Currently the US is in all kinds of turmoil and many are shocked at what’s happening, me included. However I’m mostly shocked at specific events like a protester being pulled out while giving a speech; the national gueard walking through a street, giving orders to civilians and shooting a non-lethal round at that house; or someone being shot by a non-lethal round for no apparent reason. It’s not too surprising that a protest with a large crowd has rioters and people easily instigated, that’s just mob mentality at its work. What is surprising is the police being incredibly aggressive very early on with cases like a CNN crew being arrested while filming or attacking a crew that’s broadcasting live. What I’m least surprised about, though, is the event of protests like these in general. In my eyes the US is a faulty system, that’s just riddled with weaknesses. The new pandemic simply exploits those weaknesses which turns everything upside down. Here I just want to list those weaknesses and try to work out how they affect each other.

The Election System

The US sometimes boasts as being the oldest democracy in the world. That also means it’s the most archaic democracy in the world. Parts of the system were implemented to ensure a robust governing body despite the large distances and slow travel speed. Others are meant for power preservation. I’m not sure where I should start at, so instead, I’ll illustrate how a German election proceeds.

At first, a few weeks prior to election day, each person who can vote receives a letter containing a polling card that’s required on the day of the vote as well as a form to ask for voting by mail. You don’t need a reason for that and it proceeds just as you’d expect. The actual vote is always on a sunday. You go to the polling station assigned to you, bring your polling card and ID card to identify yourself, cast your vote and go home again. The polling stations are run by a few volunteers and the votes are counted by volunteers as well. If a polling site doesn’t find enough volunteers to count, they can also enlist others. All of these are done manually with only the result being send electronically to a central body later.

Differences in procedures

It honestly appalls me how the American election systems, either state or federal, don’t have the procedures I take for granted. For example didn’t I even consider voter registration to exist, because why would it? It’s just more administrative work for little gain, if any. Sending a polling card to every person that can vote is just so much simpler. It also doesn’t create a potential bottleneck like a registration site that can only handle so many connections at once. And even if you move away by the time the vote happens, you can still do a postal vote here. It’s very simple and doesn’t require a reason. Yet it’s astonishing how this doesn’t catch up in the US even to this day, especially during the ongoing pandemic where it can easily work as a solution to reduce human contact. Despite that it takes forever for the implementation of such changes. These things, however, are minor compared to the election date. For some reason elections are always on a Tuesday, a normal work day, instead of a holiday or a Sunday like here. It just makes no sense whatsoever to do that, at least from a neutral standpoint. You really just want as many as possible to vote, just to legitimize you. That’s the core principal of democracy. It’s also hard to argue against a change that would enable more people to vote. Back in the 19th century when the date was decided, it might have made sense, but nowadays you just scratch your as to why it hasn’t been changed. As for the reasons why things don’t change that much, I can mostly speculate. Obviously, it might be to keep low income minorities out of politics, but I doubt I’d find actual such statements. Rather than the intention, I want to illustrate the effect. Given that the actual vote is on a workday, you actively have to register to be able to vote and postal voting not being as easy as it could be, I think it isn’t too far-fetched to assume that it mainly affects those who already live a stressful life, so those on the lower end. As seen on wikipedia or alternatively in an article the differences between races, income groups and level of education are grave. I’m not sure if there is a clear causation, but I doubt the effect it has on the people being left out isn’t detrimental. This is only the tip of the iceberg though.

The Two Party System

The US’s voting system is a winner take all system, which naturally results in a two-party system as CGP Grey nicely explains in one of his early videos (I’ll link more of his videos in this part) Sure, there are a few more parties, but those are largely negligible. Most importantly it splits the country in two, a stark idealogical line that sometimes may also become a geopgraphical. This not only divides people into two (or three if you also consider non-voters and centrists) sets, but also shapes them a lot as I think. I firmly believe that it fosters a black-and-white thinking, but as it’s one of the core flaws of the country, it deserves its own point. For now it’s important to note, that the two parties are a natural of the system. It hardly matters what they’re called and even some policies hardly matter as they will often simply oppose each other. Bipartisan issues are more an exception than the norm. Not only is it a two party system, it’s also not very direct. Instead, it relies on representatives and thus the Electoral College. I think CGP Grey already explains a few issues very well. Votes aren’t equal anymore, presidential nominees don’t care about smaller states or states that are dominated by one party as putting resources resources in winning over these votes isn’t worth the reward. It also fails to represent the populace. Including the last election of 2016 where Hillary Clinton lost despite winning the popular vote, the system already failed four times. Looking at the UK, it can look even worse with more parties involved. Luckily for the US in this case, the two parties hover around 50% anyway, so the margin of error is small. Nevertheless, it’s frustrating to not be able to have a representative. And that’s already considering that voters have to take compromises when voting one of the big two parties. They might not even agree with half the party’s policies, but they disagree with the other even more. This only adds to voices not being heard. On top of that there is gerrymandering, the manipulation of voter districts in your favour. Gerrymandering can cause huge issues as explained, again, by CGP Grey. But to be fair, since it’s a two party system anyway and both parties are about even, I can’t help but cynically say it doesn’t even change the situation that much, despite racial gerrymandering being an on-going problem For one thing, a better representation of minorities makes the Democratic Party stronger. But racial tensions are still high, even after 8 years of a black, democratic President. Probably because laws have to pass both senate and congress and they make change very difficult. For starters, a politician needs the backing the their party to actually win an election. Meaning that those who want to bring that change, need to do it from within and be approved of their party. Which in turn means that the change can’t be too radical. A two party system doesn’t let ambitious dreamers into power. For better or worse that’s different in Germany, where new parties popped during the last decades due to conflicting ideas with the existing parties. Most notably the Green party fighting against nuclear energy and for emancipation and the Pirate party being a modern party with many fresh ideas, emphasising IT related issues. Even then, German voters aren’t without frustration, many here are convinced voting won’t change a thing and their votes don’t really count. This line of thought seems to be common across democracies nowadays and results in alarming turnouts. I’m sure it’s the same in the US. However, there is another pretty remarkable thing about the US election and that is

