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I've said it before and I'll say it again. As someone from a country currently going through civil war, the US is nowhere near close.
Sorry you're going through that. Civil war is a tragedy no matter where or why.
The difference with America is, I think, that ours has already come and gone, but it never really did go away because we failed to stamp it out and rebuild properly. The rebellion was romanticized and whitewashed, sanitized and lionized. It's always said that the south lost the war and won the peace. It's probably never going to break out into a full-on fighting war like it was, but it exists very much as a bane on our social fabric, the integrity of our institutions, and our socioeconomics. America can never become as good as its advertising until it has reckoned with its deepest schisms.
To answer OP's question: The America I was raised to believe in (this one, to put it succinctly) doesn't exist. I emigrated with my family to the UK, my ancestral family home. Without America, me, my wife, and child probably could never have existed, coming together from different parts of the world as our families did. I'm glad of that, but we had to divest ourselves from its fate or remain complicit in tyranny and war. My process of disillusionment began before I was even fully grown, over 20 years ago, when the towers fell and I began to start asking questions about how we got to that point, and why we reacted as we did.
No matter where life takes me I'll probably always stand for the enlightenment ideals of that mythical America I was raised to believe in, but it exists for me as a platonic ideal, a sort of mathematical absolute that can only ever be badly approximated in real world terms.
Every country is different.
I would say at least in the American civil war I know who to root for. In ours we've got a corrupt kleptocratic oppressive government turned military junta vs a genocidal militia headed by a rich and powerful warlord with ties to the Russian Wagner group. And oh by the way the militia was supported and enabled by the former regime as they used it to hold onto power but now it's turned against them. So it's like "pick your poison". I thank my lucky stars I don't live there but I also stopped following the news cause it's horrible.
I agree America has some serious problems but they're just not on the same level as the 3rd world.
That's awful beyond words. I don't know what's worse, the fact that you're caught in that, or that Wagner is so vilely prolific that what you've told me doesn't even narrow it down to the continent.
It's Sudan. War's been raging since April of last year. The war is between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces, a militia responsible for a ethnic genocides in Darfur years ago that are now being repeated.
Also I'm not caught up in that at all. Some extended family is. But I'm very very lucky to have been living somewhere else since I was 6.
I've heard a bit about it. That's a really messy one and it's really hard to see things getting better anytime soon.
I hate to say it but your description could be two or three different countries in the world I can think of. I'm going to guess Sudan?
Correct. Sudan.
I'm very sorry for what is happening to your country right now. Please stay safe and know that someone on the other side of the world is thinking about you and wishing you well.
I kind of use that term lightly. I don't mean an outright war exactly.. I just mean organized corruption.
Were you still living there while tensions rose?
What sorts of things did you notice?
No. I haven't lived there since I was 6. I am extremely lucky.
I have family there and the only news I hear are bad. I'm also still a citizen of the country and I'm worried it might break apart and I'll end up stateless.