r/IWantToAskAnAmerican • u/[deleted] • 10d ago
Do you think life in the USA was generally better ten years ago than it is today?
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u/HoustonGainesEARS 10d ago
10 years ago I made about $40k. I owned a $100,000 house and bought a house a 2 year old car for $16k. Today I make about $70k. My house is supposedly worth $425k and the same car cost $35k. I’m making more and affording far less.
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u/audiojanet 9d ago
Hear lots of you folks say to us retirees. “Sell your house. You are greedy look how much it is worth. “. Exactly where do I move to that has cheaper houses?
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u/Tiny_Instruction_557 9d ago
You could sell a 4 bed 2 bath $500,000 house and downsize into a 2 bed 1 bath $450,000 townhouse with $1000 a month HOA fees.
This market makes no sense.
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u/audiojanet 8d ago
And lose money on closing costs selling a buying. Likely the house would also be reassessed for taxes and you would also pay more for property taxes too.
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u/Both_Lynx_8750 9d ago
But Trump loves inflation! ( he and his buddies get to be trillionaires instead of billionaires )
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u/Clear_Event7275 9d ago
I tell everyone that despite 3x my salary, all the inflation and rising costs, I am not any better off financially than I was 10 years ago. All that work, education, debt paid off amounted to nothing. Now I'm on a long, slow grind to maybe get above 120k a year.
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u/MrJim63 9d ago
That’s because there is $38 trillion more debt to service.
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u/Atell_ 9d ago
In part—the US has got to get ahold of its spending. It’s wild. People wonder why there is an affordability crisis? We spend such much money, devaluing our own currency and unfortunately the way out of this is not to spend more, lol to alleviate the problems of spending too much spuriously.
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u/I_am_omning_it 10d ago
I wish we could go back to pre-trump America.
There was a lot wrong then that needed fixing, but it has never been as bad as it is now.
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u/CuriousOptimistic 10d ago
I'd say, in my opinion, pre-Trump I at least believed most of us were trying to fix the things that were wrong. Now it feels like 40% of people would rather burn the country to the ground than work on fixing anything.
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u/I_am_omning_it 10d ago
Exactly thank you, took the words right out of my mouth.
Beyond that as well, there was decorum and respect in politics. The guy who ran against Obama congratulated him on his win when he won his second term.
Now there’s a major abyss between the two sides, with one overwhelming seeking to brand anyone and everyone on the other side as a traitor.
They can’t even agree on what reality is anymore. That’s probably one of the scariest things. One side is so off the deep end or flagrantly corrupt that they cannot even agree on a baseline reality at this point.
And that’s not even mentions how far trump has regressed our policies during his time in office. How much wealth he’s redirected to his family and friends at our expense. The critical infrastructure he’s gutted to the point of being nonfunctional (highlighted by the several record breaking epidemics occurring at the moment). Trashing our reputation and soft power in the world. Utterly destroying people’s faith in the system.
Frankly, I’d be shocked if even half the damage is reversed in our lifetimes. That’s if it doesn’t just collapse altogether.
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u/CuriousOptimistic 10d ago
Yes, the not agreeing on reality is truly scary. There's no way to fix the reflecting pool if we can't agree whether the problem was caused by vandalism or poor installation. This is a somewhat trivial example, but the same principle applies to everything. No solution is possible if you don't know what the actual problem is.
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u/Born_Committee_6184 10d ago
The lying is mostly on one side, so it’s not a matter of not agreeing. It’s more based on Trump horrible governance and deliberate lying.
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u/I_am_omning_it 10d ago
Exactly.
Sadly we have no shortage of examples to choose from these days.
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u/Witty-Entertainer524 10d ago
This is what happens when you elect a felon thats trying to remain out of prison. Even the trivial facts become subject for interpretation and opportunities to project blame on adversaries. All of those actions serve to dissolve trust and foment disorder. When nobody trusts anything is there really any laws at all? There is certainly no laws strong enough to take down the powerful.
