again.

I mean.... what do you expect? The libs are out there telling foreign tourists its unsafe to come here. Of course they won't.

Wake up you twit. This isn't "the libs" making the US look bad. It's Trump and everyone who supports him.

The foreign tourists are seeing for themselves that the US is no longer a safe place to come to. Like this mom from New Zealand and her 6 year old son who were legally in the US but were snatched by ICE, sent to a detention camp in Texas and held for 3 weeks. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/13/new-zealand-woman-six-year-old-son-ice-detention-us-ntwnfb

This is not about "the libs" - it's about Trump's shitty policies. When you have to deflect with "the libs" your argument has failed.

Liberals evidently can't read. She was detained by ICE when she attempted to re-enter the U.S. when her combo-card visa wasn't fully approved. Her employment visa approved for renewal but not the I-360. The employment visa does not grant you the right to remain in the U.S. The DHS was actually being gracious by allowing her to work all this time while her I-360 was pending. She either callously ignored the laws or didn't educate herself adequately and put her and her son in jeopardy. As a matter of fact, all three of her children were fully approved for their visa renewals so she really had no excuse.

The United States is no longer tolerating illegal immigration or the flagrant disregard of the law. If foreign tourist or migrants cannot abide by them, don't come here. We don't care.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I spent time travelling this summer around the good old US of A. And man, was it depressing. Everyone in their own world, jobless or working too many jobs because one job doesn’t pay great. People cutting way back. A general apathy and hopelessness for the future. People now talking about AI taking jobs which is interesting because the blame used to be immigrants. The feeling that God has failed them and that we are still heading in the wrong direction. It will never be the same I guess. The reality of everything is in front of us. The blinders are off. And when I spoke with people it seemed that most people were just giving up. Anyone else traveling around and seeing or hearing any of this?

Not a bit.

Travel all over US. Regularly interact with all sorts of people and all classes of people.

Life isn’t perfect, esp wrt to prices, but most folks are reasonably content/stable.

If unemployment increases substantially, I expect this to change. But for now, most folks are ok.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I spent time travelling this summer around the good old US of A. And man, was it depressing. Everyone in their own world, jobless or working too many jobs because one job doesn’t pay great. People cutting way back. A general apathy and hopelessness for the future. People now talking about AI taking jobs which is interesting because the blame used to be immigrants. The feeling that God has failed them and that we are still heading in the wrong direction. It will never be the same I guess. The reality of everything is in front of us. The blinders are off. And when I spoke with people it seemed that most people were just giving up. Anyone else traveling around and seeing or hearing any of this?

I agree. And the civility and empathy is nonexistant.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve been all over the place from East to west coast. Everywhere seems depressed and dead. I keep asking everyone where the people are. Last week I was in New Orleans and there were barely any people out in the French quarter. I asked a waiter at cafe du monde what’s up (I know summers there are slow but not this slow) and he said he’s never seen it so bad. I tipped him a $20 on a $7 bill and he nearly cried. A month before I was in San Francisco and it was the same thing. Dead streets and the tourists that line up to watch the sea lions at the pier were non existent. I asked an uber driver what’s going on and he basically they said the foreign tourists didn’t come this year and everyone was hurting plus people who left during covid didn’t come back. Everyone seems depressed and hopeless. I am not pinning it squarely on Trump though. Things are not the same since Covid and this country feels like it’s never going to be the same again.

I mean.... what do you expect? The libs are out there telling foreign tourists its unsafe to come here. Of course they won't.

Wake up you twit. This isn't "the libs" making the US look bad. It's Trump and everyone who supports him.

The foreign tourists are seeing for themselves that the US is no longer a safe place to come to. Like this mom from New Zealand and her 6 year old son who were legally in the US but were snatched by ICE, sent to a detention camp in Texas and held for 3 weeks. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/13/new-zealand-woman-six-year-old-son-ice-detention-us-ntwnfb

This is not about "the libs" - it's about Trump's shitty policies. When you have to deflect with "the libs" your argument has failed.

