Trump was right about one thing, we are a nation in decline, but it’s not for the reasons he’s claiming.
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Democracies grant immense power to the electorate. Including the power of suicide. Democratic systems are inherently capable of ending themselves because ultimately their survival depends on enough people believing in the system and holding the integrity of the system to be more important than any particular democratic outcome. That is lost in the US. Most voters don’t care.
That truth alone makes a decent argument for US being in decline. It will take a long time , but it’s beginning.
The US isn’t a democracy though, it is a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, where every election we get to select which group of oppressors will wield state power against us until the next one.
Also decline is caused by anticolonial resistance and the logic of capitalism breaking down. I would suggest reading Lenin’s “imperialism” and Fanon’s “wretched of the earth”
The US isn’t a democracy though, it is a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, where every election we get to select which group of oppressors will wield state power against us until the next one.
Yes that truly one of the opinions of all time.
It is difficult to get Drezner to understand that American exceptionalism is already dead when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.
Why does Will E Coyote look so much like a Swastika here
End? It was always a myth?
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The End of American Exceptionalism
But not the end of them claiming it regardless of the reality.
Then again, their claims of being the bestest ever at everything have been false for a very long time already.
They aren’t exceptional. They’re just like Russia.
I’d argue we’re a lot more like the British empire in their glory days- exporting authoritarianism, subjugation, and hate globally, for as long as it serves our material benefit.
We learned from the best 🤷♂️
We are not just like Russia.
We aren’t exceptional though, you got that right. America hasn’t been exceptional in decades.
Oh, it has… just not in the ways anyone would desire to be considered exceptional.
Given that Russia has a competent government and isn’t on a verge of a civil war, not sure in what way America is like Russia.
You call competent a government that pulled the “special military operation” and led hundreds of thousands of its people into death for not much of anything? You must be trolling.
Yeah, I call a government that defeated NATO in Ukraine and manged to grow the economy despite the sanctions competent.
So not trolling, alright. Sounds to me like you consider them competent in what they did well while not subtracting what they didn’t. Let me contrast the Russian government with something that to me looks much more competent - the Chinese government.
China is indeed more competent, however we were comparing Russia to the US here. There’s is no metric by which you could say the US is better governed or more politically stable than Russia at the moment.
I never implied anything about the US.
The whole context of this discussion was me saying that Russia is more competently run than the US. 🤷
This argument is dependent on Putin being immortal.
Not sure what you mean by that. Putin doesn’t run Russia single handedly like he’s playing civ or something. Absolutely incredible that anybody could think that the entire Russian government hinges on Putin.
Typical of American exceptionalism to stand other country on the verge of existential crisis and when they react call that “for not much of anything”
“I live in the best country on the planet!”
“Have you ever been to another country?”
“Well, no. But why would I do that when I’m already in the best country!”
This doesn’t apply to just the US…
Traveling does wonders to people. Shame not a lot of people can afford it and even those who can not all travel.
You have a point. After I wrote it I thought of 2 things. Firstly, even those that are lucky enough to travel will never travel everywhere. So, how can they claim the best without having seen all possibilities? Secondly, there are ways to learn and /or experience things without being physically present, like read about it in a book, or watch a documentary. That counts for something.
Now I think about it, I could have changed it to:
"I live in the best country on the planet!”
“Really? How do you know? How do you measure that? What evidence do you have to back that up?”
But, it would probably go all downhill from there, as the original one inevitably would…😆
Maybe even the start of Americans engaging with reality, I’m not holding my breath though.
Even though we will admittedly never engage with reality, you may still consider holding your breath around us to be prudent. We smell awful from all the obesity.
There is a chance that Trump will inadvertently weaken the US long term, but nothing is certain so until it happens I am not getting my hopes up. The article though is neocon propaganda, they don’t even mention the genocide in Gaza or pogroms in the West Bank.
There is a chance that Trump will inadvertently weaken the US long term
He already did that the first time.
This time he’ll double (or triple) down on that.
We can really only hope.
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I’ve perceived that things have never been better for American international order than under Trump/Biden.
The last few cycles have been a weird time for NATO, as the escalating Russian aggression revitalised the alliance, but the unreliability of Trump vastly diminished the status of the US. Europe is now actively trying to get out of the military subordinate role.
The last few cycles have been a weird time for NATO, as the escalating Russian aggression revitalised the alliance, but the unreliability of Trump vastly diminished the status of the US
Concur
Europe is now actively trying to get out of the military subordinate role.
Europe has been trying to get out of this role since WWII. I view that they were forced into this role post-WWII with American occupation. I also see that American power also led to European decolonization through the Atlantic Charter e.g. Vietnam and Asia, Africa, and controversially, India.
I view that America maintains Europe’s subordinate role, both militarily and economically, through military influence, as discussed by prior NATO Commander Haig in 2002:
… Q – Why is the United States still stationing 70,000 troops in Germany?
A – A lot of good reasons for that. This presence is the basis for our influence in the European region and for the cooperation of allied nations whose security it enhances. A lot of people forget it is also the bona fide of our economic success. The presence of U.S. troops keeps European markets open to us. If those troops weren’t there, those markets would probably be more difficult to access.
Q – I didn’t forget. I just didn’t know that if the United States didn’t maintain 70,000 troops in Germany, European markets might be closed to American goods and services.
A – On occasion, even with our presence, we have confronted protectionism in a number of industries, such as automotive and aerospace. In addition to economic benefits derived from our presence in Europe, there is perhaps an even more important diplomatic and political benefit.
Q – But the United States is not defending Europe against anything anymore. …
Exactly what pootin wants