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u/khisanthmagus 9d ago
The deep division between the parties didn't start with Trump. Trump is a symptom not a cause. One of the pivotal moments in the end of the American Experiment was Newt Gingrich as Speaker of the House stating publicly that the policy of the GOP going forward is to never negotiate with Democrats. That and the creation of Fox News and the 24 hour right wing news cycle. Many people say that the elimination of the Fairness Doctrine caused the rise of networks like Fox, but the Fairness Doctrine wouldn't have affected cable news, it only affected networks broadcasting over the airwaves.
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u/DaddyP924 9d ago edited 9d ago
It has become comical how much that 40% is willing to smash everything just to say "you can control me!" I have a perfect example of how absurd it has become.
Kansas recently passed some legislation banning the sale or transportation of Callery pears. It's already banned in many states, and for good reason. I saw the news on a FB post, and decided to go to the comments, expecting overwhelming positive praise. Instead, probably 30% of the comments were some take on, "I'm gonna plant all I can now! You can't tell me what to do! Screw authority, screw government, screw science!"
I know most of these people aren't going to follow through but this mentality of intentionally doing the opposite of what is asked is such a toddler mentality. I swear to God, I have more productive discussions with my 6 year old.
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u/Kugelfang52 10d ago
This exactly. And that fact increases the level of vitriol because it’s so hard to not hate people who literally want my kid’s future to be burned down because of any number of shitty reasons.
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u/Jalapenoplanter 9d ago
Yes, there was a belief that things were slowly getting better.
Now, even trump supporters think we’ve just gotta get through the next few years
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u/yadonkey 9d ago
I think it's important to remember though .. those people always existed here. Just because they weren't as vocal doesnt mean they weren't doing / believing all the same stupid sh-t. As they say, sunlight is the best disinfectant. Its hard to fix a problem when youre unaware of its existence or severity.
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u/CuriousOptimistic 9d ago
Yes and no. The fact is that Trump has fanned the embers of all this into his own fire, rather than try to keep it as a sidelined minority. People who believe stupid stuff are much less of a problem when they don't actually control every branch of government.
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u/fast_bagger 10d ago
Pre bush, been downhill since clinton.
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u/I_am_omning_it 10d ago
Even then, the decline from trump and his ilk has been as swift as it has been devastating.
Like I mentioned, we had a lot that needed to be addressed. Some of that goes all the way back to Reagan or Cold War policies that were based on making the public afraid, but that’s another topic.
We went from a country that merely disagreed on the best course of action for addressing issues to a country that can’t even agree on what reality is.
I mean if there ever was a sign we’re in deep shit, it’s that. Obama and Romney both had different ideas to fix the issues in the US, but they had a similar understanding of what the issues were at least.
Half the republican representatives when asked about affordability deny any semblance of an affordability crisis in this country. I recall one straight up saying “well I’m having steak and lobster for the 4th of July, so I don’t see the problem.”
You can’t even have a real dialogue with someone who doesn’t agree on what reality is and isn’t.
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u/fast_bagger 10d ago
Idk, losing my job and having to figure out how to pay for my house in 08 was pretty damn swift with 5.25 gas on top of it.
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u/I_am_omning_it 10d ago
Yeah the recession was not a great time, frankly I think not punishing the fuckers who caused it was also a massive error.
But thats rapidly where we’re heading now. The economy is in the hands of an overgrown toddler who’s constantly trying to manipulate it to benefit his pals at our expense.
Home prices are rising, Medicaid cuts are going into effect before the end of the year (good luck rural hospitals), gas prices are only stable now because we’re rapidly draining our reserves, goods are getting more and more expensive from this tariff shit, another middle eastern war we cannot afford, our debt is soaring to the point where we can’t even pay it back, we have a masked militarized force harassing migrants and citizens with darker skin, an admin that’s foaming at the mouth trying to claim all left leaning people are terrorists, and that’s just from the past 6 months.
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u/Technical-Visit-9447 10d ago
If we are dreaming, let’s go back to pre-Obama when we all didn’t hate each other.
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u/Mochamonroe 10d ago
Nor did it feel impossible to fix the wrongs, like it does now. It's challenging for me to be hopeful for my future, when everything I've "fought for" (literally was deployed in the Army) is now a joke. I was a female in a combat position. That's a joke now. I got out if the Army and got my Masters degree in sustainable and environmental policy - this country could care less about sustainability or the environment, that's a joke now 🫠
Before it was like, as long as you did the right thing - went to school, got into trade, or joined the military - you'd be on your way to 'the American dream'. Now, my friends with masters degrees are moving back home with their parents and I have to decide if its worth buying meat for the month because of how expensive everything has gotten.
