>> “Some of you may die, but that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make” - Shrek (2001)
> I think about this line a lot when I read about what Trump and Musk are doing
It's not just them though, but also their predecessors who created the conditions that led to Trump (e.g. pushing free trade even after the initial fairy tale that it would increase US manufacturing proved to be untrue). They were willing to sacrifice others' blue collar employment.
It's would be kind interesting to see every politician's list of who should be prioritized and who they're willing to sacrifice, but they'll never be explicit about such things.
Do not take responsibility from Trump. He does not need to sign the EOs or do any of this. He was campaigning on tariffs before Project 2025 was ever a concept.
> It's mostly Trump though. Trump is responsible for his actions.
Eh, kinda sorta. Trump is responsible for his actions, but the people who created the conditions for him are responsible too. There are a lot of leaders are very interested in having the buck to stop with him because it lets them off the hook.
IMHO, Trump's tariff policies were poorly thought through, and that's something that's all on him. But reshoring manufacturing is going to be costly, and those costs will land on people who aren't yet used to bearing them, and that's also on his predecessors who allowed the offshoring in the first place. If they'd never done that, there'd be no Trump and no pain of reshoring.
> Jim: See, you're always saying there's something wrong with society, but maybe there's something's wrong with you.
That probably works as limited context joke, playing off of the saying "if you think everyone else is always the problem, then maybe you’re actually the problem," but it's not really something that generalizes. The relationship between individuals is a lot different than the relationship of society to the individual.
I don't think anyone can seriously claim that society doesn't have major problems, so any issues are actually individual ones. The people who claim that (and they exist), often are just gaslighting to deny a problem they don't want solved.
It's not as simple as that. You can't build prosperity by hanging on to the bottom of the value chain.
(Yes, you may deem some things are of strategic value - then you put predictable and long term tariffs on a _limited_ number of items, ramped up slowly, matched with incentives to build up capacity in that sector.)
That's all well and good, but people are not replaceable machines. If there aren't enough jobs for the not-well-educated, and the minimum required education is an expensive endeavour, where does that leave people?
In the past, the tradeoff appeared to be that public school was offered to everyone, and that was enough to make a living. And now?
Yes, what? There can be many answers, including the government getting involved in re-educating people for more productive work. A bad answer is definitely "blanket tariff the world".
> the people who created the conditions for him are responsible
It's just a truism though isn't it? Everything in the past is responsible for what is the current state of things. You can say it but it has next to no meaning and is not interesting.
But using plain English and the plain meanings of words: Trump is responsible. You can blame Biden for not dropping out soon enough or whatever, but ultimately: what is happening now is on Trump.
What would perhaps be interesting is to discuss this objective failure of the American system. Far from the "greatest democracy in the world", the constitution is clearly quite, quite a shit one if it allows this to happen.
It is not just about the past. A king is only as powerful as his subjects are loyal. Trump continues to hold sway because people have remained trusting of him and are willing to go along with him. They don't have to, but they choose to.
Right, and a constitution that allows that to even happen has also failed. The American system was supposed to be somewhat elitist and prevent wild populism. So it didn't do that. It failed. Perhaps related to the overly permissive definition of speech in the US and subsequent extreme partisanship. Or perhaps presidential systems actually are quite shit in comparison to parliamentary ones. Anyway, obviously the country is very, very sick at the moment.
First past the post voting is one critical root cause. It prevents coalition building and compromise. I think that's a much bigger smoking gun than presidential vs parliamentary.
I think this is too simple. The right wing was on the rise in most of the rest of the developed world too, until Trump scared everyone straight. What factors led people to think this brand of politics is a good way forward? Simple media? Social media? Propaganda? Foreign propaganda?
Personally I think it's a mix, but inequality is a big factor. Quoting Roosevelt:
"But I venture the challenging statement that if American democracy ceases to move forward as a living force, seeking day and night by peaceful means to better the lot of our citizens, then Fascism and Communism, aided, unconsciously perhaps, by old-line Tory Republicanism, will grow in strength in our land."
