#american-perception

#american-perception

"People were working from home, there were people starting to become what we call digital nomads, and people realized they had more flexibility in life," Speer said.

Younger generations have lost faith in American institutions due to nearly two decades of economic turmoil, which has led to a significant rise in populism across the United States.

Many upper-middle-classers don't even realize they've climbed into this tier. Randy Shilling, a 58-year-old chemical plant worker in Texas, saved more than $3 million for retirement. 'I view myself as an average Joe,' he told The Wall Street Journal. 'But when I want something, I go get it.'

Starting next month, the cost of renouncing your U.S. citizenship will go down dramatically - a boon for people already shouldering the burden of paying for a major overseas move. Anyone wishing to formally shed their American citizenship is required to obtain a form called a Certificate of Loss of Nationality, and right now it comes with a whopping $2,350 fee. In April, that fee will drop by 80% to $450.

The air feels heavier. And the struggles are changing shape. Beyond my office walls, the world is shifting, and my clients sense the tremors. The things they once trusted, global order, democratic norms, and even their own personal safety, no longer feel solid. They feel brittle, as if one strong wind could bring it all down. And what they're sensing isn't imagined.

A record high of adults—80 percent—believes that Americans are divided on the most important values. National pride, trust in government, and confidence in institutions are near record lows. The Princeton University historian Sean Wilentz says the United States hasn't been this divided since the Civil War. Nearly half of Americans think another civil war is likely in their lifetime.

As authoritarianism accelerates - as government-sanctioned violence becomes more overt in immigration enforcement, in policing, in the open deployment of federal force against civilians, and in the steady erosion of civil rights - people are scrambling for reference points. But instead of reckoning with the long and violent architecture of U.S. history, much of this searching collapses into racialized tropes and xenophobic reassurance: This isn't Afghanistan. This isn't Iran or China. This is America. We have rights. This is a democracy. This isn't who we are.