“The US should do X and they suck because they don’t!” Each state has it’s own laws on education. Some places suck, some do not. It’s not a monolith.
“The US has shitty beer lol” We have some of the best beer in the world but it’s local/state/region only and never exported unlike fancy Euro beer.
The US for better or worse is a, hmmm 🤔 a unity of government states under a federation called America. It’s very hard to get federal laws and bills passed, especially for education. The states want the power to chooses for themselves what they do, and the federal government hangs above them, sometimes intervening.
We are a huge country that has a relatively unique circumstance of government, population, and young brutal history. I’m a Californian and I live in the Bay Area which almost literally a different country than most of America, especially the South and Midwest.
I’m so sick of people, especially smug Europeans, talking like they know Americans and America but they don’t really know shit about us except the movies and going to NYC and Miami.
Yes I am having a bad day.
To be honest I love Europe and have friends there that I miss dearly! I’ve been many times. But dumbassery is dumbassery.
EDIT: You people are an exhausting swarm of pecking ravens and I’ve spent all the “toxic” energy I want arguing with half you because you just hear what you want to hear and fit the stereotype I loathe I think you only commented out of trained reflex and a few of you are just unsophisticated haters. Whatever, fuck you, and all that jazz.
Like it or not, you’re a superpower.
What you do, and how you do it matters to the rest of the planet.
We have no choice but to watch, and what we see isn’t encouraging.
Also, everyone loves underdog. The inverse is true. No one likes updog.
What’s updog?
Ligma balls
Okay, Arin
Agreed. Even worse from the inside, dude.
Likewise. Mend your own fence.
i don’t understand what you are saying?
(also you literally generalise Europe (an entire continent) as the ‘eu’)
Likewise what exactly? Canada is not a superpower. Whether we “mend our own fence” or not has little to no bearing on the rest of the world.
There is a trail of corruption, poverty, death and destruction everywhere America gets involved in the world. This country loves war and profits from it. Social reforms are in reverse gear at the federal level. Your healthcare is shite and no one can afford to buy a house. The gap between rich and poor has grown exponentially with the richest paying the least tax. This is a country run by mendacious and violent con men for idiots. Not only do you have a gigantic and corrupt military industrial complex, you also have a prison industrial complex, with more prisoners than any other industrialised nation. America sucks ass bro.
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you should probably work on this, you seem toxic af
I’m really nice to people, and love being around them. I love hosting parties with my friends/family/roommates to drink and play Magic and watch movies. I bet your little imagination is grinding hard to come up with scenarios that makes me secretly hated or that I’m making this all up. Maybe you don’t care at all. In any case I am getting “help” but toxicity in the face of bullying, stupidity, and arrogance from ignorant cunts an ocean away just doesn’t seem to come up very much in therapy.
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Well in theory if it were unpopular it would have more up votes. Maybe there are lurkers who agree with my “stupid” opinion that people should shut their mouth on things they don’t understand. Take you for example, you don’t understand this post and why I made it, ipso facto…
👍
A single country when it’s convenient, 50+ semi independent governments when it comes time to deal with criticism?
No, it’s just like that all the fucking time. I’m not your strawman.
The United States is a country. You don’t get to pretend that it’s not just because it’s internally chaotic. The United States is the parts that make it up. Explaining why it is dysfunctional doesn’t stop it from being dysfunctional. And it is dysfunctional…
That isn’t the point of my post. Yeah, it a country and it’s fucked up. But what you think of as dysfunctional we call that the feature. That’s literally the point of the whole shebang. But yeah it’s also dysfunctional but I wasn’t talking about that. It’s about broadstoked accusations of “Americans” who are 320M people in the most diverse country in the world that chaps my ass, especially coming from a bullying, superior, dick in a turtleneck (my Eurodouche stereotype of choice).
What’s the point of the post then? That some regions are a little less fucked up? That you are all distinct cultures in your 50 states of native genocide?
All your comments are referring to the smug Europeans, without even realizing that Europe is actually not just a supranational government but individual, actually cultural distinct, countries. You know, with traditions, customs, language, social order of their own, usually for a few hundred years longer than you people even ran off, because you couldn’t be capitalist or religious enough over here.
All your country is, is the sum of the worst parts of Europe wrapped in nazi germany derived military superiority (in keeping with the generalized cliches).
