In us bribes are legal and are called "lobbying". It was a broken country from the very start.

They buy into propaganda very easily, also being complacent all the time made them somewhat selfish and arrogant. Also right wing propaganda against anything sounding "socialist" even though there is no true left in the USA, everyone is right wing in America, magats are the furthest right , the rest are just center right

I grew up in WNC and the rural people are really stupid and myopic in their views. This makes people easy to manipulate through religion. I have there relatives and high school peers to prove it. These people are deeply uncurious. While they are screaming about being a free thinker and not being woke, they are being led around by their noses by their preachers and deacons.

Yes and forgetful as well. Utterly unable to learn from history since the history they are taught is whitewashed.

First, your premise is inflammatory and I'm pretty sure it's intentional, so apology not accepted.

Second, this is not a uniquely American problem. The UK, for example, has been dealing with the rising conservatism, the dismantling of their government, the privatization of major public services like the rail network, etc. This is the natural conclusion of that process: oligarchs gain so much power they can outright buy presidential elections and accelerate the trend toward fascism. Lots of people have seen this coming, but we can only vote so hard.

Somehow related, I have also questions as an European (Belgian) who then observe what is happening right now in the USA with curiosity (and fear to be honest). Please don't take any offense in this question, the purpose is, for me, to understand, not criticize Americans at all. I work with plenty of them who don't look stupid at all (but I'll never dare to speak politics with colleagues, a bit of a "touchy" topic with people you don't know well).

In my country, we have got a new government almost at the same time Trump was inaugurated. They plan to do some changes to the way some aspects of our society is, changes that are a bit difficult for some categories of the population but really nothing like in the USA. Anyway, since January, there have been strikes, protests, people going in the streets,...

Why are we not seeing such things in the USA? I would have thought that there will be millions of people in the streets protesting against the F-gesture done to democracy, LGBT rights, women rights, nonsense with economy (tarriff, that at the end the "middle class workers" will have to pay) and foreign politics but, as far as we are aware here in Europe, I seen no such protests. The only action I seen is some boycott of Tesla.

• Is it a cultural difference with Europe (and other parts of the world) to not go in the streets?
• Are those occurring but the medias do not inform us on it?
• Are people scared to protest?
• Or, people just don't care or are even, in majority, happy with what happens now?

It's not just the US. It's the electoral system and the lack of checks and balances. There are just as many frigging idiots elsewhere, but they're less likely to gain power and if they do, they can often not get away with anything because judges aren't political appointments.

Parties and what they represent evolve over time. America is going through a rapid evolution currently.

Since the end of the Cold War America has pursued or engaged in free trade and Neo Liberalism and the War on Terror.

The result is there are significant sections of the populace that feel left behind by our economy as wealth inequality builds. They see their jobs going over seas and an ineffectual government that has failed at protecting them economically and has failed in the War on Terror. Add to it a powerful propaganda machine in the form of our news and social media and it is a recipe for change… What that change will end up shaping into may not be the future you want.

This is the backlash. After the Democratic establishment has ignored unions and the working man. Leaving them open to the populist out reach of Donald Trump.

Never mind that Trump will never deliver any of what he promised. The fact is he now has the power and is using it to break up the system that has been in place since WW2. Which benefits a small number of oligarchs who want to cement their power over the US.

I suspect we will see a shift in the next mid-term election (if it takes place) and a realignment of the Democratic Party toward populism. We as a people have to figure out how to fight corporate propaganda and their hegemony over social media.

That is if Trump doesn’t kill our Democracy first.

When I was a child i gree up around red Republicans and insane wealth. Yes. The answer is yes. And rich people hate accountability and always get away with being shitty.

The religious ones

My dude I grew up in a cult in Statesia. Unserious and not allowed to question is my childhood.

America is at new records of stupid.

the same % of Americans have always been stupid. but for a long time it was honest ignorance that made them pliable, in small communities, to conmen.. who quickly worked their con and moved on to the next town.

But thanks to the internet connecting disparate crazies, and elevating crazy to a mainstream voice, and then hostile foreign powers elevating that further on social media thanks to the internet, giving it a heavy dose of false legitimacy.. its devolved into a unique bouillabaisse of cromagnum hyper-idiocy the likes the world probably has never seen before.

and thank to isolated media bubbles like Fox News and OANN, it will only continue to get worse and worse.

America is a slavery built colony started by a bunch of bigots.

Ladies, gentlemen, enbys, and others: Karma whoring has come to Lemmy.

I think it just comes down to racism. Once the Civil Rights Movement happened all that collectivism disappeared because it had always been white supremacy masquerading as collectivism. Once all the diverse peoples of the USA were to benefit from that collectivism, the whites very quickly changed their minds about the socialist policies they’d put in place. Obviously I don’t mean the whites as if they’re a monolith, but it was enough of them to get the system to go in a different direction.

My theory is that it's brain atrophy, not stupidity.

Americans are not stupid in the sense that they can't learn and do things. They are perfectly capable to work in a bank, fix a car, fly a plane or be a doctor. But even if they do work as as accountant or a surgeon (like Ben Carson...) they rarely use brains for analytical thinking. They don't have to. School is easy (you can just play sports), finding job used to be easy, buying home used to be easy, you were born into one political party and just followed it. You drive your huge car on endless highways surrounded by aesthetically sterile malls, eat your burgers, watch some football and that's it. No need to analyze things so your brain kind of forgets how to do it.

Eventually the country split into the curious part that actually wants to study and understand things and the "stupid" part that just consumes propaganda and votes for Trump. As some point the "stupid" part became the majority. Now not everything is that easy for young people but I think it's too late.