Electronic Voting

Ironically enough, despite the stubbornness of American lawmakers regarding the described traditions, they were eager to adopt electronic voting. I don’t know, if they are aware of its problems but there are many. Essentially the machine is a black box where you can never verify if it has been tampered with. Not only that, as soon as you connect it to the internet, you can’t even make sure the numbers haven’t been changed on transit. Although to be fair, if the sending side checks what the other end received through another channel, it can probably work. Still, while physical votes can be checked and verified by multiple parties to counteract corruption or incompetence, electronic votes are much easier to manipulate in large numbers. Even if it were just a software bug that changes the votes, the consequences would be enormous, let alone intentional tampering. We’ve already seen Russia paranoia kick in during the last election. Naturally, an attack by foreign agencies should be expected to some degree, but the anti-Russia propaganda is running wild. More to that later. But due to that very reason, it’s ridiculous to push for these new, easy to manipulate systems. Their young age makes them that much less robust to time-tested alternatives and anyone familiar with computer programming can tell you that no system is secure. It’s almost impossible to make a system that can’t be compromised, mainly because of human error always being an attack point, but also because of old legacy code that’s still being part of libraries and therefore still used.

Here I also want to mention that representatives of US territories, most notably Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Northern Mariana Islands and Guam, have no voting right in the House of Representatives. People living and being born in these territories face some other issues with constitutional rights like citizenship which is already pretty appalling, but maybe stuff for later. Even the lack of political power isn’t as consequential for the problems I want to point out, as they are a relatively silent minority who don’t interact much with the average American. They face their own problems and frustration, but most Americans can’t relate to those.

Lastly I think the cost of running for presidency is very noteworthy. It costs hundreds of millions just to run for president, which is a clear testament to how established a candidate needs to be to make it in that country. Even then, candidates ask for a lot of funding from their supporters. On the flipside it engages people I suppose. That’s one of the things that stuck out the most to me as a foreigner observing the US. People seem to be a lot more active in politics than in Germany. Of course, we also have activists and people fighting for a cause, but it still isn’t as widespread as in the US. I think I have explanations for that, which will hopefully be conveyed in the sections about black-and-white thinking and sensationalism.

The 2016 Election

The last election was a roller coaster ride, to put it mildly. While the candidate for the Republicans was eastablished fairly quickly, the Democrats took a little longer to decide Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. On the one hand the would be first female president who is also much disliked in the country, on the other side an old man fighting for more social programs to help the poor. Clinton is an established character while Sanders stands for change. We all know how it turned out, superdelegates, who’re considered undemocratic, voted for mainly for Clinton instead of Sanders, thus ensuring her victory in the primary. I could’ve mentioned it as a flaw in the first part, but it’s techncially not part of the American voting system. Still, it was a huge blow to Sanders supporters and therefore the Democratic Party. Little surprise that Clinton later lost against Trump.

I think Glenn Greenwald makes a good point in the interview with the German journalist Tilo Jung (The interview in general is very interesting. The start picks up a few key points of the interview, including calling the election a shitshow, and the part about the American election starts at 25:45)

Fortunately for her [Hillary Clinton] she’s running against the only person who in the last 50 years is even more unpopular than her, which is Donald Trump. Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are each other’s best hope. The only chance that someone like him would have to win is running against someone like her and the only chance she has of winning is running against someone like him.

The two candidates are unbelievable in their own right. Trump is just straight up a vile person, has no political or diplomatic skills and a populist, but Clinton doesn’t have a clean record herself either. To tp it off, she got a lot of votes undemocratically. That is, in my opion, the prime reason why she lost the election against Trump. It just turned off many voters who then went to Trump thinking, it can’t be that bad or something along the lines. Trump did give many promises, but those were largely empty. Like draining the swamp, as in the establishment, just to fill his cabinet with people from that very establishment. Clinton was most likely the lesser of two evils, but she can also be called a warmongerer, voting for the Iraq war, as well as embracing Kissingers idealogies of imperialism (and establishing the supply of oil). The US has a record of destablizing countries and regions, mostly for oil and she’s the one of the two who encapsulates this foreign policy, surely not something that speaks for her character.

