It's mind blowing to witness the speed and rapidity with which we have
* Completely alienated key allies via an erratic and unpredictable tariff policy
* Significantly undermined faith in US economic data and fiscal policy via overt politicization of key economic institutions
* Increased the deficit by almost $3 trillion after vowing to reduce the deficit
* Signaled far and wide that pay for play is the new norm, whether for pardons or favourable policy. Preferably paid in crypto, but with in kind payments being acceptable.
Is there any wonder that other countries are unwilling to trust the US? The only hope we have is that the current bout of madness in Washington DC is a one time aberration, but who knows!
This "pay up for trade access" is similar to the tributary system of feudal China. Every year, neighboring countries of China like Korea, Japan, Thailand, and Vietnam sent envoys to Imperial China, paying gold, women, and exotic products, in return for recognition of their sovereignty (subject to the supreme authority of Chinese emperor), military protection, and access to trade routes within China.
It is interesting to see the resurgence of such imperial practices in modern-day America. I think it worked out quite well for the Tang dynasty, but arguably that was because all East Asian feudal states were authoritarian monarchy back then. A logical next step would be for POTUS to declare himself as the supreme leader of the world, emend educational materials to propound the idea that the US is superior to other tributary states, quell all internal cries of undemocratic practices, and ban books that promote historical knowledge to avoid unnecessary dissent.
> This "pay up for trade access" is similar to the tributary system of feudal China. Every year, neighboring countries of China like Korea, Japan, Thailand, and Vietnam sent envoys to Imperial China, paying gold, women, and exotic products, in return for recognition of their sovereignty (subject to the supreme authority of Chinese emperor), military protection, and access to trade routes within China.
The most irritating thing is that I specifically didn't want to see a return to form for this for China, but I never imagined that America in the 21st Century would somehow get there first. It was just out of fucking nowhere.
The prospects for the working class disappeared when you moved manufacturing to China. The population was subsequently dumbed down because there was no money for schools(except for the rich elite).
Probably because you’re talking about a whole different thing than what I was responding to. America shaking down Japan and Korea to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars wasn’t even on my bingo card for 2025, but perhaps your bingo card was more prophetic.
Usually I read these “how could you/they not see this coming?” statements less in reference to a specific occurrence and more like “Given this man’s profound and enduring disinterest in history, culture, economics and the global political process, along with his demonstrated venality, how could you not see that bad things would happen, this being an example…”
> prospects for the working class disappeared when you moved manufacturing to China
I think the prospects of the working class died with the crisis signaling the end of the USSR and by extension communist/socialist circles. After all it was the only counter-balance that instilled a baseline fear of violent uprising from the workers class in the heart of the wealthy class.
And in a way the final nail came with the free reign liberal policies that followed with Thatcher e Reagan, not so much about offshoring in itself.
The true problem is money in politics. No, this has nothing to do with Musk. Musk is just visible, but it's been going on in the US for a long, long time.
Other countries have limits on campaign donations, for example at the federal level in Canada:
* no donations are allowed by corporations
* individuals may only donate $1750 to the party, and $1750 to the local candidate
* people running for office can donate to their own campaign, to the tune of $5000
* leadership candidates (eg, for Prime Minister) can donate $25k to their own campaign
You want the "working class" to have more of a say? Make candidates beholden to normal people to get elected. Destroy the machinery of big-business donations for campaign, and campaign management funding.
That's it. That's the biggest, most significant fix, right there.
>...After all it was the only counter-balance that instilled a baseline fear of violent uprising from the workers class in the heart of the wealthy class.
Are people claiming that the USSR provided a valid counter-balance for the working class? At any rate, if the chances of political violence have actually decreased in democracies due to the end of the USSR, isn't that a good thing?
Yes! Western states had to ensure that life was better in a Capitalist country. Hence unions were tolerated, along with human rights, rule of law, anti corruption etc etc.
Neither Trump, nor anybody in the Republican party is, and has never been, and will never be some kind of champion of the working class. If you're in it, you're just a useful idiot to him.
What you're seeing isn't a consequence of the working class finally acting in its interests by getting behind a billionaire slumlord and conman. What you're seeing is the consequence of billionaires figuring out that if you distract the working class with divisive identity politics and plain old bullshit (Trans athletes! The gays grooming your children! Antifa supersoldiers stealing elections! Socialist death panels killing granny!), you can swindle it out of anything.
