Ask Lemmy

city, and state = Fine and acceptable. Not any dramatic shift from the last 30 years.

country = we are fucked (USA)

Love my state and city. Minnesota rules.

Federal government can get fucked.

I am happy to say….What government?

The Netherlands…we'll be voting soon again.

Current Country: USA. Absolutely fucked.

Current State and City: Eh, just the average bullshit, nothing bad as the federal

Former Country: PRC. Absolutely fucked x2. Except there wouldn't even be a "No Kings" type of widespread protest. Corruption everywhere. There is no "FDA" (or if there is, they never do anything about food safety), there is no "FTC", there is no "FDIC", there is no laws protecting consumers like if some fraudster stole money from your bank, oh well, (at least bank in the US might help you). No Medical privacy laws. And no "ADA" equivalent. No independent unions (there is supposedly a government controlled one that does jack shit), very lax worker safety regulations, and if your employer doesn't pay you, good luck, there's no government agency that'll help you. For a country that obsess about control regulation, there sure is a lack of regulation 🤔.

Seems like the EU is the final beacon of actual freedom and prosperity, but unfortunately, I probably don't qualify to immigrate to.

Chicago City Gov't: Moderately unhappy in general, unhappy with my Alderman specifically.

Illinois State Gov't: Very happy. Pritzker is amazing and I hope he doesn't run for president because we need him here for a few more years to keep cleaning up these messes. I'm very unhappy with my State Representative specifically, but he runs unopposed in both primary and general so my options are limited. And by "unopposed" I mean he's the stepson of my Alderman, the Alderman whose wife held the State Rep seat previously, and it's a whole nepotism / Machine thing.

US Federal Gov't: Very unhappy. You've read the news, you know why.

Our leader is a lying business man, told a ton of bullshit during the campaign. I'm talking about Mark Carney of Canada. The Liberal party has shifted so far to the right, it's hard to tell the Liberals and Conservatives apart. The Liberals also want to take away our Charter (our version of the USA Constitution) protected rights to privacy.

We have a bit of a power struggle in Halifax, Nova Scotia with the Provincial leader Tim Houston wanting to overrule municipal decisions. If Houston is bored, we have a health care and housing crisis that will give Houston plenty of work.

Municipal has been stellar my entire life mainly due to industrial plants bringing in a lot of tax revenue and then their PR funding of various public infra projects. It's also an unusually well run small city it's not just the money. Well staffed city workers maintaining stuff. I guess what impresses me most right now is despite being under 30k population we run our own bus lines, one exclusively for seniors. The other in partnership with the capital city. Then the extensive green belt and IIRC 50km of paved trails, which they've continued into the new neighbourhoods built away from the greenbelt.

Very easy to never drive a car here. Very ped and bicycle friendly city. Lots of serviced parks with structures you can book for bigger outdoor parties, play structures, ponds, dog parks, sports arenas, spray parks, baseball diamonds, etc, etc. Lots of dirt trails to mountain bike along the river which is down pretty deep here so a lot of verticality.

Industrial plant sponsored sportsplex with fitness gym and indoor track which is getting a big pool extension next year. The old pool was one sore spot, too small for the population. Uhhh what else...decent attention to history with the replica fur trade Fort rebuilt (but they don't sugar coat how badly they treated the indigenous peoples) and museum full of old buildings and rural equipment. Still not a lot of crime and no sketchy parts of the city yet, too small still.

The city likes to brag about using a sheep herd to maintain the grass around the museum/Fort.

The downtown core has finally made a full recovery since Walmart decimated it 16 years ago and the abandoned downtown mall was demolished with new stripmalls* combined with townhouses being built in that spralling parking lot instead.

Also a really solid library attached to the city hall. Besides books, there's a lot of activities for kids in the basement classrooms and education options for adults. 3D printers, computers, and extensive movie+video game rental section along with a few semi private reading/study rooms.

There's more but this is getting long.

This is despite being in Alberta. I don't have anything nice to say about provincial here it's depressing and in rapid decline. MAGA adjacent. I think the ANDP under Nenshi is omce again absolutely dogshit at public relations. Basically out of sight, out of mind. Maybe they improve before election? I don't have high hopes at the moment. They had messaging issues under Notley, and apparently still do. Unacceptable.