In the end Trump won the electoral college, not the popular vote, which left many people stunned. Many students wanted to take time off because of the shock, many media channels were assured of Clinton’s victory and so was she herself. It was rather telling of the media landscape of the US that abandoned neutrality for an agenda. That in itself may seem fair, after all Trump isn’t a man you want to see in power at all, but it also fuels conspiracy theories of some big establishment, which then confirms Trump supporters that they’re fighting against a big baddie. Trump utilized that well with his ‘drain the swamp’ slogan. Being more openly politically meaning also destroys trust people have in you. How are you able to assure a reader that you’re an all-around trustworthy news source, when admitted to being one-sided. The same goes for Fox News, Breitbart and so on, who are pro-Republican. Thus I think the 2016 presidential election marks a keypoint in the divide between the left and right bubbles, not because this division started there, but because it was pulled into plain sight. Praise the values of your own side while using the biggest idiots you can find as an example for the other.

Incidentally this is what we have to be most careful of now that videos of the Georg Floyd protests pop up everwhere. Which find their way to which news channel? Which side is mostly depicted postively/negatively on tv? In what frequency do videos of either side pop up? It’s difficult to really quantify what’s happening, but that’s exactly why I think it’s so important.

The post-election period is mainly marked with media questioning the legitimacy of Trumps victory, mostly due to potential Russian involvement and collusion. These two are fundamentally different, but they also both spring from a certain paranoia about Russia. Propaganda against Russia isn’t rare in US media. For example did Susan Rice of CNN quickly speculate that the situation around current protests “is right out of Russian playbook as well”. (Better look for a fault somewhere else and not the own country). Back to the 2016 election and the question whether Russia was involved or not. Were they involved in some way? Most probably yes. Social Media is an open space to just about anyone in the world, so it’s easy to set up bots to push for a certain course. It’s also not unthinkable that Russia had agents in the US and tried to physically tamper with the election in some way as I’ve linked above with the voting machines. These are the things nations have to defend against during these times where globalisation is the defining change. You can’t, however, use it to arbitarily delegitimise a result, especially not if it targets a specific candidate. If you can actually prove that either votes have been manipulated or one candidate deliberately colluded with a foreign agency, then yes, a re-election should be held and more measurements should be taken. These situations hinge on the fact that either the system was compromised (and possibly faulty, see above) or one candidate is corrupt, both heavy accusations. Nevertheless, US media quickly leapt onto the possibility and actually pushed for that conspiracy theory of collusion with Rachel Maddow of MSNBC proclaiming outrageous statements. In fact Glenn Greenwald, who calls other journalists and media outlets out on their anti-Russia without sufficient evidence of its involvement, has repeatedly been called pro-Russia and pro-Trump. In US media Russia is one of numerous enemies and propaganda against it is easy to find. It’s not the only enemy though and I think this is a good lead to the next main point.

Black and White thinking

Let’s start with a little something my history teacher told us once, which I haven’t verified yet unfortunately. But I think it’s very reasonable and important here. He said a culture based on a monotheistic belief, so the belief of a single god, is more prone to black and white thinking. Mainly because a monotheistic religion is an institution that acknowledges an absolute good, therefore also actions that are absolutely evil. In Christrianity those are the Ten Commandments for example. The people in your own community are naturally on the good side, after all if they weren’t they’d be punished by God, dead or in jail. Others are bad people. That’s why I think it’s reasonable enough to think there is a correlation between these two. Of course, the US is a very religious country by western standards. Many central and northern European countries are very agnostic these days with the Church being an organisation that exists on the sidelines of people’s lives, like a club or association. But that’s still only the minor reason why I think this dualism is so etched into US society. The main offender is the two party system itself. It promotes such a hard split in the country, that the consequences are inescapable. Media outlets are known for being pro one or the other, discussions quickly degenerate into name-calling and slander of the opposition is frequent. Not only that, this thought of the own side being the good one while others are the bad ones also affect other instances like the anti-Russian propaganda. According to US media, Russia is just the big evil in the world that’s trying to spread its authority. That’s fair enough to some degree, but also completely disregards American foreign policies that have been far from peaceful with examples ranging from the Iraq war, the involvement in the coup d’état in Chile to the countless instances of supplyying terrorists with weapons in the Middle East. Yet, despite of that and the problems they have in their own country (which I only started on) Americans are incredibly patriotic and proud of their country. They celebrate their freedom as if it’s remarkable, despite ranking lower than many European countries. This arrogance of American superiority is in my opinion one of the worst traits, if not the worst, of its society, as it blinds them from seeing their own flaws. We can see that in dicussions about all kinds of topics like public healthcare, worker unions or abortion which quickly become heated, and ugly.

