As an American, my perception is that Europeans work to live while those of us in the States live to work; the highest crime in America is hurting the rich, and the highest crime in Europe is hurting the working class.

Deficits might be unmanageable already.

> I don’t know what the endgame is.

Well that is your first problem, politics is not an "end game".

> As a European, it’s incredibly sad to see this trend: the “right to forget” (HTTP status 451), GDPR, cookie prompts, losing the UK, DMA and DSA, Chat Control, immigration issues, Germany’s anti-nuclear stance, the war in Ukraine, high gas and oil prices, COVID-19 deaths, even the storming of Tesla’s factory.

With the way how you mentioned these things side-by-side maybe you just need pause from social-media.

sentimental slop -- the USA has a teen mental health epidemic, plastics trash in the waterways, tire residue in the fresh water, and many other avoidable woes.. 100x for China. In a longer time frame, pushback is healthy for stability