Is your goal to get more people in the U.S. to want to leave NATO and for them to want to supply Russia with equipment and buy their oil and further ignore Israels murders of innocents/genocide you are on the right path.
Most people don’t care about details. “Enemy of my enemy is my friend” is as advanced as the standard person gets.
These discussions provoke Europeans to speak down on people in the U.S. whether or not they know who they are speaking to and pit them against each other. Notice you don’t see much about Russians calling Americans idiots, because they want to be seen as not the ones generalizing and name calling. Russia wanted the Republicans/Americans in general to believe Russia is not that bad, and Ukraine as a threat.
All it took was Zelenksy to be taken out of context the other day and poof, I heard people saying Ukrainians want to spit on Polish people and Americans no matter what we do. No mention of any things bad Putin has said or did.
Discussion is needed, but when we start to generalize and name call we aren’t being productive.
American here, these discussions have absolutely no bearing on anything. The US propaganda machine will keep churning regardless of what any of us think, our lawmakers are only doing the bidding of the corporate ruling class and if they try to go against that grain they’re blackballed from politics basically forever. I’m glad some Europeans see through the propaganda but many non-Americans truly don’t understand how bad it is here and still to this day move here seeking “freedom” that no longer exists (and arguably never did). Honestly the guy who made this post is at best a bad faith troll parroting twenty year old talking points to distract people and piss them off. Anyone with access to Google should know that the cultural distinction between the bay area and Chicago are smaller than the distinction between Sussex and Manchester. Calling OP a fucking dumbass is both an understatement and unproductive, but it’s no less productive than any comment actually trying to change OP’s mind about such an uneducated opinion.
Lol I’m super dumbass! With the opinion that people should mind their tongue and not talk down to us like they anything about us besides BBC and Marvel. Hyper dumbass!
Except the one government at the top is the one that interacts with every other nation on the planet and is usually the one making policies and taking actions that piss everyone else. And like it or not, these policies and actions are decided by the congress and the president, which everyone in the U.S. is responsible for electing the people there. And when you look at that federal governmnt, well let me tell ya that it doesn’t reflect very well on Americans.
No, it reflects just fine. We’re just fucking awful.
If you want to go on foreign policy, sure. The federal government is usually the lead. However, there are a lot of things handled at the state and local level that Europeans love to extrapolate to all the USA when it doesn’t go that far.
Outside of Vermont, New York, Colorado and California, there really aren’t a lot of places in the US that seem normal to the rest of the world. And if you go at the county level, it gets worse it seems.
Washington, Oregon, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Maine. And then large parts of most other states. You do realize more than 50% of America is very in line with most of western Europe… right?
In line with Western Europe?
Not even close.
Heck, even Canada isn’t even in line with Western Europe. You guys are so far right, even your most left-wing party is considered conservative in Europe. And your right-wing party are literally Nazis.
I always forget that it’s just a liberal utopia of sunshine and bunnies over there and America, and Canada apparently, are knuckle dragging fascists. Literally every single person.
Sounds like someone missed the fucking point and is doing exactly what I said makes you a smug prick.
op mentioned political parties and politicians, not the general population.
are you ok?
I think you need to open your mind and travel the world a bit. You should go visit Europe sometime.
I’ve traveled the planet likely more than you have, to all the occupied continents. My mind is open. That doesn’t make me blind to prejudice, like the prejudice you just displayed in thinking Americans don’t travel.
From an American point of view, maybe if you squint a bit. From the rest of the world that is a laughable statement.
I find it hard to believe that Vermont Colorado and California even fit in with Western European standards considering the absolute lack of any useful public transportation in any of those states. Even NY only resembles Europe in NYC, upstate NY is some of the worst parts of the US to live in.
Oh wow. You cracked the case. The only thing that matters when comparing a city… Is public transportation. Wow! What a fucking revelation! I hope you get to be mayor. No, Supreme Leader of the World someday.