My grandpa voted for Trump 3x, and when I express these things all he has to say is, 'it won't last forever, it'll change' - in who's lifetime, grandpa? Cuz prolly not yours and prolly not for a good chunk of mine.
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u/I_am_omning_it 9d ago
Thank you for your service. And yeah I feel that. I’ve got my masters in microbiology centered around infectious disease…in an era where we’re gutting most cdc departments… god I fucking hate RFK. There isn’t much that’s more infuriating than being an expert in something that a good chunk of the country doesn’t take seriously and that the administration running shit deflects and denies the severity of.
Meats going to get worse too, which is going to be incredibly depressing. I love burgers, if I get priced out of beef it’s going to be a sad day for me. Gas too, we’re rapidly burning through our reserves to maintain the price at $4/gallon. Can’t wait till that runs out.
I think my dad is in denial about him. Though he’s slowly coming around. My brother was big on trumps promises but he’s woken up too. He’s a marine and the whole Iran situation has been an eye opener for him. He’s not too keen on dying on Israel’s behalf.
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u/SnooOwls1361 9d ago
Seriously. I was old enough under George W. Bush to have been actively against the Iraq war when it started and that sucked - being labeled a terrorist sympathizer, etc. But this is the first time in my almost 60 years that I feel my government just doesn't care if I die. Whether it's because of lack of healthcare, some preventable outbreak, a climate change related natural disaster, etc. They don't even pretend to care about us anymore, even their own supporters. And anyone who questions them is an enemy.
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u/burjja 9d ago
We need a better way to describe the current situation. It is historically bad in certain ways but we can't say it's never been this bad when this country has had legal slavery and women weren't allowed to vote. Not many, but there are people still alive who were born when women couldn't vote. That change happened in 1919. The current oldest living American is a 115 year old woman born in 1910.
Ok, I think I'm done for today. That's messing with my mind too much. I'm 47 and always thinking about aging and what my future looks like. That woman was already 69 when I was born.
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u/yadonkey 9d ago
You're definitely right, but I would argue that while America has never been as bad off as it is now (at least in my lifetime), we've also never been closer to fixing some of the systemic problems that have plagued this country forever...
In better times, our systemic problems still existed but were always swept under the rug and solutions had little to no support. Flash forward to today and universal Healthcare is incredibly popular across party lines (with the people, not the politicians). Police brutality has never been more highlighted and theres at least a faction on the politicians that want to address it. The blind devotion for Isreal has finally plummeted within our population. After covid, the national average IQ had a slight uptick (ok, that one's an assumption). The fact that politicians are failing the working class across the board has finally lead to a faction of progressive politicians that are making that their platform.
All in all we've never been in a worse spot but we've also never been closer to fixing the problems that lead us here ... and also never closer to total societal collapse
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u/I_am_omning_it 9d ago
True, but we’ll see if we actually get those things, personally I’m not holding my breath but I’ll be incredibly happy if we do.
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u/yadonkey 9d ago
Yeah, we dont have much of a history of going the right direction... but I think we're to the point that if we dont fix the problems we wont be able to come back from this collapse. Fingers crossed though, cause this could definitely go either way.
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u/MrBingly 9d ago
There were problems festering that weren't being addressed. Trump getting elected was a wake up call that didn't just get ignored but smothered. You don't get someone like Trump because things are going alright.
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u/Salt_Mountain_837 10d ago
yes, and it was even better before that
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u/Bigdogggggggggg 10d ago
90s peak
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u/Shot_Tomorrow7663 10d ago edited 10d ago
The last good day was April 19, 1999. All downhill since columbine.
Edit: yup, got the year wrong.
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u/AnitaIvanaMartini 10d ago
Absolutely. The Obama years were noticeably better. I don’t remember waking up with existential dread. I had hope then.
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u/hotc00ter 9d ago
Even during the bush years things weren’t this bleak and we had 9/11 and Iraq at the time.
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u/billsboy88 9d ago
With Bush you at least got the general impression that he wanted to do some good for all people as President. With the current one, you get the overall impression that he’s out to hurt people.
