The decline began with Reagan, and accelerated with 9/11.
That’s a funny way to spell Nixon
Even funnier way to spell Wilson
Pretty sure it’s Washington…
Washington told us to avoid partisan politics at all costs. He didn’t do everything perfectly, but he was trying to avoid the mess that we’ve created with the two party system.
Personally I blame Obama
I disagree. The Nixon government was awful, but so were many governments before. It wasn’t a decline per se, it was just part of the constant change (both good and bad) in leadership.
The real decline began when corporatism started to take over the political/legal system, which was mainly a Reagan phenomenon. Large businesses started pulling everything towards their shareholders, nothing for the workers. Syndicates lost power. The political system started being bought by the corporations. Whole laws started being bought by the corporations.
While corruption has always existed, previously it was something to hide, to be ashamed of. But with the corporate takeover of the USA it gradually began to be normalized, and now it’s almost expected from any relevant figure.
Corporatism has had a hold on the political and legal system in the US since the beginning, just to varying degrees. Shareholder primacy gained a foothold in the 30s and 40s alongside the decay of antitrust law. Prior to that, the Lochner era of cases defined the era of corporate control. The late 1800s had robber barons and oil and railroad tycoons killing people with private police forces. Slave plantations and the vestiges controlled the South, and with it the rest of the country, since the 3/5ths compromise and before. We are just in a new form today with tech companies controlling everything, including the public forum, while SCOTUS green lights everything in favor of corporations, conservatives, and the wealthy, and Congress is absolutely deadlocked. It is definitely a far side of the pendulum swing, and it might be the one we can’t realistically swing back from any time soon, but it is well within the political and legal themes of the US historically.
Check out the Powel Memorandum. From the 70s moneyed interests started to systematically shift power to the wealthy and large corporations. They created think tanks like the Heritage Foundation to give the project the veneer of scientific legitimation. Reagan was the first to accept a policy blue print from Heritage. Since then they have been working to stack the courts, form government policy and legislate a shift if money and power to the few. Trump is reaping the benefits of what has been prepared since Reagan. Trickle down economy was one of the greatest scams of all time.
Not over but ending. That will take years.
President Trump did not erode U.S. capabilities on his own.
True, he had plenty of help from his cronies and the billionaires. You might think that doesn’t make any sense, but billionaires are going for WORLD dominance, they want EVERYONE under their thumb, including the U.S. Especially the U.S.
Just for the sake of argument, if Pedolf was a Russian asset what would he have done differently?
Get assassinated by the CIA long before he got anywhere near the presidency.
I had to downvote due to the paywall.
If america collapsed, there is a high probability that it would be replaced with a Christian fundamentalist government.
…and then shortly after that, the new Christian fundamentalist government will become a global problem.
And then shortly after that, there will no longer be a Christian fundamentalist government. This will likely come with messy consequences for Americans.
There is the issue of nuclear weapons. Especially if a bunch of doomsday cultists are in charge of them. The safest would probably be a US civil war, or at least an internal NATO conflict. Like the US invading Canada and getting eaten alive by Canadian and antifascist guerillas.
I’m lgbt, and my familty betrayed me for Trump. You want a war in the US? Send the rich. I’d sooner die alone. Many of us have no dog in the race. People is the US are depressed and anxious and exhausted. Most isolated. There is nothing for me personally to fight for.
Depression is natural. The brain needs time to unlearn old ways of thinking that have proven unhelpful, and during that time you genuinely don’t know what to think. Anxiety is natural, you are in an unsafe situation. Exhaustion is natural, most work you are doing is not going to serve you so it’s better to save your strength.
And isolation - well that’s you identifying what you need to do to find some safety and comfort, how you can start doing work that energizes you, how you can learn to think in ways that actually make sense. If you have nothing to fight for, you might as well go looking for people you can connect with.
Trust me, and more importantly trust your heart: you don’t have anything better to do.
And when you do find your people, then I am sorry but you will have something to fight for.
Thank you for that!
The Heritage Foundation is speedrunning the collapse of the postwar (WWII) global order, with intention. They posted their plans in plain sight. Nobody with the power to stop them lifted a finger.
What intent would that be. I have not read the Proj25 so asking
go read it
For a moment i thougt you had shared a link. Thanks but no thanks.
helll no…i don’t help blatantly lazy people who can’t be bothered to do anything for themselves.
Thanks but no thanks.
In brief, to restructure the federal government to consolidate control to the executive branch under the president and implement a conservative, Christian nationalist agenda.
To be even more succinct, Nazis 2.0.
I mean it’s good that it’s ended, but the way it’s ending is far worse than most ways it could’ve.
I think an end in this way was foreseeable. I think a segment of the left, particularly the authoritarian left, had a naïve notion that the end of the US empire would inevitability result in some form of class awareness instead of just nostalgic fascism and evangelical millenarianism.
We’ll need each other more than ever in the death throes.
i think the ‘authleft’ (at this point the political compass as a phenomenon should be a gen-ed 3 credit-hour class btw) was mostly gen x and millennial doomers with a lapsed DSA membership who thought if America didn’t decline we’d start a nuclear war. you experienced the optimistic slice of the terminally online slice who were fans of pretending to have read theory and then arguing with anarchists, please keep in mind that every group of terminally online people you are tempted to generalize should be treated as about 1% of their representative population, assuming posting on social media is their only hobby.
no matter what set of ideological clothes you put on, the fall of America and rise of China was clear to anyone with open eyes as early as Obama and to schizos as early as Tienanmen square
Also that the Pax Americana was just propaganda. The war in Ukraine is pretty obvious. However the conflicts in the Sahel have also gotten a lot worse since the US has mostly withdrawn itself from that region. Sudan is especially bad(chemical warfare, mass starvation and so forth). The Congo conflict is also flaring up again.
