It always ends up happening how you least expect it, though maybe that expectation is evidence that it was bound to happen via a different road anyway.
At the end of the day, the problem isn't really Trump. The American Empire isn't going to end because its only exporting $300B of military might to the world instead of $600B, when no one else on the planet is scratching $50B (I made these numbers up as an illustration).
It might end because it seems like the media landscape has entirely striated the US population into two groups: One group who genuinely and deeply believes that these actions are necessary for the continuity of the US way of life, and another group who genuinely and deeply believes that these actions will destroy the US way of life. No one makes any good faith effort to understand the other side; even my suggestion that this division is the real threat will get downvoted by HackerNews' overwhelmingly leftist bubble. American political discourse is now dominated by people who cannot allow even a single imperfection in their coat of armor, Trump cannot possibly be wrong about anything, his supporters cannot admit they might not have known the implications of what they voted for, the left cannot possibly be wrong about any of their criticism of him, we're screaming past each other.
Interrogate your inner thought process right now; were you thinking "What side is this person on?"
Its so difficult to get the full picture of understanding of the other side. Trump is rich, egotistical, and doesn't listen to the counsel of others; but Russia is controlling him? Trump wants to reduce the federal debt levels of the United States; but is hellbent on spending anything to deport economically productive illegal immigrants? Trump is silencing the media and kicking them out of the white house; while streaming more than Pokimane, direct from the Oval Office, just rambling for hours a day? Trump supporters were hoodwinked and lied to; yet more than any President america has had for decades, Trump is doing exactly, to the letter, what he said he'd do on the campaign trail; its just that the left didn't believe him back then, because we're so used to Presidents that do nothing. America's children have the worst test scores in the G20, and cost the most to educate; we should continue what we're currently doing? America's healthcare outcomes are among the worst in the G20, and most expensive; we should continue the path we're currently walking?
We're in a crisis of understanding right now. We need more moderates. We need people who understand both sides of the coin, and can have a reasonable conversation about why the past 20 years hasn't worked for most Americans, and also why Trump's policies also won't fix things. My fear, however, is that we won't get that in 2028; instead we're just going to move into our camps further, with a leftist version of Trump v JD Vance, and we'll dig further down the hole of two sides that need each other to solve the problems we face, but refuse to work with one-another.
> No one makes any good faith effort to understand the other side
I do and have.
Too many of their issues are simply made-up for me to get much traction, though. You see one outrageous thing after another and go “omg if that’s true it does seem pretty bad!” and then it’s almost always not true when you look into it. You can do this all day long with Fox News, let alone even nuttier sources.
The latest one for me was a discussion about the Olympic boxer from Algeria. Apparently it was proven through leaked medical records that she does, in fact, have XY chromosomes.
I did some digging. 99.999% of the articles covering this are just circular references to each other celebrating their moral victory. Finally I found the original source which was an online-only French newspaper that as best I could tell publishes like three articles a year from random guest contributors.
Reading the “leaked report”, the only evidence are screenshots of photocopies of… what literally just seems to be a textbook explaining the supposed condition she has. Not regarding her specifically. Literally just a textbook description of the condition.
There are no confirming documents. Nothing with her name on it. Nothing with an actual lab result. Nothing but a random Internet personality pseudonymously claiming that they somehow, out of all the other possible news outlets on earth, received leaked copies of her medical report. And zero receipts.
Every. Single. Time. that I dive into actual claims from the conservative outrage machine, there is nothing there. This specific topic has the right running victory laps, reposting one another as their primary sources. Nobody has bothered to look if it was actually based on anything real.
For sure. The 2024 Republican party is one built on Vibes; if you double-click on any of the specific issues, ask five questions about them, it turns out that really, that issue probably isn't all that material to Americans' lives, or isn't even real.
Example 1: We sent hundreds of billions to Ukraine, while North Carolina and Florida flooded and people lost their homes. This is a direct talking point Trump has used; maybe we should have spent that money on the homefront. Well: We spent billions on disaster relief for these affected areas, there were reports from Governors that they were getting everything they could meaningfully deploy, and moreover it doesn't seem likely to me that the money we spent on Ukraine came from some funding source that incurred that direct trade-off. The DoD isn't getting a budget increase equal to the amount spent. It was money already allocated.
Example 2: Illegal immigration is raising the crime rate. Well, its not an incorrect statement; Trump has literally deployed this "technically correct" argument that every illegal immigrant is committing a crime by entering the country illegally, and thus it raises the crime rate. Then, they talk more about the homicides and "eating the cats and dogs", and it should be obvious to anyone that: Everyone commits crime. Illegals are no different. Are they committing crime at a rate higher than citizens? I doubt it. Sure, slowing down the rate its happening has reasonably-majority agreement among Americans; but removing those already here instead of finding a path to getting them work authorization benefits no-one.