Canada is...shaky right now. American media brainrot might destroy us sooner than later if we're not invaded first. Under Carney idk. Remains to be seen. He's a conservative without the hateful identity politics so far. Doesn't undo what Harper did with Americans being allowed to own our news media. I think that's a critical error. Already snubbed the Air Canada union and dumped climate change goals. Remains to be seen if he can make Canada more independent from the USA. I'm watching how he handles the F-35 jet purchase or else threats from the USA the most closely currently and the housing crises long term. I think the reluctance to cut back on TFW keeps wages stagnant in a ballooning CoL situation, and the youth unemployment is worryingly high now. Frustrated youth = more dipshit conservative voters next go around IMO.

Netherlands:

Country: an utter clusterfuck. After a fifteen year neoliberal government, the far right have taken over. Whereas the neoliberals broke lots of things, under the facsists, our country satgnated and it will probably take decades for us to recover. We are fucked. Sideways. With a chainsaw. Province: As far as I can tell, they try to do their best despite being fucked over by said far right. City: Right-wing mayor who actually appears do be doing a somewhat decent job. However, whenever he tries to act as a human being in a national or international context, he is being cut short by his party members.

The outlook is not good.

I'm really angry with the British government right now. In some ways they're worse than the Tories, because at least with them you knew where you stood. With Starmer he keeps trying to outdo the far right, which leads to them adopting even further right policies, and him adopting them and so on. The cracking down on freedom of speech is genuinely scary, whether it be through the online safety act or abusing terrorism legislation to proscribe direct action groups. They need to fix the housing and healthcare crises urgently, but they're tinkering at the seams while the far right are on the cusp of taking power in 2029.

On the local level, I don't like our elected assembly much either, and I feel like all they do is pose for photoshoots and blame all their mistakes on the government in London.

Germany: Merz. My Little Nazi. Lindner and Merz worked together to discredit the Greens and it worked. The AfD keeps winning local elections.

Local is weird. AfD popular even though the area literally depends on French customers for income.

Country is fucked.

Canada:

A disappointment in some ways based on what we were promised during the campaign and especially in his dealings with the fascists to our south. Not an absolute catastrophe (despite what Maple MAGA cries on every social network), but definitely not focused on the little guy like they said they would be.

To be honest, I feel kind of tricked a little bit. We had a legitimately good third party that usually held the balance of power (NDP) and could use their votes to cooperate with the ruling Liberals to get some legitimately good things done. (You support 10 dollar a day daycare or we won't use our votes to help you...that kind of thing). But during the last election, there was so much fear mongering about the Conservatives that we were essentially convinced that we needed to sacrifice the NDP in order to avoid splitting the vote. So now we have a party that can basically do whatever they want for the most part.

Even if it is the far far better of the two parties that has that power, the lack of a third party check and balance is bothersome.

but...still far far far preferable to Pierre Poppinfresh and his MAGA-lite cultists.

All bad honestly.

State and country ruled by right wingers. The city ruled by a green party that plays the citizens out against each other so they don't have to do anything.

City is lead by a bunch of idiots. Maybe one person who has any idea of how to lead and balance things.

State isn’t too bad. Needs some serious work. But over all not bad.

Federal level (national level) … I’m in the US so yeah I’ve lost all faith in them.

City: Sucks. Huge city of over 100k people; they act like it's a rural suburb of less than 10k so everything is basically fucked by the number of people using things (roads, public services, etc) that are severely underfunded or underscaled.

State: All things considered, it's alright. It's not great, but it could be so, so much worse.

Country: Shit is absolutely cooked.

Southwest New Hampshire, USA

Local: Not bad. Mostly moderate liberals who do work to improve to the conditions in the city. Fencesit too much for their own good sometimes when it comes to taking a stand on something.

State: Fucking awful. Completely full of MAGA dipshits passing anti-trans laws and doing nothing but gutting budgets (a city nearby me had to take out a private loan to fund their school system this year) and ignoring the huge problems we have (opiate abuse, housing, and mental healthcare).

Federal:

collapsed inline media

Local: not too happy, a populist party holds the majority and they're only looking out for their own interest. Also generally our municipality tends to be too ambitious, pouring lots of money into stuff that doesn't benefit the residents.

Country (the Netherlands): we had elections in november 2023, the (right-wing) cabinet was formed in july 2024, and it blew up in may 2025. New elections will be next month, and the right-wing Islamophobic Israel lover is leading the polls once again, even though they didn't make good on any of their promises in their current reign. So really unhappy about that.

City: seems like we have an incompetent administration.

Province: Actively harmful

National: Undecided, but it should keep clapping near the money.

Capital= very happy actually, the transport system is amazing, access to almost anything within walking range, only minor issues.