Liberals evidently can't read. She was detained by ICE when she attempted to re-enter the U.S. when her combo-card visa wasn't fully approved. Her employment visa approved for renewal but not the I-360. The employment visa does not grant you the right to remain in the U.S. The DHS was actually being gracious by allowing her to work all this time while her I-360 was pending. She either callously ignored the laws or didn't educate herself adequately and put her and her son in jeopardy. As a matter of fact, all three of her children were fully approved for their visa renewals so she really had no excuse.

The United States is no longer tolerating illegal immigration or the flagrant disregard of the law. If foreign tourist or migrants cannot abide by them, don't come here. We don't care.

Just so we are clear, you are ok with sending her to a detention center with her children over this.

You are a POS, but I think that you are ok with this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s always been sad in the US. We are overworked. You go to Europe and they have month long vacations for 4-6 weeks during the summer.

Europe's average GDP growth over the past decade is almost half of the US's. All that vacation has a cost.

Maybe GDP is not actually a very helpful measure?

Europeans generally have less stuff and smaller houses, but they have more leisure time and don’t have to worry about bankruptcy because of a health event or obtaining an education.

Trump is forcing them to pay for their defense and equalize tariffs

They're screwed

All these people who are trying to exit to Europe are going to miss out on the biggest wealth gain in American history, based on an illusion of what Europe is like. Americans are so propagandized that they don't realize that Europeans are dramatically poorer. And when they get a serious illness, they are more likely to die because their healthcare is worse.

Only if you have health insurance in the US. Millions are going to be losing their insurance very soon and the level of care available to the uninsured is far below European standards.

Free insurance is available to our poor, so this is a much smaller problem in reality than as a talking point. In reality, we provide medical care to everyone. And we have much better medical care for many reasons, but a huge one is that we have more imaging than they do. If you're French and find a lump in your breast, you'll wait twice as long for an MRI vs a US person in the same predicament.

If getting maximum vacation is fine for you and you're willing to scale down your possessions and spend half of your income, you can just work less and live in the US. It's intellectually dishonest to compare the US and Europe on these issues without pointing out that they have incomes like people in Arkansas and Healthcare wait times that would shock Americans. Or that they are 10% more likely to die when diagnosed with cancer. These are very relevant facts when comparing quality of life. I would be able to move to Europe and get citizenship very easily and choose not to for quality of life reasons.

That's funny. I have a friend in NC. She'd had breast cancer, surgery, remission (it was stage 2 that time). 7 years later she has breast cancer again, stage 4. But her insurance grumbled about the chest x-ray she had (symptom was a nagging cough), refused MRI for 2 months, then refused a PET scan altogether (had something to do with identifying the cancer type as I recall). Luckily she got 9into a study and has been doing very, very well for a few years now.

But . . . polls in at least some red states show that MAGA is (so far) pretty happy over Trump's handling of tariffs. Basically they like politics been handled like pro wrestling I guess.

That's terrible that your friend went through that. I'm a breast cancer survivor as well, and have looked closely into breast cancer survival rates in Europe vs the US, in part, so I can make choices on where to reside in retirement. While your friend had a very unfortunate experience, survival rate in Europe is lower (varies between 10-30% lower depending on the location in Europe).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s always been sad in the US. We are overworked. You go to Europe and they have month long vacations for 4-6 weeks during the summer.

My current goal is to move to Europe.

How will it be better?

The food is also better in the EU. Less pesticides and chemicals

At least I will have more than two weeks of vacation a yea, universal health insurance, and public transportation so I don't have to sit in traffic jams twice a day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A few vocally unhappy people don't make for a population which is universally unhappy. I don't recognize anything like this where I live or have travelled, probably because the vast majority of people are fine, are patient, and voted for what they have now over what they had previously.