Trump and his friends would have had no legs in a society that hasn't been thoroughly and irreparably broken by this stupidity and the normalization thereof.
> This "pay up for trade access" is similar to the tributary system of feudal China.
The two systems are fundamentally different. In the ancient Chinese tributary system, based on the principle of "厚往薄来" China's reciprocation had to exceed the value of the tribute, thereby providing tangible benefits to the tributary states. This practice even led to later restrictions on the frequency of tribute missions from certain countries
I think what's most interesting to me is that they're also the party who's favorite amendment was written specifically to quell the rise of such leaders. They have explicitly talked about how that amendment was to protect the US from demagogues and autocrats.
They've been fairly quiet about that recently and I'm curious how they'll make that pivot. It's only a matter of time before someone on the left starts suggesting their constituents exercise that right in at least a symbolic nature. I've seen a rise in the exercise of this right by socialist groups and other radicals. But even if it is all symbolic it sets the stage for a powder keg moment. But if the right doesn't restrict this right then how far can they go and keep their heads?
It's morbidly fascinating and terrifying to me how they so successfully turned the right's worst nightmares into wet dreams. I do wonder, how far can it go? But I've never not wanted to know the answer to a question so much in my life. Please, I do not want to find out[0]
[0] no, you can't literally answer this. It can only be learned through the experience. So don't reply to me as if you have an exact answer, you only have speculation. But if you have a time machine, I'd appreciate next week's lotto numbers (and the week after ;)
> But if the right doesn't restrict this right then how far can they go and keep their heads?
They've already started talking about banning trans people from owning guns (based on the wildly bigoted premise that being trans is a dangerous mental illness).
If that goes through, I would expect to see other queer people next on the list, with similar justifications.
Or possibly they'd just jump straight to banning all left-wing people from owning guns, based on their declaration that we're "domestic terrorists". (Yes, they're talking about doing that, too.)
> "“We have to do something about this. We have to treat these people. We have to get them off the streets, and we have to get them off the internet, and we can't let them communicate with each other,” he insisted."
> "“I'm all about free speech, but this is a virus, this is a cancer that's spreading across this country,” Jackson concluded. “That’s going to do great damage to normal, hard-working, law-abiding people.”"
> "The hard-right lawmaker, meanwhile, is not the only member of Congress who has seemingly called for transgender people to be locked up in mental institutions."
> "Speaking to reporters earlier this week, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) – who spearheaded the effort to bar trans women from using Capitol Hill bathrooms that don't correspond with their sex assigned at birth – repeatedly used anti-trans slurs while saying transgender people are “mentally ill” and “should be in a straitjacket.”"
Actual Nazi language. Aligns with the Fox News hosts talking about bringing back Aktion T4,
I wish the western allies would dump their US bonds to drive bond yields into the ground and threaten US budgets, like the military one, that relying on cheap debt.
But this is a difficult decision to make, do you sacrifice possible (less likely) future earnings to destabilize a super power to save it from fascism but in turn risking a power vacuum to your disadvantage?
Id take this gamble but im a mere democratic citizen, that doesnt care about global pro-fascism support, like other right leaning governments do.
Undermining the USD doesn't help. Vacuum politics are not better. Vacuum politics lead to where we are today. Too many years of choosing "the least bad option" doesn't lead to a good place.
Let's take all this negative energy and do something better than criticize. Let's harness the energy into good action. What's something we all can agree is good for everybody and start a discussion around that? I'm not saying all crticism is a bad thing. I'd just like to see us all work together to accomplish something good.
I'll try to get the ball rolling, but if somebody has a better ball, I'm happy to go there.
I prefer free trade. I think everybody benefits if we lower trade barriers. But it needs to be "fair". Allowing corporation A to dump hazardous refuse cheaply into the river, but denying the same to corporation B is not fair to B and not all around good. So are there any good ideas about how to allow goods from different jurisdictions to compete by the same rules without Nationalistic interference?
>I wish the western allies would dump their US bonds to drive bond yields into the ground
Dumping bonds would increase supply and drive down prices, but that increases yields because yields is the difference between the price you paid vs the face value of the bond.
When US bonds enter the secondary market at a discount, buyers are inclined to prefer them over the US-offerend ones who need to raise interest rates to stay competitve, so making them more expensive for the US.
Bond yield is the return an investor will realize on a bond, so driving down prices decreases yields. Sure, it can increase the absolute value of yield as it heads into the negative...
