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The amount of propaganda we're subject to here is just astounding. News programs, print media, billboards, web articles, everywhere. Just looking at the way a given issue is framed completely differently in different states or cities or from different news sources is pretty eye opening. That, combined with rampant gerrymandering, makes it really hard to blame voters for voting against their self-interest; we're just being bombarded with media designed to make us think, act and vote a certain way. I'm completely sure my own views are influenced by it, too, to be clear - I'm not claiming to be some pillar of purity.
It's not that Americans are 'bad people' any more than the people in any other country are. It's just that a relatively few voices are given very large platforms and basically dictate the discourse.
Yeah, ok.
I don't want to speak for the OP, but... I'm guessing that's what they're saying.
I mean, this issue is not on the ballot elsewhere. Even conservatives who are actively trying to dismantle public health care won't dare suggest that they want less public health care. At most they'll tell you they found ways to invest more and then turn around and give that money to private managers. You certainly broke through the propaganda. I don't think I've spoken to an American anywhere who has made a case for the current health care system. Polls suggest this issue, among other "aren't Americans weird" stuff are wildly impopular with the actual population.
But I also constantly hear from Americans that it's impossible to turn it around, that candidates who support these common sense moves are unelectable and that there is nothing they could ever do about it.
That part is what I don't get. I mean, I'm familiar with elections not going my way, it happens to everybody, but holy crap. There's a reason why this is not on the ballot elsewhere. You wouldn't need an election to figure this out. Even in countries with the bare minimum of democratic guarantees and no money you would have the mother of all endless riots under these circumstances.
Me, personally, I'm not so much judgemental of the American public as I am baffled at their defeatism and conformism.
Have we broken through the propaganda, though? Shit, just look at the pushback around Obamacare (which while certainly not ideal was the best public option health care we've had available in my lifetime) - there was so much negative press that people just didn't have any idea how it was actually benefitting them. There's an old Facebook thread that gets posted from time to time with someone railing against Obamacare while not even realizing they were using it to get coverage.
I think the biggest thing that a lot of folks from outside the US - especially those in Europe - don't understand is just how big this country is. We are around 96% as large as the whole of Europe, with about half the population. The BLM protests was the most widespread activism we've managed that I can remember, and that was squashed pretty easily. It's incredibly difficult to get a significant part of the US to coordinate on anything activism-related, and that's really what it would take to make a difference, I think.
Yeah, I keep hearing the "you don't get how big it is" thing, too.
I get how big it is.
European agriculture workers just reversed EU-wide policy as recently as last week by blocking major roads throughout the continent with tractors. They didn't even agree with each other (half those guys are pissed at the other guys for being too competitive), and the regulations they opposed were climate protection regulations, among other more reasonable things, so this isn't necessarily a feel-good story.
But they won.
They didn't even have to try that hard, honestly. Besides mild traffic jams and some tense standoffs with police it was all pretty mild. And yet politicians across the entire continent, over multiple countries, were terrified of the optics of working class people protesting in loose coordination, especially with right wing parties trying to co-opt their anger.
I get how big it is. The size is not the reason.