> But using plain English and the plain meanings of words: Trump is responsible.
Not exactly. Being so blunt and simplistic is politics, pure and simple. The D's don't like the R's, so their analysis always stops once they can blame an R (and vice-versa).
I think it's a much more interesting and fruitful question to ask "Who is responsible for Trump," rather than "What is Trump responsible for."
IMHO, the Trump phenomenon is in large part the expression of rejection of neoliberalism, which the pre-Trump political structure made unexpressable. The result is a seriously flawed man gaining power, and causing way more damage than was necessary.
> What would perhaps be interesting is to discuss this objective failure of the American system. Far from the "greatest democracy in the world", the constitution is clearly quite, quite a shit one if it allows this to happen.
That's closer to what I'm getting at. However, what exactly is "this," though? Does it include deviation from a Wall Street-friendly stasis? Neoliberalism 'till death do us part?
I don’t know I think blaming trump for the things trump is doing is pretty straight forwards and the opposite of playing politics.
>That's closer to what I'm getting at. However, what exactly is "this," though? Does it include deviation from a Wall Street-friendly stasis? Neoliberalism 'till death do us part?
Neoliberalism is much newer than the constitution and the country. Have a sense of scope when talking about the history of your country, it's new, but it's not that new.
The country is completely fucked—that we can all agree on. It's imploding and its position in the world is frankly becoming increasingly pathetic. America's friends pity it at best and detest it for its betrayal of Western civilisation at worst. America's enemies are laughing. If there are people to blame, then I'm afraid it's the American people. Americans are not worthy of the country that they have inherited. Americans are an undignified people, that's a bit part of the problem.
> I don’t know I think blaming trump for the things trump is doing is pretty straight forwards and the opposite of playing politics.
The playing politics part is (among other things) selectively focusing only "on the things Trump is doing."
Trump isn't responsible for creating the conditions that allowed him to get elected. A lot of the people who are really interested in focusing only "on the things Trump is doing" are the ones responsible for those conditions in the first place.
I mean, how bad do you have to be that people would rather vote for a sociopathic clown than you, when given the choice? But you know, thinking about that will make you uncomfortable, lets avoid it and focus on the clown!
Here's a thought: if you don't want to be ruled by a Trump, figure out how to avoid creating the conditions where someone like him could win. Strongly advocating for reasonable policies to create those conditions would also be better politics against Trump, right now than the incessant outrage about how terrible Trump is.
Trump is responsible for his own election and is partly responsible for the division in the US, having made it much worse. He's not operating in a vacuum. He's not a force of nature, he's a person just like the rest of us and is responsible for his actions, as are his supporters, as are those who voted for him.
>I mean, how bad do you have to be that people would rather vote for a sociopathic clown than you, when given the choice? But you know, thinking about that will make you uncomfortable, lets avoid it and focus on the clown!
The people aren't always right. Just because Trump is a sociopath and actively destroying the country right now, that doesn't mean the opposition actually is worse. That's extremely flawed thinking to put it mildly. You'd really have to be a dyed in the wool member of the Trump cult to still believe that the electorate made the right choice in rejecting Clinton in 2016 and Harris in 2024.
>Here's a thought: if you don't want to be ruled by a Trump, figure out how to avoid creating the conditions where someone like him could win. Strongly advocating for reasonable policies to create those conditions would also be better politics against Trump, right now than the incessant outrage about how terrible Trump is.
Outrage is fine when he's destroying the country. Tone policing is not OK in this situation, because there's 4 more years of this and proposing new policies now changes literally nothing. The damage is already done. It's too late. The US will probably be OK in the end but the rot is much deeper than can be solved by your beloved "new policies" (which actually the Democrats proposed plenty of, but Americans just wanted Trump anyway), the US needs constitutional change at this point.
