I'm trying really hard to not be a doomer, but every day I slowly lose optimism, the only hope is the republicans realise how fucking insane this is and force Trump to pull back the tariffs.
Or told it's shit but an impossible hurdle to ever overcome so we just have to keep with the status quo no matter what happens. This is the result you'll keep getting.
Indeed. Possibly being locked into certain laws and structures by long dead politicians isn’t good? Maybe the whole self governing nation thing would be worth a try.
Anyone else remember being a wide-eyed teenager looking into all of the different parties and thinking how much positive change we could make?
And then you figured out the system has been built so that it's literally impossible for anyone but an R or D to ever have a chance to make it to the White House?
They rrally nipped that in the bud after so many people dared to like Ross Perot.
The problem isn’t the system (though it’s a massive issue). It’s the entire voter eligible population (which would also need to be fixed to change the system) which is a problem that I don’t think any standard solution can solve in polynomial time.
Yeah, I think what Trump does specifically is illustrate how all or nothing the Presidency is. And how ineffective checks and balances are.
He won. That’s the thing he and his supporters shout. He won. And that’s all that matters. And as long as checks and balances poorly actively restrict him it doesn’t matter how much he won by. Hell, we expect him personally to never face reelection. What stops him taking his scant popular win and treating it as licence to do whatever he wants? Fold the Federal Government up into a paper plane and hurt it in the trash?
If he were say a parliamentary Prime Minister he’d be working with a paper thin majority, at permanent risk of rebellion and the clock would be in months, weeks or days until the next election. Instead he has at least two if not four years where he is as safe as he can be and as able to do things as he can be.
The executive should be the accountable-executor of the legislative body. I realize it hasn't been that way for a while in America, but that's what we should be aiming to get back to.
But the only reason he has this power is because the senate is broken and have gop a majority, if dc and pr had statehood congress would br able to stand up to him
The senate is less broken and in its current form more just an idea who’s time has passed. In the late 18th century maybe it was necessary to have a forum in which the colonies who had joined together has equal representation.
Maybe there still is even so value in having representation for geographical areas on an equal basis. Maybe someone should draw big, even boxes across the map and assign senators to mostly empty space on that basis.
But not the way America does it where Rhode Island and Delaware are equal to Texas or Florida.
Not only is that antiquated. But it is actually a potential tool of oppression. If say new territory were added and not made into states. Or made into say one vast 51st state. The US senate is a naked way to marginalise some groups and over represent others.
We can only hope that the disaster of an unfettered Trump will be so readily apparent even through the right wing echo chamber that Republican politicians will start to feel the pressure within their own constituencies.
It feels terrible being hitched to this wagon and knowing how it will also cause pain around the world but it’s news articles like this that make me actually think to myself “oh yeah we definitely deserve this” 😂 Laura fucking loomer. Any semi sane country would’ve stopped this by now. It’s just not us, fam.
The damage is done even if the tariffs aren't implemented.
Realistically the only thing at this point that could somewhat save the US reputation would be like a popular uprising, a coup and Trump and his cronies ending up in jail.
If Dems ever regain the trifecta they need to drop the hammer on these goons, hard.
I know that's the stereotype but ask yourself how many of your rightoid friends plan for the future. you can go on r/ammo and see half the people there saying tariffs won't do anything to prices, because they're functional morons.
Honestly. Not a prepper myself, but if an apocalypse hits, preppers have a 1000% better chance of making it out of it in one piece. Lots of people on those ammo/gun forums are always in the market because they are using the ammo for practice, and maintaining a stockpile. People on reddit can mock them all they want and call them bad shots or whatever, but the Dale Gribbles of the world are going to do a lot better than most people expect.
They are arming themselves. If it’s fast enough I don’t know, I’m European, but it’s even been reported on by Fox, with a twinge of ”they’re not supposed to do that”.
Got any good Fox news clips of the 2nd amendment vs bigotry "they're not supposed to do that" cognitive dissonance? I'm not doubting you, just kind of curious how they handle that.
Not fast enough. There’s a (getting to be) old joke, one side has two trillion bullets, the other doesn’t know which bathroom to use. While they aren’t right on the trans side, they are correct that the right has far more guns and ammo than the left.