Even political campaigns are affected by this dualism. Trump was and still is demonized as the huge evil by Dems and so was Hillary Clinton by Republicans to some degree as a corrupt politician. Fast forward to this year and we can see the same thing. Joe Biden supporters stand behind even if they can’t list many reasons for that as his policies left much to be desired. Much of the Biden compaign is filled with the notion, that he at least isn’t Trump. What was even more telling, however, were the Democractic primaries in which rape allegations towards Joe Biden came about. Those largely ignored even though there was credible evidence of the incident to be found. It really illustrates the hypocrisy these discussions can have and frustrates people. The debate took the same form as similiar situations, filled with slander and name-calling. Whether these allegations are founded/unfounded or a deliberate act to discredit the opposition here is largely irrelevant. They happen time and time again and blown out of proportion in media even without conviction. They shift discussion away from actual policies and towards a picture of good and evil. The eye-opening part of the Biden case to me was that the comment section read just the same as the one under Trump. In other words, it was just as vile and filled with denunciation as discussions between Republicans and Democrats. So Democrats, who usually view Republicans as enemy, engaged the same way as if they’re viewing the others as enemy. Even though they’re still technically their allies, just on different fronts in that situation. I think that this split in the party isn’t the only one and that conflicts like these will affect the election in November. More to these splits a bit later.

You can also observe this dualism in the current situation. Police has been unnaturally aggressive very early on and throghout the protests. It certainly doesn’t look like they view protesters as civilians, but rather as an enemy that needs to be fought. That would explain the frequent use of pepper spray you see in various videos on Twitter. I also highly doubt if such an aggressive behaviour from the police would be possible in Germany or other (central) European nations. I just can’t imagine it. But it’s hard to make a point of something like that happening or not, because it’s so far away from reality, at least for me. I haven’t even had much contact with the police.

On that note while writing this, I stumbled across this bill banning the export of tear gas, pepper spray and rubber bullets to Hong Kong, because

The world has now seen eyewitness evidence compiled by journalists and the media showing that police have used excessive force and used equipment in violation of manufacturer guidelines and international standards.

Which couldn’t be more illustrative of this orwellian mindset.

Just to summarize, I think that American culturally is incredibly dualistic and thus very polarizing. That shouldn’t come as a shock to many, certainly people living outside of the States.

Divide and Conquer

I already have a previous entry on the subject, listing a few lines of conflict. The concept is far from unique to the US, but I think due to the black and white thinking I’ve described above, it reaches a whole other level than in other countries. This can be seen in many political discussions where people arguing against something quickly earn a title. Be it Trump supporter, antifascist, alt-right, femnazi, incel and so on. I think most people are familiar with that, especially those who don’t strictly associate themselves with either side of the political spectrum and thus are called names from both sides. But also those who disagree with their side on a certain topic.

Here I mainly want to point out that feminism seems to have become an all-assimilating blob during these last years or even decades. Makes sense, right? It transitioned from a movement that mainly focuses on woman’s rights to equal rights for everyone, be they PoC, LGBT+, male, female, disabled or whatever. It sometimes even displays anti-capitalistic traits as capitalism promotes established hiararchies or privileges. At first sight that looks noble and it may very well be, if it had started as such a movement. However, as it started mainly as a movement for women’s rights, it still carries the burden of that. Inner conflicts happen from time to time, mainly due to TERFs being at odds with the LGBT+ part, which opens cracks in the movement. Its main feature, you might even call it its selling point, is its inclusiveness, but at the same time it fails to exclude some less desirable parts like antifas. To some that might not be a turn-off, but to others on the outside it delegimizes the whole group and makes them look bad, very similar to nazis and right wing groups. These things of infighting and embracing extremist views have a deterrent effect on centrists.

Also noticeable to me is that many on social media identify themselves as being anti-something. For example anti-fascist, anti-Trump or anti-capitalist. I think I see that phenomenon more on the left side of the split, but it’s definitely not exclusive to it. What this does show is a mindset that views the political world as one-dimensional. Instead of problems being of different axis like authorian-liberal, national-global or conservative-progressive, these axis are being reduced to a single axis of left-right. I’m not saying this is exclusive to the US though, many other countries see the same thing happening. But I do think due to the above this is more extreme. The problem here is that being anti-something doesn’t explain your stance on certain issues and topics as there are probably more than two solutions, even if one of them is a sensible middle ground. For example being anti-capitalist in the US might not mean the same for everybody. Yes, some could dream of a communist society, while others might be just fine with higher taxes for social programs and regulations similar to those in Scandinavian countries.

One thing that sticks out in relation to these divisions is how easy it seems to rile people up in the US. It isn’t the only reason, as I’m sure the sensationalism often found in media and politics is part of it too, but I think this black and white thinking does play a role. I won’t say that it’s entirely bad though. In my opinion Germany and its people is are very lethargic and the intensity of the current protests is certainly partly due to that mindset. Yes, I do think the protests are fairly reasonable as they’re rooted in many flaws I’m describing here. The lacking police accountability that gave birth to Black Lives Matter is just one of many and the straw that broke the camel’s back, but not the only reason. This easy of agitation isn’t all positive. On the other hand, looting and destruction were quick to happen and the police was also quick in battle mode. You can also see this effect in the frequent forming of other movements or campaigns like the Tea Party movement, students yelling out others like with the bakery in Oberlin or the professor of Evergreen college. Political conventions are also a lot more heated than in Germany with people rooting for their candidate. For comparison German political conventions do not have party supporters in the background for example, that never happens. Conventions also aren’t as open to the public.