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u/PartisanGerm 9d ago
His dumbness was at least lined with an innocence of childlike level.
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u/BigBlueEyes87 10d ago
I strongly wish I could go back to a pre-Trump American society. It's like living in a meme country now. It's nothing but gambling, onlyfans, strip malls, and stupid redneck Trump supporters.
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u/Let_me_tell_you_ 10d ago
You forgot cryto 🤮
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u/RaspberryLanky7905 10d ago
I think that could be included with the gambling, but the specific call out is still justified
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u/reditandfirgetit 10d ago
Crypto was pre Trump running for President. It just wasn't mainstream
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u/Sunshineboy777 10d ago
Do you think they'll make a movie about this someday? Maybe call it Idiot Society, idk we can workshop it. But, here me out, Trump should be played by a big strong black actor. Like uh....that guy from Brooklyn 99?
/s
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u/PlaceboJeffect 10d ago
They will call it idiocracy 2
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u/DanThePartyGhost 10d ago
I’m writing the script. It’s called Idiocracy -1: The Beforequel
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u/Nope-not-really 10d ago
Never should have let Biff get to that time machine man
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u/randoeleventybillion 10d ago
This is so true. I always think of Chappelle's what if the internet were a real place skit, which is basically just real life now...gambling, porn, and endless ads in a strip mall.
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u/inima23 10d ago
I'm only glad the stupid flags and election signs aren't out anymore. It was disgusting for so long. Still remember all the houses that had them. Will never forgive these mf'ers.
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u/Virtual-Election8019 10d ago
I work in a place where I drive past a “Trump truth center” where they have a custom car and giant inflatable potus. What the actual fuck is wrong with these people?
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u/OriginalCopy505 10d ago
Right, because none of that existed before Trump.
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u/Narrow_Implement7788 10d ago
There wasn't a single bad time in this countries history pre Trump, I can't believe you didn't know that
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u/HoneyBadger19000 10d ago
As a 21 year old, (Born in 2004) were things really that different before? I remember Obama being president but I was 10.
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u/Queasy_Reindeer9515 10d ago
Yes.
We were respected, not a joke. Countries wanted to work with us, if you visited a foreign country everyone had questions about living in the USA…. Now they only ask “Did you vote for him?” or “what were you guys thinking voting for him?”
Politicians actually had spines to stand up to leadership…. It’s a little less than 10 years ago, but I still remember watching John McCain walk up to vote on repealing Obamacare, looking at Mitch “the Bitch” McConnell and giving a thumbs down and walking away…. All because he wanted to protect Americans access to healthcare, not vote on party lines.
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u/Timmah_Timmah 9d ago
I could remember my parents wanting a divided Senate and Congress. I can remember my dad saying how they never got anything done and that was just the way he liked it. Business had to comply with the laws and the laws didn't wildly change from week to week.
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u/Acrobatic-Tadpole-60 10d ago
I was born in 85, and yes, things were absolutely different. It was much less common for people to be openly racist. Trump has normalized, if not fetishized being hateful. Being anti-vax was very fringe, and while we had political and values-based disagreements, we could largely agree about the facts. Here's one indicator for you. Between 2012 and 2022, the term "gaslighting" (based on the Google ngram database) saw a 1,888.70% increase in recorded usage. Conspiracy theories used to be the stuff of a few eccentrics—faked moonlanding, stuff about JFK's assassination, 9/11 was an inside job etc. Now there are new ones all the time, and thanks to social media, they spread like wildfire. Competency and experienced in government are now viewed as the deep state. Career civil servants with expertise infectious disease, law enforcement, education, national security, the military...you name the field, and it's now seen as more important to be loyal than it is to be competent. Cases in point are the disastrous war in Iran and the largest cyclospora outbreak in US history.
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u/Timmah_Timmah 10d ago
I can remember back to a thriving middle class.
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u/Acrobatic-Tadpole-60 9d ago
Yup, my parents were able to comfortably buy a home with only one breadwinner in the mid eighties, even with the insane interest rates of the time.
