What looks like relative prosperity to you looks like loser-town to the average American who is bombarded every ten minutes with some notion of something else he could/should/ought to have. You see, if you have been brought up in Europe (which includes eastern europe) and you are educated, you probably have a wealth of inner resources that are not available to the average American who basically has TV and his TV-addled family. And, by the same token, you measure success in other than material terms. Also, don't forget -- never forget -- how hard Americans work and how little energy they have left at the end of the day. They know they've been robbed, they believe that being working-class in this country means being a loser, they believe that everyone has the chance to "make it" and making it means having lots of shit. So, I guess they have to blame someone that they can lord it over.
I don't know cause I don't know people like that. I went out to dinner a couple of nights ago at my local Chinese restaurant and sat next to a longish table accommodating an extended white family celebrating the birthday of their college-bound son. The father was holding forth about how we lost the war in VietNam because of the liberal media. It was Walter Cronkite's fault because of his presentation of the Tet offensive. I kept listening ...to try and make sense of the psychology, but I couldn't. I saw a lot of self-satisfaction, anger, resentment. I noticed that the women in the family said almost nothing throughout dinner. I noted a certain level of anxiety/nervousness that seemed unwarranted given the circumstances... Beats me.
Joanna