Sensationalism

I’ve mentioned it before, but one of the big traits of the US is its sensationalism. Fox News in general might be the best example of this with them using exaggerated, polarizing language and cherry-picking extreme videos extensively. One example here shows this well with the ongoing corona virus. They arent’s the only ones, other news channels, political actors and even normal people do the same. Another example I’ve already linked above is the one with Rachel Maddow propagating anti-Russia sentiments going as far as claiming they could shut down American electricity. Probably the worst example of this though is the one regarding school shootings. Whenever one happens, it gets wide media coverage, potentially inspiring more young adults to do the same. But I think I’ve already written extensively on the subject of American mentality by now. Bottom line is that the things I’ve described so far lead to more patriotism, a certain type of paranoia or narrow thinking and makes the average American easy to manipulate. Examples of this will be sprinkled further in this essay, probably towards the end.

Role of Universities and Colleges in this

This may come as controversial to some, but I do think higher education plays a substantial role in this current political environment. Of course, it’s already bad enough that colleges are for-profit organisations as this makes them market for more applications and keep the students they accept also attached. But that’s an issue for later when I talk about social issues. What I want to focus on here is the ongoing trend of students being more and more practiced in activism. With that I don’t mean the general idealistic attitude students have as young adults. Student movements are far from new. I mean the direct involvement of universities and colleges during education, most notably in majors such as gender/woman’s studies. Students have become increasingly sensitive to the point where safe spaces are created to keep them out of harm’s way. It may be reasonable to some degree, but becomes problematic in an institution that triumphs itself with with free thought and the goal of neutral scientific advancement. One indicator of this trend is the publication of questionable papers as documented by Real Peer Reviews.

An Austrian woman, Anna Schneider, with a degree in law wanted to experience the state of these new gender studies and started a started a master’s degree in that major. She pubished an article describing her experience. Sadly it’s in German, so I’ll summarize a few things. She reflects that participants all largely shared their political views, there just wasn’t much diversity in though. She also points out the construction of safe spaces with trigger warnings on texts being more common these days. One of the courses she took in her semester was a “guided reading” course to get an overview on the interconnections of racist, gendered, heteronormative and classist norms. In general she describes the semester as a sort of eduction on the victim hierarchy. Many of the texts she were given to read found capitalism or neoliberalism guilty for the creation of these victims, including women.

I’ve taken this story as example as it was at hand. But since gender studies has its roots in the US, I’m sure it’s very similar there. Indeed, cases like Oberlin where a student mob rallied against a campus bakery for allegedly racial profiling prove an environment just like Anna Schneider found herself. Oberlin also shows the directive involvement of a college administrator in instigating a student mob against the bakery. The owner of the bakery eventually won the case against the college and the court found the administrator, Raimondo to actually show malice against it. Another case occured at Evergreen State College, where professor Bret Weinstein called the Day of Absence, an annual event, “an act of opression”. He was quickly overwhelmed by protests by the students. Weinstein testifies to Congress, calling out an allience between the protesters and the president. The last decade had several such events go viral with students attacking professors. They also boosted Jordan B Peterson’s popularity after he voiced his opinion against bill C-16 and the general atmosphere of authoritarianism on campus.

I hope I made a good point for the active role US Universities and Colleges play in letting political correctness and social justice culture thrive. These new movements have their very roots in these institutions and are already shaping society. James Damore already fell victim to that a few years ago when he criticised Google. He also isn’t the only one who was fired for his opinion, more people quickly become unemployed for stuff they say. And while it may be fair in some rare cases, I think things already went way out of control. These actions are generally anti free speech and authorian. They make people scared of voicing their opinion, which is poison to a democracy. To top it off, it contributes to the split of that country I’ve described.

Critical institutions being for profit

As I’ve mentioned before with higher education, some important institutions operate profit orientated. These include education, healthcare, law enforcement and some infrastructe. That is downright unacceptable in my opion as this does not lead to quality, but all sorts of problems. Let’s start with universities.

Universities and College

The debt bubble of college students and alumni is steadily increasing. More and more high school graduates pick higher education, hoping for a bright future only to find themselves in huge debts and little skills to pay it off. Universities on the other hand want to keep their students attached and recruit more. Some of these students find work at a university or college to pay off their debt, but that just increases the capacity to accept more freshmen. This situation shows certain parallels to pyramid schemes where people are assimilated into the system to be bled out. The big promise of a degree is shared with many others who at the end of the day just become competition for jobs. That is if that degree is even desired by employers. In fact, Google among other employers stopped requiring college degrees for many of their jobs. The system largely exploits young adults who wanted to make something out of themselves. You might argue that they’re largely adults as they’re around 18, but that’s still pretty young and inexperienced in my opinion. The size of the debts is also incredibly huge which makes the consequences all the more grave. You can even see a constant growth for tutions in the US. I think it’s not only immoral, especially for public colleges, but also detrimental to the nation in the long run. A population in poverty isn’t desirable for domestic sales after all.