Unfortunately there are all kinds of interdependencies that would make such a move quite risky. But you're right in that that is one way in which the screws can be put on.
> A logical next step would be for POTUS to declare himself as the supreme leader of the world, emend educational materials to propound the idea that the US is superior to other tributary states, quell all internal cries of undemocratic practices, and ban books that promote historical knowledge to avoid unnecessary dissent
My brother in Christ, you Americans do this already and have been doing this at least since the end of WW2. Ever wondered why communism couldn't spread in Northern Europe, South America or many places of Asia?
> supreme leader of the world, emend educational materials to propound the idea that the US is superior to other tributary states, quell all internal cries of undemocratic practices, and ban books that promote historical knowledge to avoid unnecessary dissent.
You mean just make what is already de-facto practice, de-jure ?
> The only hope we have is that the current bout of madness in Washington DC is a one time aberration, but who knows!
I’ve been hearing people pray this is a one time aberration for the last 10 years. At this point, the ride seems way more likely to get bumpier than not for the next 10 years.
IMO the damage internationally is permanent unless constitutional changes are made to prevent such events in the future. The trust is completely gone.
The risk of making any deals that could be overturned in just four years is too great for many in the private sector and also for international treaties.
Germany founded the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany (Bundesverfassungsgericht) to make sure they don't go Fascist again.
The US needs a similar structure with similar protections (term limits, mandatory retirement age, 2/3 majority needed for nominations and shared power of naming the members).
And it's explicitly a court for constitutional matters, not random cases.
I can’t think of any examples from history of nations which have had dictatorships take over from democratic systems and then had things improve without revolution or war as an impetus for change. I would be very happy for someone to point out one, but it seems to me that the rot of which trump is a symptom will likely take a significant blood letting to correct, if indeed it is to be corrected.
Really it's a question of where the threshold lies.
The American President is quite elderly, clearly diminished, and the ravages of age are inescapable no matter how beloved you are. However much Americans seem happy to tolerate his particular brand of authoritarianism, the horizon on his rule cannot realistically be more than a decade out.
Is that enough time to consolidate power? If not, is there a successor who can complete his objectives?
Neither seems clear to me, and one can at least imagine a world where things tick back after he exits the political stage.
- The invasion of Iraq while lying about WMD and against the UN vote, eroded international trust.
- The Patriot act was supposed to be temporary be was extended again and again.
- We got the reveal of mass spying by Snowden.
And... nothing. Obama didn't do anything about the wars, mass spying, or the patriot act. He was an elegant break from the dumbness, but didn't stop the elevator to keep climbing after him, just paused it for a few years.
All of it was just stepping stones after stepping stones.
It's not a one-time aberration; it's a sign of the times.
It's not the message anybody wants to hear, but until the other party makes a clear and irrevocable promise to cancel the tariffs / walk back the tantrum diplomacy if they return to office, I am willing to believe they might not. If the emotional chords being struck by the tough guy act are so positive that they're counterbalancing the negatives from reality, then it is as likely to be imitated as reversed.
The Democrats don't know what they are after the election, and they might even still win the next one just through the power of doing nothing and watching the current administration flush the country down the toilet, so I have no faith that they feel the need to distance themselves from tariffs or what other boneheaded policies have been passed. They'd only do it if they had to to win an election. They'd never do it out of the goodness of their hearts.
The Democratic party is just plain screwed. They lose supporters if they give plans, they lose supporters if they don't give plans; they lose supporters if they compromise, or if they stand form; they lose supporters if they're dogmatic, or if they're pragmatic; they lose supporters if they run a man, or if they run a woman, or a white person, or a colored person. Even when they do everything right, they lose supporters because their economic plan is "too complicated" or "uninspiring".
Meanwhile, the Republican party is an outright lifestyle now. Policy does not matter. Ideology barely matters insomuch as you can sell the charade under the guise of "strongman good". Consistency need not apply.
As a quick example: The sitting president ran on exposing the child sex trafficking ring of Epstein. It was one of their biggest rallies. Once elected, he ordered the FBI to destroy records with his name. Then he coordinated with numerous cronies who are not only denying his involvement now, but attempting to say it did not exist at all.
And their party just... Does it. The conversation is dead. The talking heads say how rediculous it all sounds and how glorious leader cannot be questioned. And the voters pretend they have no idea what you mean when you point out the change.
