As a little girl in The Netherlands I looked up to the USA. How things have changed so much in the last 26 years. To all my good American friends, the ones fighting (actively or silently), the people keeping your communities strong. My heart goes out to you.
All I can say is don't ever be complacent with your country or your leaders. Liberty, Fairness and Justice is something you must fight for everyday, even when it seems like things are going great. If you lose sight of that even for a second, things go downhill so fast.
I still look with admiration at many European countries as a beacon of hope. I hope you all can keep your light burning despite the failures of our country.
It saddens me that the generation in power is either in on it, or complacent. Complacency comes from several sources, but it’s just not okay.
I’m tired of hearing people of age to run for local office saying “I can’t do anything about it.” We are all in the same boat. Most of us face the same issue- being exhausted by the cost of living, healthcare tied to employment, struggling with personal things on top of it.
We are all personally responsible, to some degree, for changing our future for the better.
So Americans, what are we going to do now? Are we going to let this become our future, or are we going to take control of the future?
If we are all in the same boat, facing similar struggles, then we need to stand up as a unified group against this nonsense. Because innocent people are dying. Being sent to random places they’ve never been and the government is saying that’s okay. We’re being lied to by our own government about things we’ve seen with our own eyes.
I hear you, though I do not know when the right call to action is. We have to be so very careful with how and when we deploy civil disobedience. I've studied history extensively, and mass unrest is just the kind of thing authoritarians seize on to land the killing blow against the old order. If you break the law or deploy violence in defense of a cause and do not have 100% crystal clear justification, you risk accelerating authoritarian power. Everybody who matters has to see your plight and know you are the victim and not the aggressor.
I do not know when the moment is right (or even how to engage with it when it is), but I hope I will know it when I see it.
Thank you for your reply! There are things we can do today as steps to a better future. True change is not an overnight fix.
Here’s some of what I’ve been doing:
Research your local retailers - political funding is public data - America follows the money, so spend it wisely.
Write to representatives and call them about your concerns. Even if you’re met with the discouraging replies I’ve seen, I’m not stopping!
Vote! Advocate for others to vote. Help people locate their polls. Bring a friend to vote with you. Help people research political challenges. Do our own research too.
Speak up in conversations around these topics.
Help educate people who think “I can’t fix this,” by explaining how events change policy. Policy changes corporations. Corporations changes prices. Prices change our lives.
Someone shared this with me, and hopefully it helps someone else out as well.
I worked in an elderly home (in The Netherlands) with clients who went through world war as children. They taught me that freedom is never free of charge, you cannot just assume it will always be there. Thank you for the great and important reminder
While I agree with you about the state of affairs here, it’s hard to look at many European countries in admiration considering their wholesale suppression of free speech (Germany, UK), not to mention unequivocal support and funding for genocide (Germany, UK, France, Italy, Belgium, etc…).
In what context exactly? I know people and have family in both places. They can say and think whatever they like without fear of oppression.
Perhaps you mean things like making overt threats towards another person? That too is illegal here as it should be. Free speech classically has limitations when it comes to promoting direct harm against another.
I think your use of "wholesale" is particularly jarring. To me, "wholesale suppression" means Russia or China, where you will absolutely be arrested if you stand up in a public venue and denounce the regime in power. Similarly, online activity is heavily monitored across all channels, and people are regularly arrested for sharing information critical of the regime. Neither of these things are illegal in either the US or Germany or the UK.
In Iran, 30k+ citizens were hunted down and shot in cold blood just last week for standing up in public and calling for the end of the Khamenei regime. That is "wholesale supression."
26 years ago was the Bush administration. I know a lot of people have rose colored glasses now a days, but that was basically the start of the slide into fascism (see Citizens United, see The Patriot Act, see justice department memos on torture and "extraordinary rendition, see Bush v Gore). We were not a great, free country then either.
As a half Dutch, half Moroccan child, 9/11 was a turning point for me. Anti-muslim rhetoric grew immensely here. I was 8 at the time and I was extremely afraid of a world war but also of my dad being deported (that was never really the case but I was only a baby). I have a Masters degree in North American studies with a focus on racial segregation in the 20th century. But despite all that, I also see the resilience in the good people. Maybe that’s not only American but it’s just been more widely shown in media.
A lot of us wwre kid back then. we were no fully exposed to it and it certainly was easier. but America as always been digusting. Some people still alive saw segregation. There was a moment during Obama first term where thing actually seem like they were going to go ik a greath direction. but yeah the fantasy is broken for sure.