It's not a few. You need to visit places that aren't wealthy enclaves. MOST Americans are struggling to make ends meet, their wages have stagnated while their housing, food and utility expenses and everything else have increased, most barely have any meaningful amount of money in their savings accounts, or are buried in debt. And "being patient" isn't going to solve any of it. Trump is not bringing any real solutions for that stuff, despite his promises. Tariffs come out of the pockets of consumers, passed along from importers to wholesalers to retailers and so on. Trump isn't bringing costs down. Trump isn't boosting wages up. MOST Americans aren't able to sit back like you and say "hey things are great, my brokerage account is going up" because they don't even have the luxury of being able to invest. You are woefully out of touch.

This doesn't make any sense. You guys constantly tell us that only poor people like Trump, and that Trump supporters are entirely uncritical of him or his policies. You need to find a story and stick to it. I'm a Trump supporter and I'm thrilled with his policies.

Your fine with cancer research being cut for kids, 17 million being kicked off medicade. It’s not a republican-democratic thing anymore. If you voted for Trump, you have no soul.
Civilians are being arrested. What policies do you like? He lied to his supporters.
He said he’d have a new health care plan every two weeks his first term. Didn’t happen- he promised a big beautiful wall-didn’t happen- to end Ukraine war on day 1, not to mention he said he bought a teen pageant and would walk in while they were undressing. You guys are just too far gone

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve been all over the place from East to west coast. Everywhere seems depressed and dead. I keep asking everyone where the people are. Last week I was in New Orleans and there were barely any people out in the French quarter. I asked a waiter at cafe du monde what’s up (I know summers there are slow but not this slow) and he said he’s never seen it so bad. I tipped him a $20 on a $7 bill and he nearly cried. A month before I was in San Francisco and it was the same thing. Dead streets and the tourists that line up to watch the sea lions at the pier were non existent. I asked an uber driver what’s going on and he basically they said the foreign tourists didn’t come this year and everyone was hurting plus people who left during covid didn’t come back. Everyone seems depressed and hopeless. I am not pinning it squarely on Trump though. Things are not the same since Covid and this country feels like it’s never going to be the same again.

I mean.... what do you expect? The libs are out there telling foreign tourists its unsafe to come here. Of course they won't.

Wake up you twit. This isn't "the libs" making the US look bad. It's Trump and everyone who supports him.

The foreign tourists are seeing for themselves that the US is no longer a safe place to come to. Like this mom from New Zealand and her 6 year old son who were legally in the US but were snatched by ICE, sent to a detention camp in Texas and held for 3 weeks. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/13/new-zealand-woman-six-year-old-son-ice-detention-us-ntwnfb

This is not about "the libs" - it's about Trump's shitty policies. When you have to deflect with "the libs" your argument has failed.

Liberals evidently can't read. She was detained by ICE when she attempted to re-enter the U.S. when her combo-card visa wasn't fully approved. Her employment visa approved for renewal but not the I-360. The employment visa does not grant you the right to remain in the U.S. The DHS was actually being gracious by allowing her to work all this time while her I-360 was pending. She either callously ignored the laws or didn't educate herself adequately and put her and her son in jeopardy. As a matter of fact, all three of her children were fully approved for their visa renewals so she really had no excuse.

The United States is no longer tolerating illegal immigration or the flagrant disregard of the law. If foreign tourist or migrants cannot abide by them, don't come here. We don't care.

Just so we are clear, you are ok with sending her to a detention center with her children over this.

You are a POS, but I think that you are ok with this.

So is your mother. And no, I am not okay with it personally, however this is the law. An immigration processing facility is where they bring immigrants who don't have the proper or fully approved status to remain in the U.S. She was sent with her son so they wouldn't be seperated (since you all went into hysterics the last time that happened).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I spent time travelling this summer around the good old US of A. And man, was it depressing. Everyone in their own world, jobless or working too many jobs because one job doesn’t pay great. People cutting way back. A general apathy and hopelessness for the future. People now talking about AI taking jobs which is interesting because the blame used to be immigrants. The feeling that God has failed them and that we are still heading in the wrong direction. It will never be the same I guess. The reality of everything is in front of us. The blinders are off. And when I spoke with people it seemed that most people were just giving up. Anyone else traveling around and seeing or hearing any of this?

I say this with kindness. I think youre hanging around some bad influences. The world is not this bleak.

