Dónde estaremos en cinco años

[Darunia]

Friends, colleagues, gorons one and all----it appears to me that we are indeed living in the end times. I speak not of religion or myth, but of the end of this great American experiment. Between the pandemic, race wars and Trump, this is not the country it was just five years ago, or even five months ago. 

Question: do you PERSONALLY, HONESTLY think that in five or ten years, things will be BETTER or WORSE than they are now?

Yours,

HRM Darvnivs Maximvs, King of the Gorons and Ireland, lord of all deli workers, rex graecorum, et cetera.

[Weltall]

I don't think things have ever really been better. The ugliness has always been here. Racial strife has existed on this continent far longer than the United States has, and Trump is merely a bad symptom of a disease which has infected this country since its founding. This is one of those times where the ugliness can't be hidden or ignored, and that's when real opportunities for improvement present themselves. 

The American experiment isn't over, but it's definitely entering a whole new phase, and uncharted territory. We can end up better and stronger if we stop clinging to a fantasy idea of what this country used to be and learn from the mistakes and cruelties which litter our past. That's not to say this country has nothing good in its history, or that America was uniquely bad, but I definitely would not rather have been born any earlier than I was. The America my parents grew up in looks like a nightmare when you peel back the nostalgia and selective memories.

[Sacred Jellybean]

It feels histrionic to predict that the End is Nigh, but I've long since abandoned any hubris to predict what will happen next in this country. Who the hell could have foreseen the internet, rise of social media, the dissolution of objective truth, the abandonment of journalistic integrity, the 24-hour news cycle and cynical commercialization of media, hyper-divisive politics, outrage culture (on both sides), the swift escalation of culture wars that started in the 80s, and Donald fucking Trump?

Sure feels like we're fucked! But we'll see. Strap on, it's gonna get fun, especially if Trump gets a second term.

[A Black Falcon]

I think we can stop Trump this year. That will not reverse all of the control white nationalists now have over the Republican Party or give us two functioning political parties again, but if it happens it will at least allow us to start that process.

And yeah, that us white Americans finally are actually recognizing how bad things are for minorities in this country is a very major change, and one quit dramatically for the better! In the 1960s, racist appeals like Trump's worked very well. Now, finally, people are starting to realize the truth. If progress continues, we could finally make this nation what it has always wanted to be... or at least closer to it.

Global warming / climate change, though? Yeah, we're probably doomed on that front. It's already bad and will get much, much worse over time.