State of the Union, swirling down the tubes?

[Entropist]

There definitely needs to be a big overhaul in America. People these days are so afraid to change anything, especially something as big as the government. But it can be done, and it needs to be done. We need more trust in this country, more compassion and understanding. We need to stop letting the government feed us bullshit issues, drugs, and lies. The important things like public health, economic stability, and US foreign relations need to be put back on track, and equal rights movements need to step up their game.

And that's where the revolution will come in.

I wish I were as optimistic about that, really. First US Americans need to want to stop being lied to. We don't want it enough. For all the talk of many discontent US Americans, I don't think they are discontent enough. The government is not the only culprit here, the people are. I think the problem here is largely cultural as well as political-- and I'm not referring simply to these superficial "culture wars" but something that runs a lot deeper than that, and a lot further back than that-- especially the overt anti-intellectual streak that has always run strong here; the "social darwinist" / lassez faire / libertarian mirage; US American exceptionalism; a gun-obsessed culture-- just to name a few cultural issues that most ordinary US Americans buy into to some extent or other. And then when those cultural ideas are tapped into by political parties, the nightmare only gets worse: the Southern Strategy, which is basically one huge sideshow to make sure the conservatives are always in power-- even when they aren't in power. Nixon and Reagan are "liberals" now, compared to many Republicans (and even some democrats) today. Most of the other somewhat liberal Dems are too busy trying to not give a bad impression ("oh, I like bombing the shit out of people too!" etc) that they are ineffectual-- at best. There is no Left left here except in a handful of third parties which of course, the vast majority has already written off as pointless (and the electoral college pretty much guarantees they'll get no traction).