As a child coming from communism, I know it’s not that bad as it was there and I believe or think the problem here is more about fascism but either way, I think I am just confused???

Full disclosure #1: Lemmy has a lot of communists and anarchists. The Lemmy developers are communists and IMO it informs the design of the site. Lemmy.world has a liberal anti-communist bent IMO.

Full disclosure #2: I am an anarcho-communist, i.e. a libertarian communist in the vein of Peter Kropotkin. Anarcho-communists and state communists have a glorious history of fighting like cats 😆.

Full disclosure #3: I had a nice upbringing with a white family and I had lived in a rich American suburb for almost my whole life. Most people in my position are simply too comfortable to talk like I do.

So here is what I actually want to talk about: it’s pretty bad here in America for most people! It’s worse than a third-world country in the rural deep South. Everywhere in the US, black and indigenous people are at best second-class citizens everywhere in the country, a system designed from the ground up to keep black people subservient and destroy indigenous people and uphold white supremacy. And Sinophobia has been a driving force in American politics since the 1800s. And we interned Japanese people during WWII, and even some Democrats use that historical comparison to justify what is happening to people detained by ICE. Healthcare is hard to get even for wealthy people. Mental healthcare is almost non-existent. Homelessness is answered by cops. School shootings are so routine that they rarely make national news anymore. Almost everyone is one big medical incident or one missed paycheck from homelessness. Our privacy has been gone for decades; we voluntarily carry mobile surveillance devices (cellphones) in our pockets. Workers have almost no rights. Dissent is only tolerated if it doesn’t threaten power, and while it’s worse under Trump, it was never really tolerated under any administration. The cops are tyrannical and completely unaccountable. We have the highest prison population per capita on the planet. We spend the most money by far on our military. Schools are physically crumbling and there is a teacher shortage because we don’t pay them enough. Infrastructure is crumbling and needs to be repaired, and even if we do repair it, it’s car-centric infrastructure so you basically have to have a car to survive in this country. Higher education is incredibly expensive but simultaneously expected even for entry level positions…which people aren’t even hiring for anymore, even in traditionally “safe” fields like engineering.

I could go on and on and on. And everything above applies during and before the Trump administration, and it will almost certainly apply afterwards as well, because we don’t have an organized left and the Democrats are basically diet right-wingers who are literally paid not to rock the boat.

Honestly: everything sucks here, we’ve been on the brink of a civil war for decades, and the only reason I haven’t left yet is because I don’t have the money to make the move. If I ever found the money to do so, I’d drop all my shit and be on a plane out of this shithole without even kissing my parents goodbye. I genuinely do not understand why people come here (although I welcome you nonetheless!) if you could go almost anywhere else.

I’m not saying it’s not bad wherever you’re from. Just that it’s not good here and that you kinda need to expect that things are going to be trash in order to not get trampled.