> Obligatory perspective: for just the next four years!
No, even if free and fair elections persist and even if the MAGA cult is conclusively tossed in the dustbin of history at the next Presidential election, a partner that intermittently takes radical breaks from being a partner is, ipso facto, not a reliable partner, and it takes longer to re-establish reliability than to destroy it.
The change in relationship being described is significant, and will be a long-term change even in the best case. (And the change in relationship with Canada won't be the the only American relationship experiencing similar, lasting change as a result of the present Administration.)
The damage is done, it won't be undone after the next election. USA's society has shown that is not only schizophrenic but also there's a large portion of the population who cannot see the damage they can inflict, brainwashed masses of uneducated people cheering on the sidelines for all this bullshit.
There's no turning back, it will take at least another 15-20 years of constant work building trust for the US to get back to its standing pre-2025.
> USA's society has shown ... there's a large portion of the population who cannot see the damage they can inflict...
People like to heap the blame on the little guy, but what you say is also true of the elites that went all-in on offshoring and globalization.
A lot of the howling is from people mad their business empires are going to be hurt, who demand their interests be cared for after they were cold and uncaring to others.
The stupidity argument [1] is a possible trap. The technofascists are making the same argument: The masses are morons. But they extrapolate to claiming the masses therefore cannot self-govern, as evidenced by what has happened and is now happening. Democracy must be swept aside for the superior people, the oligarchy, to run the show.
I don't even know what the question is. Is there a threshold function? Is there a critical mass of stupidity beyond which all hope is lost and we just have to go through the ugly process of tyranny and its eventual collapse? But what if technology can provide a superior tyranny, in effect flawless totalitarianism? The hope part of the puzzle seems unpredictable.
[1] Bonhöffer seems apt here, a Lutheran pastor killed by the Nazis, who consider stupidity a greater threat to good than evil.
The argument is mainly false, because regular democracy already recognizes that the masses are morons, and does not let them self-govern.
It's a kind of theatre whereby we elect certain representatives but the vast bulk of the government bureaucracy stays the same.
Trump and Co. are testing/challenging that system in a way: they are trying to wrestle power away from that immovable mountain of bureaucracy, into the hands of the elected government, and that bureaucracy, used to taking their immovability for granted (along with their jobs and budget money) isn't liking it.
This is nonsense. The bureaucracy is created by Congressional statute. The Constitutional order obligates the president to take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed and the president takes an oath to that effect. This president is acting deliberately contrary to these statutes, a violation of the oath of office, and reasonably makes the president's motives questionable if not illegitimate.
A president can veto a bill passed by Congress. It doesn't become law. The Congress can override the veto and it does become law, that any law obligates the president. Not even in the most extreme case of the unitary executive hypothesis can a president legitimately ignore the law.
The bureaucracy is a creation of Congress. The president can veto budgets passed by Congress until there is a compromise.
It's not legitimate to call only the president elected government as if the Congress has no say.
I'm speaking in very general terms. The world's democracies have bureaucracies. On paper those bureaucracies are supposed to be responsible to and controlled by the elected government. In practice, they are too complicated, inscrutable and give the government too few knobs and levers, as well as two little visibility. Mainly they're interested in self-preservation.
Sure, there are statutes and chargers and oath sworn and whatever.
Just because Trump should no longer be president at that time, the damage isn't magically undone. Nor has the complicit Republican party disappeared. They're not going to stop their power grab now that they're so close to getting what they've wanted for decades. It's going to take generations to undo the damage they've done.
My friend who had a mutually beneficial relationship with me started being a total douche and I cut his ass loose after spending way too much time trying to figure out what’s wrong and how I can help him back to his normal self. —- Canada, anthropomorphized
And MAGAs here (that I expect to be more intelligent then the radon USAian ) still repeat "it is a joke bro" , it is interesting how hard it is to see reality seriously it that would mean admitting you were very wrong, for sure everyone has this kind of problems in a gregree so is a good lesson to learn from others and try to reflect.
The art of manipulating the public through social media is a very developed field by now. It is made even easier through the abuse of "volunteer moderators" on social media.
A bit of push here and there, some sowing of ideas, suppression of "disruptive" opinions, promotion i.e. normalization of fringe characters, add in a dash of specific attacks based on the target's internet history, and a small group of folk, with the assistance of technology, can effectively steer public opinion.
It is not easy to defend against this, especially to a populace who consider themselves living in a land "free of propaganda".
It is ironic, that a country who prides itself on its exceptionality, fall into a crisis because it is, in fact, unexceptional.
I remember after scores of people had died in Gujarat, then CM Modi went to villages and proclaimed that people are lying, there is no violence going on in my cities and villages.
I wonder how popular is my theory that competitive economic prosperity in modern times is almost always typical in liberal regimes, and is almost an impossibility in populist regimes. Successful conquests could possibly constitute an exception with respect to the latter.
I mean by "competitive economic prosperity" the ability of a national economy to endure multiple successive economical challenges of modernity as well as other nations.
