Donald Trump’s bruising return to the White House has sent many longtime foreign allies scrambling to get their distance, and according to a new piece from The Atlantic, that distance will last long after Trump is gone.
Trump’s second term as president has been marked by notable and widespread disrespect toward nations once seen as close U.S. allies. Between his attempts to level massive tariffs against nearly every nation in the world and his frequent breaches of diplomatic norms, Trump has created a hostile global environment in which allies no longer feel safe trusting in the stability of the U.S.
In a new piece for The Atlantic on Tuesday, staff writer Vivian Salama argued that this new dynamic, in which the nations of the world are working to establish a safe distance from the U.S., is bound to become the new normal for years to come, even after Trump leaves office and is potentially replaced by a more traditional, dependable administration.
It’s like this. No shade to Americans, but you guys can do this shit in any four year period. You elected him TWICE.
No hard feelings, but you’re on your own.
You’re not wrong to feel that way and you’re not wrong that it is a common opinion, specifically among Europeans. That said, I don’t think your politicians are nearly principled enough to stick to that stance. Some of them say it now because people want to hear it but the moment it becomes less awkward to do so they’ll go back to relying on America for all sorts of things that you don’t want them to. Hell, many of them won’t even make an attempt to distance themselves now, or worse, actively praise many of Trump’s actions.
The ones that make a fuss now won’t go back because of American exceptionalism but because it is economically in their interest to do so in a myriad of ways. This is why Europe has been content to rely on American military assets for so many decades. It was never a particularly good idea but it was economically expedient. The same is true of American media, tech companies, and financial institutions. It’s easier to let someone else have a bit of control in order to simplify things and politicians love simple sounding solutions.
Maybe I’m wrong and this is the moment that the EU usurps the US for good. That’s probably the best case outcome. I just don’t think there’s enough agreement between European nations on what needs to happen to get to that point in order for it to become a reality.
There is a great deal in what you say that I heartily agree with, and a few things that I don’t. I’m not European, although I do visit annually, so I have no horse in that race.
I would say that you repeat a tired American trope that has been outdated for at least 35 years now. That Europe gets more out of the NATO than America does.
The US gets a great deal out of NATO, arguably all lot more than Europe gets. For a start, the US has 31 permamant military bases across Europe and free access to another 19 hosted by member countries. It doesn’t really need to ask permission on how it operates on any of them. It also maintains another 275 smaller units and installations for free. This is not a one-way deal for Europe. For the US, a country that insists on projecting power to influence national policy objectives, the ability to operate like this is incredible. Does it pay rent? No. Does it seek agreement with the host country? No. It bombs first and informs later.
Secondly, wherever possible it forces US military hardware onto European countries by way of ‘interoperability’. Those F35s provide jobs for US workers. Same with parts, same bombs and weapon systems. All that hard cash flows back to the US. There is a reason why US administrations bitch and moan about Europe not pulling it’s weight on NATO but still won’t pull out of the region. It’s because the US gets a massive indirect benefit from the deal.
But what does Europe get in return? It’s supposed to be security guarantees. But the only country that has triggered NATO’s Article Five has been the US following 9/11. Hundreds of Europeans died in defence of what happened in far-off New York. Not that this has been appreciated by Trump.
Lastly, the biggest threat to Europe is Putin. And what has been the US response? Not great. All of Europe has been watching and wondering has all this been worth it. The one reason Europe has been tolerating America taking over much of its foreign policy is for a security trade-off. Now it seems the arrangement is worthless.
I’m not European, but I’m watching events. Nothing dramatic will happen in the short term. Spain cancelled it’s F35 contract. European countries have universally increased their defence budgets, not from US pressure, but from the realisation that security is unlikely to arrive from America. Countries have failed to support the US openly. First time since WW2. The whole world turned their back on the stupid Iran war. Things have changed irrevocably. However, they will only visibly change over time. You guys are sleepwalking into isolation.
Let’s revisit the subject in 10 years and see how things have turned out?
I appreciate your response both in quality and in tone. Thanks for that.
To be clear, I never meant to imply that the US gets nothing out of NATO. It is clear that we do for the reasons you mentioned and countless others. I was simply saying, in much the same way you did, that EU nations allowed that situation to exist because spending less on defense was good for them domestically in an economic sense. It was not a good decision beyond the short term from a security perspective unless the US could be guaranteed to be a righteous actor forever and that is obviously not something that can ever be guaranteed. Treaties and alliances are great. Dependence is not.
It is true that some countries have taken action to distance themselves from the US under Trump. It is also true that many of the citizens of the EU want their governments to take more action on that front. As an American, I would rather the EU lead the world in most respects as I trust most of their governmental systems to represent their people better than ours does.
Still, money rules the world and the US has a lot of it. Greed is a powerful motivator and I would bet that it is going to entice a lot of European politicians to make unpopular deals with the US and it’s corporate representatives under the next administration. Despite the EU as a whole better representing it’s people there are still too many instances of their governments manipulating or outright ignoring popular sentiments for me to believe that something like sidelining the US is within the realm of possibility, even if most of their citizens wanted to do so.
As a last note I would add that I believe eliminating reliance on the US is something the EU absolutely should do as much as possible. It is the only reasonable answer to the insanity taking place in our government. Nothing I’ve said should discourage action towards that goal. I’m just trying to be realistic about how I see that playing out.
Great reply!
Putin
this is exactly what putin wants, plus hes pretty much bankrolling most of eus far right gonvernments, to this end. needs a divisive west, so he cant take over former soviet bloc with much resistance.
As long as china, india doesnt get in his way, and they dont seem to mind that russia is a useful tool for them.
You’re right, we need a lot of reform.
They re-elect him every day they sit on their asses and allow MAGA to feel safe in public. PLENTY of shade.
It’s not even Trump, they gave him the Congress and Senate too. They REALLY went all in on the Republicans for some fucked up reason.
Are there people who still don’t know this or are just realizing this?
It happens more slowly than you might think.
Here in Australia the US has been our major ally since WWII and is generally seen as the enforcer holding off Chinese expansion in our region.