Healthcare

America’s healthcare system is poor, to put it mildly. For example what personally surprised me was when I needed insurance for a trip abroad, I had to choose between two categories: The US or anywhere else. It’s insane to think that a (then) peaceful country would be more expensive for me than literally everything else. Yes, the main problem of US’ healthcare system isn’t so much that there isn’t a social program for everyone, but that it’s so incredibly expensive. Hospitals charge any arbitarily large sum for their services. The same goes for certain drugs like cancer drugs which prices rose between 101 and 485 percent in 10 years. Of course, the insurance system isn’t all good either, with universal deductibles per year or semester or in-network doctors. Medical bills are huge risks to most people when they already hit the ground. Again, as with the example above, this system is far from beneficial in the long run.

Internet infrastructure

US internet generally costs more for lower speeds compared to many other countries. Sure, that’s partly to the size of the US, making the it much more costly for fast connections to be provided, but that’s exactly why it shouldn’t be in private hand. In modern times internet has become a crucial infrastructure, just like roads and rails. Roads are also not profitable, so they’re built and maintained by the government as the central body. For internet it should be the same, as progress is otherwise slow. The same holds true in Germany with additional obstacles. But not only that, many American citizens also don’t have a huge range of options. For many places only one or two internet providers offer broadband internet, creating regional quasi-monopolies, yet another money sink one that doesn’t have to exist.

Next I’d like to mention prison and law enforcement here, but not only is it the most relevant part to the current situation, it’s also riddled with terrifying practices that leave outsiders like me astonished, so it gets its own section.

Law Enforcement and Prison

I honestly don’t even know where to start. To begin with, the US has both the highest prison population and incarceration rate in the world with 2.1 million and 655 per 100,000 population respectively. I don’t really want to compare them with ironic examples such as China and Russia because their numbers are probably shady, but even others like Brazil (348 per 100,000) is a still only a little higher than half of the US’. Compared to other First World countries like Canada, France, Italy or Germany which hover around 100 per 100,000, the US just beats them 6 times over. The incredible prison population isn’t the only alarming part of it though, there are many more jaw dropping aspects.

Municipal Violations

For starters, I’ve found the video by Last Week Tonight about minor offenses pretty surprising. Speeding tickets in Geramny aren’t that expensive and generally stay in the double digits if you don’t considerably cross the speed limit. And while that can be similar in the US, it also a lot of burdens that can follow. Like Fegurson Police Department viewing tickets like these as actual revenue stream, expecting or even downright hunting down offenders. Profit should not be a motivation for the police, the police is an institution that reacts, not hunts others. It’s also not the only city that does that. On top of that not paying those tickets can lead to having your driver’s license suspended, which can be a death sentence to someone who drives to work with how poor public transport is in the US. The really appalling part is the private apparatus and possible jailing that follows though. Any fine that someone can’t pay can put that person into a spiral of fees that just sucks up any income. These fees make the punishment completely disproportionate to the offense, which is simply grotesque as the fine alone should be punishment for breaking the law. Or, to put it in other words, the fine is a form of reparation to society that you pay for stepping out of the bounds you and society commonly agreed on. The very fact that a third party can profit to such a high degree with little to no regulations and checks is disgusting. Not to mention the possibility of jail people have to face, which can further ruin people’s lives, again for minor offenses. Well, there’s one reason why the prison population is so big.

Sheriffs

Again, mainly referencing a Last Week’s Tonight episode, roughly 25% of the police departments are under a sheriff’s supervision, an astonishing number for such a powerful position, considering that it might not need qualifications. Instead sheriffs are elected, oftentimes unopposed. This hardly would be a problem if that position wouldn’t come with such tremendous responsibilities. Giving directions to law enforcement shouldn’t be given to just about anyone. Neither should overseeing jails. The most extreme example being Joe Arpaio who became infamous for the inhumane conditions his jails were running under and lack of investigations for certain crimes like rape. That he was pardoned by Trump later is just the tip of the iceberg. The fact that he was able to be sheriff is already bad enough, but he’s also not the only bad apple. Other cases of abusing the position like the Alabama sheriff taking 750$,000 of food money for himself are in the same vein.

Bail

The bail system of the US stems from the fact that people don’t have to register themselves since that means, they don’t necessarily have a place of residence or that they could lie. However, in case you’re not able to pay the bail, you’re stuck behind the bars even without a proper conviction. You might even be innocent. Potentially punishing innocent people is already bad as is, the punishment goes further if you consider that the person can’t even work during that time or can potentially lose their job. Much like with normal fines, there is again a private entity potentially profiting from those bails with bonds, this with way lower prices, but on the other hand also hitting a lot more people, even innocent poor people.

Prisons themselves

The US is one of the few countries that has privatized prisons, meaning they’ve become for-profit institutions. Prisoners are allowed to work in prison for as little as a dollar per hour, turning them into a form of modern slaves. They also face a lot more violence and security problems. Security staff may not even be trained properly, but just in 3 weeks while looking at a $12 per hour pay. Private prisons are simply a huge issue in the US justice system that offer little benefit if any for an increase in danger and repeated offenses

I think private prisons are just one part of the whole picture though. The main issue is the general treatment convicts receive. If you’re convicted in the US, you quickly lose a lot of rights and chances. For example your right to vote either temporarily or forever. With how jails and prisons are sometimes operated you sometimes also lose a lot of human rights like the right for dignity or being safe from bodily harm. After all you can be treaten violently or withheld access to necessary sanitary products like menstrual pads. This gets even worse for sex offenders, as they will generally always be restricted, for better or worse. Just to clarify, I do think they should be punished, but I also think people should actually get a second chance, which means leaving their offenses behind if they served their punishment. Which brings me to rehabilitation.