I mean if you wanna play this game, our public education also is not up to the standards of those countries, unless you’re comparing to Bosnia instead of Germany for some odd reason. Yes, especially in those states you mentioned. Also those states are still subject to the American healthcare system. And those states, possibly excluding VT, have a much higher rate of poverty and homelessness than any developed nation in Europe. All of these things are enough to destroy your argument by themselves, but when added up you have no legs to stand on
But not all states have the same exact healthcare. And I’m not trying to measure dicks about about healthcare. I never brought it up, not once. It sucks because it’s not free for everyone, I get it. We alllll get it. I didn’t bring up homelessness. I see it daily. It sucks too. What fucking part of my comment don’t you understand? What is so damn hard? It’s like I say don’t be a smug ignorant prick about America and it’s people and then it’s a string of reasons why America is the worst? What? Why? Was I saying America is the best place or is that what you wanted me to say, what every bitter and jaded asshole (besides me) wanted to hear so you could vent and bitch.
You literally said in your post that America is not that bad and that there’s somehow a world of difference between different states, I’m just stating facts about how everything about those statements is bullshit. You can be mad about that if you want but you can’t claim it’s not that bad here when it’s literally worse than every developed nation
Yes unlike other countries that dont have any sort of local government whatsoever.
Like the UK is one big monolith government. Definitely not 4 individual countries with their own parliaments that have counties with their own local governments and those counties have local councils with their own councillors and bylaws.
Germany only has the German government, not seperate states.
Spain doesnt have regions that are trying to gain independence.
France doesnt have regions on the other side of the atlantic with their own local government.
Canada doesnt have provinces
Nor does Autralia have states
etc. etc. for literally every country except like the vatican.
America is just so special and different
Special and different enough that it should be wearing a helmet and have childproof caps on the paste.
And probably not play with firearms
I agree with that.
What country are you from, if I may ask?
Honestly though, America is different and special. We have states the size of the some of those countries, and states with GDPs that eclipse most of the countries you listed. Local government is a completey different scale at some levels than any of those countries you mentioned. It’s important to remember we are all different, and that’s not a bad thing.
Reddit-ass comment
Not the topic at hand but sure.
All those governments you listed were modeled, in part, by the ol Dead Presidents of American lore and the brilliant Iroquois Federation.
But yes, partially those are true, but those national governments behave much differently than the US’s. Birmingham’s county is not an independent state from Manchester. The meaning of United States is lost in it being the name but we are a federation of countries ie. a bunch of countries inside one big one.
And we are special and different at good, bad, and evil things. Always to the maximum it seems. I know it must be such crackup to laugh at America… And fair enough we all do it. But when outsiders do it based off ignorance, complete ignorance, it makes me go ballistic. Your Freshman level dig proves my point so fucking hard its hard to breathe, with the exception of Spain because it was just so stupid as to be a non-sequitur.
Birmingham’s county is not an independent state from Manchester.
Yes because those are cities. Not states. So you’re purposely making a bad comparison.
Scotland and England are partially independent countries, so would be the far more appropriate comparison to different US states. And is why i mentioned them as such in my previous comment.
but we are a federation of countries
No, you are a federation of STATES hence the ‘S’ in USA, with a couple of exception your states weren’t their own countries. Unlike say the UK where Scotland England and Wales have been their own individual countries before unification for longer than there have been white people in the Americas. And now still have their own governments, laws and culture and as such are as or more individual than US states. And it’s the same with German states as well and most of my other examples too.
And we are special and different at good, bad, and evil things.
I wish you’d said this at the start so I wouldn’t have wasted my time replying to someone that unironically believes in American exceptionalism.
But when outsiders do it based off ignorance, complete ignorance
It’s not complete ignorance. I have much better grasp of American internal politics than you do of any other country.
I really wish we left people like you behind on reddit.
You mentioned counties of the UK, so I mentioned the cities because I have no idea what counties they are in but assume they are different. If you’re talking about the countries then yeah, that’s more similar to the US. I should have said so.
But you’re wrong about the federation. A solid handful of them were (briefly) countries before they were “STATES”, but some were properties/colonies of foreign governments, and with the exception of the 13 colonies, all independent lands with their own laws and currency. Also, this is beside the fact the natives were murdered and their land stolen by Europeans and/or Americans. Then, the idea of statehood was floated as a way of keeping them independent under a common roof, analogous to countries. I suppose there’s a room for interpretation, but not by much. They operated under their own law, money, norms, cultures, and religions. They were founded as, and remain separate but united states (From MW: a politically organized body of people usually occupying a definite territory - especially : one that is sovereign)
German states are very much a bunch of old countries and tribes, sure. Cool. And? Why are you under the impression that being similar is in anyway important?
