The Americans have what’s basically a cultural trait at this point of deflecting ownership of their government’s actions with “not my president so not my failure” abdication of responsibility.
I wish we could open trade talks with these people instead. But, alas, that’s not how it works.
Fine, it’s all my fault. Neither me nor my state voted that way, I’ve protested like hell, but nonetheless at your insistence I accept personal responsibility for the policy choices of the federal government.
What do you propose I do?
Or did you just want my permission to be personally angry at me? Not sure you needed it, but you’ve now got it.
I think your observation is valid, but - perhaps from very understandable frustration - overwrought, and unfairly characterized as a specifically American foible.
Success always has many fathers, failure is always an orphan, anywhere. At least I am recognizing failure, if only to disown it!
(And if I rightly feel shame now, even without personal responsibility, can I not be allowed some sober pride in equal measure in other circumstances?)
I think that's human psychology[0], not necessarily specifically American. Either way, I think that the people most likely to say the things in your first paragraph are also much more likely to consider the "bad stuff" you're talking about as "good stuff" and brag about that as well.
American voting systems are bad. Average Americans have minimal influence on the policy that's enacted[1]. I wonder if where you are from these don't apply as much, and you are used to having more control over what the government does.
Of course you care. Enough to play the victim game and cry people “hate Americans” every time someone criticizes anything about (specific) Americans. Talk about cringe.
That's a lot of handwaving and broad generalizations / hyperbole that does exactly what the GP complained about from the GGP, and failed to answer their question: "What do you propose I do?"
You wrote three paragraphs and never once answered “what do you propose I do?” because there isn’t an answer, just a vibe you wanted to deliver.
Congrats on discovering that people claim credit collectively and blame individually. That’s not a uniquely American sin, that’s every human tribe since forever and you just gave it a paragraph structure and called it a diagnosis.
It's easier to throw stones than realize "this could happen to my society too and in all likelihood I'd be just as screwed as the Americans, Russians, 1930s Germans..."
COVID was another vivid illustration of how you're just along for the ride with people who can act contrary to everyone's collective self-interest
Seems it's people with outsized media influence that have the most agency for change, beyond that a fish rots from the top down
At the very least don’t point the finger at others, obviously. It’s your people, even if different individuals. You are a democracy, there’s no “not my fault, someone else must have voted wrong”. Whatever the result, good or bad, it comes from all of the votes, including the ones not given.
If the question was “what do I do to fix it” that’s not something you’ll get answered in a comment.
They asked to stop deflecting. Take that literally. Imagine this page without the comment and the comments hanging off it.
"Don't do this thing". "What should I do instead?" Your choice. Maybe nothing. When there is nothing serious to say, maybe sit with the silence, that space where a little joke or some cynicism would relieve the pressure without doing any productive work, and let it work on you. At least until you can't take it anymore, and maybe tomorrow you'll last longer, and maybe next week you'll have a breakthrough.
At any rate, others can't tell us how to fix a situation we're not part of causing. In a society of millions, while each can say "I'm just one of many", nobody else can say more, so we always have "full" responsibility, that is, the maximum possible. Put differently, it is not possible for a single person to be solely responsible for what two people do, but that doesn't change the responsibility they do have.
This isn't about spilled milk, but rather about the question on who it is to fix this. It is on you. If you cannot do it alone, you have to organise with others. But there is nobody, as long as you're an adult and a citizen, that you can point to that should be expected to "do it" instead.
Though I don't mean this in a finger-pointy way either because we all sit in glass houses. There may be differences in degree and all that, but when it comes to what should or could be, and how it is, we're all so far from the mark that bickering about who is the worst and who should get "the" blame for the situation, rather than how to change it, seems pointless.
> Or did you just want my permission to be personally angry at me? Not sure you needed it, but you’ve now got it.
I personally wish you a really awesome weekend, stranger. You insisted on making this personal, now deal with it >:[
> The Americans have what’s basically a cultural trait at this point of deflecting ownership of their government’s actions with “not my president so not my failure” abdication of responsibility.
That's merely a symptom of the underlying problem, which is that capital interests run the show, and have for many decades.
What we refer to as a democracy is illusory. We basically have a uniparty, but most people are fooled by the sports team arrangement of good cop / bad cop. Those who aren't fooled feel powerless, and they are right to.
Anyone who balks at this need only consider which things receive bi-partisan support.
Yeah, the guy who declared "No Kings" demonstrators extremists and terrorists, and threatens to invoke the Insurrection Act against ICE protestors has in effect said he's not my president for me.
I wish we could open trade talks with these people instead. But, alas, that’s not how it works.