I would not be surprised if things get a lot worse in the near future.
Doesn’t that sort of support Pax Americana being a real thing? If conflicts get worse when America withdraws?
I think that’s their point, that a segment of the left thought pax americana was pure propaganda and it wasn’t. It wasn’t benevolent but for years it did keep global conflict tamped down.
Oh right. I guess I really need to focus on my reading comprehension, its been shit for like two weeks now. This is not the first time in recent times that I have completely misunderstood something.
Or maybe I have finally become as stupid as I always thought I was.
Bro, like, go easy on yourself. The rest of the world is ready to eat you up. Don’t join them in the feasting.
Hehe no worries. I just enjoy self deprecating humor :D I’m actually pretty happy with myself.
Other than the crippling depression and anxiety issues. (:D)
I think a segment of the left, particularly the authoritarian left, had a naïve notion
Interesting idea. Have you ever considered not being a mouthpiece?
What are you trying to say here? Who are you accusing Midnight of being a mouthpiece for? What is your sarcasm intended to do? What makes you think such a shitty low-quality snipe is worth your or anyone’s time?
I know you aren’t a bot or professional troll. So why act like one here? Leave reddit behind.
Someone has to be, since the authoritarian left themselves seem manifestly incapable of articulating anything as crass as a goal or a plan.
I mean. They can. They do. Over in .ml land, they talk about how NK, USSR, and China should expand their reach globally.
It’s just that even the tankies realize that nobody really wants to live in North Korea.
What we talk about is more how the US should reduce it’s reach globally. It is exactly that reach which has caused the overextension that we’re now seeing, which is going to mean a much less controlled drawing back than if it had been done intentionally.
It’s y’all who can’t get over the fact that a more cautious and reserved US foreign policy could allow its rivals to gain influence. That’s the whole reason that you label us as “tankies.” Because you literally cannot conceive of the idea that the US has been overextended and that there might be people wanting to correct that overextension before it blows up in our faces, entirely predictably. To try to address US overextension is something you see as inherently treasonous, and it is precisely because of that perspective that we’re in this mess.
No, we call you tankies because you have a history of supporting dictatorships crushing their opposition with tanks.
Those same dictatorships will, if they are allowed to, continue to crush their opposition with tanks. Sure, you would call NK invading SK “reunification”, and youd probably call the Russian invasion of Europe “denazification”, and you’d probably call the Chinese extermination of anyone that isn’t han Chinese “cultural defense”. But in reality what you’re supporting is eastern imperialism and genocide.
That’s such a harebrained campist take 🙄
The reason people get called “tankies” has nothing to do with the US and all to do with the kind of horrible dictatorships they support. It is possible to be for example against US influence in Syria and against Assad the same time, you know?
It is possible to be for example against US influence in Syria and against Assad the same time, you know?
Of course, but pretty much nobody who uses terms like “tankie” acknowledges that in practice.
When I say that I oppose US intervention in, say, North Korea, then I’m immediately hit with all kinds of horror stories about how everyone has to get the same haircut or whatever. If I refute that misinformation and insist that I don’t want the US to overthrow their government, then I will inevitably be accused of “defending North Korea,” labelled as a “tankie” and then subject to the whole rumor mill about “what tankies believe” that’s completely detached from reality or anything I actually say or believe. Next thing you know, I’m being accused of wanting every country in the world to become like North Korea. If I deny that, then it’s assumed that I’m just concealing my “real” views.
It’s the same way in every conflict in history since the dawn of time. When I was 10 years old asking why we didn’t respond to 9/11 by “turning the other cheek” like I’d been taught, people looked at me like I was some kind of “terrorist sympathizer” because “you’re either with us or against us.” Every single time I have opposed any conflict, I have been accused of “supporting” or “defending” the other side, regardless of what I actually say or what reasons I actually provide.
There’s no use trying to fight it. Instead of trying to, and looking like I’m trying to weasel out of the label like I have something to hide, I’d rather just accept it so that I have some ability to speak for what us “tankies” actually believe. Starting with, opposition to building more tanks. Opposition to building tanks is the defining characteristics of a “tankie” because if you don’t want to build and deploy tanks then you’re assumed to “support” whatever enemy-of-the-week they’re to be used against, who is no doubt “authoritarian.” Likewise, anti-militarism will cause me to be labelled as a “campist” for “supporting” the target of that militarism. When you’re being accused of such things, nobody gives a shit about the nuance between “supporting” or “opposing action against,” and even if you insist on it they’ll just say you’re lying and that you actually do support the “bad guy.”
I actually agree with your definition of tankie, tankies are generally those who support socialist states and critically support nationalist states that are under imperialist siege. I disagree that all of these are “horrible dictatorships,” or at least for the socialist countries, and see the nationalist dictatorships of capital as generally more progressive in the international context than the imperialist dictatorships of capital, but the through line here is that tankies are defined by the countries we support/critically support above all else.
As for opposing US/Israeli influence in Syria while opposing Assad, who do you support there? I think it’s pretty easy to say “the people of Syria,” but are they any better off now under the Israeli-backed HTS regime than they were under Assad? What groups actually stand to challenge the existing status quo and implement a more progressive system?