Read the fucking post. I said, paraphrasing, people who generalize/judge America don’t know how America works and are ignorant and smug. I wouldn’t do the same to your fucking country, but here I am, defending mine from smug ignoramuses.
And yeah, wooooow we get it, the Old World is older than the New World. Amazing how that is such an unearned point of pride from Europeans that only Europeans make. The Chinese don’t play that card, the Egyptians don’t play that card, and the Japanese don’t play that card but lo and behold some clown online regularly goes to a dingy pub established in 1698, in some backwater village, and they’re the Wise Grandfathers of America.
You call it American Exceptionalism, I call it the country everybody moves to and makes cool shit, choking the poor on their way, and bombing people on occasion.
And it isn’t a high bar to know more than me about other nation’s internal politics, except Mexico and Canada. None of Europe’s or anybody’s matter to me or anyone else here besides the big stuff. I have 50+ states/territories in my own backyard to care about. It literally doesn’t matter because Europe, for example, is 3.5k miles or more away and I’m not going to be an arrogant, self-righteous, know-it-all, ignorant, condescending, annoying fucking asshole to those people about their dramas and politics when I talk to them.
I wouldn’t do the same to your fucking country, but here I am, defending mine from smug ignoramuses.
This whole fucking post is you doing this.
The Chinese don’t play that card, the Egyptians don’t play that card, and the Japanese don’t play that card
What the fuck are you on about? Have you ever actually met someone from another country? Or have you lived your entire life in like rural Oklahoma or something? All of those people are very proud of their long histories and absolutely do “play that card.”
You call it American Exceptionalism, I call it the country everybody moves to and makes cool shit, choking the poor on their way, and bombing people on occasion.
Okay so you’re just a troll. I’m kind of ashamed it took Mr this long to realise when this is basically a “ShitAmerkcansSay” highlight reel.
I’m not going to be an arrogant, self-righteous, know-it-all, ignorant, condescending, annoying fucking asshole to those people about their dramas and politics when I talk to them.
Way way way too late for that one mate, lol.
I can appreciate that some states are better than others, in a similar manner to being able to appreciate that some EU countries are better than others. I’ve visited the USA and so I’ve seen first hand the good and the bad.
It doesn’t change the fact that globally, you are represented by your federal government and not your local state ones. As an Australian I might expect a foreigner to know our Prime Minister but never a state premier.
From overseas we just see a lot of the insane shit. Politically, the whole world is interested your federal elections because that is what has a chance to affect us. I don’t care who the governor of a state is really because they aren’t going to be able to declare some insane war or fuck over or save entire countries.
Even when we see state x legalizes y or outlaws z it just blurs together from out here. Much easier to see your own state doing good things when you’re inside it.
And yeah, USA doesn’t get enough credit for craft beer!
As usual, the answer is “It’s more complicated than that.”
I’m sure the masses on social media with their 7 second attention spans and endless propaganda will get to the bottom of it.
I thiught you guys are united or something. It’s in the name
That’s kind of like saying “I thought the EU was a Union”.
OP’s point is that the federal government mainly exists to regulate interstate issues and foreign affairs, but what occurs within the confines of a single state isn’t in the purview of their authority most of the time.
The US is really like the EU both in scale and differences between individual states. National laws are generally just high level and very broad, with the laws most people directly interact with being state, county, city, and other local levels.
The EU is more diverse than the US. There’s literally a language barrier everywhere you go. E.g., a Hawaiian and a Texan are more alike than, say, a Finn is to a Cypriot.
I went to Georgia recently, and they’re definitely speaking a different language down there. I could not understand a word
There is more to diversity than language… Race, religion, socio-economic status, and political beliefs are just a few other dimensions.
If you broaden your definition for diversity beyond language, the US isn’t as homogenous as you’re implying.
Is there? No matter where I go in Europe, it doesn’t seem to be a big issue to find English speakers. It feels like the urban parts are settling on a second language now that trade and travel borders have vanished.
If the EU sticks around for a generation, I wouldn’t be surprised if you start seeing European nations reflecting the same demographic oddities that you see in the US regarding age of residents.