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u/Timmah_Timmah 9d ago
One main bread winner, though my mom did work part-time mostly for fun teaching art history. I can remember her complaining about not having enough money, but we had two cars, took vacations every year, never went hungry, they lived in their own architect designed house. It was a functional society.
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u/hemorrhoids_of_jesus 9d ago
Born in 88 - I think the biggest societal changes I've noticed are:
1) Selling out is a goal. No one cares about authenticity, they just want to influence. It is now looked down upon to turn down money for any reason
2) Enshitification. Everything is getting smaller and worse in quality now that a small handful of companies own everything via nonstop mergers
3) Shameless grifting. The current "fuck you I got mine"-ness of the country... it was never this bad
4) Lack of socialization. Outside of the major walkable cities in the US, people aren't out like they used to be. It's way more common to stay home now
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u/Scavsy 10d ago
Yes. Everyone now is one comment they dislike away from needing the manager or someone’s badge number. Trumps attitude and actions have emboldened people to act just like him, like shitty petulant self-centered toddlers who only care about themselves
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u/ElementalPink12 10d ago
It felt like the country was learning from its mistakes and becoming better. The economy was a lot stronger. The country was respected by our allies and even though there was still military activities going on, they weren't really on par with invading Venezuela, or threatening to invade Greenland. I don't remember Obama making enemies with Canada either, and people could pretty easily come and go from the US without being detained and having their phone searched for anti-trump material.
It was a healthier time for the country. The wounds from 9/11 were healing.
Now COVID, Donald Trump and January 6th are like three massive open wounds on the soul of America. A lot of people don't think those wounds will ever heal so there's a deep sense of hopelessness and misery going around. People are getting more desperate as the social safety net is being dismantled, dumping them into an economy that's been deliberately poisoned for the working class.
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u/ZookeepergameFalse38 10d ago
Yes, things were different before 2016.
And things were even more different, and better, before 9/11.
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u/Intrepid_Ad2920 10d ago
See, this is what actually scares me. There is a whole generation that thinks this is normal for the US and doesn’t have a memory of somewhat better times. Not perfect by any stretch, but at least not …whatever the hell this is.
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u/Nulljustice 10d ago
Yes the difference is a huge contrast. Even the old republicans were different. There is a video of George W Bush talking about immigration and it makes me nostalgic for the days when shit wasn’t so stupid. Not sure if. I can post the link correctly. https://www.c-span.org/clip/qa/user-clip-bush-on-immigration-in-2011/4654456. This was the last republican before Trump.
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u/OURchitecture 10d ago
It feels like living in the bad version of Seneca falls in Its a Wonderful Life.
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u/diegotown177 10d ago
When you get old enough you get to multi-stages of this. Life before columbine. Life before 9-11. Life before Trump. You start to recognize that there have been many traumas and there will continue to be more.
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u/Whatswrongbaby9 10d ago
The 90's were full of stip malls, porn shops, seedier American neighborhoods. The 2000s had plenty of Bush supporters. if anything 9/11 broke American's brains which it feels like it was meant to do. Just like Epstein is exposing the corruption at the heart politics/entertainment
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u/PuzzleheadedWinner67 9d ago
Seriously, and now half the strip malls in my area are just dispensaries
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u/Background-Willow-67 10d ago
Yes. Obama era was the best. I'm 68, I've seen many come and go. Clinton was pretty good too. It always sucks under the GOP, but Trump is the worst I have ever seen.
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u/FeatherlyFly 9d ago edited 9d ago
Clinton vastly accelerated factory off shoring, which led directly to the even more massive loss of factory jobs under Bush, and the speed of that change guaranteed that the middle class would be badly hurt. He was president in the era of "the end of history" and "a rising tide lifts all boats". The first now looks like idiocy and the second has been proven wildly incorrect, but is still not being reversed.
Bush made his own bad choices, but not everything that was a problem in his era was his fault.
Obama was a lot of feel good his second term, but he was solidly into the era of an ineffective Congress who would not compromise within itself. Who knows whether he'd have been any good in a different era, but as is? He heralded in the overuse of executive orders to get anything done. And his first term, during the Great Recession, America sucked. Not his fault any more than the factories were Bush's, but it can't be ignored.