But remember: Republicans are a Vibes party, and there is something real to the Vibes they run on. These vibes should, in my view, be a mostly-bipartisan issue. Heck, its things I've seen leftists rightly complain about many times: American education sucks, American healthcare sucks, American health sucks, no one can afford a home, unemployment is growing, tons of jobs are getting shipped overseas, or supplanted by AI, what is going on?
The way I've seen it: The Republicans are a party that are quick to admit that there is a problem, but they have all the wrong solutions to it. The Democrats, on the other hand, won't admit there's a problem beyond abstract generalities in a campaign speech, and don't offer any solutions anyway.
I wonder if part of the problem is that we abdicated our information intake to online sources, which for whatever reasons end up driving the divisions (engagement optimization, ads, money interests, etc.).
Where information input before the Internet might have been: 20% newspapers, 50% face-to-face (at the bar, church, work), 10% radio, 20% TV, now it's more like 80% Internet, 10% TV, 10% face-to-face. And it seems to make it a lot easier to grow hateful without the human element.
That’s fine if Trump wants to spend less or even withdraw from NATO.
Doing it like it just did with basically no notice is a stabbing in the back to former allies of the US. And Republicans are also not saying much.
That behavior should and very likely will not be forgotten by Europe.
The next phase that makes sense is an iron curtain between 4 blocks (US, Europe, Russia, China). Like during the Cold War, it is the approach that will minimize the risk of war.
Trump does not want to reduce US debt level- Trump wants a tax cut. If government spending decreases as a result of DOGE that will not result in lower debt- it will result in a bigger tax cut.
The savings from DOGE ( if there will be any) will pass on to rich people, not to the average American voter.
No one on the left is surprised by what Trump is doing. The people who are surprised are his voters.
"I thought he was going to hurt those other people, not me."
Well. About that.
The problem isn't even left vs right. It's a media system that has parted company with reality and deliberately promoted lies and rage bait for clicks and distraction.
It's a huge machine. It's not just Fox, it's the entire network of neoliberal, now neofascist media outlets - from think tanks and "serious journalists", to bot farms and weaponised social media that promotes selected views and deboosts others, to podcasts, influencers, megachurches, mainstream econ schools, MBAs, startups... all promoting the same dysfunctional reality-denying neoliberal supremacist views under various guises.
As someone who doesn't go to church or watch fox perhaps I've missed it, but all I've seen are refutations of this, for instance highly upvoted posts saying "x days of not regretting my vote" as of a few days ago.
Id be curious to see the data if there are any articles or polls that show a large amount of Trump voters regretting their pick. Thanks.
> will get downvoted by HackerNews' overwhelmingly leftist bubble
I think your over all point is healthy but you really need to reexamine this assumption. Take a look at /active and see how often topics critical of Trump, Musk, Thiel, Yarvin, etc. flagged.
At the end of the day, the problem isn't really Trump. The American Empire isn't going to end because its only exporting $300B of military might to the world instead of $600B, when no one else on the planet is scratching $50B (I made these numbers up as an illustration).
It might end because it seems like the media landscape has entirely striated the US population into two groups: One group who genuinely and deeply believes that these actions are necessary for the continuity of the US way of life, and another group who genuinely and deeply believes that these actions will destroy the US way of life. No one makes any good faith effort to understand the other side; even my suggestion that this division is the real threat will get downvoted by HackerNews' overwhelmingly leftist bubble. American political discourse is now dominated by people who cannot allow even a single imperfection in their coat of armor, Trump cannot possibly be wrong about anything, his supporters cannot admit they might not have known the implications of what they voted for, the left cannot possibly be wrong about any of their criticism of him, we're screaming past each other.
Interrogate your inner thought process right now; were you thinking "What side is this person on?"
Its so difficult to get the full picture of understanding of the other side. Trump is rich, egotistical, and doesn't listen to the counsel of others; but Russia is controlling him? Trump wants to reduce the federal debt levels of the United States; but is hellbent on spending anything to deport economically productive illegal immigrants? Trump is silencing the media and kicking them out of the white house; while streaming more than Pokimane, direct from the Oval Office, just rambling for hours a day? Trump supporters were hoodwinked and lied to; yet more than any President america has had for decades, Trump is doing exactly, to the letter, what he said he'd do on the campaign trail; its just that the left didn't believe him back then, because we're so used to Presidents that do nothing. America's children have the worst test scores in the G20, and cost the most to educate; we should continue what we're currently doing? America's healthcare outcomes are among the worst in the G20, and most expensive; we should continue the path we're currently walking?
We're in a crisis of understanding right now. We need more moderates. We need people who understand both sides of the coin, and can have a reasonable conversation about why the past 20 years hasn't worked for most Americans, and also why Trump's policies also won't fix things. My fear, however, is that we won't get that in 2028; instead we're just going to move into our camps further, with a leftist version of Trump v JD Vance, and we'll dig further down the hole of two sides that need each other to solve the problems we face, but refuse to work with one-another.