When the tariffs were announced ours were minimal and largely to our benefit anyway.
The general feeling was, the Americans are having a bad day, but we can weather that to maintain our long term relationship.
We have an agreement with the UK and US to build nuclear submarines, which would be helpful in maintaining control in south east Asia. This is a long term strategy with many billions involved, likely to stimulate entire regions in Australia. However, the arrangement is looking very unappealing presently and no one actually believes the US will deliver on their end.
I think the summary is, everyone knows that Trump is not a reliable partner but he will be dead soon, and these relationships run pretty deep.
Trump is not a reliable partner but he will be dead soon
But you can’t rely on the US being a reliable partner at all then. In 4 years the citizens could just vote in someone just as unreliable as Trump who will throw away previous agreements on a whim. They’ve already done it twice, and it’s clear the US has no mechanism in place to make sure it holds to previous agreements.
Perhaps another way to say the same thing … other sane governments are reliable partners, and it’s worth upholding the agreements we have made for the moment, while we make other plans.
Yes, the people that dont follow the news, poltics at all, and the republicans that dont follow anything after they voted.
People voted for Brexit, people voted for AFD, people voted for LePen, people voted for Meloni. Y’all tend to forget that this isn’t only an American problem.
You can’t be this dense though
How am I being dense?
Well, for one, you replied to yourself and not to the person who replied to you.
Oh, no. A mistake!
Answer the fucking question, jackass.
Trump is the symptom not the cause.
If anything Trump is doing the world a favour by dropping the pretence that the US is a good global citizen that just happens to have hundreds of military bases worldwide, an infinite money hack and nukes.
The US is a brutal imperialist power that genocides or destroys anyone who gets in its way. People with sense have known this since before Vietnam but the narrative pushers are finally high and dry.
He’s both
This is what Putin wants to see. Chaos in the West.
Puton is busy hiding from zelensky, nobody’s scared of putin no more buddy. Can’t use that boogeyman anymore.
Chaos in the West is a net positive for pretty much everyone else that is subjugated by it. I don’t even know if Putin is necessarily for it, even if aspects of it are certainly beneficial to his reign, but I can tell you everyone with a brain in the global South cheers whenever the empire shoots itself in the foot. And no, it’s not because of Putin, it’s because the culture itself is based around might makes right and feeding on others… but if others can fight against it, then it’ll have to feed on itself.
Putin absolutely is for Chaos in the ‘West’, whatever that even means.
Russian strategy has for decades been to support extreme parties on every end of the societal spectrum within European countries and the US. For example Russia was/is a major supporter of the german right wing afd and the BSW, a fringe left wing party.
And the rise of fascism in the West is a net positive for everyone? Seriously?
And talking about ‘Western’ Culture is ridiculous anyway, it’s like talking about ‘asian’ culture.
America is on Putin’s side, though. When America is weakened, so is Putin.
It’s what the Trump’s want to see too, families tend to have similar values – and Jr just married a Russian plant from Putin’s circle, wedding paid for by her dear russian oligarch buddy. It’s also what the majority of Americans want to see, based on how they voted.
Only like 1/5th of Americans voted for Trump. The problem is more that people stayed home. It’s disillusionment with the system and a lot of voter suppression, MAGA isn’t actually that popular. Which makes the Democratic loss even more embarrassing
If I lived in an apartment that had rats in my unit, and I was too lethargic / apathetic to deal with it – and then those rats started infesting / destroying all the other apartment units in the building – it’d be my fault shits getting rat’d, and there’s no amount of “nah, not my fault, I didn’t elect the rodents, I didn’t formally invite them in, I didn’t even bother to get out of bed” that would realistically make my neighbours go “oh, ok then, continue on with your rat infested shit hole lifestyle”.
They’d rightly find ways to fine the fuck out of me / kick me out of the building.
America has a whole lot of very wealthy people, people who claim to be progressives and to care about things like human rights – who basically lied/didn’t really care about those topics, and preferred to just kick back on things like luxury yachts while preaching on about how no one takes climate change seriously. But even more, America IS a democratic system. In other regions of the world, where people live under dictatorships, like in Iran, North Korea, parts of China, Russia, etc – you can make a fairly clear differentiation between their “people” and their “government”. The reason for that is that the people don’t have a “representative” democracy/government, where they’ve gotten a chance to vote for who runs the country. Americans DID have that choice, and opted for Trump - be it through apathy or idiocy. They collectively decided, through a representative democratic process, to have a convicted fraudster, rapist, and alleged child molester, diaper shitting orange octagenarian be their representative / leader. Twice.
Putin would have benefited had he never attacked Ukraine. Now he’s impotent.
And the west grant him his wishes by self destruction themselves by themeselves
No Trump. Americans.
The first term was forgivable as long as they learned from it. Instead they celebrated it and cried out for more.
It’s happening in Germany. It’s happening in France. It’s happening in Australia and Canada and Italy and Japan and pretty much everywhere. Somehow, in spite of a proven record of failure and catastrophic consequences, right wing ideology continues to grow like a cancer across the globe.
The US got to this point with help from foreign billionaires, as well as domestic ones. Elon Musk, Rupert Murdoch, Sundar Pichai… The grift is global and putting your vitriol toward those who might take your side will leave you friendless when it happens to you where you live.
People gave up instead of showing up and that was a costly mistake.
Many people mean well, even if they live in bad places. Have the grace to encourage them to keep resisting, even if that resistance is as small as protest or even voting, for your own sake.
Need to caveat this that not all Americans. The country is incredibly polarized and pissed off at itself from within. It’s a hot cesspool mess inside and there are many who sympathize with the rest of the world and abhor the cancer within.
It’s totally irrelevant if it’s all USians or just a few of them. The US is a inherently unstable country, winner takes it all. When people elect a less idiotic president, it will just take a few years until the next Trump-Level guy wins again.
Also the republican presidents I experienced in my life got more unhinged every cycle, Regan, old Bush, young Bush, Trump. Who will be next one? One day there will be another Republican president.
The only way out would be a fundamental refactoring to not be a failing democracy.