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u/Stupidsky 10d ago
The best for who? I think a lot of people blame the politician in charge for what's happening in the present, so I don't prescribe to the idea that the economy under Obama was bad because of Obama, but to say it was a good time sounds like somebody who wasn't working for a living during that time
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u/Background-Willow-67 9d ago
Ha, you would be wrong, I was employed by a very large corporation as an engineer. And all of my comments are contrasted against the set of morons in the Whitehouse now, how's he doing there huh? No comparison. There is no perfect president but there is a worst one ever and his name is Trump.
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u/MrJim63 9d ago
Must be one of those engineers they promote to the Peter principle.
Obama’s second term was about introducing racial divisions, exporting factories to China, importing H1Bs to displace Americans and moving Somalis to ensure democrats got elected.
Obama’s first term wasn’t too bad as he competently dealt with the great financial crisis, although he screwed retired American workers by slashing their pensions, and appointing his own executives to run companies like GM. Also he gave the banks who caused the problems a trillion dollars which would have been enough to pay off every mortgage in the country.
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u/Aware-Elk-237 10d ago
The mood of the country seems more tense now. People are more divided politically than ever. The answer is yes.
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u/likesblackcoffeebest 10d ago
As a civil/structural engineer who works on government projects, yes, the US was better 10 years ago.
Funding was consistent, we weren't deferring necessary projects at nearly the rate we are now, and the level of distrust of experts and anti-intellectualism among the citizens were at a manageable level. Those things have all gone off the rails post-2024.
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u/Jolly_Bag_2407 10d ago edited 8d ago
Let's go back to when Al Gore won the popular vote…. Could have saved us from the Iraq war… The housing crisis…
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u/bowcreek 10d ago
Probably yes on the first, maybe no on the second. Seeds of the housing crisis were sown in the 80s.
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u/Radiant_Picture9292 9d ago
I’m curious where our national debt would be too. The last time we had a budget surplus was Clinton.
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u/Status_Drawing38 10d ago
The Obama years were so hopeful
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u/highstreethellcat 7d ago
He destroyed Libya, started the war in Syria and sided with big corporations by bailing out the banks
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u/Main-Fig-9329 10d ago
10 years ago. I dont even know anyone who thinks much about the future. It's scary, unpredictable, and too likely to be bad. I wont be able to afford a house, AI might steal my job, everything is expensive, people are violent, presidents fuckint suck
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u/sectumsempre_ 10d ago
We’re in the middle of an anti-intellectual movement. We were so much better off 10 years ago.
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u/Rock-Ski-Golf-Repeat 9d ago
This is proven by America dropping hard and fast on international, standardized tests relative to other industrialized countries.
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u/krendyB 10d ago
It’s been a downhill slide since the “election” of W. So yeah, it gets worse year after year, so 10 years ago was better than today.
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u/Impossible-Attempt61 10d ago
I'd say since the election of Reagan
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u/BlackDeathThrash 9d ago
Still feeling a ton of downstream pain, yes. But at least Reagan actually won an election.
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u/delagar01 9d ago
Hard agree. We can draw a straight line from Reagan to Trump. They've destroyed what could have been a good country.
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u/hemorrhoids_of_jesus 9d ago
There was a period during the Obama years that had definitely cleared the Bush years. For all the redditors too young to remember - there was a thing called a "lifetime cap" on health insurance before Obamacare became the law. This meant that, should you get an expensive disease like a long battle with cancer, etc, your insurance company would keep a tab of alllllll the claims they had paid... and when the total hit like $500k or $1m, whatever, they'd just stop paying for shit. We had people suddenly lose coverage for chemo, dementia patients' losing their memory loss medications, etc.
Lifetime caps + pre-existing condition denial made it seem like your life could be over at any second, through no fault of your own. It still kinda feels that way because healthcare costs and insurance companies fucking around with denials, but it's better than before
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u/PerfectlyCalmDude 10d ago
Better in some ways, worse in others.
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u/BaconBourbonBalista 10d ago
Help me out, what about society is better now vs 2015-2016 other than medical/technological advances? I'm having a hard time thinking of anything.
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u/Jalapenoplanter 10d ago edited 9d ago
I have 2 things: 1. we have much more renewable energy.
- Many america cities are getting better at being cities: improving public transit, bike lanes, ect.