Isfahan (the city I go to uni)= medium to frustrated. The transportation is decent, not great. It is basically run by a mosque or prayer leader with minimum education, no idea of politics or city management. Extreme water shortage, dusty weather due to poor management of a crucial river passing the city. And the uni just kicked out most of the girls in dorms to open up space for international students(dollars baby!)

Country(Iran)= almost everybody planning to imigrate, so pretty obvious ig.

Pretty happy. There’s universal healthcare, there’s decent investment in infrastructure and when there’s corruption, people tend to go to jail. There are two main parties and although things are bitterly contentious between them, neither one seems to be radically rewriting the social contract. It’s not perfect of course, but seems like paradise compared to the country I moved from, which sadly has fallen to the fascists. Of course, there’s a giant authoritarian country next door that keeps saying they are going to invade us, so it probably won’t last.

Top to bottom it’s a piece of shit. USA Michigan

Local government is mid, I'm going to give them a solid C tier. State government is... probably B tier. Federal government... F? Possibly G or even H tier? Depending on how much of a tier list purist you are.

Well there are things that could be improved but at least it isn't gone full fascist

My state and country both suck donkey dick.

Local is not terrible. They do a decent job. We have decent schools and decent roads. The county police aren't super terrible. Property taxes aren't insane like they are in most of the country. State a bit worse. They seem pretty corrupt. They levied a gas tax on us so they could hire tons of new state troopers, something the majority of people in my state do not want, and absolutely were not okay with, because we are already very poor, both the gas tax and the state troopers writing tickets. I think most people in my state see this as pure greed from the nanny state people and a scheme to extort money from the poor. Our state also completely sells us out to the evil federal government constantly unless it's state rights to own slaves or ruin trans people something. The national government. I hate it honestly, I hate both the Republican and Democratic party. I like the Democrats more but they are both extremely corrupt and they always pass laws that screw the people and they ruin our currency and let criminal corporations get away with just about anything. They also spy on us and our children.

Hahahaha. Not at all but it was better than getting the nazi alternative right away. Now we still have about 4 years till it either all ends oooor the tides turn

I'm French. Do I have to say more?

In the U.S., the federal government is obviously bad, but I’m honestly more concerned about the voting populace that elected it. They got so desperate and fed up with both parties they voted for the strong man that promised them he could rewind time, and apparently didn’t have the basic level of empathy and psychological wherewithal to see him for what he is: a pathologically narcissistic conman.

The Trump administration is a problem, but it’s not the problem. The problem is that both Republicans and Democrats are so dislikable as political parties that enough people are so fed up with them that they’ll vote for someone like Trump instead. That’s just really sad.

Can't say much about the local government. Yes, city council votes went well enough, but there will be a deciding election in ten days, so I don't know yet who will be mayor.

State and federal government cares more for the companies and the rich instead for the people, and still wonder why people turn to right-wingers who promise to fix that. I'm not that stupid, they would only make the graft worse.

Varying levels of disappointed for me.

Others elected a very pro-suburbia mayor who is slowly making our city worse for people who rely on transit (like me).

The provincial government is somehow worse. The leader is very corrupt, which anyone voting should've predicted since he used to be a drug dealer... (and also this is his second term)

Federal government just gave a standing ovation to Charlie Kirk so... yeah they're winning for being the worst right now. Sadly enough that was the only leader I actually voted in support of. Every politician in the room when that happened should resign. It's now the second time many of them have applauded a Nazi in that room (and this time they definitely knew he was a Nazi).

South Korea, I'm pretty happy overall. Previous president attempted self coup but failed and got impeached(#), now things are mostly going well.

Local government is great but we're a pretty small township.

National government is fucked and can go fuck itself. Packed full of incompetent morons, sycophants, opportunists, grifters, and brainworms, and riddled with hate - racism, homophobia, misogyny, transphobia, ableism, etc. It's a smorgasbord of vile shitheads who never should've gotten anywhere near this much power.

Local: They're alright, just a bit daft. Due to budget constraints they're doing the municipality equivalent of spending a fortune over time keeping an old clunkers alive instead of just buying a new car.
Parliament: They're alright, just a bit boring. And that's a good thing.

Local government is somewhat contentious, but it seems like it's moving in the right direction.

National government does not.

I only moved recently so I don't know too much but... No rating for both

No local government for almost a year and a half now. Allegedly there is a left-wing Islamic party and a left-wing socialist party that have severe difficulties with forming coalitions

Federal government coalition is led by a right-wing party with the prime minister being an asshole so I don't exactly like it... But things are running & far-right wasn't in the coalition, so I guess I can't complain