> Trump is responsible for his own election and is partly responsible for the division in the US, having made it much worse. He's not operating in a vacuum. He's not a force of nature, he's a person just like the rest of us and is responsible for his actions, as are his supporters, as are those who voted for him.
He'd have to be a force of nature to be responsible for his own election. The problem with what you're saying is that it's a one-sided perspective, and that's about ego protection ("the problem can't be with me any my side, we're all good, someone else is responsible for all the bad") not solving the actual problem.
Trump is a symptom.
> The people aren't always right. Just because Trump is a sociopath and actively destroying the country right now, that doesn't mean the opposition actually is worse. That's extremely flawed thinking to put it mildly. You'd really have to be a dyed in the wool member of the Trump cult to still believe that the electorate made the right choice in rejecting Clinton in 2016 and Harris in 2024.
Sorry, it's your thinking that is flawed. You can yell that Clinton and Harris should have won until you're blue in the face, but it won't change the fact that they lost to Trump and the Democratic party was so uncompelling that people decided to take a chance on him.
It's not that the electorate was stupid, it's that the Democratic party either undermined itself and/or failed to offer solutions to problems people were actually having. That's the problem.
> Outrage is fine when he's destroying the country. Tone policing is not OK in this situation, because there's 4 more years of this and proposing new policies now changes literally nothing.
Oh come on. Proposing policies for 4 years establishes credibility. Being outraged accomplishes nothing except a temporary catharsis. It might even be worse than nothing if it allows a squeaker win that prevents real reform to address the issues (see the 2022 midterms).
> The US will probably be OK in the end but the rot is much deeper than can be solved by your beloved "new policies" (which actually the Democrats proposed plenty of, but Americans just wanted Trump anyway), the US needs constitutional change at this point.
Except the Democrats' proposals were timid and weak, and they plugged their ears and ignored a lot of stuff (e.g. immigration: ignored until a last-minute executive order, trade/re-shoring: pretty weak, and mainly focused on protecting existing industries, no risk-taking like Trump's tariffs).
> But reshoring manufacturing is going to be costly
So like what the Biden admin was doing?
I'm sorry, but "a moron steps in and runs a wrecking ball through the global economy" is not something you look at and say, "wow, his predecessors really messed this one up". No, they did not create the conditions for this needless harm. The answer is, plainly, that Trump is a disastrous moron.
> No, they did not create the conditions for this needless harm.
I took the OP to mean the predecessors like McConnell who were evil self-serving sociopaths and normalized a kind of politics to win at all costs, even if the cost is a detriment to the country.
I think people are missing your point: Trump's rhetoric wouldn't have taken hold if people weren't getting screwed. "The system" failed, and Trump was the result.
Harris's message: "Biden is doing fine and things are going great"*
Trump's message: "You're hurting right now, and I'm going to fix it for you"
Very similar to 2016 (in which Bernie's message was also closer to that of Trump)
Exercise for the reader: how might this framework explain Andrew Tate and the like?
* "The US economy is the envy of the world" (accurate though it may be) probably doesn't resonate when you can see your purchasing power slipping through your fingers (as highlighted by certain media outlets) and you can't buy a house
I actually do not have to. I care about developing opposition to the tariffs so that they’ll be removed, not sociological theories about why some particular politician came to support them. If the tariffs were popular among the general public, it might make sense to do a root cause analysis, but they aren’t.
You of course are correct, but the posters on this board are likely some of the winners of globalization/neoliberalism so they are downvoting you.
I remember Obama and Clinton railing against NAFTA when they were competing for rust belt votes in the primary and it was insincere nonsense. Of course Obama's policies after getting elected revealed he thought as much and that was why so many democrats (now a globalist/neoliberal party) like him.
Trump is the reckoning that comes when you tell the exurbs / blue collar work force you ultimately don't care about them and they should all just learn to code.