Prisoner reentry

Entering society after regaining your freedom can be quite difficult in America. Just above I’ve laid out how little money prisonders may make, so that leaves them with little savings. Job search is severely impaired with a past conviction, as it immediately disqualifies you for many jobs. But that also extends to housing and food. For example, a conviction, no matter how minor, can make you ineligible for housing. That may be why in 2005 68% were again arrested after getting out of prison and it hasn’t changed much since then. It’s also still regarded as “unacceptably high” by some Americans.

This strikingly high rate is often compared to Scandinavian prisons that take a whole other approach. Instead of viewing convicts as sort of an evil that needs to be punished so that it learns to behave, Scandinavian countries use a strategy of rehabilitation. As a result prison cells look a lot more luxurious than their American conterparts. They also try to help prisoners reintegrate into society even while they’re still in jail. They recidivism rate is also much lower, possibly as a result of that. I certainly believe that a constructive, cooperative treatment leads to a better result than the inhumane treatment some American prisoners receive. Of course I’m aware that it’s impossible to suddenly change a system with two million people depending on it. A rehabilitation strategy requires a lot more resources. But on the other hand, some issues with pay, violence and reintegration are fairly easy to fix I think and can show tremendous results.

Many convictions and imprisonments are a direct result of the policies of the later half of the last century. During a time when drug abuse was a huge problem, punishments in form of prison sentences stroke back as just as strong. The consequences can be seen even today. Like this report from 2016 for example shows that 52.8% of drug related convictions ended with a mandatory minimum penalty of ten years or greater. And almost half the federal inmates are drug offenders. With this laid out, it’s no wonder that the prison population is so big.

There’s still a little more to say, like public defenders being too overworked to properly defend people and how the system still fails to catch some of the poor who even rely on food stamps. The main takeaway here is, that teh criminal justice system can be really dangerous, especially if you’re poor and your life is unstable. And if you go to prison, it’s not gonna get any better.

Lower class in the US

You might think not many are actually that poor, that they can’t afford sudden payments, but in fact in 2018 the Federal Reserve Board found that 40% of all Americans can’t pay an unexpected expense of $400 out of their pocket which is by no means high. It also puts the current situation surrounding Covid-19 with the huge number of unemployment and the overly costly medical system in another perspective. I think, I don’t need to write much about job security, when this year millions suddenly lost their job and the unemployment rate jumped up by 10% for April. And this number is still rising, now above 20%.

One reason might be the lack of labor unions in the US. Five years ago a leaked video against unions by Walmart showed us why. A similar video was supposedly leaked from Amazon. Unions have a much worse reputation in the US than they do in the old world. It’s so low, that the US ranks near the bottom for bargaining coverage with about 11%, only 2-3% higher than the percentage of workers in a union.

Add to that that the kid’s income and education are heavily predicted by the parent’s income. That should come as no surprise given the little support the state usually gives in the US. That’s what the US is about after all, individual freedom and a small state. But that’s also exactly what makes vertical socioeconomic mobility so low.

Take also for instance temporary workers. They’re a relatively new kind of worker with minimal job security and low pay. They’re not exclusive to America of course, I’ve also worked with them in Germany. In fact, they were the vast majority I’ve worked with in a warehouse, but that doesn’t make it any better. Outsourcing workers to pay them less has become quite common during this century. In my opinion it’s a sort of exploitation that uses people’s helplessness to earn maximum profits. But even if I say we have something similar in Germany, I think it’s still better than in the US. For one thing, US agencies and contractors both reject responsibilities for worker’s injuries and even deaths. They also further exploit workers by blackmailing them into their form transportation, which is downright unthinkable here. Probably not only because we have better public transportation.

And here comes the “systemic racism” into play, if you want to call it that, because I’m not sure if that’s quite accurate. To me, it’s no wonder blacks and latinos are disproportionately at the bottom end of the system, as they’ve started there, especially blacks as former slaves. The US never had a time where vertical mobility was any kind of good and thus, they’re still there. So while racial profiling and blatant racism does exist in the US, I don’t think it’s that simple. Rather the whole system itself keeps people who are at the bottom where they are, regardless of race. The question is rather how much racism is intentional and how much is a simple side effect from what I’ve described so far. That’s also why I think affirmative action and quotas don’t achieve the things they should. They’re rather patches to fix the symptoms, not the issue itself.

The next part is just a collection of things that stood out to me about the US. I think they can be mainly put into two categories, some even in both: Traps for people to lose money in and a severe lack of regulation. Notice how these money traps can easily contribute to the low mobility I’ve mentioned.

Miscallenous stories of money traps and no regulation.

