Let's make fun of Trump, bash him, etc. while we can!

[Ragnarök_62]

(08-23-2016, 04:49 PM)taramarie Wrote: Ugh tribalism. Americans tell me not all are like that. I hope for America's sake that is true.

Ah, Rags found something on the interwebs which shall enlighten tara

http://www.ianwelsh.net/the-culture-of-meanness/

web site Wrote:One of the most striking things about much of American culture is the simple meanness of it. The cruelty.
Most of this seems to come down to three feelings:

• My life sucks. I have to work a terrible job I hate in order to survive. I have to bow and scrape and do shit I don’t want to do. You should have to as well.
  
• Anyone who doesn’t make it must not be willing to suffer as I do, therefore anyone who doesn’t make it deserves to be homeless, go without food, and so on.
  
• Anybody who is against us needs to be hurt and humiliated, because that’s how I see my superiors deal with people who go against them.
  

“Life is shit, therefore your life should be shit.”
“What you’ve got is what you deserve.”
There is also a culture of punching down, as commenter Lisa has observed. America has a high-violence, high-bullying society. As Lisa noted you can have a high-violence society in which it is considered unacceptable to attack the weak (doing so is viewed as cowardice), but that’s not the case in America.
In American culture, the weak are the preferred target. Failure is punishable by homelessness, suffering, and death.  Sick people sure don’t deserve proper pain medication. Poor people are poor because they “don’t add value.” If you’re poor, you definitely shouldn’t have good healthcare, because if you don’t have money, you don’t deserve money, and that’s because you’re a waste of space.
This appears to be a result of something simple: At every stage of American life, it’s a zero or negative sum game, and who gets ahead is decided by authority figures. Need to get into a good university? You need good grades from adults, you need to have done the right extra-curricular activities, you need references from adults.
On the job, only a few people will be promoted, and the competition is fierce. But worse, in many fields, people are often let go, and the competition to avoid getting fired or laid off is severe.
Who decides? Your boss. You’d better get down on your knees and do whatever your boss wants, because if you’re fired or let go you may never work again, and if you do hang on at a bottom-wage job, well, your life will suck.
When dealing with police, the constant American attitude is OBEY. If you don’t obey, then whatever the police do to you is justified. The police are like bosses in a way. One cop can ruin your life, even if you aren’t killed, beaten, or raped by them. A criminal record means you will never have a good job again.
OBEY.  ACQUIESCE.
On your knees, citizen.