The US had to come to this point. We couldn’t go on as we were, even under Democratic presidents. For 40 years, a narrow economic elite has been siphoning off ever more wealth and power.
Over the last 40 years, starting with Ronald Reagan, the US went off the rails: deregulation, privatization, free trade, wild gambling by Wall Street, union-busting, monopolization, record levels of inequality, stagnant wages for most, staggering wealth for a few, big money taking over our politics.
America’s so-called “leadership class” is a sham. Most of them do not care a whit for the rest of the US. They are out for themselves.
The “fucking nightmare” is not over by any stretch. It’s likely to get worse in 2026 as Trump and his sycophants, and many of America’s “leaders”, realize 2026 may be their last unrestrained year to inflict damage and siphon off the spoils.
Americans have been like this for generations, steadily getting worse. Time’s up.
Except it’s not.
Our culture’s fixation on “endings” is part of what’s killing our stake in the future. Nobody thinks they will live past 40. Nobody wants kids because they think the end is neigh. Nobody is dating or making friends because everyone huddles inside virtual spaces staring at screens telling them “something big is about to happen.”
Either the “big thing” isn’t going to happen, or it’s already happened and we expected it to be more dramatic with credits rolling after. Either way, it goes on. We each have to stay involved, we each have responsibility we didn’t ask for, we’re each part of a social contract that despite slowly withering, we are still connected to.
I think you misunderstand. I’m not American. “Time’s up” means that I’m done waiting and hoping that America will get its shit together, it’s time to treat America as an adversary rather than an ally and move on. The pattern has been clear for a long time, this isn’t new. It’s just reached a point where it can no longer be papered over and ignored.
The “big thing” you’re hoping for - a sudden dramatic move to national sanity by the Americans - isn’t going to happen without generational change and a fundamental shift in world power dynamics happening first.
The Trump administration has effectively destroyed U.S. credibility as a benevolent force in the world, and has shown itself as an unreliable partner in world affairs at best, and well-armed and potentially hostile at worst. Unfortunately, the far-right Trump administration has effective control over all three branches of government, and there are few to no checks on the administration’s power. Fair elections seem unlikely. It will take extreme duress to push the public to what will have to effectively be a revolution to oust those entrenching themselves in power. (Un)Fortunately the upcoming depression, which I’m calling “The Greatest Depression”, may provide that push.
Honestly, even before Trump came along US credibility was on shaky ground. We hadn’t forgotten Iraq, for example. It was just good enough for the most part - you could make a deal with the US and usually expect them to mostly adhere to it as long as it was in their interests.
Now you can’t even expect them to do what’s in their own best interests any more, and the concept of them “sticking to a deal” a moment longer than the point where breaking it gets them an atom of short-term benefit is gone.
Our parents and grandparents let this shit happen. We couldn’t do shit about it, being kids. Don’t expect the last 40-years to represent the next 40.