alt Hacker NewsSeeing what White House Twitter account is posting is bizarre, and a bit scary. This is a government entity, a superpower, posting extreme and unserious content to the world. It's so ridiculous that I can't barely comprehend it. I don't understand how leaders in other countries can take the current US administration seriously.
Looking at the US from outside, I am starting to wonder how close they are to a societal collapse. Things seem to have gotten so extreme over there the last decade. Or maybe its not like that in reality, and its just the internet siphoning content that gets reactions.
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> Looking at the US from outside, I am starting to wonder how close they are to a societal collapse
We're fine, the trick is to remember to GET OFF THE INTERNET and remember that reality isn't the same as the Internet. Treat the Internet like a highlight reel channel on TV - if you don't like your current 'algorithm', then change 'channels'. Also, remember why tech has always pushed for Adblockers - then filter out the things demanding your attention. Once you realize a lot of news agencies (political, financial, tech, etc) is using the same dark patterns as ads, you start to filter them out of your attention.
I'm enjoying rewatching Supernatural on Amazon Prime right now.
I also find the content distasteful, but it kinda tracks with US history as a country run mostly by cavalier bruisers with antipathy to the have-nots both domestic and abroad. They're just not trying to hide it anymore now that corporate "news" media and social media algorithms have found legal ways to profit by encouraging hatred.
US government does not have a good record. I feel like anyone that thinks it’s particularly bad now needs to read some history books. Obviously I wish it were better but this is the same group that brought you a dozen wars in the 20th century, Japanese internment, forced segregation, price controls, nuclear weapons used on civilians, and so on.
My guess is that it has more to do with reading news sources particularly aligned with one political viewpoint than the actual facts of what the government is doing.
The US is going to collapse because of the memes on its twitter page?
The good news is that the Trump regime is unpopular, and doing crazy things is making them more unpopular.
The bad news is they keep doing crazy things.
More than one million of young people have been sent to the front line and Russia and Ukraine haven't collapse. But somehow Trump posting memes will collapse the US.
Nowhere near it. There's parts I don't like but it's not like Homesteading, slavery, Chinese exclusion, redlining, Japanese internment, the klan, and Jim Crow were great.
This is American behavior: crude, cruel, hostile, arrogant, and proudly ignorant.
Richard Hofstadter wrote about Americans acting this way in the 1960s.
Look at the Johnson-Reed Act of 1924, stood for decades. It's not like those sentiments went away...
And there's no "good states" either - the California Constitution in 1879 set up a racial apartheid system against Chinese people. Even had a second called "The Chinese".
Oregon was admitted to the Union explicitly with a "whites only" clause.
The Declaration of Independence even has wild conspiracy theories about "merciless Indian savages"
No amount of empirical evidence will make Americans realize this because it gives them a frowny face.
So anyways no. This is all business as usual
While I think American society definitely has problems, the idea that it's close to collapse is no better than any other online propaganda opinion, and in fact it's a common refrain pushed by foreign state actors.
A better way to think of this nonsensical online content: it's just the form that has been shown to win in the modern democratic political arena. Unfortunately, being a serious professional doesn't connect with voters anymore. Posting lots of goofy memes seems to, or at least it did a few years ago – IMO the media tactics used by current politicians are a few years out of date, culturally.