They live in a warped reality. Though I won't pretend the GOP has not long been the party of pedophiles, electing convicted or highly suspected officials to legislation repeatedly.
Meanwhile the Democrats must be absolutely perfect. Every tiny mistep, every perceived half-measure or improper leads to entire sects of their base boycotting them. See the last election with Israel/Palestine - how well boycotting the Democrats worked for both us and them.
On Israel/Palestine issue, it was not a "tiny misstep". I will remember Joe Biden as "Genocide Joe" for the rest of my life. My perception (naively) of both parties has changed, but I don't trust Democrats anymore because of this issue. They are all the same..
I just now remember Joe Biden openly taking bribes in the office, on camera. I remember his "Joe for Life" jokes as he paraded "Joe Biden 2028" hats. I remember his attempted coup on January 6th. I remember him deploying the military on domestic soil against US citizens and proclaiming random tariffs across our allied countries that change on a weekly basis.
I remember him being found civily liable for the rape of a woman. And referred to in multiple court documents on the rape of a 13 year old girl. And in the flight records and friend circle of a child sex trafficker. And that he tried to cover that sex trafficking ring up.
I remember him denying Fox news access to the White House or pentagon. And his administration's overt threats to take news stations off the air or deny them business mergers for not covering him in positive light.
And I definitely and absolutely remember him publishing an AI video on Twitter of a purged, captured Palestine turned into a gaudy gold resort for rich Americans.
How in the world is that whataboutism? You said they were they same, this is a direct retort by enumerating a mere fraction of the enormous list of behaviors enacted by an actual fascist takeover of the US government.
Biden did not handle the Palestine situation appropriately, but the utter audacity to claim the solution is the death of tens of millions of people through the demolition of aid and trade and the total regression of all climate change mitigation and global stability policy by aiding the installment of an outright, self-stated dictator...
I am so utterly tired of this rhetoric. It's like looking at Hitler or Stalin and saying "well... His opponent wasn't Christened by God himself."
Maybe, just maybe, we should aim for "basic decency and operating in the same objective reality to keep the basic tenants of peaceful society operating" before "go to war with a nuclear power over their religious jihad."
Not sure what you are referring to in your last sentence.
Democrats enabled genocide just like Republicans are doing the same now. I don't like or endorse current government and Trump but saying that we should support democrats because they are "decent" and talk in a politically correct way is wrong as well.
What would be the systematic changes to better protect democracy and a functioning civil society? I'm certainly no expert myself but I must imagine there are a lot of literature and experts.
It also helps reading about different countries, their histories and various forms of government and practices.
It's probably hard to go from dictatorship and totalitarianism to strong judicial systems and democracy. Instead you get a line of successive different dictators.
Run away if you can is the only practical, actionable thing one can do at this stage. And few people can actually do it.
I have, myself, rejected all mission offers to the US since January, but I have the luxury of not living there.
From the other side of the pond, the US future looks very grim, and I have no knowledge at my disposal that lets me see a path toward reversion that doesn't go through a violent phase.
It's a systemic problem; the POTUS is a symptom. And I don't see how such a large and complex system is going to get fixed fast enough to prevent something terrible from happening.
After that, it will go back to something more peaceful. But I wouldn't want to be there during the transition.
24 years ago, and someone did act. I see this all as a result of 9/11 and Bin Laden & company giving the US just what it needed to end up authoritarian. Effectively he won that day and managed to damage the USA in ways that it did not have a mechanism to effectively deal with. As a result the USA has made one own goal after another and it does not look like they've decided to stop doing so.
The forces that created today, are deeper - to the point that they used 9/11, as opposed to being defined by 9/11.
The crux of the issue today is fundament information economy on the right, that can support any narrative, even if it contradicts anything that came was said before, or has no basis in reality.
Trump has a 92% approval rating amongst republicans from a recent Fox poll. Other polls have him at 80%+.
It is a party truly running on faith, and had no need to traffic in facts.
This is the fountainhead of all the power that allows the situation to continue.
I’ve been looking at this and have stopped talking to friends in the US, because my urge is to tell them to GTFO.
And I feel like I’m going to sound crazy to them.
But the thing I keep remembering is a conversation with a student in the UK, post Brexit, but while they were figuring out how to do execute.
They were so earnest and hopeful, that the country would find a way through. So much so, that even with a background in finance and macroeconomics, I felt that maybe they would thread the needle.