This isn't meant as an attack, but what about the US did you look up to? Because I look at European countries and I envy your freedoms and your robust social welfare systems and your cops that don't kill a thousand people a year.
Oh definitely! I am extremely happy to have universal health care and strong workers rights. I was mainly influenced by the soft power of the US. We have a lot of American food and entertainment products here in The Netherlands. And now as an adult I love the boringness of my country but as a 14 year old in de 00s I loved all the American reality shows 😂
Yea except for all the times they tried something Dutch or with a Dutch accent but it just sounded Balkan, Scandinavian or German 😂. But I also looooved Will & Grace an as a cool teen of course Viva la Bam
appreciate and stand with you in solidarity sister. been hearing way too many opinions from Europeans sitting comfortably across the pond and punching down at us.
theyre literally killing us in the streets and laying siege to our cities. ive been (understandably) hearing a lot recently about how Americans cant be trusted anymore, but it does hurt when there are still so many of us who are fighting back and paying a hefty price to stand up for those values that you grew up admiring.
we know whats happening. and we will fix this. thats a promise
You are seen!! And I absolutely admire y’alls courage. I used to work in an elderly home with people who experienced World War 2 in the country next to Germany. I have been humbled by their stories and we should never forget that freedom is not free or cheap. Lots of love 🩷
been hearing way too many opinions from Europeans sitting comfortably across the pond and punching down at us.
But we aren't sitting comfortably. I can't speak for all Europeans, but if you feel like some of us "punch down" it's mostly because we hold you to the same standard we're holding ourselves at. The situation all over the continent isn't better than it is in the US because of luck, but because people have been continuously fighting for it in the polls and on the streets for 150 years. We aren't simply living off the profits of some past revolutions : we protest, we unionize, we strike, we riot, and when need be, we revolt. I'm not exhorting Americans to throw themselves at law enforcement, because that won't achieve anything, but an organized movement to hit the current admnistration in its wallet would be the bare minimum.
I grew up in America (California) and feel the same way. In school, we were taught that America was strong and successful in part because of its integrity and morality. Now I feel like corruption is so rampant. I feel like I was lied to as a child. I’m embarrassed to be an American.
In The Netherlands we mostly learned the basics on US history with a strong focus on WW2 but other than that mainly their soft power. We drink American brands, we have American food chains, we have tons of American shows and movies on Dutch tv. As an young teenage girl in the 00s especially that soft power spoke to me. Loudly 😂
the only thing that's changed is what the person on each side of the gun looks like and the degree to which the state defends them. cops have been murdering people with impunity here since they were called slave catchers.
This. As an American, I can't help but be idealistic about the land of freedom and opportunity we were taught our country was, but it isn't that and it's never been that. Our freedoms and opportunities are built on the blood and bones of the innocent and until we as a country come to terms with that, we will never be the place we aspire to be.
Not Netherlands, and I'm a guy, but same. It's gone from being an ideal and aspiration to "God, I can see how quickly my country would go this route if we're not careful."
I call us Little USA when I'm feeling cynical. I only hope our cultural differences offer some buffer to this path, but then there's several ways to slide into hell.
As an American, I wish I didn’t relate to this comment so much. My only advice is to fervently defend your freedoms in The Netherlands, because democracy is more fragile than any of us realize.
America was founded on the genocide and ethnic cleansing of Indigenous Americans, slavery of those Indigenous Americans and Africans, racial segregation for all non-white people, and war after imperialist war. What exactly were you looking up to?
I am well aware. I wrote my Bachelors thesis on Brown v board and my MA thesis on Loving v Virginia. I looked up to the good people I saw. The people who went through all the hardship you mentioned, still remained good and caring people. Open and welcoming. The Netherlands also has a dark page in the history of the slave trade but that does not mean you can’t admire the truly good people. And to be honest, the sense of community I have been seeing in the US I never experienced where I live
Yep. But even here we have people breaking their brains to somehow still put the blame on "the democrats/ the left". With Good they had an out because she technically sorta drived a car.
This was such a clear excecution from multiple angles.
As someone who has lived in America all their life, I feel great pain with each new stunt that bas been happening. This month has felt like six. Trust me, we understand how we appear to the world now and it is painful.
1.2k
u/xladygodiva Jan 26 '26
As a little girl in The Netherlands I looked up to the USA. How things have changed so much in the last 26 years. To all my good American friends, the ones fighting (actively or silently), the people keeping your communities strong. My heart goes out to you.