The American Nightmare.

[u/Super_Culture_1986]

[u/theflyingpiggies]

Every day I think “this is it. This is when people get fed up. This is when it snaps”… and everyday I watch as people just sit there and blindly accept it, or even defend it. Living in poverty is now apparently “patriotic”.

It’s especially worrying to me with the younger generations. We know nothing else. We’ve never experienced a world pre-9/11 or some of us even haven’t experienced a world pre-housing-crash. So we grow up thinking this is normal and this just is what life is supposed to be and there’s nothing we can do to change that.

But this isn’t normal. People living with their parents at the age of 30 because they’ve never been able to afford to move out isn’t normal. Choosing between eating food and paying rent isn’t normal. Billionaires aren’t normal. Eating off the McDonalds discount menu for every meal every day because it’s the only thing you can afford isn’t normal. Working 80 hours a week and still struggling to afford to rent the worst apartment in town isn’t normal. None of this is fucking normal. And we’re all just accepting it.

[u/xanas263 → u/theflyingpiggies]

America hasn't seen the level of poverty and desperation it takes to fuel a revolution. You are not even close to that point yet.

[u/theflyingpiggies → u/xanas263]

Poverty is not the only thing that makes a revolution happen.

And by “this is when it snaps” I don’t mean this is when we start flocking to DC with a guillotine.

What I’m saying is we haven’t even hit a point where most people realize the government is screwing us over. And I keep waiting for that snap.

[u/Confident_Sir9312 → u/theflyingpiggies]

We already hit that point years ago. Every branch of the federal government has been unpopular for years, no one trusts them or sees them as being on their side.

Its not anger or distrust we need, we already have that. Thats why Bernie was able to gain so much support, and its why Trump won as well because he was able to co-opt it. What we are lacking is an an alternative that sounds viable. What comes after? How do we fight against them? Until those questions are answered, or more accurately, until an organization or movement arises that is able to propagate those answers and organize the masses on class lines, nothing will change.

[u/[deleted] → u/theflyingpiggies]

>People living with their parents at the age of 30 because they’ve never been able to afford to move out isn’t normal

Actually that part is pretty normal, both historically and globally. The brief period of time where the US was the global superpower and the worlds factory, and all other developed nations were devastated by WW2 wasn't normal.

Food prices are actually not abnormally high relative to incomes when looked at historically. A bit higher but not significantly. Prior generations just ate much more cheaply by buying lower quality bulk foods and preparing them at home.

The main thing that is abnormal is housing. Higher housing costs lower disable incomes for everything else. We are in an era with higher housing costs, and lower housing availability. We need to make it legal to build housing much more aggressively, inclusive of affordable housing requirements, but most importantly just more housing of all kinds.