womenby

American's experience of politics, unless you're actually politically active, tends to consistent entirely of propaganda from news media, streamers, movies, pop culture. We're a deeply, deeply de-politicized society. Most of the big popular organizations that would drive political life - unions, student unions and orgs, have been effectively neutralized for generatins. Student activism is a thing, but you have to actively look for it, otherwise it's very easy to just walk by and ignore it.

There are many, many people here who lead an active political life organizing and participating, but they're a minority of the population. For most people politics is yelling at a figure on the screen and voting once every four years.

I think if you grow up religious it might be different because politics and religion become one and the same but otherwise no. Labor/student organization especially does not play a role in the vast majority of people's lives.

Yeah that stuff never happens here. The university I went to didn't have a student union. I don't think we had political student groups at all even. Teachers aren't allowed to strike in the state I live in (no public sector workers are), and very few private sector workers are unionized.

Politics means hearing about what the Republicans or Democrats are up to on corporate media, then voting for one of them every four years (if you're really politically active, you vote in local elections, congressional elections, etc. In off years). Being into politics means you watch streamers or tiktoks that talk about politics, then you post and argue with people online and off. You don't do anything other than vote and talk - there is nothing else you can do, except maybe go to some useless match or protest (these are EXTREMELY rare; we had one here for George Floyd, it was crushed by the cops with gas and shit. And that's basically it).

Politics is something politicians do. You root for or against them, have opinions on what they're up to. And that's if you're someone who cares about it. Plenty of people don't pay any attention to it. The idea that you can do politics is completely foreign to the amerikkkan mind.

Can't speak to how things have been in the past 15-20 years, but when I was growing up, and in particular in high school, it felt like there certainly were actions like those you mentioned (school walkouts and such). But I also think that politics in the US has been so captured by liberals/conservatives that those actions often occur within that duopoly. So like in high school a lot of my classmates did anti-Iraq War protests and generally were against Bush.

Which is the problem. A lot of those actions were against one party and not the entire system. It always felt a bit weird how anytime I would mention taking more significant action against Bush, it'd draw laughs and how when I talked about voting third party (Nader at the time) people would look at me a bit funny. That's just how things are here.

This word salaf is my one experience/anecdotal. Take it with a grain of salt.

Grew up as a military brat, so experience is different from most Americans, but there's a ton of effort that goes into indoctrination. I think, from the military/DoD side of things, it can either be very effective or have the opposite affect, and that entirely depends on your family and who you have access to. I had the benefit of being able to travel parts of Europe and N. Africa growing up that exposed me to a whole lot. It was foundational to my "radicalization" or whatever. If I hadn't, I would be a very different and extremely miserable person. There were still growing pains (you are not immune to propaganda, yada yada), but the US cultivates a certain mindset among it's population and it is VERY heavy handed in and around military bases.

It's a different mindset from what you may find in, let's say, backwater racism from, rural Alabama or Texas (which, is another unfortunate part of my history). One is born from a instilled need to preserve the state, authoritarian power, etc. The other is heavily derived from ignorance and fear (which, is also usually instilled, but by the church rather than the state).

Before the easy and rapid dissemination of information we have now (last 20-25 years?), even with the internet there was a stranglehold on how people in the US could engage outside of their own bubble. The US is incredibly massive, compared to Europe, and it was extremely easy to grow up with only input from your local environment. If it's especially isolated (military base, rural town, etc), you don't get ANY exposure to different cultures or conflicting opinions. It was easy to grow up not having to knowledge to even acknowledge your own queerness or neurodivergence. This isn't to say that information didn't travel at all before, but it is very different experience to have a black mirror of forbidden knowledge live in your pocket everyday vs getting it from radio, TV, newspapers, etc.

So, with the turn of the millennia and the changing digital landscape, anything "being" a pipeline makes sense. It's so readily available and accessible now. Hell, I live in a relatively large city (I say city sparingly, it ain't NYC), and there are protests plenty near the city hall or Tesla dealerships, and my ability to engage with them or even see them is so miniscule, because of how sprawling and wide our infrastructure is. I only know they exist because of local social media channels, or posts from people I know who live closer to the scene. I cannot overstate the expansiveness of American infrastructure compared to Europe. The portions of our population that encounter politics growing up (AND recognize it) is small. I will note that this an incredibly white take. Marginalized communities are going to be more in touch with the political landscape, because they are forced to engage with it. I will dare to say that the majority of US leftism is driven by them, especially prior to the information age.