Pigs will fly through a freezing hell before that happens. So the only rational thing is to understand the empire fell, the King has no clothes and keep a wide berth around the US in all future dealings.
Who will be next one? One day there will be another Republican president.
Yes. Just look at two prominent, potential Republican presidential candidates for the next few decades: dark lord and antichrist lecturer Peter Thiel’s boy JD Vance and unhinged, rabid anti-communist Marco Rubio. There are probably others of a similar caliber, but I try to forget.
Yeah, the system is rotten and appears to be reaching its experimental conclusion. Technofeudal Christofascism wants so badly to hammer the final nail in the coffin of so-called American democracy (which was always a facade for corposlavery…or just straight up slavery).
If the country ever actually gave a shit about true democracy, ranked preference voting and much more representative chambers would have existed. But it’s only ever been about wealth and classism, it’s just now the facade has been completely torn off to expose the rot for everyone to smell.
Except it becomes relevant when the few are being told they are the reason why their country is the way it is.
It’s a brush that paints both aggressors and actual victims in the same light and while I can accept people calling the US a failing nation but I feel a deep resentment towards people who just say “Americans are the problem.”
Same people are also the first to tell me I need to do something that’s liable to get me killed or worse.
And how does “not all Americans” limit the damage to the rest of us?
Might provide a little hope that Americans from within are actually more on your side than his.
Look, I’m sorry for all this stupid horrible shit happening because of the absolutely asinine decisions being made by fascist hopefuls elected by arrogant and ignorant sociopaths. My hate for today’s reality runs as deep as yours, but it gets to be accompanied by its best friend, shame, as well.
You are not at fault. But nothing good will come from all this and it is what it is.
Everyone ignoring that he still has a 40% approval rating. That’s 137m people who like what’s going on.
Let’s just lock the door and wait for the dumpster fire to burn itself out.
Recent polls have his approval down to 29%. Which is still way too high, but when people can’t heat their homes this winter, I expect those numbers to drop even further.
Yeah, a lot of people are still in love with him. They’re brainwashed lead-poisoned idiots and fascism lovers. Makes me wish it were easier to emigrate out of the dumpster fire.
I can’t stand this argument. It’s the exact same logic as blurting out “not all men” when women rightfully express how they should be cautious when interacting with them in certain contexts.
Sure, not all Americans. That just doesn’t matter in the slightest when there’s a large enough chunk of them to get the world in the mess it is now. If they get their shit together maybe people will stop generalizing as a means of precaution for the sake of sparing headaches. The problem is with them as a whole, not the people understandably steering clear.
Not at all comparible in the least because in this context “men” in this context are also victimizing other men. This is the equivalent of other men ALSO having to be cautious when interacting with other men.
In making this comparison you are just generalizing all Americans and basically saying they get what’s coming to them regardless of whether they put the clown in power or they are in fact victims of said clown. All the generalizing does is socially lock them in with the room with their abuser.
As your historical enemy how many presidents do I have to go back before it becomes all Americans?
The good ones fled after the revolutionary war.
If only there were some way to choose where to be born. Wasn’t given much of an opportunity to flee after the revolutionary war.
I apologize for your parents being terrible people. At what point are you able to renounce your citizenship?
Yes, because denouncing citizenship would absolutely be the most viable solution in finding a place to live. Other countries love to accept nationless humans.
Then how do you assist America’s enemies?
When another country gives me citizenship, being a stateless person would suck
Historical enemy? So Russian? Glass houses, man.
You should learn more history if you think Russia is.
For most of the past century they have been. What country are you from then?
Canada.
Canada hasn’t been our enemy since the treaty of Ghent when Canada was still part of the UK. Perhaps you ought to learn some history.
Try to take hybrid warfare into account. Not for nothing was Putin paying buildings full of trolls to poison internet culture for years and years. They couldn’t automate it with an LLM back then.
The tech bros will be more than happy to help him automate some of that work. You know, to promote ‘free speech’.
No war but class war - hating the people of any country is bullshit.
Almost twice as many Americans voted against Trump as people live in your entire country (assuming Canadian from the instance). That’s a ridiculously ignorant blanket statement to make. I loathe our government and the assholes who support it as well, but I don’t hate entire countries for having evil shitty leaders.
The point, you are missing it.
It’s not that “not all Americans”, it’s that you inflicted him on the rest of us. If you are butthurt at the rest of the world for rejecting the US you might have a rethink.
I didn’t inflict him on anyone - I voted against him 3 times. Rejecting the US government is the absolute correct response, as it can’t be trusted. But a country’s government is not all of its people.
Once again, personal responsibility doesn’t mean shit. The Americans inflicted him upon us. That you personally didn’t has no actual bearing on reality. You may not like it, you probably hate it, but you share collective responsibility for Trump as a nation.
So, if the rest of the world reroutes around you as a damaged and dangerous state, that should be an expected outcome. Save your pouting, and collectively deal with it.
Saying that, I do appreciate your helpless frustration. But we all have our own political problems in our own countries. If your country is a absolute fucking trainwreak and set to destroy all normal and reasonable order, we owe all of you nothing. And if you open your eyes real wide you can see the globe rapidly sidestepinng away from you in real time. This situation won’t change an inch if you elect a jolly, sane Obama next time. Because elemental MAGA runs deep in your DNA. The only question is when will it surface next?
The rest of the world rerouting around us a damaged and dangerous state is fine, the correct course of action even. But hating an entire nation of people for their leader is an ignorant response. In meatspace people have to do what the can to protect themselves from malicious governments like ours. Online, I’m an individual, and so are you. What our governments do means fuck all here.
I probably hate our government more than you - it almost certainly affects me more. But bigotry is not okay.
You will probably have to point out where I said that hating all Americans is ok? I don’t think that I said anything about hating anyone. I said, more or less, that America is a damaged society. Others have pointed this out as well. It’s just best to ignore them, work around them and hope for the best. This crap won’t end with Trump.
