When I was a kid in the US people told me "you can do anything! Anyone can be president! Just set your mind to it!"

Now as someone raising kids in Europe the general sentiment is "The system is rigged, don't even try, anyone with nice things got it through avarice or corruption, nothing ever changes" (to be fair, I've lived in only two European countries, but this seems to be a common sentiment that varies primarily in scale - it was utterly atrocious in Ireland)

As smarmy and unrealistic as the first one is, I'll take it over the latter.

You should see how American children feel these days.

It's the Eastern European mood taking over everything. Doesn't seem to be a sign of anything good, but at least, if you get lucky, you get the endless supply of gallows humor.

That's a valid emotion. Unfortunately, the sentiment you prefer doesn't exist any more. Essentially nobody but the most wealthy and politically elevated have said that for years. And I don't think what I'm saying is pessimistic - I think it's pretty common knowledge.

> it was utterly atrocious in Ireland

Speaking as an Irish citizen, this does not match to my experiences at all. But countries are large, and individual experiences are rarely a good sampling of population level traits.

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