Such challenges include the changes in labor costs, evolution of supply chains, emergence of new types of value etc.
I hypothesize that adapting to such challenges is misaligned with a populist value system.
> Yet many Americans share this philosophy - sad times.
I don't recall where I read it, but the US government basically made the decision to subsidize the world in order to maintain a system/empire where it (or more specifically its elites) has the most influence. That's why you see things like severely imbalanced trade flows, the US maintaining the massive Navy in peacetime that makes globalized trade possible, etc. Ultimately, the biggest price is paid by those on the bottom, with the least power.
Trump is basically the pent up resentment from those decisions overflowing. The people hurt by those decisions aren't sophisticates, but they've still been hurt and due have a legitimate bone to pick.
So, ultimately, the fault lies with the elites who made those decisions. Personally, I blame the Democrats for Trump, because they doubled down on the status quo and did not offer choices that would answer these resentments (e.g. Sanders), all while they were screaming about the dangers of Trump. I think they were more focused on their own elite interests, and thought they could get away with Trump's negatives masking their own, winning again on a 50%+1 squeaker. Trump should have been an easy candidate to beat.
America as a whole benefits from being the world hegemon. Having the dollar as the reserve currency has allowed the US to run massive deficits, impose economic sanctions, and get cheaper resources (especially oil). All Americans have benefited from this - even the poorest American state would count as one of the richest nations in the world if it were independent.
If the people at the bottom don't see that, then its a fault of inequality in the American system. All nations and societies need to distribute wealth in some way, and there's nothing that says America needs to be high unequal to maintain its empire (or says tht having an empire implies inequality). That American society is so unequal is a decision that Americans have made. I doubt this is really because of the elites - America makes a big deal out of its democracy and even party leaders are elected by the people. But it is still a choice Americans have made.
Reliniquishing the empire will not help the people at the bottom. A world in which China dominates, in which the global reserve currency is the yuan or the euro, is not one in which Americans of any wealth prosper.
> America as a whole benefits from being the world hegemon. Having the dollar as the reserve currency has allowed the US to run massive deficits, impose economic sanctions, and get cheaper resources (especially oil). All Americans have benefited from this - even the poorest American state would count as one of the richest nations in the world if it were independent.
That's the propaganda line, but it sounds like GDP-per-capita, where it neglects the effects of inequality (as you mention later). It's not going to resonate for the guy who lost his job and had his community decimated, because his employer moved the factory he worked at to Mexico or China.
> That American society is so unequal is a decision that Americans have made. I doubt this is really because of the elites - America makes a big deal out of its democracy and even party leaders are elected by the people. But it is still a choice Americans have made.
It's "a decision that [SOME] Americans have made," it's not a decision that was made, freely and fairly, by Americans, collectively.
I think the thing you're missing is that inequality leads to an inequality of domestic power. The people who benefit from that inequality have is disproportionate effect on the discourse (by funding think tanks, etc.), on candidate selection, etc. That leads to a menu of options where the elite always win (Anand Giridharadas has written some stuff on "win-win" that's relevant).
> Reliniquishing the empire will not help the people at the bottom. A world in which China dominates, in which the global reserve currency is the yuan or the euro, is not one in which Americans of any wealth prosper.
It will not, but ultimately the blame lies on the wealthy Americans who got too greedy, not the Americans that are typically blamed (e.g. people on the bottom who voted for the disapproved guy).
> Ultimately, the biggest price is paid by those on the bottom, with the least power.
What price specifically has or is being paid by those in the U.S. with the least power? That price whatever it is, is 100% due to U.S. foreign policy decisions? It's really not clear to me how decades of mostly stable global relations has concretely hurt the average American. Their wages have been depressed by domestic capitalism. The lack of housing can be largely attributed to bad local and domestic policy. The cost of groceries if anything are as low as they are because of global trade, not in spite of it. These are the things I hear people concerned about, I don't think I've ever in my life heard an average person express the sentiment that everything would just be better if we fucked over all our allies.
28 comments
[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 70.7 ms ] threadNo, even if free and fair elections persist and even if the MAGA cult is conclusively tossed in the dustbin of history at the next Presidential election, a partner that intermittently takes radical breaks from being a partner is, ipso facto, not a reliable partner, and it takes longer to re-establish reliability than to destroy it.
The change in relationship being described is significant, and will be a long-term change even in the best case. (And the change in relationship with Canada won't be the the only American relationship experiencing similar, lasting change as a result of the present Administration.)
There's no turning back, it will take at least another 15-20 years of constant work building trust for the US to get back to its standing pre-2025.
People like to heap the blame on the little guy, but what you say is also true of the elites that went all-in on offshoring and globalization.
A lot of the howling is from people mad their business empires are going to be hurt, who demand their interests be cared for after they were cold and uncaring to others.
I don't even know what the question is. Is there a threshold function? Is there a critical mass of stupidity beyond which all hope is lost and we just have to go through the ugly process of tyranny and its eventual collapse? But what if technology can provide a superior tyranny, in effect flawless totalitarianism? The hope part of the puzzle seems unpredictable.