This is a cliche, fair enough, but my best friend is American, and now an Australian. Why would I hate him just for being born in a different place. I’ve also acknowledged that a great many Americans hate Trump. That is immaterial. He’s still your representative, he acts in your name and almost 50% still vote for him. All the rest doesn’t change a lived reality.
We can’t change the minds of other people, all we can do is act on the situation we’re in.
We are going to sooner or later have to take out the fucking trash.
When the time comes and this shit rises up in other countries like Germany, these countries do not expect help from us nor will they get it.
Because we’re busy solving our own problems for once.
This is a basic thing that will always exist, countries with terrible governments. All I’m saying is to not judge an entire country by its government. Boycott it, hate the government, all fine. But don’t hate the PEOPLE simply because of where they live. Except the ones that support the government, of course!
I assume you’ve been online in the last four years, and seen that all Russians are at fault for the invasion of Ukraine?
Why would you assume that Americans wouldn’t be seen similarly?
I’ve seen it said, and it’s dead wrong. Why would this be any less wrong?
Whether it is wrong or right is irrelevant. It is.
It’s an incorrect claim that’s made, yes. That doesn’t mean you also have to make it.
Oh, yeah? Who voted for Brexit? Who voted for LePen? Who voted AFD? Who voted for Meloni? Don’t be so quick to blame Americans when your own countrymen are doing the same shit.
Brits didn’t vote for Brexit twice, Le Pen has never been president of France despite three attempts and AFD has never had any real power in Germany. I’ll give you Italy’s Meloni, but the rest are just weak whataboutisms.
Brits didn’t vote for Brexit twice
Why would they? It passed.
AFD has never had any real power in Germany.
Won Saxony, didn’t they?
Le Pen has never been president of France despite three attempts
Only got 8% less of the vote than Trump.
All that post-WWII goodwill … Gone.
And the bad guys in WWII seem to be making a bit of a comeback
And you won’t believe their stance on Israel!
I hope the entire world turns its back on America.
If they can do this to me, one of its own citizens, imagine what they’ll do to you.
because I’ve been hurt I want to hurt them
gee, that sounds eerily familiar. where have I heard that mentality before I wonder…
Maybe stop hurting the rest of the world.
??? That’s not at all what was said.
let’s break it down into the three statements.
-
I hope the entire world turns its back on America.
-
If they can do this to me, one of its own citizens,
-
imagine what they’ll do to you.
Statement 2 has identified them and implies that statement 1 has happened to them.
Statement 2 has a qualifier, they are a citizen of the US.
Statement 1 expresses they hope the world turns their back on the US like they have implied happened to them in statement 2.
Statement 3 is a direct threat to you that the US will force statement 1 on you just like them in statement 2.
when you reduce it down, logically, they are saying: “I hope Americans are hurt because Americans hurt me, and they’ll hurt you like they hurt me, so hurt them first because I want them to be hurt like they hurt me.”
this is logic 101 shit.
this is logic 101 shit.
I wish you’d have used some logic on your first reply, you’ve just added nonsense.
then please, by all means enlighten me with your logical assessment of their comment.
It was very self explanatory.
ok, so you’re just a troll.
-
The average American citizen wont understand or care about this, and yet I do imagine there are pretty negative long term implications for them, along with all the other garbage being piled onto them.
I brought up that the cost of diesel has gone up massively (particularly at the start of the Iran conflict) and has started to rapidly balloon again to a co-worker at my 2nd job said he did not care about the price of diesel because he doesn’t use diesel…
I carefully explained to him that everything is shipped over land is using diesel and this will cause the price of everything to go up and he pushed back again saying “Well everything is going up in price anyway.” Its like dude WTF do you even do with people like this? I did not even touch on the expense of using heavy construction and farming machinery also increasing costs of everything…
He described himself once as someone who agrees with democrats on social issues but thinks republicans are better on the economy and I internally was like DUUUUDE THIS IS THE FUCKING REPUBLICAN ECONOMY RIGHT NOW YOU FUCKING TROGLODYTE AAAHAHHAHAHA WE FUCKING DESERVVVVE THIIIIIIIISSSS.
The only “social issue” he cares about is his tax burden.
Ask him how will he pay for the stuff becoming more expensive.
Well, if your coworker is that braindead, then he probably won’t notice if you start propagandizing to him. Everytime something bad happens, audibly blame Trump and the Republican Party for it. A couple of weeks of that oughta change his opinion of things.
For Europe, it’s a long overdue reality check that we were way to dependent on the US for defense.
This is not what Trump intended, so he does not get credit for that from me but there are benefits.
Not only defense. Software!
Right? Thanks for massive Linux and renewable energy adoption , moron hahahaha.
I’ll take a faint glimmer of silver lining there.
As an American I have no doubt that our relationship with our allies will improve once we restore some sanity to the White House, but we’ve forced our allies to diversify their trade to brunt the impact of our tariffs and now that they’ve done so I don’t see any sane reason why they would undo that.
Its going to take at least 50 years of good faith, and I wish you good fucking luck with the insane 4 year flip flop political bias your country has.
We Canadians have been scratching our heads over the course of your increasing instability for 20 years, and we aren’t going to forget that over night.
Trump is a sign that the political landscape in the US is so unstable that nothing promised by any political figure can be trusted by your allies.
Only a foolish nation forgets that overnight. We won’t.
Nobody will forget anything overnight, but the world keeps spinning and we all move on eventually.
If it was only the US, that would be something, but it’s happening to a lesser extent elsewhere too. The UK, France, Germany, Netherlands, and probably more I missed, are all showing a surge in right-wing support despite the mess Dumold Trump is making. In the UK Nigel Farage is like mini-Trump, and despite proof of his lies and corruption his support seems to grow.
Something is rotten in the societies that are allowing this to happen, and I envy Canada for how it seems to be resisting it. Long may it continue.
The damage being caused to US reputation on the world stage won’t be fixable without fixing the rot first, because without that it could all happen again, and US allies know it.
Well then you haven’t been paying attention.
We have committed some of the worst war crimes of the modern era
We threatened to INVADE MULTIPLE ALLIES
We have constantly lied and broken multiple signed agreements
Our allies have permanently changed large scale trade operations to China for stability
The dollar has decreased in value
Allies have removed bonds and gold reserves from our country.