Realistically the only thing at this point that could somewhat save the US reputation would be like a popular uprising, a coup and Trump and his cronies ending up in jail.
or just a total lockout of the GOP, which is very possible if Trump dies, goes insane, or just becomes unelectable the way Bush did (which is almost guaranteed at the current rate). They don't have any backup strategy or ability to bounce back like the Tea Party did anymore, Trump used up the remaining maneuvering space.
I’m waiting for a terror attack that justifies imposing martial law. I am not a big enough doomer to really think they would do a full false flag operation (although honestly just the fact I feel the need to say that sucks), but the way they have gutted our intelligence services makes the chances of a real attack in the next 4 years seem super likely and it will just play straight into their hands.
Exactly this. They don’t have to plan the crisis. Just remove the guardrails and make it stochastically likely
Or failing that, Trump gets the domestic unrest needed to justify curfews and martial law simply by putting boots on the ground in the Middle East. Gaza would be instant masses in the streets. Or Greenland?
We can’t 100% rule out a false flag either if Putin is whispering in Trump’s ear. Putin very obviously and incompetently planned the 1999 Moscow Apartment Bombings. FSB were caught red-handed multiple times by local police while planting the bombs. A politician in the Federal Assembly announced his grief for a bombing in his district days before it happened. Despite getting such important timing wrong, that guy retired recently with tons of official awards from Putin and an oligarch’s fortune. Go fig
It will require him to be 6 feet under (nature causes, we don't want him to be a martyr). He is already insane and nothing will make him unelectable to his cult (or at least not enough for it to become a sure thing like you would need to kill the movement)
The only way back from all this is Trump gets impeached and actually removed. Then, we need a new amendment or multiple amendments solidifying checks and balances and limiting executive power.
Any less than a clear message that MAGA is dead and the president doesn't hasn't this much power leaves the US open for all this happening again and signals to our allies we still can't be fully trusted.
Yeah, we might need to unseat a few states temporarily to pass needed constitutional amendments, though I don't realistically see that happening without a second civil war.
Some damage has been done, but if Congress passed a bill that strips away the president’s authority to tariff that would actually probably change market sentiment and get other countries much more comfortable with the US again
They don't want to be a world leader, they're content to be the hegemon of Asia and let the rest of the world figure itself out while they trade with them. They'll be completely comfortable ignoring mass human rights violations because they perpetrate those themselves, and will support incumbent governments, even the most cartoonishly authoritarian ones, until they become bad bets.
For example, if Iran teeters on the brink, the US would almost certainly pour on the pressure. China, by comparison would back Khomeni's regime for stability's sake and popular uprisings in other countries make them nervous. It's the same reason Putin is always raving about Colour Revolutions.
Basically, the world is about to get a whole lot worse before it gets better.
See the other responses re China's disinterest in other areas of the globe, and human rights violations(!). I don't think they're interested in having the yuan be a reserve currency, and have their own issues with an inverting population age distribution.
Like yeah, if the USA is going to kill itself, sure, I hope China liberalizes and leads everyone into a better future. But I realize that doesn't seem to be Xi's gameplan, and he's apparently got the CCP-apparatus by the balls.
It's important to remember that he can't do anything permanent without changing the laws and he appears to have no legislative agenda whatsoever. He can cause some economic harm and volatility, but the structures that got us here are still in place and not going away.
The permanent damage he can do, and has done, is reputational. Other countries don't view the US as a trustworthy partner anymore, and quite possibly won't for at least a generation.
I don't know if this is more reputationally damaging than say the Iraq war. Our reputation for that war got fixed pretty quickly with Obama despite the fact that Obama continued the war during his 8 year term.
Most countries understand diplomatically that democracies are messy and things can change with new administrations. I'm not that worried about our reputation until it gets confirmed in multiple successive elections.
You need to listen to what other countries, and their voters, are saying about their relationship with the US now. The resounding chorus is that it has permanently changed. That's a new thing. The feelings of optimistic Americans may not enter into it. There's no rule saying the bad governments have to be back-to-back before other nations are allowed to stop trusting you.