[1] Bonhöffer seems apt here, a Lutheran pastor killed by the Nazis, who consider stupidity a greater threat to good than evil.
It's a kind of theatre whereby we elect certain representatives but the vast bulk of the government bureaucracy stays the same.
Trump and Co. are testing/challenging that system in a way: they are trying to wrestle power away from that immovable mountain of bureaucracy, into the hands of the elected government, and that bureaucracy, used to taking their immovability for granted (along with their jobs and budget money) isn't liking it.
A president can veto a bill passed by Congress. It doesn't become law. The Congress can override the veto and it does become law, that any law obligates the president. Not even in the most extreme case of the unitary executive hypothesis can a president legitimately ignore the law.
The bureaucracy is a creation of Congress. The president can veto budgets passed by Congress until there is a compromise.
It's not legitimate to call only the president elected government as if the Congress has no say.
Sure, there are statutes and chargers and oath sworn and whatever.
except said douche (incorrectly) thinks you've been mooching off him for, well, since forever.
The art of manipulating the public through social media is a very developed field by now. It is made even easier through the abuse of "volunteer moderators" on social media.
A bit of push here and there, some sowing of ideas, suppression of "disruptive" opinions, promotion i.e. normalization of fringe characters, add in a dash of specific attacks based on the target's internet history, and a small group of folk, with the assistance of technology, can effectively steer public opinion.
It is not easy to defend against this, especially to a populace who consider themselves living in a land "free of propaganda".
It is ironic, that a country who prides itself on its exceptionality, fall into a crisis because it is, in fact, unexceptional.
Such challenges include the changes in labor costs, evolution of supply chains, emergence of new types of value etc.
I hypothesize that adapting to such challenges is misaligned with a populist value system.
I don't recall where I read it, but the US government basically made the decision to subsidize the world in order to maintain a system/empire where it (or more specifically its elites) has the most influence. That's why you see things like severely imbalanced trade flows, the US maintaining the massive Navy in peacetime that makes globalized trade possible, etc. Ultimately, the biggest price is paid by those on the bottom, with the least power.
Trump is basically the pent up resentment from those decisions overflowing. The people hurt by those decisions aren't sophisticates, but they've still been hurt and due have a legitimate bone to pick.
So, ultimately, the fault lies with the elites who made those decisions. Personally, I blame the Democrats for Trump, because they doubled down on the status quo and did not offer choices that would answer these resentments (e.g. Sanders), all while they were screaming about the dangers of Trump. I think they were more focused on their own elite interests, and thought they could get away with Trump's negatives masking their own, winning again on a 50%+1 squeaker. Trump should have been an easy candidate to beat.
If the people at the bottom don't see that, then its a fault of inequality in the American system. All nations and societies need to distribute wealth in some way, and there's nothing that says America needs to be high unequal to maintain its empire (or says tht having an empire implies inequality). That American society is so unequal is a decision that Americans have made. I doubt this is really because of the elites - America makes a big deal out of its democracy and even party leaders are elected by the people. But it is still a choice Americans have made.
Reliniquishing the empire will not help the people at the bottom. A world in which China dominates, in which the global reserve currency is the yuan or the euro, is not one in which Americans of any wealth prosper.
That's the propaganda line, but it sounds like GDP-per-capita, where it neglects the effects of inequality (as you mention later). It's not going to resonate for the guy who lost his job and had his community decimated, because his employer moved the factory he worked at to Mexico or China.
> That American society is so unequal is a decision that Americans have made. I doubt this is really because of the elites - America makes a big deal out of its democracy and even party leaders are elected by the people. But it is still a choice Americans have made.
It's "a decision that [SOME] Americans have made," it's not a decision that was made, freely and fairly, by Americans, collectively.
I think the thing you're missing is that inequality leads to an inequality of domestic power. The people who benefit from that inequality have is disproportionate effect on the discourse (by funding think tanks, etc.), on candidate selection, etc. That leads to a menu of options where the elite always win (Anand Giridharadas has written some stuff on "win-win" that's relevant).
> Reliniquishing the empire will not help the people at the bottom. A world in which China dominates, in which the global reserve currency is the yuan or the euro, is not one in which Americans of any wealth prosper.
It will not, but ultimately the blame lies on the wealthy Americans who got too greedy, not the Americans that are typically blamed (e.g. people on the bottom who voted for the disapproved guy).
What price specifically has or is being paid by those in the U.S. with the least power? That price whatever it is, is 100% due to U.S. foreign policy decisions? It's really not clear to me how decades of mostly stable global relations has concretely hurt the average American. Their wages have been depressed by domestic capitalism. The lack of housing can be largely attributed to bad local and domestic policy. The cost of groceries if anything are as low as they are because of global trade, not in spite of it. These are the things I hear people concerned about, I don't think I've ever in my life heard an average person express the sentiment that everything would just be better if we fucked over all our allies.