Allowed a bloated and swollen pedophilic rapist to go on tv and threaten to nuke a civilization at the UN
Ostracized ourselves by launching state run media and threatening to dismantle the ICC (which is investigating us for warcrimes)
Allowed the president’s family to invade and steal islands from sovereign nations (we all know what they want islands for)
And more!
No. There is no going back. The country was couped and is dead. Take a look at who is running every agency within government and you go ahead and tell yourself in the mirror that when trump doesn’t accept the election results, he won’t, that Kash Patel and Tom Homan will send DHS and the FBI to arrest trump. Maybe the Military run by kegsbreath and the businessman secretaries will come get him? Maybe the US Marshals will come get him- oh wait, they gave Trump a marshal badge and said he is the “highest law enforcement officer in the land”
A country of delusional peasants.
I hate it but you’re right. No two ways about it.
I think the only thing that could POSSIBLY put us on a positive path again would be if we were to wrest control back to the People again, and quite publicly show the world we’re locking away all these nazis forever on some forgotten rock in the middle of the Pacific, and throwing away the key.
But yeah, something like that would be truly incredible and unexpected…
Unfortunately I’m with you, we proved to the world that our country as a whole is morally bankrupt. The best way forward could be splitting the county in two and letting the lunatics drown in their own stupidity.
Unfortunately they’d never give up their nukes and they’re stupid enough to use them so WTF do you even do?
Honestly, I’m not sure yet. In a perfect world, we take back the government and rebuild it in an actual way that democracy can be enforced (like the Scandinavian countries)
I would personally prefer that blue states join Canada and the EU because the red states will fall into poverty and debt and they will blame us and invade.
But the true root of all of the issues we have always had are generational wealth (extreme wealth) and corporations. So idk how we can stop this cycle with those
I’ve laid all this out in another comment of mine but nearly all of these things we’ve done before (and worse) but diplomatically recovered from, or were done (and far worse) by our allies, which they’ve diplomatically recovered from in less than 50 years.
If you’ve only been alive since 1990 and never learned anything about US or global history and 1990-2016 is your only frame of reference for global politics, all of these things would certainly seem so extreme and unprecedented. But the reality is America’s reliability and dependability were always an illusion, and thinking that the rest of the world is somehow enlightened enough to hold America to account for its failings of the last 10 years forever is a very sophomoric idea of global politics
I disagree and you will never find this many inprecedented actions in history that worked
What we witnessed was a second “Business Plot”. The first one didn’t work out because we had principled leaders and Veterans wouldn’t betray the nation.
The oligarchs that failed (mostly the same companies as today) lost principled Republicans and were universally hated while FDRs popularity soared. Republicans learned from this and systematically dismantled education in this country and courted the racist south.
What we have just witnessed, is a business plot that succeeded. We were couped by a coalition of extreme generational wealth, christian nationalists, and the tech facsists.
We have witnessed the dismantling and conquering of every agency and institution that could hold them responsible (to include putting a dictators face on them). Every agency that was investigating this group was taken over and is still being dismantled. The heads of these agencies are cult members.
We witnessed an unelected businessman with open conflicts of interest invade our government and sabotage every investigation against him and STEAL OUR MOST SENSITIVE DATA. they stole OPM records, social security information, etc and put it on an unknown server. They also installed their AI into every agency and the Pentagon. There is no recovering from that.
-this would be all of the actions that I previously listed
-the Epstein files and lack of response from our government has shattered the entire IDEA of justice in this country and unmasked the hidden depravity of extreme wealth.
No. Your snyde comment shows a lack of sophomoric comprehension of history and current events.
Please show me a comparable time in our history equal to this?
And no, the Gilded Age was not this bad as far as everything mentioned
America used to be dependable to its allies. Treacherous, but in predictable ways. Now the seal is broken, and it’s been proved that any norm can be ignored. So that’s never going to return to how it was. Its now firmly in the category of erratic unstable partners and that will not change with any successor.
Was it? I mean America went through a relatively short period of a several decades of stability during its golden age for sure, but the time scale we’re talking about is so short it means little to nothing. The European mindset of some kind of “before and after” due to trump is a level of historical blindness that defies belief.
America has been in open war with most of its modern allies throughout its short 250 year existence, several of which were in this past century. For gods sake America dropped two nukes on civilian population centers in one of its closest modern day allies.
And on the flip side of that, you have to step back and consider the fact that there are people alive today who remember their homes being carpet bombed by German planes during that period where Germany elected a fascist dictator, the likes of which all others to this day are compared against, and proceeded to slaughter half of Europe while simultaneously committing the largest genocide ever recorded in human history. And yet Germany’s reputation among European nations appears to have completely recovered in a shorter time span than America’s “dependable ally” era lasted.
In fairness to Germany we had the Nuremberg trials where the top Nazis were held accountable for their crimes and hanged. You could argue that the current American administrations crimes are not on a par with Nazi Germany’s, which I would agree with but accountability is not in the Americans vocabulary. Trump and his team have suffered no consequences from the Jan 6th insurrection, I don’t think anyone will face any consequences for supporting Israel’s genocide both at the UN and in supplying the weapons to keep it going. I can’t see anyone being punished for the war crimes committed in Iran, worst of all bombing a little girls school killing 120 children.
America’s biggest loss under trump has been in the soft power they have spent the last 100 years building. The mask has fully slipped with no plausible deniability about what America is and where they are headed. We in Europe will still cynically do business with you, the USA remains the global military and financial hegemon but the public support is gone for a generation at least.
The Nuremberg trials were not conducted by Germany and aren’t an example of the nation holding their own leaders accountable, so in fairness it doesn’t really compare to America failing to hold its own leaders accountable for Jan 6th. And in fact despite the Nuremberg trials being conducted by the Allied powers, those same allied powers (USA included) absolutely committed subversions of justice for the Nazis by recruiting many into government research programs.
So Germany failed to hold the Nazis to account, and unfortunately the rest of the world did to some degree too.