We have masked men breaking car windows and dragging people from their cars just because they have brown skin. I'm currently in Berlin and people are freaked the F out what is happening in the US. And, yes, before you start, they know they have their own brownshirts. But NOTHING compares to what is happening in DC. It's straight up fascism. If people don't see that, I don't know what to say. There is ZERO excuse for this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I spent time travelling this summer around the good old US of A. And man, was it depressing. Everyone in their own world, jobless or working too many jobs because one job doesn’t pay great. People cutting way back. A general apathy and hopelessness for the future. People now talking about AI taking jobs which is interesting because the blame used to be immigrants. The feeling that God has failed them and that we are still heading in the wrong direction. It will never be the same I guess. The reality of everything is in front of us. The blinders are off. And when I spoke with people it seemed that most people were just giving up. Anyone else traveling around and seeing or hearing any of this?

Since March I’ve been to Paris, Dublin, Dallas, NYC, Chicago, OBX and Cape Cod. I saw none of what you describe above. Do you travel alone? I’ve never had the time or inclination to delve into the mental and financial health of complete strangers. I most definitely wouldn’t be able to discern the spending habits of the people that inhabit the places I’ve been. It sounds like you’re staying in homeless shelters.

DP and I agree. We travelled extensively this summer: to New England, the Midwest, the OBX, and Florida. We went to farmer’s markets, cities, parks, and national landmarks. I saw absolutely nothing like the OP described.

I think there’s a mindset at play here. If you want to find misery, you will absolutely find it.

So you are ok with having troops in the Capitol doing check points? When did we become Russia?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve been all over the place from East to west coast. Everywhere seems depressed and dead. I keep asking everyone where the people are. Last week I was in New Orleans and there were barely any people out in the French quarter. I asked a waiter at cafe du monde what’s up (I know summers there are slow but not this slow) and he said he’s never seen it so bad. I tipped him a $20 on a $7 bill and he nearly cried. A month before I was in San Francisco and it was the same thing. Dead streets and the tourists that line up to watch the sea lions at the pier were non existent. I asked an uber driver what’s going on and he basically they said the foreign tourists didn’t come this year and everyone was hurting plus people who left during covid didn’t come back. Everyone seems depressed and hopeless. I am not pinning it squarely on Trump though. Things are not the same since Covid and this country feels like it’s never going to be the same again.

I mean.... what do you expect? The libs are out there telling foreign tourists its unsafe to come here. Of course they won't.

Wake up you twit. This isn't "the libs" making the US look bad. It's Trump and everyone who supports him.

The foreign tourists are seeing for themselves that the US is no longer a safe place to come to. Like this mom from New Zealand and her 6 year old son who were legally in the US but were snatched by ICE, sent to a detention camp in Texas and held for 3 weeks. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/13/new-zealand-woman-six-year-old-son-ice-detention-us-ntwnfb

This is not about "the libs" - it's about Trump's shitty policies. When you have to deflect with "the libs" your argument has failed.

Liberals evidently can't read. She was detained by ICE when she attempted to re-enter the U.S. when her combo-card visa wasn't fully approved. Her employment visa approved for renewal but not the I-360. The employment visa does not grant you the right to remain in the U.S. The DHS was actually being gracious by allowing her to work all this time while her I-360 was pending. She either callously ignored the laws or didn't educate herself adequately and put her and her son in jeopardy. As a matter of fact, all three of her children were fully approved for their visa renewals so she really had no excuse.

The United States is no longer tolerating illegal immigration or the flagrant disregard of the law. If foreign tourist or migrants cannot abide by them, don't come here. We don't care.

Just so we are clear, you are ok with sending her to a detention center with her children over this.

You are a POS, but I think that you are ok with this.

So is your mother. And no, I am not okay with it personally, however this is the law. An immigration processing facility is where they bring immigrants who don't have the proper or fully approved status to remain in the U.S. She was sent with her son so they wouldn't be seperated (since you all went into hysterics the last time that happened).

Hysteria is a proper response to children being separated from their parents in any circumstance.

