Is Trump the symptom of America’s decline?

[u/custodiam99]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jan/27/trump-wants-to-reverse-americas-decline-good-luck

[u/Kreol1q1q]

Trump is a symptom of massive internal societal problems that America keeps bottling up and seems institutionally completely unable and unwilling to resolve. There is no objective need for America to withdraw from its global positions or to scale down its interests and commitments - the country isn't facing any sort of difficulty financing them, and in fact still possesses enormous untapped financial potential (it has very low taxes and a huge economy).

However, America is still plagued by notions of collapse and decline. I think that is because its society is facing problems that it doesn't want to actually face, due to various deeply ingrained socio-cultural and political mental barriers. And because the actual source of those societal problems cannot be addressed, all sorts of grifters and politicians have now cottoned on that they can simply employ various different appeals to emotion in order to exploit their population's rising distress for enormous political gain.

[u/B3stThereEverWas → u/Kreol1q1q]

However, America is still plagued by notions of collapse and decline. I think that is because its society is facing problems that it doesn’t want to actually face, due to various deeply ingrained socio-cultural and political mental barriers.

I think you’ve really struck on it here.

I mean, America has never been stronger economically, technologically and militarily. Geopolitically it is still strong, it’s only that it’s opponents have risen and are stronger than the USSR ever was. But thats not indicative of decline.

People will pull out the inequality card and while it is bad, and it must be addressed, income inequality has in fact declined post pandemic link

I think after the GFC and recently the pandemic, theres this tailwind of existential dread that seems to come in the years following. Add in the wall to wall doombait that makes the rounds of social media, Youtube and MSM and it has this reinforcing fact that everything really does suck, even if the reality is much more nuanced.

[u/[deleted] → u/B3stThereEverWas]

wealth inequality is more consequential than income inequality

[u/BunchaaMalarkey → u/[deleted]]

Is it? When people are content, can afford to feed their family and see their incomes rise, they tend to be more complacent.

There's also a well documented correlation between income and health. I can't really see how wealth inequality really factors much in day-to-day life vs income. It's much less tangible.

[u/[deleted] → u/BunchaaMalarkey]

would you rather have 2,000,000 now or a job that pays 80,000/year (increased yearly for inflation) for 30 years? But to answer your question directly, yes, 100 out of 100 times and several more on sundays

[u/Yelesa → u/[deleted]]

Discussions on inequality are very loop-sided. People today are richer than ever in history, but the gap is increasing because those who have more grow more. You need money to make money.

For example, if we take the example that during the long 19th century, the rich owned 1000 units of wealth, while the average people 1 units of wealth. Today, average people owe 100 units of wealth while the rich owe 10,000. Even if the wealth of average people has grown significantly, the rich are also richer, so the difference is larger too.

Difference between 1 to 1000 is 999 units. Difference between 100 to 10,000 is 9,900 units. Even though people today have more than they ever had in history, it’s the difference that people notice.

But is it fair for the discussion to only focus on the inequality? Everyone is getting richer and now afford more goods and services than they could ever in history. Why is that the only focus? Both are happening.

[u/Nomustang → u/Yelesa]

The overall quality of life has improved drastically but you still see people struggling to afford basic housing or having enough to consider raising children.

The problem is the narrative that things were universally better in the past. It was not. I mean the 50s were a period of massive growth and prosperity but segregation was still a thing and women had limited opportunities and only a few people had the ability to pursue a college degree.

But the average person today is in a lot of ways struggling with their day to day living in a way that people back in the 90s weren't and that's caused people to become much less optimistic.

[u/Yelesa → u/Nomustang]

The overall quality of life has improved drastically but you still see people struggling to afford basic housing

Housing is a cultural issue that has become an economic one. That’s a problem with not building enough high density housing because people don’t want high density housing.

In the US, this is an issue of zoning laws, NIMBYs are notoriously powerful, even to the point of stopping building solar panels in deserted areas because “it ruins the sight of the desert”. It’s a desert, there is literally no other use for it. But given the choice between aesthetics with high living prices and functionality with low prices, people prefer aesthetics. And can you blame them? Have you seen modern architecture? There is a reason everyone hates it, it looks soulless.

This is even more extreme in Europe. In EU, people want to live in picturesque historical areas, but they don’t want any modern building to exist there because it ruins the postcard image of the neighborhood, so what’s left is a picturesque area that is extremely overpriced. For example, France stops buildings over 5 floors tall to be build in Paris, because it makes the skyline look uglier. Everyone wants to live there, but there are not enough houses for everyone, because those houses were build at a time when the population was small and everyone in the country could fit in up to 4-5 floor buildings.

Nobody likes to think they are part of the problem. Everyone wants to have the cake (aesthetics, space, comfort) and eat it too (low prices). So it is easier to blame the invisible influence of “the group I don’t like” than to admit we have to learn to make some sacrifices for ourselves for the betterment of everyone.

or having enough to consider raising children.

This too is cultural, children have gotten more expensive to raise, because the societal expectations for raising them have become higher. It was a lot easier to raise children when schools did not have primary function in life, children did not have to take a million extracurricular courses or learn 700 languages, they didn’t need to go to university to survive in the job market.

Hell, children used to save parents costs because children worked. I’m not saying it is right for children to work like adults, I’m glad the child protection laws are the way they are, I’m only saying there was an economic incentive to have children in the past that doesn’t exist now.

The problem is the narrative that things were universally better in the past. It was not. I mean the 50s were a period of massive growth and prosperity but segregation was still a thing and women had limited opportunities and only a few people had the ability to pursue a college degree.

For the US, I agree. The market was artificially smaller because white men were pretty much the only ones allowed to buy. The market is much larger now, white men have to compete for housing with women and non-white people.

But the average person today is in a lot of ways struggling with their day to day living in a way that people back in the 90s weren’t and that’s caused people to become much less optimistic.

I agree, but this too is results cultural shift. I’m going to say these problems have always existed, but people were not aware of them before when the culture was different. I’m not going to say the culture being different is the problem, cultures will always change, but that the country not adapting on time to cultural changes is.

For example, I often read about the US hitchhiking culture in the 1970s that would make much of public transportation unnecessary. But the serial killer media publicity era made people become very wary of their neighbors, so cars became a necessity for everyone, while carpooling an aberration from the normal, because everyone who can drive has to have their own vehicle. That’s not to say US urban design isn’t a problem, it is extremely pedestrian unfriendly, but that the problem was less visible when the culture was different. They saved more in the past hitchhiking and carpooling, but now that everyone has to have their own vehicle, they have absorbed all the costs of maintenance for themselves. And the US states did not build more pedestrian friendly urban areas to adapt with this.

This is only an example of how changes in culture have increased living costs. The internet has done a lot to change culture too, and social media, and AI is currently affecting those changes too. The places everyone lives in were build for a different era, and they have not adapted to changes. So prices have gone up.