Yeah but tell that to the Texans.
Maybe the issue is just that you don’t realize how much we hate each other? Like America is dysfunctionally divisive at this point, there would probably be some offense at the idea that the two are alike. Republican-led states definitely don’t want to be compared to Democrat-led ones, and vice-versa. Maybe I just dunno how much you hate each other on the continent, but I’d bet a Finn would be nicer to a Cypriot than a Texan would be to a Hawaiian.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
The US is really like the EU both in scale and differences between individual states
Bwahahahahhaha! No.
Americans always love to think this is true, but it’s nowhere remotely true. The US has an actual federal government. The EU does not, all EU members are sovereign states.
Secondly, difference between individual states? Rofl-fucking-mao.
No your slight change in accent (not in dialect), and slightly different local delicacies are nowhere near comparable to Europe.
The US has a few hundred years of history and most come from the same dozen or less groups from Europe.
The difference between just the top of my country and the bottom of my country is larger than aany state differences in the US. Well, except for, idk, state laws. But language, customs, cuisine. The modern European states have formed all from several distinct groups. The modern nation-state only started being a thing a bit more than a century ago.
All modern European states are made up hundreds and hundreds of previous, hundreds of years old groups.
No offense, but the comparison is pretty ridiculous on most levels.
The EU isn’t a federation. (Yet.)
I’m talking about laws. Differences like being able to freely open carry in some states while others barely allow anyone to even possess a gun. Or how some states have universal state healthcare and other do not. Or how drugs are handled, with many states ignoring the federal prohibition.
Sure, we share a lot of language and a generic background identity of being ‘American’, but the legal differences are massively varied from state to state.
I’m talking about laws.
I can promise you that the sovereign European states which have their own constitutional laws and practices differ more from each other than US states do.
You have state laws, sure, but you also have federal laws. We don’t. There are EU regulations, and through those regulations, the sovereign states synchronise their own laws if it suits the situation.
Do you think the laws for guns are the same for us Finns as they are for the Greeks or Spaniards or Swiss?
Do you think the healthcare systems are federated in Europe? That everyone has the same system? The systems often vary from state to state within the member states. (I could tell you horror stores of our country trying to integralize our systems.)
Th EU decided everyone should have universal healthcare, because it’s objectively just good. So it was agreed and then they make the regulations on what it should achieve. Not how it should be done or anything.
So each sovereign state gets to find their own way into the solution.
The U.K. has the National Health Service (NHS), a government-operated system. One also finds public systems in Italy and Spain, while France has a public/private system. But the system in Switzerland is a privatized system, with subsidized insurance. The Swiss system is, in some respects, comparable to the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, but with much stricter regulations and much more comprehensive coverage. Obamacare pales in comparison to the Swiss system, although it’s much better than the “let the sick, lowly peasants die in the streets” approach of the Republican Party.
Uhm, about drugs? Cannabis is still schedule 1 federally, but it hasn’t stopped the states from doing their own de facto thing. I wonder… A few years before the first state legalised recreational marijuana, if you wanted to have a holiday in a place you could smoke weed, where’d you go?
Aaaahmm… Aaaaaaammmm… Amsterdam. Or Prague.
The drug practices vary wildly by country.
but the legal differences are massively varied from state to state.
Sure, but I think you might agree that actually from country to country it might vary even more, seeing as your states all started from the same common law system and history of the system a few hundred years ago. Whereas there’s hanging rocks and churches older than the US on my way to the city.
The point being that while we regulate our international unions systems and try to synchronize them despite most having been apart and developers into their own (from roman systems), you have a federated system and want to set your own systems.
It’s like. The opposites.
I may be on an ambiem or two currently. But it was a fascinating thought.
You’re being very Eurocentric about who America is which is another classic smug and quasi-racist thing to do. You’re ignoring that we have populations, heavier in some areas than others, of Native Americans, Chinese, Taiwanese, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese and other East/South-East Asian nations. Then there’s South Asian, Pacific Island, Middle Eastern, Central Asian, and North African, sub-Saharan African, and last but not least, Mexico, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean. We have all those plus your so-called “several same” European countries, which is horseshit unless you’re talking about the first 100 years before America was even created. Then we have the rest of Europe. The entire planet lives in America, literally every nation is represented here. Some more than others, of course. And there are dialects between states and counties as well as accents especially if you want to include ethnic dialects then we have countless amounts.
