By the time I went to the video from the German woman there was nothing but nice comments in the comments section, so the nasty stuff must have been removed or just much further down in the comments.

I was not sure which was the part that made you feel we were a lost cause, the gun show issue or the nasty comments that had been there...which were about what, her comment that there was a gun show?

On guns here in the US, well, we can't really fix it but we can bandage it but probably not until a lot more children have been killed and probably we would need the killings to be really horrendous...not that any killing of a child is not horrendous but that's really all that might move the needle here. 

I don't think we are a lost cause due to the gun issue, we just are kind of a sad society that has one very corrupt Republican party and a couple of horrible Democrats that prevent anything ever getting done. So, a Mitch McConnell has basically kept our government shut down and stagnant for years. I mean, except for doing things to benefit the most wealthy people here. So, they keep sticking the middle class with the tab to make the richest people richer. The people that live in Red states do not see it nor understand it.

Sadly, the Republicans have conned the voters in Red states to believe a lot of total nonsense but it is nonsense they can get angry about. Guns, CRT (a total fiction), immigration, inflation, high gas prices, banning abortion, and an endless myriad of crazy culture war garbage are things they can get worked up about. They can post on their social media about it and have an opinion on those things. 

The truth is it is working. Those things have voters all riled up and they want to vote for anybody that tells them they are attacking these issues. It's led to a lot of Red state voters leaning toward fascism over democracy. Not sure how many understand that and how many are just glad the Republican party has finally fully embraced fascism. 

I think the chances are the Republicans take over the House and Senate in 2022 and in 2024 we will end up with President Ron DeSantis. Probably then, if Trump and/or other Republicans get charged with crimes DeSantis hands out pardons like Halloween candy. 

Then who knows what will happen to us as a country. DeSantis is basically just a smarter version of Donald Trump. So, I am sure the goal will be, end democracy here and turn this into a country that works on the Russian model. While there are a collection of Republicans that claim they don't want to do this, I see no reason to believe them. They went along with Trump and the majority of them still won't speak out publicly against him. So, if they control the House, Senate, Supreme Court and the White House and know that they can get away with the things Trump did...why would they not move forward with that plan?

This at the moment seems our biggest debacle. Primarily because the numbers, at this moment, seem to be pointing toward a massive Republican sweep. 

It's a weird time. Women, gay people and people of color are losing their rights as we speak and more people are registering Republican than Democrat by a wide margin. So, when you look at that, because the Republican party are the ones actually removing people's rights, it seems that more people prefer taking rights away than having them. This pretty much makes it seem more people believe we should not be the land of the free. We no longer like freedom in the US?

At the same time the January 6th committee is putting all kinds of insane criminal activity that Republicans did in front of the public and still...more people are registering to be Republicans than Democrats.

In fact in a bunch of states being someone that supports and/or has been charged with criminal behavior makes them a more popular candidate in the Republican party. Commit crimes and more people will donate to your campaign and vote for you if you are a Republican. Weird, but here we are. 

I'm not sure what is coming down the pike at us, but if we cede control of the country to the Republican party, and it looks like we will, it probably will be very, very ugly.