I don’t see a path to the midterms, forget anything beyond that - and it seems so extreme to state, that I am quiet.
> And I feel like I’m going to sound crazy to them.
I'd talk anyway.
Even just hearing what it looks like from the outside may help, even help those who don't leave, even those who may have voted for Trump.
I don't know what will happen. An incompetent dictator may be stopped before becoming a dictator, or be easily overthrown, but if they cement their power… then my reference point is Pol Pot.
Kicking out all the undocumented migrants and finding local political undesirables to force onto the same farms feels very plausible, and will lead to famine.
Some people argue turbo-capitalism is inherently unstable and will lead to fascism. A systemic problem id like to see more discourse about, or what is the systemic problem you meant?
There is massive difference between Obama and Trump. Between project 2025, MAGA and literally anything Obama. The way Republicans back then acted, refused literally any cooperation and made bad faith putrages ober everything was also something else.
Remember when tan suit was not presidential enough? When saying that Martin Trayon looked like hypothetical Obama son in tepid statement somehow crossed taboo of what preaident can say?
America did not became like it is during Obama and not even Bush. It did lost some trust due to Iraq, sure, it was still not what it is now. But Obama being black did broke conservatives minds.
This was planed long ago with alot of foresight and malignent intent. Trump is only the lucky idiot stumbling on fertile ground and accelerating the process.
From the point of view of us Europeans even the IRA was a crisis, so I see what Trump is doing trade-wise as a continuation of a longer US tradition. Biden also continued Trump's decision to keep the WTO's binding resolution mechanisms from functioning.
You can go as far back as Reagan or maybe even Nixon (although the The Heritage Foundation was born due to some people thinking he was too soft), the bucket does not stop at Bush Jr.
The root cause, or primary driver of the situation today is the exit of the Republican Party and the conservative media/political sphere from bipartisan politics and facts.
These two forces are the ones which rotate the flywheel that powers everything else.
Act in a bipartisan manner? Vote against the party lines ? - get primaried.
Cover something that doesn’t match the prevailing narrative ? Is not of utility to the party ? Be ignored.
Have a narrative that sells and can be used, but is absolutely bonkers or inaccurate? Doesnt matter, it’s going to be used.
This force constantly drove the base further and further right, removed any links to facts or reason at scale.
This in turn supports partisanship at all cost politics, and support for policies that have little to do with complex reality but everything to do with preferred narratives.
Trump has a 92% approval rating amongst republicans from a recent Fox Poll.
You work really really hard to tie conservative project to Obama. No, this is on republicans and conservatives 100%, they worked hard to achieve this and succeeded. The democrats and Obama have their own issues, but them not being saints does not make the above untrue.
I agree it was long term project, it took decades of propaganda and hard work on conservative side. But like, Obama was not part of conservative project nor step toward Project 2025.
Instead of trying to evaluate the argument on its merits:
- There is a long-term systemic problem, POTUS is a symptom.
- Democracy has been at risk for 20 years in the US, starting with the destruction of Habeas Corpus after 9/11, under thunderous applause.
- The opposition has been weak at best, and didn't show its value by attempting to reverse the worse of the trends when they had the chance. So nobody trusted them anymore. They didn't represent something to rally for, only the opposite of what you didn't want.
You attempt to put me in a tribe and judge me on that.
Except... I live in Europe. I don't care about your tribes, I can only see you have a wannabe dictator in place, and that it's the consequence of a long chain of events. It's not an unexpected surprise.
Arguing "that's because of the bad guys" is like falling in the mud and blaming the mud.
> I live in Europe. I don't care about your tribes,
That is irrelevant. Regardless of where you live, your argument amounted to working really hard here to blame republican policies, radicalization and behavior on Obama. You tied together things that were in fact not alike at all.
>I can only see you have a wannabe dictator in place, and that it's the consequence of a long chain of events
And insisting that Obama is in any way relevant to that long chain is either bad faith or just disinterest in what happened.
> Arguing "that's because of the bad guys" is like falling in the mud and blaming the mud.
But it is you who want to make it into that, except that "bad guys" are any random American politician you can think of. It does actually matter who did what.
As another European: Obama didn't make things (much) worse, but he also didn't do anything to really arrest the slide even though he had the opportunity to do so. At the same time: I realize that in many ways his hands were tied but he also simply never tried, when he could have. Similar to how it took him 7 long months to speak up when he really should have spoken up much, much earlier. Right now the whole democratic wing of the US establishment looks like it is along for the ride, rather than that they are fighting tooth and nail to arrest the further descent into madness.