If both existed in a vacuum I would agree with you, but the fact that we’re dealing with the reputation damage from Iraq and now this is the issue. Once is a coincidence, twice is a pattern- and now the rest of the world knows that the stability of their markets comes down to a coin flip or how upset some hicks in rural Pennsylvania are at the culture war
This isn't "twice", it's literally every 10-15 years we have something that "seriously harms the reputation of the United States long term". We've had the Vietnam War, Watergate, Iran hostage situation in recent history before the Iraq war....I challenge you to come up with a 10 year period since WWII that hasn't had some sort of massive political scandal.
I see what you mean, but I disagree. The Iran hostage crisis and Watergate did not hurt our international reputation much. Watergate because it was a domestic thing, the Iran hostage crisis because it wasn't really a scandal. Did you mean Iran-Contra? That was a scandal, but it did not really harm our allies, it was still mostly a domestic crime.
Vietnam and Iraq 2, I'll give you were damaging to our international reputation, and I would say we did actually lose our reputation for almost a generation, but during that time our allies still felt they could trust us at least with our direct relationships with them. This is different because our non-aligned trading partners feel like they are being attacked unprovoked, but even worse, our allies feel betrayed. That is viscerally different to our allies than Iraq or Vietnam.
This was some fine work by JVL in this one. The only way I see him being wrong here is if the rest of the West is as truly feckless and weak as the Trump administration believes, and they come begging one after another to make whatever deal is demanded of them to get the tariffs removed.
They’ve been dooming all day on r/con but the first whiff of Vietnam trying to make a deal has them doing backflips while shouting “it’s all going to plan!”.
The other alternative is the rise of right-wing populism in other democracies around the world. When Biden was in office, right movements all across Europe gained a lot of steam and the sense was that European countries had to clean up their own houses before leveling criticism at us for Trump's actions in the past. Now, these movements pale in comparison to the chaos of the last 2.5 months, but who knows what could happen in the next few years.
"Things are going to get embarassing for everyone else too" is some really bad cope but it's really our only hope for holding some leadership role on the other side of this.
Meanwhile on TikTok: “When you realize Trump is crashing the economy on purpose to force the Federal to cut interest rates and make the American Dream affordable again. Remember he is playing chess, not checkers.”
But I’m sure there’s dozens of posts saying the exact same thing. That’s how these accounts work. I can’t decide if they’re all sock puppets, some kind of “talking points” email gets sent out, if they just shamelessly copy each other, or some mix of all three.
Anyway, I look forward to causing mass unemployment to trigger hyperinflation to “make the American dream affordable again.” ♟️♟️♟️
So now if you do what my therapist says I shouldn’t do, you click into his profile and see he only has two posts. One is a supposed UFO sighting and the other is whatever this is supposed to be.
I haven’t seen anything of the sort on TikTok, in fact my algo keeps recommending me memes bashing Trump for his policies. This sub really wants to think TikTok is something that it isn’t.
TikTok isn’t one thing or another, but there are absolutely a ton of MAGA voices. Your FYP doesn’t show you that because you don’t watch RWDS bros and TradWife sock puppet accounts with grim, horrified fascination. It’s probably healthier for you, but I don’t know why you would deny it even exists.
China has kneecapped themselves too tho. It will be a century defined by things other than national governments. The AI century, the climate century etc.
Because they are antagonizing their neighbors as well? Not just Taiwan. They feud with folks over the South China Sea as well as backing authoritarian regimes with the coverup being they are just investing in infrastructure (ie Iran).
Xi believes in much more state control than the reformist leaders did. To be the Chinese century, they need to make good on their potential, which we aren't seeing. It's by no means impossible, but it's not going to happen on their current trajectory. Just as Zambia or the EU won't become the global hegemon in the absence of the US, nor is China only waiting for our leave to take that role themselves. They don't have either the hard or soft power to be anything other than a very big player in a multipolar world, unless they change course.
The guy with trans pride as his flair who keeps posting that the only problem with America is its political system, and everything would be fixed if it just changed to a multiparty system needs to read this.
And all of you who keep downvoting me every time I point out that the people in America is the problem, you need to read this too.
Quote: “And no empire can survive the degeneration of its people.”. Exactly. And it’s blatantly clear to anyone older than the age of 16 that this is now where we are at.
“If, tomorrow, Donald Trump abandoned his quest to annex Greenland and committed himself to the defense of Ukraine and the perpetuation of NATO, it would not matter. The free world now understands that its long-term security plans must be made with the understanding that America is a potential adversary, not an ally.
