We’ve been breaking treaties for as long as we’ve been a country, just ask the remnants of the native peoples. We’ve had brief, shining periods as a force for good or scientific achievement, but mostly it’s a big, racist shithole.

Every time we “do stuff” the mainstream media seizes the narrative and blocks popular support. The big thing from my region was CHAZ… a protest occupying ten city blocks for almost a month in response to police brutality. National media convinced the Right that we burned down Seattle, cops threw a fit and stopped doing their jobs, and if anything things are worse now for having tried.

We need enough general unrest that when things get violent, and they will, they can’t monopolize the narrative and send in the military. And even then I think the Right wins that war unless other countries are willing to help.

They can have Kentucky, but I’d fight for the PNW. We shouldn’t be one big country anyway.

Yep. I’m a cishet white dude but even just as an atheist I’ve never been a “real” American in the eyes of far too many. And now the Christofascists are seizing control.

What part of the country already felt hostile? The South or some flyover state?

Marginally superior. They’ve got their own problems with right-wing politics, genocidal past and continued mistreatment of native peoples, foreign investors upending local economies, unsustainable extraction of natural resources, and they’re still connected to a heriditary monarchy for fucks sake. But they have better healthcare and safer cops.

It should be a hell of a lot higher, but the people with the power to change it are the only people who would be punished, so…

All nationalism is bad nationalism because it necessitates a narrative of exceptionalism and lessers.

Well I was born well after McCarthyism destroyed all semblance of good-faith discussion of leftist politics, and the current world order is not just America’s fault. Rupert Murdoch has been one of the most influential figures in that regard, his propaganda apparatus has pushed the entire Anglosphere right.

Many Americans don’t to be like us either, but we seem to be losing.

I’ve got bad news about every country on Earth.

Grain is also fruit, botanically speaking.

“If we hold the country hostage, they’ll definitely do what I want before the opposition makes everything irreversibly worse.”

“Then we’ll put you in the crooked home we saw on 60 Minutes!”

Good news! We made the Torment Nexus from the hit book “Don’t Create the Torment Nexus!”

He’s talked about it a bit in response to criticism, IIRC he said his producer kinda set him up for failure. I’m pretty sure it comes up here https://youtu.be/ENhfIeZF_AY?si=KHczjpQYCkBgTGaG (long video but very much worth it if you care about food)

At least they’re hydrating potato chips. Kidney failure is a big problem for cats, sticking to an all-wet diet is already better than average.

Including large swaths of the US. Florida is looking pretty sketch lately.