Could you share how the left wing politicians fighting for a higher minimum wage, medicare for all, CHIP / WIC, capping prices on insulin, and executing actual programs that create local jobs vis-a-vis the Infrastructure Investment Act is indicative of "not caring about people and telling them they should just learn to code"?
Seems like a loaded question. I think they'll figure it out, messaging is part of the problem, especially cause a lot of culture war stuff and secular/urban elitism that drives messaging is truly detested by the working class, but not the entire problem. "We have hand outs for them, why don't they love us?" maybe is the place to start but maybe people want more than that from the people driving policy? They want a seat the table in building the country and not just a life free from unbearable poverty? Just some ideas, it's not my problem.
It sounds a lot like you're suggesting politicians should engage in more populist messaging to make people feel heard...like railing against NAFTA even when they just have a few quibbles with its specifics?
> Could you share how the left wing politicians fighting for a higher minimum wage, medicare for all, CHIP / WIC, capping prices on insulin, and executing actual programs that create local jobs vis-a-vis the Infrastructure Investment Act is indicative of "not caring about people and telling them they should just learn to code"?
It's pretty simple: collectively, they didn't care enough. Not enough to counter 30 years of neoliberalism, and stuff like "just learn to code" are convenient fantasies to avoid dealing with the problems they were too timid to address.
IMHO, we have Trump because the Democrats are terrible. They had eight f*cking years to change to actually defeat him, once the problem became evident, but they decided to sit on their hands except to fearmonger.
No, Trump is the reckoning that comes for the blue collar voters who listened to right wing propaganda and decided they just want to burn it all down. Unfortunately, they'll be hurt more than anyone with what's to come.
They are going to learn a tough lesson about the modern economy and how things can get worse them for sure. The desire to burn it all down came from despair over a loss of status and economic anxiety, which was/is justified because the R/D party before Trump legitimately did not care about them at all and had fantastical notions about globalization turning everyone into winners, and ignored all evidence to the contrary.
They felt ignored and powerless and latched onto Trump and here we are. A populist movement in America was overdue, democrats could have taken control of it with Bernie but they put their thumb on the scale to get Hillary the presidency. Republican establishment looked on with despair and saw several of their favored candidates get their career ended but adapted.
>They are going to learn a tough lesson about the modern economy and how things can get worse them for sure. The desire to burn it all down came from despair over a loss of status and economic anxiety, which was/is justified because the R/D party before Trump legitimately did not care about them at all and had fantastical notions about globalization turning everyone into winners, and ignored all evidence to the contrary.
To be fair, much of the hollowing out of the rust belt/rural areas is/was as you mention (although, I'd say that Trump doesn't give a rat's ass about those folks either, they were just a means to an end), but what's unsaid is the lack of infrastructure investment by the states themselves.
Had the state governments paid attention to the lack of decent educational opportunities, broadband, transportation and opportunities for the "new economy" (as compared with the withering/now withered manufacturing economy), there would be significant investment/start ups in/of tech companies in those areas, as the cost of living and capital/real estate costs are much lower in the "rust belt" and similar areas.
But no such investment was made by those state governments, so those areas left damaged by the loss of manufacturing jobs were left to rot. Not just by the Federal government, but even more so by the state and local governments in those areas.
There were/are other factors in play too, but you rarely (if ever) hear anyone calling state/local governments to task over this stuff -- it's always the "Feds" who, in point of fact, can certainly help, but remaking areas with sagging economies is much more a state/local thing, IMNSHO.
I think part of the issue there is there's free movement in America of capital/labor so it's hard to justify investments. Eg. why have the state pay to give each member or your state elite college educations if they are going to move to another state anyway? Your global businesses are going to move as well the second it makes financial sense to?
>I think part of the issue there is there's free movement in America of capital/labor so it's hard to justify investments. Eg. why have the state pay to give each member or your state elite college educations if they are going to move to another state anyway? Your global businesses are going to move as well the second it makes financial sense to?
