I leave it to you to wonder who I mean by the term "Americans" with scare-quotes. My feelings about straight-up Americans are different, but we need to realize the difference between the rousing civic myths and the lived reality of the United States in our lifetimes. It's so easy to be a tunnel-visioned rat-racer, what with the psychological effects of TV, public schooling, and (arguably) post-neighborhood suburbias... It's a mass-scale zombie mindset, and that is what surrounds us.
I think it's perfectly fine to mentally dis-associate from the rousing civic myths that powered the optimistic America of the 1950s (no scare quotes there). We live amid "Americans," not Americans. Our path ahead begins when we identify with people of sound mind and knowledge of history and leave the "Americans" to their fate. They love Big Brother, let them have Big Brother.
Your post was a long letter of despair and surrender. You sound defeated and resigned to a darker future.
I’m sorry for you, but we all make our choices. I choose to have hope and confidence in a better tomorrow for my family and my country. I choose to fight.
What you say is not incorrect, and is even supported by some facts.
However, this great country of our has a history of snatching victory from the jaws of defeat.
Also, in many cases when it comes right down to it, it is a very small percentage of people who turn things around, say 5%. The rest are essentially dead wood.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but we see these percentages in business, sports, and political endeavors.
Lots of things happened that the experts insisted was ‘impossible’.
The power of the human will.