The reason I mentioned the previous administration was because you said that there are deeply disturbing things going on "at the moment". I'm pointing out that it's nothing new. Did you have the same concerns first time around?
Tbf - ask any American to point out any country on a map and they will struggle. No political persuasion involved.
The funny thing about this video is that it's from the Jimmy Kimmel show, asking passersby (not political in any way), can they name a country. Ted Cruz apparently did what this poster did only in reverse. He posted it with the caption 'Bernie Sanders base'.
No, because the same things weren't happening. I've always thought the US is a lost and broken society, it now seems to me to be entering the final stages of social collapse. I hope I'm wrong, btw.
Maybe there is some hope when one of its richest citizens paid to put this out. please log in to view this image
This is the part of this conversation that I shy away from because I see the US very differently. However, if we were talking about our own country, I would strongly agree.
Yeah, I don't think the poster is trying to imply they're all MAGA supporters (that's not my take anyway), but that the challenge to the MAGA base's new imperial ambitions is that your average US citizen (of any persuasion) can't find Greenland, Ukraine, or even Canada on a map, in some cases. I saw something similar a while back that said 75% of Americans will never even leave their state in their lifetime, let alone their country. Don't know if that's true, but the way they don't seem to understand that the vast majority of Canadians and Greenlanders don't want to be part of the US would tally with that.
Lots of problems here, but they pale in comparison to the US. It is technologically advanced but socially ******ed. Education Health care Gun crime Prison population Poverty Racism (still) For the most advanced country in the world (for the moment at least), all of these things are at shockingly abysmal levels. I'm at a loss to see how anyone can see those things differently, they're just facts.
I'd say the average American definitely has much smaller geographic scope than the average European... but videos like that are definitely edited to only show the people who are truly clueless. You can graduate from the American school system without ever having taken a geography class, so not surprising some know nothing. I'm sure the vast majority could identify the US, Canada and Mexico, if nothing else.
I think all the Canada / Greenland talk is just Trump flexing. He's got no real desire to do any of it. Lots of quotes from Trump supporters saying as much with many loving the fact that he's, let's say, economical with the truth because it enrages his detractors. Go figure.
I don't know. Church attendance has dropped by between 50% and 70% (depending on who you trust it's one of those figures) since Trump was elected... some things are moving in the right direction! Joking aside, this happened to a much lower degree last time he got elected too, and they slowly came back when he left office- but when a President releases his own version of the bible, edited to agree with his politics, it's no reason some people feel alienated from organized religion (I mean, that's selling goods in the Temple of Jerusalem level blasphemy right there). There's quite a number of churches that are talking about closing doors for good this time around though because they're not economically viable to stay open. A bit ironic for a politician who courts the evangelical base- but when people see their religion being used as a political tool and an instrument of hate, many of them leave.
The thing is, it's hard to tell. People said he wasn't really going to lead a coup when he got voted out last time... he said he wasn't going to accept the election results and he didn't. People said he wouldn't really try dismantling the Department of education, but he did. He says things and people say he doesn't mean it... and then he does it. It's possible the whole Canada thing is trying to bully Canada into doing what he wants, it's possible he really wants to try and do it. The problem is, he's going to paint himself into a corner where he has to do something or lose face and we all know he doesn't want to lose face.
Hmm, not so sure. The Greenlanders are getting incredibly nervous about it to the extent that Vance's wife (and later Shady himself) have had to call off the public events they invited themselves to there, with reports that they had staff knocking on doors in the capital asking if anyone wanted to meet the VP and second lady when they came, only to be told by every one that they most certainly did not. And the mineral potential in Greenland dwarfs even the potential deals in Ukraine. Trump's sons certainly know that. And he did seem genuinely perplexed to discover that, despite all his musings to the contrary, a huge, huge majority of Canadians have no wish whatsoever to become US citizens. His one-dimensional, transactional mind just doesn't comprehend or have empathy with any other mindset apart from his own.
You're right. It wouldn't be any fun watching lots of people actually being able to identify countries. I've seen several videos where the content creators stand outside Yale and Harvard and the other ivy leagues asking the simplest of questions to students who are unable to answer. Some examples - name 2 countries that begin with the letter S; what's the next even number after 8; what relation is your Mother's sister to you. Obviously, like you say, they show a lot more who don't know the answers but it's amazing to think that they could find even one person who couldn't answer.