You misunderstand my point. Which is probably my fault. My apologies. I'll attempt to clarify:
I don't advocate for states to "pay to give each member or your state elite college educations." Rather, I was commenting on the disinvestment[0] in higher education by the states, resulting in poorer educational outcomes as well as fewer educated professionals to serve as innovators, knowledge workers and entrepreneurs in those states.
I'd posit that if many states in the rust belt invested in quality education, rather than forcing big tuition increases/student debt, more folks would stay in those states, with the positive economic benefits across those state economies improving the lots of everyone.
As for "global" businesses, they're mostly an outlier[1], at least in the US with ~15,000,000 businesses with less than 100 employees and ~170,000 businesses with more than 100 employees (of which only 45,000 or so have more than 500 employees).
And why, exactly, do folks leave such places? Why, for the better economics of states that invest in infrastructure and education. Folks wouldn't leave if they could do just as well or better in their hometowns. But (for a whole bunch of reasons, the ones I cite included), those places don't have the same economic opportunity because they don't have the infrastructure or skilled workforce to do so. If they did, companies would flock to those places as the cost of living and cost of doing business are significantly lower.
Why is Silicon Valley a hub for business?[2] Strong educational institutions, good infrastructure and a skilled workforce?
Why are prisons the highlight of six of the seven poorest counties in the US?[3] Poor or no educational institutions and a lack of skilled workers.
I hope I've clarified my point. My apologies for not doing so initially.
I just don't think it's that simple. A lot of states/regions have tried to make their own silicon valley over the past 15 years for illustration, throwing money and tax incentives at the problem, and results have been mixed. Even SF's attempt to transform itself as an tech industry city has yielded mixed results for its residents and they'd have to be considered a relative success story at a minimum on this front.
There's just too many factors outside the state's control, beyond a lack of political support for those types of investments.
I never said it was. In fact, I repeatedly said that lack of infrastructure and disinvestment in higher education were among the reasons for the lack of economic activity in the rust belt and similar.
That said, without decent infrastructure and a skilled workforce, it's much, much harder to attract new businesses, innovators and entrepreneurs. Other factors (as I noted in both the comments to which you replied) are impactful as well, but I chose to focus on two that are (IMHO, at least) rather important.
Yeah I don't see any alternative. The dream of (re)building your local economy around industries that boomed 100 years ago is a fantasy and the global economy has moved on. It's just hard me to necessarily point fingers as you have, I just see so many factors here. It takes long term vision + some acceptance of failed investment + some sacrifice, all things we currently seem to have no desire/stomach for.
> The dream of (re)building your local economy around industries that boomed 100 years ago is a fantasy and the global economy has moved on.
What industries, specifically, are you thinking about?
Because if those industries did not disappear completely but were instead offshored to arbitrage labor, then the global economy has definitely NOT moved on.
Those industries were almost entirely automated years ago.
You aren't going to bring manufacturing back to the US and get jobs on the assembly line like your grandfather had, those jobs simply no longer exist. The few jobs that do exist won't pay enough money for a home with a two-car garage like your grandfather had on the assembly line either, they will pay barely subsistence wages like working in an Amazon warehouse. And American manufactured goods won't be competitive like they were when the US could leverage its industries against a Western world that was still rebuilding after the war. No one is going to want to buy American Ladas, and Americans won't be able to afford them.
> I just see so many factors here. It takes long term vision + some acceptance of failed investment + some sacrifice, all things we currently seem to have no desire/stomach for.
This is a good assessment. Fundamentally a Trump doesn't rise to power unless the road has been paved in weak, neoliberal policies. Clinton, Bush, Obama, Biden... all had roles in expanding class divides, weakening manufacturing, increasing executive branch power, failing to capture the hearts of the working class.
Yes, Trump is doing awful, aimless, cruel things, but he would be laughed out of power had the parties been serving any interest other than those of the wealthy.