Ignorant. Smug.
So does Europe, which I gather you’ve never visited.
- “several same” European countries"
No, you really don’t. The majority of the American population is of white, Anglo-Saxon / German/Dutch descent.
That’s a fact.
You have barely a few hundred years of history.
I need only go 100 km inland in my country, and the genetic diversity between me and an average person will be greater than that of an average white New Yorker vs an average Floridan.
But you wouldn’t know shit about that, because you are ignorant.
Do yourself a favour and actually go abroad some day, my friend. Learn a language. How many do you know? Because I knew three before the age of 10.
AAVE, that’s barely a dialect, if you look at the difference of language between std American English and AAVE. The distinction is so huge in the Nordic countries, with Scandinavian languages and Finnish, that there’s an actual concept called “book language”. Look it up, see what it means. If you’re not… ignorant of it. ;)
Say what you want and cry how much you want, the US is not nearly as distinct as Europe. Sorry.
I wish we left this kind of dumbass take back on reddit,
Yeah, no. It isn’t the same. Maybe if you squint through a kaleidoscope.
what do you disagree with here?
“Like” is a different word than “same”.
To sum up, nobody likes being generalized.
And, apparently, when Americans say we don’t like being generalized, literally everyone else will take offense, and then generalize us.
Yes I am having a bad day.
I hope your day improves our the next day is better.
I also hope your governments improve or the next are better, but frankly all your governments suck.
It did, thanks.
But how could you possibly know that? Could you even name all the states and why they suck or is that just… A little, you know… Feeling? A feeling imparted by too much news and Reddit and YouTube?
From what news I read.
From outside the USA, what news I get is biased and more sensationalist than it should be for it be fair coverage.
For example, I get zero news about Vermont, Minnesota, I get lots of news about Texas, Florida, Alabama, etc.
My assumption is that the states I don’t get any news about suck in exactly the same way my governments sucks… In ways that are unlikely to have serious global, or extra-judicial impact.
The USA is the single most important country in the world. No other country has as greater impact on the rest of the world (except maybe China, in select industrial or economic areas).
I care about what happens in the US, I care about its people, I care about how the US influences how other counties behave. I have no way to influence that though. I’m on the other side of the world.
I really appreciate your fairness and honesty. I agree with you on all points, including the sucking 🙂 Governments are how governments be, but the bias and prejudice, in both directions can be hurtful and breed resentment (which I definitely have).
Thanks for not being reactionary, even if I was a bit defensive. I’ve been getting attacked pretty relentlessly and I was being a dick to some commenters that were behaving really rudely. Sorry that I kinda came at you like that too.
I hate that the US made this post. They suck for doing that
Is this poster’s argument feigning ignorance of distinction between local vs. federal laws?
yes
Damn near everyone commenting is missing the point
What you really want here is for Congress to be disbanded and a Parliament put in place. I agree.
I’m fed up fighting over which celebrity gets to play king every 4 years. I’d accept if the position were instead chosen at random (lottery) from the pool of all qualifying citizens.
When was the last time we had a president from the lower class?
Never. Maybe Obama kinda?
Preamble: this respon is the result of me learning a lot quickly and although the tone may have the scent of a smack-down, it really isn’t. The only thing I knew before I started writing this was that both Michelle and Barack were lawyers, and lawyers are rarely lower class (unless they’re shit lawyers, and even then… look at Giuliani).
The Obamas were well-off long before his election; maybe not rich, but certainly solid middle/upper middle-class. Michelle alone had an income of $317k. Even in the state senate, which dragged his salary down, Barack was pulling $90k - for a total household income of $400k. Once he entered the US, that number jumped into the millions.
They were both successful lawyers, and were solidly upper middle-class since well before his election to president. Barack himself went to Columbia and Harvard; both his parents were college educated - his mother was a PhD-degreed anthropologist; he himself attended a private prepatory school.
Barack, at least, did not come from a lower-class upbringing, and since marrying Michelle were well on their way to upper-class.
But that was a reasonable guess; he has been the only recent president who wasn’t upper class, at least. You’d have to go back before Reagan to find a president who didn’t come from money, and I’m not sure that even then would you find one.