Could he have done more? Sure. But he spent a lot of political capital getting the ACA done. Then he followed traditional political decorum when the GOP pushed him around that in hindsight was a mistake. If all the rules both written and unwritten are going to be thrown out, the obviously it's best for the person who throws them out.
I'm more pissed off at Obama's inaction in the last 7 months than about what he did during his tenure as president. He's still in 'nice guy' mode, we don't need nice guys right now, we need counterweight, and soon.
> I'm more pissed off at Obama's inaction in the last 7 months
This. There’s a deep vacuum of leadership in the Democratic Party. Obama is a widely trusted figure on the progressive side and has nothing to lose by saying plainly what everyone can see. Only Gavin Newsom has demonstrated a willingness to do this. At the Federal level, though, the leadership is MIA. I mean Obama owes no one anything now; but I do wish he would just say what needs to be said.
Again, following traditional decorum where past POTUS's usually stay out of the way for the current. Of course, at this point we all know the traditions are dead, and I agree Obama should be leading wherever he can.
The main argument is "it's been in the mix for 20 years", and part of demonstrating it has been was to state that even the Obama administration didn't do much to stop it, so it kept escalating.
Not only I don't conflate the two, but you make the whole Obama note the center of this discussion, while it was there for the purpose of illustration.
This is how tribe politics work and how the US fell to the best populists instead of trying to tackle society's problems.
I have no interest in discussing with you anymore, since you don't seem interested in talking about ideas, only find an enemy to your tribes.
Don't forget that Obama showed to the whole world what american security assurance actually is, enabled putin and is one of the main reason for 2022 russian invasion. True Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
Trump is not an aberration, he just not bothering to hide his actual face.
It’s the same problem today as it was then. It is actually hard if you’re a democracy answerable to your people.
Are you willing to bet even a 1% chance to trade Los Angeles for Vladivostok? Warsaw for St. Petersburg? Because Putin is certainly willing to play chicken. Obama, Biden and (maybe?) even Trump are not.
Yeah, people keep talking about the danger Trump represents but Trump is nothing without tens of millions of enthusiastic supporters. Rank and file conservatives represent the real risk to the country. None of this would be possible without them and after Trump, they will do what they have always done. Do everything they can to find someone even worse. There will be no introspection or lessons learned. Just doubling down on degeneracy.
Remember the story of Nero watching Rome burn, and asking how could he and everyone involved be so fool? Well I'm not surprised any more. Feels like a perfectly believable story :/
Don’t forget DOGE, brainchild of Elon Musk, promising to save trillions from the deficit but ended up leaving with a wake in billions of waste and turmoil. A U.S. Senate investigation revealed that DOGE is responsible for at least $21.7 billion in taxpayer waste.
Trump is working hard to remove any notions that the USA are "leaders of the free world", and making it into the unapologetic "mafia boss of the American Empire".
That ship pretty much sank last time you voted for this mastermind. Nobody in their mind mind still thinks that about the US other than themself. Sorry
But it just might stop them from getting much worse still. 7 Months. That's not a whole lot of time. Now extrapolate with more and more of the brakes disabled.
We're not even in "extreme times". There's no major wars, the economy is strong, we're recovering from recent disasters better than most nations.
Literally everything here is self inflicted. The "extreme times" are just the rhetoric pushed by the Republican party, constantly making up new bogeyman about blood rivers in the streets of Chicago and trans hypnosis on children.
Meanwhile real extreme times are sneaking around beneath the surface, decades away but in clear sight, and the Republican party calls it a hoax.
In November, when people voted, the economy was relatively strong and things (return or manufacturing, balance in the dual mandate) we're looking good; before the innumerable self-inflicted gunshots.
The supporters of these lunatics don't look into any of that. It's Americans destroying America basically out of spite for "the other side". These people are terrorists in my opinion, but they view themselves as the true Americans.
As an US American living outside the US and just spending last week at a tech conference with nearly no US Americans there; this subject was pretty popular to overhear. Essentially, people are asking whether anyone should take the US seriously anymore, as a tourist destination, a place to continue career/education, a political ally, etc.
The gist was that the US is cooked from a reputation point of view. Whether that has any meaningful impact is yet to be seen.
Don't forget: as a tech partner. It's all momentum right now, and true, there is a lot of that. But lots of little conservative decisions are beginning to add up.