I think this whole thread is full of rose-tinted glasses and vague ideas of international justice and American Moral Exceptionalism that didn’t really exist
Germany as a nation teaches its children about all their dark history and acknowledges the atrocities committed. Their leaders were held to account at Nuremberg while the country was under allied occupation, I accept your point that it was not Germany themselves holding them to account but the country as a whole accepts responsibility for their crimes in a way the USA couldn’t even imagine.
The USA on the other hand has never accepted formal responsibility for the genocide of the native American population.
The subversions of justice you mentioned by the allied powers, I fail to see the point you are making mentioning this.
Your view that it will be business as usual after the current American regime is what I think is rose tinted. The USA used to get away with the atrocities they committed using a combination of plausible deniability and soft power. This is no longer an option post the current trump regime, this is the point. This loss of soft power with their former allies will only hasten the USA’s downfall and it is hard to see them maintaining their current dominant position going forward. The USA’s current prosperity is borrowed not earned and is in part financed by their allies. The current bond market is an indicator of what is to come.
Germany as a nation teaches its children about their dark history now many years after the fact (it appears to not be working). The U.S. isn’t in the “after the fact” period yet so it’s hard to predict what they could imagine at this point.
The subversions of justice you mentioned by the allied powers, I fail to see the point you are making mentioning this.
The allied European nations didn’t fully hold the Nazis to account for their crimes against humanity, so there’s no historical precedent to suggest that they will fully hold America to account with what’s going on now.
Your view that it will be business as usual after the current American regime is what I think is rose tinted
My point is if Germany can be back to business as usual mere decades after the events of WW2, there’s no reason to think the U.S. won’t be back to business as usual in the same timeframe if not even less.
I could not even begin to imagine defending the idea of America replicating the early stages of Nazi Germany and thinking that is why the US is going to be okay.
You cannot be helped.
Why do you think Germany teaching kids about the horrors they committed during ww2 hasn’t been working? I haven’t noticed a 4th Reich rising!
We do not need to get into the difficulties in holding other nations to account for crimes permitted in a different nation and the lack of laws at the time to prosecute most of the 2nd and 3rd tier Nazis or the underlying antisemitism that was not limited to Nazi Germany in Europe at the time as that is a different conversation.
I agree with you when you speak of people’s short memories when it comes to making money in a cynical business sense over the long term. The USA’s danger at the moment is all in the short term, the trust they have lost will take decades of good foreign policy and reliability which I can’t see happening with the current divide in American politics. Any olive branches offered by the democrats will likely be undone by the republicans and it is this unreliability that will be the death of the American economy. The USA has been the most reliable and trusted trading partner for the last century. The uncertainty is what has the rest of the world decoupling from the USA right when they are starting to feel the burden of their national debt that used to be bought up by the rest of the world.
The bond market is now showing cracks, the USA’s financial dominance over the last 35 years has been built primarily on the tech boom they have experienced. They went all in on AI and are now doubling down like a gambler as China offers free open source alternatives making an AI dominance look unlikely. China is now the most interesting tech innovator in robotics and manufacturing. I can’t see how things go back to normal for the states after this, only a long period of decline and loss of relevance on the world stage. I do not take joy from this, my own country’s current financial boom is overly reliant on these American companies.
our relationship with our allies will improve once we restore some sanity to the White House
This is not enough unfortunately. Your checks and balances need to be checked and balanced. If they are not working now, why would they work in the future?
They are working currently. Though admittedly many cracks in the armor have been revealed, and the complacency America had in its expectations of presidential tradition and precedent has clearly done damage of its own.
Working? You are hilarious. Congress and Senate or Supreme Court should have put the brakes on Trump a year ago. They are still siding and abetting him instead. Even the military is happy to ignore the Constitution to do Trump’s bidding. It’s less than given that the Nov elections will be honoured. Doesn’t look like checks and balances to the outside world.
Yes they are objectively and inarguably working. Even with several members of the Supreme Court compromised it has still been a regular obstacle to his plans. The panic the administration has for and the effort put into the upcoming elections are further proof that they’re working. The fact that the upcoming midterms happen only half way through his presidency is not an accident either. The American system was designed to minimize the amount of damage a president or any other branch of government can do.
Nobody promised the system of checks and balances we have could prevent the president from doing any harm. It only provides the people with the power to put a stop to it.
These “barely hanging together” checks and balances are the reason I favour the parliamentary system. Obviously I only speak for myself.
When you have a lower house designed around real and regular debate with the leaders and real opposition who are expected to form their own “govt in waiting”, there are more opportunities to hold the govt to account and challenge them before it gets to the judiciary.
The spiderman standoff between three institutions supposedly watching each other but vulnerable to being manipulated by the same malevolent forces and vested interests seems weak these days.
You can elect someone who is extremely hard to eject if they’re bad for the country. A US president is in for 4 years precisely, and the supreme Court has made them legally immune to acts taken as president. We are seeing the impacts of this guarantee and they won’t stop at least until the term is over.
several members of the Supreme Court compromised
effort put into [rigging] the upcoming elections
Emoluments clause not triggered
$5000 bribery of voters
6 months into a war that requires Congressional approval within 60 days
Etc.
That these even exist are proof that the checks and balances are NOT working. This is why the world is turning away. Trump is the symptom of a bigger underlying cause.
None of those are proof that the checks and balances have failed.
several members of the Supreme Court compromised
This is why the Supreme Court is a panel. This check has succeeded.
effort put into [rigging] the upcoming elections
The balance of the judicial branch has successfully thwarted several illegal attempts at rigging the election.
Emoluments clause not triggered
The emoluments clause is unclear in how it should be interpreted today. Trump hasn’t directly violated it in any way. There is ongoing debate about whether or not some indirect forms of compensation violate it or not, and something may yet come of this.
$5000 bribery of voters
There is too much legal precedent supporting this being considered a campaign promise and not a bribe. Because it’s offered to all citizens as a benefit of the outcome of an election, it’s functionally no difference from saying “Elect me and I’ll lower taxes”
6 months into a war that requires Congressional approval within 60 days
Technically speaking, a full ceasefire agreed to by both sides resets this clock. No rules have technically been broken. Congress retains the ability to shut the war down, the republicans in power just don’t want to. The upcoming mid term elections are the remedy for that.