Focusing on completely securing the border, deporting as many undocumented immigrants who have committed crimes as possible, and immigration reform law that makes it easier for the economic migrants we need to come here legally are all reasonable priorities. Putting working moms and their children in detention facilities amounts to ugly theatrics and a useless manner in which to address real problems.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The US is a bunch of smaller nations standing on each others shoulders wearing a trench coat pretending to be a single nation.

You can't have a national policy for what are essentially dozens of nations. No one ends up happy and every election is eschatological.

It will go on this way until everything breaks up into more coherent and smaller nations.

The good news is that it should only take another decade.

This is the the Republican agenda. One nation, small government. Democrats created the bloated federal agencies and power structure we have now. Trump is actually trying to give power back to them by eliminating these bureaucracies and send it back to the states so they can make their own decisions. But they want to be histrionic instead of seeing this as a logistical opportunity. Dispelling none of the rumors that they're real agenda is indoctrination rather than democracy.

MAGA doesn't want small government, they want a king. They want the federal gov to tell us how to live, who to love, when to have babies. They want women subjugated, Black people to know their place, and brown people to be gone. They want business to run unregulated, pollute our air and water and social media to keep us engaged and enraged.

Prove overwise.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I spent time travelling this summer around the good old US of A. And man, was it depressing. Everyone in their own world, jobless or working too many jobs because one job doesn’t pay great. People cutting way back. A general apathy and hopelessness for the future. People now talking about AI taking jobs which is interesting because the blame used to be immigrants. The feeling that God has failed them and that we are still heading in the wrong direction. It will never be the same I guess. The reality of everything is in front of us. The blinders are off. And when I spoke with people it seemed that most people were just giving up. Anyone else traveling around and seeing or hearing any of this?

I say this with kindness. I think youre hanging around some bad influences. The world is not this bleak.

We have masked men breaking car windows and dragging people from their cars just because they have brown skin. I'm currently in Berlin and people are freaked the F out what is happening in the US. And, yes, before you start, they know they have their own brownshirts. But NOTHING compares to what is happening in DC. It's straight up fascism. If people don't see that, I don't know what to say. There is ZERO excuse for this.

That isn't actually happening though. There are ICE raids to detain illegal immigrants. Their skin color isnt a factor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A few vocally unhappy people don't make for a population which is universally unhappy. I don't recognize anything like this where I live or have travelled, probably because the vast majority of people are fine, are patient, and voted for what they have now over what they had previously.

It's not a few. You need to visit places that aren't wealthy enclaves. MOST Americans are struggling to make ends meet, their wages have stagnated while their housing, food and utility expenses and everything else have increased, most barely have any meaningful amount of money in their savings accounts, or are buried in debt. And "being patient" isn't going to solve any of it. Trump is not bringing any real solutions for that stuff, despite his promises. Tariffs come out of the pockets of consumers, passed along from importers to wholesalers to retailers and so on. Trump isn't bringing costs down. Trump isn't boosting wages up. MOST Americans aren't able to sit back like you and say "hey things are great, my brokerage account is going up" because they don't even have the luxury of being able to invest. You are woefully out of touch.

This doesn't make any sense. You guys constantly tell us that only poor people like Trump, and that Trump supporters are entirely uncritical of him or his policies. You need to find a story and stick to it. I'm a Trump supporter and I'm thrilled with his policies.

That’s a misread of the argument. Perhaps an intentional one since you don't seem to have a genuinely cogent or relevant response.

There are poor people who support Trump, and poor people who support Democrats. The point is this: poverty and economic precarity persist regardless of political allegiance. If you're still cheering policies that haven't improved wages, housing, or healthcare for working-class Americans, then the frustration isn't misplaced - it's misdirected. Loyalty to a politician doesn’t erase the reality that millions are struggling while the system keeps failing them.

[Anonymous]

The current Trump regime is going to inspire urban supremacy candidates. That is, candidates who push a City First agenda.

You can’t shove around the economic hubs of this country -Blue cities - without there being a massive backlash against the people and places who enabled all of this.