Who cares what people asking? America's reputation has long been built on the fact that America has the largest economy, the largest army, and does whatever the f.сk it wants.
The thing is that "does whatever the f*ck it wants" might have negative consequence in regards to "America has the largest economy". If the current GDP growth trends continue, it looks that China will surpass the America on this front unless there are significant changes in either country.
Why would they go there? Well, except in situations where they're not needed in America due to a lack of talent?
People don't go to America because the American president is a charming and polite gentleman. They go there because a talented factory worker can easily make 150k a year, and a talented software engineer 500k a year.
And what does Europe offer to those people? One and a half times a cashier's salary and commuting to work by eco-friendly bike? Seriously?
I make about half of what I did in the US, but take home more money. Insurance is cheap, no expensive healthcare, no car insurance, no car payment, childcare is subsidized and basically free, all other insurance is <4% of what I paid in the US, etc. Home is expensive, compared to what you get in the US, but payment is about the same.
All that in the US was over 7-8k a month of my paycheck, gone. I get all of that for less than 2k a month.
Let’s not even discuss how advanced the EU banking system is compared to the US… although it has been a few years since I’ve been back, so maybe it has gotten better?
In any case, the EU offers good jobs and a work/life balance you usually can’t find in the US, with smart people that you also usually can’t find in the US. It does have its warts, but it also isn’t candy mountain.
Well, in my case about 4 times a cashier’s salary (but really a cashier should be able to afford a good life too), and my kids can bike around so I don’t have to be their taxi and they aren’t stuck at home. Also a functioning democracy.
You may recall the Germans were forced by the allies to restore their credibility. Many hanged as a result. So if you ask me if the Americans are capable of fixing this problem themselves, my answer is no.
Germany never becomes the scientific and mathematical hub of the world as it once was. And it won't for the foreseeable future. So yeah, 100 years is on the optimistic side.
This is an under-rated point. Prior to WWII, most people pursuing doctorates in scientific fields learned (at least a little) German. Because German was the language of science.
Not anymore.
I fear that we're all going to need to learn Chinese.
Do you understand how flat and wartorn they were? Do you wish the same for the US?
If you are willing to take such extreme shortcuts then you can emulate the new Germany.
If not then understand that trust is a fickle thing. Quick to erode and hard to rebuild. What one administration detroys cannot simply be reinstated by the next.
Maybe 100 is a bit hyperbole. But at least 50. Being a neighbor to Germany I can assure you the reconciliation was not "quick" for us to be fully restored. And we still shiver when we follow Musks friends in Germany.
I love and is impressed with Germany and Germans. But it has not been an easy path for them.
Nothing good has ever come from Europe when we lean too far to the right. Be careful in what lessons you choose to take from us.
Exactly this. The EU has shown what happens when you let a minority run amok with the keys to the weapons locker. The scars are still plentiful and even if the last of the eyewitnesses are dying we are still steeped in the lore of the lead-up, the middle of and the aftermath of World War II. That Germany is seeing a resurgence of this is at least as scary as seeing how many other countries are easily programmed to start their march to the drumbeat of Nazi or ersatz ideology, only with slightly different scape-goats. For now it is not quite enough to tip the balance but that could happen at any moment. I hope we'll see the last of the bullet holes in the buildings patched before we start making new ones. That's the one use I have for russia right now: they seem to help us remember and it seems to serve as a uniting force.
Most confusing is how the majority of US people doesn't seem to see any of that while the rest of the world is fully aware that this is exactly what just happened.
Russia is neither the primary instigator nor benefactor of our dysfunction, and wishes it had 1/100th the influence over our elections that Israel does. This narrative never made any sense to me.
Some have spent 2x more money than Israel. Israel is 10th. I haven't heard anybody around me mention Liberia or the Marshall Islands, maybe a handful of times in my life.
These are the top 10 Foreign Principals from 2016 - 2024.
Foreign Principal Total Spending
1. Government of Liberia $350,486,671
2. Government of the Marshall Islands $283,901,646
3. Government of China $277,692,350
4. Japan External Trade Organization $277,638,402
5. Government of Saudi Arabia $238,415,218
6. Government of Bermuda $192,046,623
7. Barzan Holdings $155,775,778
8. ANO TV-Novosti $147,069,172
9. Government of the Bahamas $136,148,426
10 Government of Ireland $132,165,695
No Israeli principal in the top 10. It's obfuscated but Russia is in there (ANO TV-Novosti) and Qatar (Barzan Holdings).