The Supreme Court is a panel. This check has succeeded.
But we agree members of the Supreme Court compromised. Their existence is a failure.
The balance of the judicial branch has successfully thwarted several illegal attempts at rigging the election.
But not all. For example, machine-stamped postmarks now reflect the date an item is first sorted at a regional processing. Checks are failing. In November we will see how many.
The emoluments clause is unclear in how it should be interpreted today.
Bullshit. How can you not see this as a failure?
Trump hasn’t directly violated it in any way.
Bullshit. Crypto tokens, golden bars, planes, even the admitted $122,050 in gifted tickets to ten major sporting events.
There is ongoing debate about whether or not some indirect forms of compensation violate it or not, and something may yet come of this.
Bullshit. The check has failed. Trump should have been impeached the moment he lowered tariffs on Swiss imports from 39% to 15% immediately after receiving $130k.
There is too much legal precedent supporting this being considered a campaign promise and not a bribe.
Bullshit. It is a failed check. If there is precedent then those are also failures.
A full ceasefire agreed to by both sides resets this clock.
Bullshit. It’s the same war.
They are working currently.
You elected a 34 time felon to the white house. If they’re currently working, then your country is more fucked than any of us could have forseen.
I don’t think you understand what checks and balances are, or what they’re for
Want to tell me how well they worked out that Trump could organize a coup on the Capitol building, threaten to hang his own VP, attempt to overturn a duly elected peaceful transfer of power, and still be elected President again four years later?
They could use some TLC for sure. The Trump administration is dismantling them day by day. They seem to have prevented him going full coup up to now, but I bet the MAGA leaders have a plan to knock the remainder down before the next election.
I suspect they were put in place by people who never expected the population to stand by and watch them get torn apart.
If the Democrats get back in, do you expect them to reinstate the destroyed checks and balances and implement greater restrictions? Or do you expect them to continue (ab)using the same Trump processes?
I suspect the majority of the world expect the latter.
Indeed, I expect they won’t reinstate them fully, and I also suspect most of the world will expect the same. This is why it will be so difficult to repair the US reputation on the world stage.
Agreed.
The problem is one of who comes next for America and after that.
Now the world knows America is willing to vote people like Trump into office, it has to act accordingly.
Trump Is what you expect from Argentina or some country already in trouble trying to find a way out.
Not the biggest economy in the world! Now everyone has to plan accordingly that this can and probably will happen again.
Not the biggest economy in the world!
Why would you not expect that of the U.S. because they’re the biggest economy in the world?
Germany is the third biggest economy in the world and they’re currently dealing with a Huge surge in far-right extremism in their government.
Japan is the fourth largest economy and they’ve seen a Rise in nationalist conservative government
The UK is like the fifth or so largest economy in the world and let us not forget what happenened when they Elected their discount Trump
Italy is the 8th largest and they’ve been Governed by the far right for the last four years
Like the majority of the worlds top 10 economies have seen a far-right shift on some significant level in the last 5 years, so I’m not really sure how you came upon those expectations
The big problem with this is that the promise was secretly “forign policy is uniparty. Whether it’s an” R" or a “D” our forign policy will be relatively consistent" and Trump broke that promise. Now every nation has to prepare for the eventuality that different presidents might have different policy toward their allies (and adversaries. No president before Trump would have canceled drills with South Korea on North Korea’s behalf). That will take decades of consistency to repair, and as a fellow American, I’m not certain they will get that consistency going forward with the state of politics in the US.
White House? You are blind to the gravity of the problem. The supreme courts will still be stuffed. The federal agencies will still be full and led by his cronies. Congress will still be gerrymandered to hell. Voting is now on its way to be directly compromised as well on every level. There are more lobbyists with deeper pockets willing to feed the DINOs, and the protections against their corruption has eroded. Even public sentiment is too stupid to survive the amount of time and administrations it would take to fix the whole system, they will accept that both parties are the same on a dime even when the specifics are on radically different scales.
To be fair, the US isn’t the only country that is having a corruption problem. We are living through a time where corruption continues to get easier and the ultra rich think they have an out with AI and robotics for the future apocalypse.
As an American I have no doubt that our relationship with our allies will improve once we restore some sanity to the White House
As a Canadian, let me assure you that it will not.
I hope we as a country cut ties with you forever. Because the fact you let this happen at all, means no countgry should ever trust you from not letting it happen again.
Until you fix the foundation of your issues, I speak for a LOT of people that say “You’re completely dead to us”.
I can assure you that it will. Your country will absolutely positively not cut ties with America forever. I’m sure you speak for yourself, but let us not forget that nearly a quarter of Canadians support Trump. Don’t think for a second we forgot about the Freedom Convoy either lol.
If you look at what America is going through and your first thought is “they’re crazy, that can’t happen here”, I have some bad news for you.
Please tell me, genuinely, what America has that Canada needs, that we can’t get elsewhere? Because I can assure you the list is incredibly short.
We trade with America out of convenience. Why do you think America has such a massive trade deficit with Canada? You buy WAY more stuff from us than we do you. And we can get almost everything from you from Europe or China.
Who knows we may get our own trump
Poilievre? His own party thinks he sucks.
I don’t think it is hard for the conservatives to find multiple other Poilievre like creatures
The Conservatives have never been more unpopular in 10+ years. Let them find their next Trump and see how well that goes over in this country.
They was literally going to win if Trudeau did not drop out. Carney magic won’t stay forever
Multiple things happened. It wasn’t just because Trudeau stepped down. Hell, Poilievre didn’t even win his seat.
Try and understand the complex timeline that was roughly about 8-14 months, and not “bUt pOiLiEvRe cOuLd hAvE WoN!” I believe you’re better than that.
What allies?
North Korea and Russia are still buddies with them.
