Every decade in my life is getting worse
Last edited Thu Sep 25, 2025, 04:49 PM - Edit history (3)
Now, I'm not doing too terribly myself in my own personal life in 2025 - could certainly be better but could be much worse. I'm fortunate that my life personally isn't too bad.
I'm talking about the world, society at large, especially life in America.
Being born in the early '90s, I was, of course, focused on kid stuff, but seems like life wasn't too bad in this country for the most part, even with Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich running rampant.
Time called the 2000s the decade from hell - 9/11, the two wars, Katrina. As someone not old enough to vote yet, I could only wonder how somebody I found so idiotic could be elected to a second term in 2004 despite such idiocy. I was in high school when the Great Recession happened, wondering if my family and I would be out on the street. Thankfully, that didn't happen to us.
But we elected our first black president, and it was magical. The Red Sox reversed the curse of the Bambino, water was found on the moon, we were united after 9/11, even if times weren't innocent.
Then come the 2010s. We get Obergefell, we see some countries around the world liberate themselves of dictators who'd been in power for decades. Iraq ends, and my Cubbies finally reverse their curse, just like the Red Sox did the decade before.
But we learn a lot about ourselves in an ugly way - gunning down school kids is not enough for Americans to give up their guns or support gun legislation, and an even bigger idiot than Dubya comes on the scene, stirs up hate, stirs up divide, and no matter what he says, what he does, gains more than 270 electoral votes anyway.
He's a disaster, he's cruel, he's abysmal, but there are nevertheless some sorts of checks and balances. trump's first four years made me miss Dubya. Now, I'm ready to go back to trump's first four years - and trump's first four years were a nightmare of damage, of chaos, mishandling of COVID, trying to overturn a free and fair election with actions that were all part of something inconceivable to me. But even then, we still had our limits, our checks and balances and some semblance of freedom.
What sort of good news have we gotten this decade? Biden's election was one of the happiest days of my life, just to see it wiped out in four years. Botching a public health crisis and lies and incitement that inspired an attack on the US Capitol was not enough to be the end, nor ending the right choose, nor being convicted of 34 felony counts. He got more votes than he did before.
Elon turned Twitter into a right-wing propaganda machine, and pretty much only go on there for the most part when I'm working. We've had two ugly wars - one in Ukraine, one in Gaza, and a certain someone said they'd end these wars quickly and still haven't done so and not sure if they will do so.
People will be losing their healthcare, many have lost their jobs, prices are increasing, a hatemonger got murdered and any and all criticism of him is being silenced. Late night comedians are being canceled. Just using the deceased hatemonger's quotes directly have people frothing at the mouth. Mass shootings and gun deaths are acceptable to people. Mask mandates? Vaccine mandates? That was too much for people who showed their selfish side, decrying freedom, while wanting to deny freedom to others. Dehumanizing LGBTQ+ members, especially trans people, trying to force theocracy and violate the freedom of religion and freedom of speech clauses of the First Amendment.
No previous court would've ruled immunity for the felon - certainly not the Warren Court, not the Burger Court, not even the Rehnquist Court. And nobody bats an eye. If they don't rule against the unilateral imposition of tariffs, they're basically admitting they're making it up as they go along.
And what disheartens me the most isn't a regime's authoritarian aspirations, it's the submission by so many people, so many organizations and institutions. Nobody is able or willing to fight back.
The optimist in me says things can and will get better. I believe I'm young enough I can see it happen in my lifetime.
But I also know it can get so much worse. It already has and will continue to get worse. I ask myself how, and they keep showing how.
I imagine how life in America was from, say, 1966-74 - Vietnam, protests, burning of draft cards, MLK and RFK being assassinated, the 1968 Democratic Convention, Cambodia, Kent State, Watergate.
It doesn't sound like a picnic, seems like America ate itself back then. But at least there was the moon landing, good music and people gaining rights back then and the sexual revolution.
Now, I'd say, America is eating itself that it's 1966-74 on steroids, and I see no good news and people are losing rights and freedoms.
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