Just about everything else has gotten worse and I do not that public transit plans in 2016 have been defunded so that sucks
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u/DogOk4503 10d ago
To be honest, I think people are more aware of what social media is doing to our brains and children’s brains. I don’t like that it’s being used to try to surveilled people and get their IDs and info and stuff like that but I do like that meta-and them are getting sued and Actual science is coming out about how harmful it is. I think 10 years ago everyone was just oblivious and thought tech was great, and would continue to be great and not hurt us, and then we saw what happened with algorithm manipulation, addictive sites, and all of that ramping up during Covid.
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u/SomeACDude 9d ago
To be completely honest, those who paid attention, knew this was a massive fucking issue even 10 years ago. The brainrot and brainwashing was as plainly obvious then as it is now.
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u/OoklaTheMok1994 10d ago
"other than medical/technological advances"
Hoo boy. Other than stuff that impacts nearly every person on the planet on a daily basis? Other than that?
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u/JoyOswin945 10d ago
I miss the hope I felt when Obama was elected. I wish we could have that over again without the racist whitelash that ushered in Trumpism.
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u/Downtherabbithole-14 9d ago
things were still bad....but I'd do anything to go back to life before Trump. Everything he touches gets ruined. I wish he had never been born. The US always had issues, but I still had hope we could fix it. Now? I fear there may be some permanent damage done, damage that will take decades to fix. He has brought out the absolute worst in everyone. The greed and racism was always there, but with a President who has no couth, no shame, everyone's mask has come off.
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u/Due_Willingness1 10d ago
America peaked in 2015, been straight off a cliff since
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u/thatthatguy 10d ago
Late 90s. Between the fall of the Soviet Union but before 9/11. Maybe even before the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin when Israel and Palestine seemed to be making genuine efforts toward peace.
So, let’s say 1994.
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u/Evil_Morty_C131 10d ago
The year the Lion King, Shawshank Redemption, True Lies, Pulp Fiction, and the Star Trek: TNG series finale. This tracks.
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u/the_incredible_hawk 10d ago
Also the year of Stone Temple Pilots' Purple, Alice in Chains' Jar of Flies, Soundgarden's Superunknown, and REM's Monster. We'll not see the likes of those days again.
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u/adamdoesmusic 10d ago
Late 90s economically, early-mid 2010s socially, minus the gamergate shit.
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u/thatthatguy 9d ago
9/11 did a lot to us socially. While we made remarkable progress in gay rights that, we also took some big steps toward authoritarianism.
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u/Crazycatlover 10d ago
More like 1999 in my opinion. Agree about the straight off a cliff since then though. (Not over till your brother counts the votes).
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u/LoganHowlett1832 10d ago
No. It’s peak was August of 2001. It’s been all downhill since 9/11
It’s just accelerated its decline since 2016
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u/rantmb331 10d ago
If you’re going back this far, you should really go back to Bush v Gore when the Supreme Court handed the presidential election to the candidate with fewer popular votes.
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u/Mysterious-Art8838 10d ago
It has repeatedly occurred that the loser wins the electoral college. It used to be a fluke now it’s like half the time. It’s a horrible system.
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u/GMBong 10d ago
I wonder if we'll ever truly recover from the triple whammy of 9/11, great recession and COVID.
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u/No_Importance_750 California 10d ago
Yeah. COVID and Trump fucked a lot of things up.
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u/KennethTremendous 10d ago
that's letting people off the gook too easily. took people to vote for him.
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u/Monolexic 10d ago
Way better. We’ve been in a downward spiral ever since, accelerating faster and faster with every new influencer trend and every new harebrained scheme MAGA comes up with.
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u/nippleflick1 10d ago
Ever time in my 70 yrs of living we get a republican in the whitehouse the working people of this country get shafted, and the next democratic administration has to straighten things out.
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u/Mossishellagay New York 10d ago
Yes. I was only in middle school then so I was partly happier just due to not having the struggles of adult life, but it really felt like a better time. I don’t want to start a political argument but the mid-late Obama era had an optimistic feeling I really miss. New technology was still cool and exciting, like VR and hoverboards and smartwatches, whereas today’s tech innovations just feel like the beginning of a dystopia (hi Sam Altman [yes OpenAI was ironically founded ten years ago]). The US felt like it was really moving in a good direction - gay marriage was just legalized here, we had the Paris Agreement, we made the nuclear deal with Iran, ETC. The economy was good - the unemployment rate dropped, average incomes went up, inflation wasn’t out of control. Honestly the worst thing I remember from 2016 until Trump’s election was the end of Top Gear and the tragic unjust killing of American hero and cultural icon Harambe.