Also, in the link you shared of "Industries", Israel is 7th in single issue. Some of the issues 1-6 have 10x levels of money spent. I wish it were broken down even more. I'm most interested in what makes up "miscellaneous issues".
Sure, maybe you're right, and the foreign countries purchasing our politicians is a much larger problem than just the one that Israel presents (though, I'm rather skeptical in terms of actual impact on foreign policy and on who gets elected in our country). I still don't think Russia deserves much mention in terms of election interference; they gotta step up their game if they want to compete.
do you think these are comparable? are you equating lobbying to the infiltration of government systems or coordinated efforts by Russian assets inside a campaign team to influence elections?
Consider how many of our politicians and administration officials have Russian heritage, on both sides of the isle, and it starts to make more sense. For that reason one should be careful spreading anti-Russianism on the net given the more aggressive policing our Russian overlords anre adopting over hate speech.
I'll leave it to you and others who read this to evaluate the columnist's argument in the linked article vs. the UN commissioner's argument published last week in the same publication. https://archive.ph/FP2ek
> Don’t forget: our insane support for genocide and an out-of-control genocidal regime that’s clearly trying to trigger WW3.
Look, I think the people involved should be waiting trial in the Hague as much as the next man, but let's be real. They could kill another 5.2 million people, and nobody would start WW3 over it.
Some people's lives are simply worth more than others to world powers, and in this case, the Thanksgiving Turkey getting a stay of execution would get more people to tune in to the telly.
I neither support Israel's genocide or appreciate the whataboutism. The US has many crosses to bear for our geopolitical endeavors in the last 80 years. That does not change Russia's current geopolitical endeavors.
I won't even entertain your insinuation that loaning weapons for an allied nations to defend itself with is remotely equivalent to invading a sovereign, western nation to attempt to annex land.
My point was that the US currently supports Ukraine resisting an invasion (which international observers believe qualifies as a genocide by Russia), and while Trump has spent a lot of time shilling for Russia, the US is on the net, not supporting Russia.
Why should anyone trigger ww3 even if there are mass murders somewhere?
Do you want to fight in ww3? You can go enlist in Ukraine to fight evil regime right now.
Also interesting that even Arab states don't want to do anything to help people of Gaza, to accept refuges. Why there is no blame on Egipt for keeping borders closed?
International law, basic common sense, and basic human decency recognizes that the welfare of people within the territory invaded by Israel is Israel's, not Egypt's responsibility.
Driving civilian populations out at gunpoint into neighboring countries is called a genocide.
(If I remember my history, there used to be a German word for that sort of thing, I think it started with an L...)
Since the goal is annexation and erasure of Ukranian identity and culture, the international community believes it to be one.
Some, but not all Soviet policies were genocidal.
> So that's ok, Egipt should not open border...
What Egypt is failing to do has no bearing on whether Israel is engaging in genocide in the territory it is invading. Israel is a sovereign state, it is responsible for its own actions.
This may, in the end, be for the best - if it dents American power over the long term.
I like America and Americans very much, but no state should wield the kind of power the United States currently holds, precisely for the reasons the Trump administration exemplifies. When a responsible government is in office, all is well and good. But when the political winds shift and a more capricious actor takes charge, such concentrated power can become dangerous.
I hope America’s allies have taken note and will adjust their policies accordingly.
You know what follows a power vacuum? War. I would rather have a status quo that feels at times chafing than the opportunity for everything to get absolutely horrendous in the not too distant future.
Nope, war is perpetuated by unhinged leaders and governments which enable them. When Bismarck created the concert of Europe, there was peace for the most part of that time period within Europe, when every power was curtailed by the other. When Bismarck was expelled and Wilhelm II took things in his own hands, WW1 happened.
* Completely alienated key allies via an erratic and unpredictable tariff policy
* Significantly undermined faith in US economic data and fiscal policy via overt politicization of key economic institutions
* Increased the deficit by almost $3 trillion after vowing to reduce the deficit
* Signaled far and wide that pay for play is the new norm, whether for pardons or favourable policy. Preferably paid in crypto, but with in kind payments being acceptable.
Is there any wonder that other countries are unwilling to trust the US? The only hope we have is that the current bout of madness in Washington DC is a one time aberration, but who knows!