Because you are enjoying the fruits of all the evil/bad/indifference without doing stuff to prevent it and probably underhandedly excusing it

Its funny, so much of this excuse is “well I didn’t do it myself so standing here and watching isn’t making me responsible morally lol” but it does indeed

So mostly its because your very likely taking advantage of the situation and you know you shouldn’t and you SHOULD be shouldering the burden instead

Its kinda morally reprehensible no matter the justification you sell yourself

It sucks (the situation) and yeah that makes people fell bad

Speaking only for myself: because the American government has, for 250 years, claimed to act on behalf of the American people. When it was liberating concentration camps and sending people to the moon, that was something to be proud of.* When it was upholding slavery and winking at Jim Crow laws, it wasn’t.

It’s a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people,” and so he purports to speak and act on my behalf. That’s deeply embarrassing and shameful, even if I couldn’t have done anything differently to prevent it.

* (Yes, I know that even those “good” examples are complicated. I’m just forming an example here)

American tech companies created algorithms that happen to boost videos and news articles of fringe/extreme occurrences that take place here. The mainstream news networks also prioritize content like that, for the same reason: It’s very profitable. Boring news/content just doesn’t make much money.

People who have never visited the US seem to have a very distorted understanding of what everyday life is like here. We display a pretty embarrassing caricature of our country for the world to see.

And to make things even more embarrassing, we made our government ridiculous, and made our politics become pop culture (yet also very tribal) over the last ~15 years.

There’s a huge difference between being ashamed of your Government’s actions and behavior and being ashamed of who you are/where you were born.

One is a valid criticism of the ruling class ignoring the people’s desire for peace and social responsibility. The other is a mental health issue much like some people who are ashamed of the race or gender they were born as.

I get attacked by people unable to separate this conflation because I encourage people resistant to our government to pick up the goddamn American flag and wave it. To have some measure of pride in the institution we live in so others take it seriously when we demand improvement.

Because I look at my country and what it’s done and feel insufficient for my failure to keep it from doing stupid and evil things.

Also the European and Canadian frustration with America and Americans is understandable, but it has an impact especially when you still think highly of those places and their people.

We were raised with “pride,” not necessarily racially or ethnocentric, but a broader sense that transcended such boundaries. I grew up in the 80s-90s in the midwest, and we were taught America was a “melting pot” of cultures, ideas, and races, and that we should look forward to a time when whites are not the majority because the lines will fall away, the average color will be brown as we all mix over the next generations, giving us less reason to fight. And we should look forward to it, because that’s been our story so far - broken, impoverished immigrants came here looking for opportunity, and found it through hard work and smart thinking, and then became a part of our shared tapestry. We were taught to be proud of this, that we were stewards of this tradition in the best, most advanced country in the world.

And now, well. The basest instincts of people have been brought to the surface and America now stands as an openly white nationalist, isolationist, fascist-tinged autocracy where the ideals I grew up with seem long antiquated.

So yeah hard not to feel ashamed of what’s happened to our shared identity in just a few decades.

You don’t have to be at fault to be ashamed.

I dont identify with my country. Im just a resource so they can collect taxes. I think their decisions are stupid and childish but its like watching babies trying to build a house.

Best you can do is to focus on your own life.

Well this last election really broke me from thinking of myself as an American. I just happen to live here.

Because the truth is our democracy is managed by oligarch propaganda. And our votes mean very little outside of local elections.

A vote for Trump and a vote for Harris were both going to continue the harms of the MIC and the fossil fuel industry. Yes, Trump is an accelerant. And I voted not to add gasoline.

But the fire was going to burn one way or the other.

Anyway, I think folks that feel ashamed still believe that their voice matters. Which is by design of the political and business class.

I grew up in Indonesia, my sister is from Java, my brother is from Singapore. I’m natively from California, and I’m a huge white boy. I am ashamed that the country of the free, the country of the brave who had bounteous arms to welcome the downtrodden and abused of the world is no longer that place. Instead it’s the land of the secret police, tbe land of a pedophile traitor president who can’t stand any kind of criticism because he’s a fucking coward who dodged military service.

Anyone who has been embarrassed by a family member knows.

I don’t have pride in my government or its actions.

It was actively causing a lot of harm for most of its existence and is now turbo charging its ability to enshittify the world.

The LEAST I can do is make it clear we’re not all in support of this shit.

Love the country and people though. Lots of cool forests to roam and lots of people who don’t suck.

I haven’t felt very patriotic or proud of my country in over 25 years, since I began to slowly understand politics and how things worked within my country. I feel that after everything I’ve read, everything I’ve heard about, everything I verified myself by researching and everything everyone has gone through in it with the bads. You can say my control stick has been snapped off and I’m permanently unpatriotic and ashamed to represent my country, knowing the damage that has been done internally as a country and externally everywhere else in the world.

I know it’s not my fault, I just do what I can, I pay my taxes knowing it’s being pissed away, I work jobs I didn’t like doing to feel like I’m contributing despite it not being ultimately worth it because I am helping sustain the motion of this unworthy country. I have voted Sanders, Sanders, Harris in my voting record. And still, the assholes won in the end. But then I feel like, that shit doesn’t matter because our track record as a country has shown that the system is in favor of said assholes if they’re cunning enough to take advantage of them and that’s what we’ve witnessed many times.

All the while knowing that half of the population in this country, is dead set in taking the rest of us down with them in every negative decision made. While still trying to tell us it is our fault.

I feel deeply embarrassed about being from the US. It’s like hanging out with a group of friends out of necessity, later realizing they were all assholes, and trying to come to terms with the fact you spent so many years with them. I live outside the US now and I’m even more embarrassed to be from there. Every time there’s some culture shock my takeaway is either “wow how did I normalize this broken aspect of the US” or “I wish I was from somewhere that didn’t do those things to that person’s country”.

I also feel embarrassed and guilty over getting out of the US. I worked in tech and now I’m living off tech savings to start a life outside the US. I left my friends behind many of them are struggling financially, I left my community behind many of which are actively homeless, I chose to leave. Sure I’m leaving in part because my trans ass is on the chopping block but I see a lot of trans people fight harder instead of flee. I fought for so many years though and I couldn’t keep doing it so I left. The US did this to my community, made me confront choices I never wanted to make, I’m disgusted by having paid taxes to the war machine, and I justify working in tech as a way out of there but really I feel guilty over choosing to buy into that side of the US too so I could secure personal safety.