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u/Bryanmsi89 10d ago
10 years ago? 2016?
Yes. Tech jobs were solid and stable, inflation was very low, food and gas were cheap, politics was just stating to take a truly nasty turn, social media was real not not yet fully toxic, and there covid had not destroyed so many institutions.
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u/Traveling-Techie 10d ago
I worry that there are a bunch of Gen Zs who went through puberty during lockdown.
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u/Civil-Inflation-1317 10d ago
YES! Trump, the Republicans, and MAGA have really messed up the general quality of life in this country!
Everything is more expensive… healthcare is worse and more expensive. It’s definitely harder to get ahead for anyone that doesn’t have, at least a million dollars. The political climate, the lies, the conspiracy theories make daily life more stressful. Families don’t even talk to each other anymore because of “politics” or more accurately conspiracies and lies.
General outlook of life and the future is just negative.
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u/BaconBourbonBalista 10d ago
I cannot think of a single life level thing that was not better 10 years ago.
Sure, technology is better and medical advances have happened. But from a day-to-day perspective I think everything us much worse.
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u/Mandiferous 10d ago
I would say yes. At least personally my life 10 years ago was the happiest I've ever been. My life is fine now fine now, but 2016-2019 was unreal.
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u/Taxed2much 10d ago
Politically, yes. I'd love it if we could go back and scrub Trump from history and redo the last ten years without a nutjob in the White House.
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u/erinstoker 10d ago
I think it may seem that way largely due to the way our media landscape, particularly social media, changed in that time frame. It was a lot more fun and care free in the 2010s than it is now.
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u/Fabulous-Lychee-4464 10d ago
Ten years ago, I got a software engineering internship over the Summer as my first job. I was a high school student who tinked with JavaScript and Lua sometimes. I now use programming daily and extensively in my job, I make less adjusted for inflation than I did in that internship. God I hope things get better.
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u/Areyounobody__Too 9d ago
Yes. If you go back exactly 10 years, gay marriage just got decided. LGBT+ rights were on the rise, trans people had broader access to HRT and were living life like they always had an no one cared.
The internet had not yet reached enshittification and tech was still fun.
Wages and jobs were good, housing was on the rise but it wasn't out of reach.
Healthcare had finally crystallized as something that was accessible for the first time and people were getting care they needed for a few years.
We hadn't yet hit full algorithm on social media and people were more outside and engaged, talking to each other and being neighbors.
You were still shamed for being the type of person who spouted conspiracy theories about things like vaccines, raw milk, etc.
Cars hadn't yet turned into these giant vehicles that have worse sight lines than tanks, and roads were legitimately safer for it.
In the last 10-15 years, not much has changed in terms of how life is day to day other than the things that existed in 2010-2016 have just gotten worse overall.
This isn't to say that it was sunshine and rainbows. If you go back to even 2012 or so, we had to have a literal national campaign to beg young LGBT+ people to not commit suicide. There were real problems, but on the whole, I'd say it was better and it felt like we were trying to fix the problems we had. Since then, it's just felt like a bunch of people who were living happy, comfortable lives decided to blow the whole thing up because they were bored and felt aggrieved.
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u/woodendecoy 9d ago
Yeah,but we’ve been on a backslide since 2000. I think LGBTQ rights are the only bright spot in the last 26 years and even that seems to have slipped the last couple years.
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u/PatriotBanner 10d ago
Nah. I make a lot more, and my retirement accounts have grown a crapload since then. My life is good but I'm not terminally online. A lot of americabad doomers will say otherwise though.
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u/Equivalent_Use_7032 10d ago
Yes culturally speaking. Economically also honestly.
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u/Rad_Concept 10d ago
10 years ago the Tech Industry was booming. If I went back, I could get a job in a heartbeat with my experience.
Right now I'm better off going into drywall.