Action Park

Let’s start with one of the most (in-)famous examples: Action Park. Many are probably familar with it and for others, just read the Wikipedia article or watch a video. Action Park just became famous for its huge number of injuries and deaths due to little safety regulations. It also employed minors who drunk on the job. Yet, it operated for many many years before it had to shut down.

Boeing

For a less known, but a more interesting example, let me talk about the Boing 737 Max. For those who don’t know, that’s the plane type that had two fatal crashes due to software bugs. Now, you might think that’s unfortunate, but there’s a lot to the story. For starters, the software on these planes was meant to offset the inherent design flaws this type of plane had because Boeing wanted to reuse old parts instead of developing new ones for huge costs. Not only that, they’ve also then outsourced this critical software to low paid workers some of which worked from India, which really does make you wonder if it has been tested properly afterwards. Another critical flaw was then a lack of redundancy that then made a single point of failure actually fatal. And even that wouldn’t have been so bad if the pilot could’ve turned off the flight assistant system, but it took over and eventually led to over a hundred deaths. And while black boxes of crashed airplanes are usually sent to their country of origin, they were actually send to France in fear of American investigators not reading them properly to shield Boeing. It’s an incredible story of lack of oversight coupled with maximizing profits. There’s also a reddit post of someone explaining why they’ll never fly a Boeing Max having worked at the company.

Televangelists and Mega-churches

One of the biggest shocks to me were mega-churches that fill entire stadiums. As John Oliver showed these mega-churches or televanglists can suck you out of a lot of money with their promises. To me they look incredibly shady and as someone relatively far removed from religion and esotericism, I was surprised by the number of people influeced by them. Sure, the US is vast with many people, but it’s not like they can all easily visit such a convention multiple states away, it takes a form of dedication. Or, you know, manipulation on the pastor’s part. I think part of what makes these things easy, is the ease of agitation in the US which also makes people easier to be manipulated. Otherwise I can’t quite imagine them being this popular.

WWE

I didn’t expect the WWE to be that nasty. Temporary contracts with little safety for their main stars surely isn’t how an employer should operate. Or if they get injured that the employer does help them recover and looks out for them. But apparently that’s not common with the WWE under Vince McMahon and so many wrestlers die early. With news of Trump naming McMahon an advisor to restart the economy and the WWE being considered essential in Florida very early in this pandemic, I think nothing should come as surprising out of that corrupt mess anymore.

Payday Loans

Payday loans are another money sink that can easily eat your money with hundreds of percent of interest rate. The idea behind them might be pretty good, but those interest rates just give me a chill down my spine. According to this site the average interest rate is 391% and I just can’t imagine paying something like that off unless it’s on my first following payday. The government tried to do something against this modern form of loan sharking, but hasn’t been very effective so far. So for now, it’s just one more example of a rabbit hole.

Death Investigations

Referencing more John Olivier I’ve truly been shocked that you don’t need any qualifications to examine dead bodies in some states. And given how horrible that one case looks and how the guy continued to work, I can easily put it to the other examples of lack of oversight.

Dialysis centers

For another case of exploiting the needy are dialysis centers that are rushing patients and don’t inform them properly about their options. On the bright side, the costs of that are covered by the government due to a bill under Nixon. However, the patients still largely fall short in the treatment and centers aren’t held accountable because of a lack of oversight.

I could still go on with more cases due to my recent consumption of Last Week Tonight, but it generally boils down to the same reasons and consequences. You can also watch some stuff yourself I suppose. So with that, let me finish this essay.

Synthesis

So where am I going with all this? My main problem with the US is that it’s inherently flawed. From the political system, that fosters a black and white thinking, which pushes everyone’s mentality in a certain direction, to the sensationalism and easy of agiatation that makes people easy to manipulate over to the turbo-capitalistic economy that leaves many in the dust. The corona virus simply exploited some of these weaknesses, like the costly medical system, job insecurity and overall poverty (rememeber?) and turned the country upside down. There’s also a lack of trust in the government that’s not as pronounced in other countries. We do have some idiots called “Reichsbürger” in Germany, but those are more singular cases. On the other hand, there are also some who still believe Trump and drink bleach, sending them to the hospital, which is just insane. But just to clarify, I don’t think this is all Trumps fault, even if he is partly responsible. Many problems I’ve described here are anything but new, they’ve been part of the country for decades, if not centuries. They haven’t even changed under Obama, a black president. The president isn’t all powerful after all, he still needs to get laws through congress and the senate. In many cases states have more power anyway, which you could see during the corona virus outbreak where some states locked down quickly while others didn’t.

Because of all the things I’ve described here, I also can’t view the current BLM protests as being just against police brutality. These protests are also in the context of mass unemployment and existential fear due to not being able to pay bills. On top of that dozens of videos of the police being aggressive are going viral each day on Twitter. It’s just insane how the police, and now even the military, are operating. It doesn’t make any sense as the protests are against police brutality, so this aggressiveness just adds more fuel to the fire. So unless someone from high up like Trump (or someone else if he’s replaced) gives an order to stop the beatings and aggressiveness, I really don’t see the situation calming down any time soon.