I hope you are wrong I don’t want a terrorist state as an ally
lol don’t be so emotional
Being responsible of millions of death make you a terrorist state
Which millions of deaths are you referring to
Vietnam victims
Libya victims
Syria victims
Iran victims
Afghanistan victims
Cuba victims
Palestine victimsYou’re talking about deaths from war? In that case all your allies are terrorists buddy you’re screwed.
Also you’re Canadian which means your country too
I am talking about imperialism wars and intervention that led to millions of deaths. No other country did that level of evilness
Yeah eventually maybe, but the problem is we’ve shown TWICE now that we’ll elect someone erratic and petulant. Nobody should trust the US because even with a sane leader, you can’t be guaranteed you’ll be greeted with sanity 4 years later. Every deal struck may or may-not be shredded with the next admin.
Uh we’ve done it a lot more than twice.
restore some sanity
Didn’t you guys promise that in 2010 with Jon Stewart?
I was there actually. Unfortunately the rally was to restore sanity AND OR fear :/
I was supposed to be, and chose to stay in NYC and get drunk with my friend instead. Much better use of time it turns out.
It was actually a pretty good time
The damage done will take decades to undo. No one trusts USA anymore. Even when Trump is gone, no one will trust you. We saw you vote him in TWICE. So who knows who you will vote for in the future.
Germany voted in Hitler who was most certainly worse than Trump, and they recovered completely in just a few decades. I doubt you’ve told any Germans lately that you don’t trust who they might vote in in the future (though current events suggest perhaps you should). America will sort itself out, and the world keeps spinning.
they recovered completely in just a few decades.
Around 4 decades.
So we agree?
The only way we can even begin to fix this is if the entire Trump crime family & their enablers are indicted & incarcerated. The entire cabinet belongs in prison or in RFK Jr’s case, executed for innumerable counts of Depraved Heart Murder.
No. Trump is just a symptom .
We desperately need the US Empire to fall. They lead war all around the world for decades and most conflicts are born from them or our two precedent empires : Russian and English.
They simply have too much power and absolutely 0 ethic.
Be careful what you wish for.
We desperately need the US Empire to fall.
I dunno, like I see where this is coming from, and partially even would agree, but the power vacuum would also be disastrous.
…and personally I’d just like to know what the hell to do about it in the grand scheme of things, so me and the rest of my peasant family and the rest of us aren’t stuck suffering and holding the entire bill on account of a handful of monsters bent on ruining the world.
A reminder to study how people pushed through the collapse of their homelands in the past…
Edit: lmao at the downvote like “you aren’t people, USAmerican, get fked 🖕” LOL
Yeah, I feel you.
If there is ONE thing I can give to Trump, it’s that he’s preparing the world for it.
He’s destroying NATO as it exists, ruining the petrol dollar, destroying the US soft power world-wide. I don’t think anyone did more for EV and solar than him the last year…
But yeah, it will be a mess. From my pov, the natural filler would be China. It as pros, it has cons. EU could gain a lot too but I really fear they won’t have the wisdom to move away enough to net get caught by the blast.
We’ll see I guess ^^
As an American, won’t the US falling affect us too?
Will affect the whole world and, of course, people living in the US first.
I’m not saying that lightly. I live upstairs (Canada) and we would be highly impacted too.
Yet, I’m persuaded the US empire will and should fall. We need to move away from neo liberalism or we’ll simply all die and/or live miserable lives. AI, ecology, war, choose your poison.
At least from my perspective there is a big party that said they are on board with it so there need to happen a lot of things but going back to have America so deeply integrated should never be done.
After WW2 the us wanted Germany to not be armed and now they complain. America wanted eu not be armed. Now to say we are abusing usa? NA there is a lot of stuff you guys need to change but I’m the meantime we need to get rid of our dependence and cut some ties.
No argument here. I think the EU was stupid for allowing any of this to continue this long. Those ties should have been cut in 2016.
At the same time, you’re very much about to have your own set of fash problems between Ruzzia, the AfD, Meloni & LePen. Good luck.
I always knew conservatives (regressives) would destroy America. I just didn’t think it would be so fast and so aggressively stupid.
Ironically, it was probably the corporate bootlicking and Robert’s clearly nonsense claim that the President is above the law that sealed the deal. An election abberation is one thing, the rest of the power establishment sucking his cock while declaring that the system will continue to allow and encourage the chaos is not something worth dealing with.
Trump is only the most obvious symptom of a corrupt system.
In the end, the world will thank Trump for freeing them from American shackles. I hope that this is the beginning of the end of US dominance.
Trump is going down in history as the environmental President forcing the world to buy EVs or starve.
forcing the world to buy EVs or starve.
Or possibly “and starve.”
That, to me, is the truly ironic part.
It’s not that anyone is going to thank him. He’s an asshole and let him die in ignominy. But if we can survive his fucking around, there is a better world on the other side of it where one country doesn’t get to lord over anyone else.
When he got elected I thought “maybe he’s the dose of poison that’ll force them to throw up the whole damn mess”.
We should not thanks him for unintentional outcome of his stupidity
Not entirely sure the next in line is best, but at least China is trying to work towards better power, transit and socials. world powers need to stand now, or this is our future.
Better… Socials…?
Social systems. Healthcare, eliminating poverty, even family systems for child care and welfare.
It’s not accident or short-sighted incompetence either, it’s direct from the fascist playbook. Fascism and Authoritarianism feeds on crises and enemies, so if you don’t have any of those you need to manufacture some.
Not just the fascist playbook. You have to mix that all up with rampant moroniscism and blundering inability. Kinda like a badly built ikea shelf.
As plausible as this seems, I don’t think it was that deliberate. The guy is a moron. This was all done by accident, and the fallout happened to be what is recognizable as fascism.
Trump is a moron, self centered and easily manipulated by the people around him.
He’s surrounded himself with fascists who are absolutely delighted at how things are going.
He’s a puppet.
This seems to be the ideal archetype for a Republican “leader.” Always some doofus who listens to the shadow government’s every whim and claims it was his own idea the whole time.
But in the past, there was this facade of respectability, rather than just being an overgrown schoolyard bully who dropped out in 2nd grade.