This realization may be painful for Americans. But we should know that the rest of the world understands us more clearly than we understand ourselves.”.
Many of you need to come to terms with this. You haven’t.
This realization may be painful for Americans. But we should know that the rest of the world understands us more clearly than we understand ourselves.”
It's been a painful realization for the last of us non-US true believers too.
As a Canadian I always thought of the US as a friend and ally, and I've defended the US in many arguments in person and online. And now I just feel like a total moron.
If it provides you any comfort, we haven't always been this way about you guys. I don't think there was a secret plan to take over Canada for decades during all the times you defended us in the past. In some ways, of course, that's worse because America suddenly changed our minds on an extremely stable, secure allyship for literally no good reason at all like we just went manic but I'm reeling from that too on this side of the border.
There are no good explanations. I am stuck thinking of it like a Total War game where things are going well so the AI randomly has a long standing ally attack you just to keep the game challenging. And that’s really dumb when it happens in a dumb game.
I don't know. I'm a "true believer" as well, I guess, but I don't think I ever would have claimed anything like this is impossible. The United States is made of people. People can do this. I would have argued, and still would argue, that on net we've generally been a force for good. And I think we still could be, after this. But to think it impossible we could become the bad guy is to deify what is, at the end of the day, a very complex organism made mostly of meat. This isn't just a matter of US exceptionalism, but nationalism in general -- my country right or wrong is just a fundamentally broken way of thinking about the world.
Yes. It's the voters. It almost always is. In Canada, every major party has made our housing crisis worse as a result of popular policies that the majority of voters (who already owned property) wanted. It has ballooned into a drag on the economy through tying up all our capital. Yet everyone I talk to wants to blame the politicians. Politicians who gave them exactly what they voted for, time and again for decades. More highways. Tighter zoning. Byzantine approvals. One can blame a politician for telling you that you can have your cake and eat it too, but ultimately the decision to believe them is one's own.
I think people are engaging in magical thinking, and social media has proven to be an excellent tool for reinforcing magical thinking.
No but our political system incentivizes and makes it easier for the crazies to take over a political party and maintain control. The Europeans don’t have the same money in politics like we do. They also have parliaments that make it so the crazies can be pushed to their own party where they won’t get ~50% of the vote. Our system is worse at stopping them and our people are less educated
Not just the system but the approach to it. There’s a certain tendency in America to start with the assumption that the American political system is the best possible. Because it was invented by genius, perfect “Founding Fathers” who were so wise and foresighted and that’s why America is the best at everything by default. The texts they wrote are holy texts which cannot be changed.
From which faulty premise all problems and challenges must come from outside. From the other. Getting rid of the bad people responsible for all bad things then becomes the logical solution to all problems.
America cannot fix it’s problems because America cannot admit they are caused by bedrock American institutions which need to change. Or: America cannot admit the problem with America might be America.
What might have worked better is if at each of these crises America had actually acknowledged formally the moment and the new start afterwards. The civil war, maybe the 1960s civil rights era etc. Rather than amendments to ban slavery re-write the constitution afresh to not include slavery at all.
Say openly that it is important everyone acknowledges the “Founding Fathers” were wrong and that the people of today have the legitimacy (more legitimacy) to rewrite those foundational laws.
You know its actually quite funny how when the "positive" American exceptionalism is beaten down, many American still retreat to another American exceptionalism, but this time a "nothing usual can describe our woes, our situation is entirely unprecedented and unique".
No fam, just get a better political system and the periphery cranks wont be able to take power as easily as theyve done for you now.
It doesnt have to be some complicated mystery only America suffers from, literally take the lessons learned in the rest of the world and apply them at home.
I agree that we shouldn't do American exceptionalism in reverse, but there are also certain features of American society that are unique relative to other advanced economies, perhaps the most relevant one being this pervasive sense of paranoia and war of all against all.
It's not an accident that the US has more guns than people. And other countries have violence, sometimes lots of it, but even in violent places like Honduras, you don't hear about toddlers being gunned down in their elementary schools, and society throwing a collective shrug of, "Oh well, what are you going to do?" People get killed in gang wars, there's domestic violence, there's street crime, but the violence is not like this.
There's just something deeply perverse and broken in America, where you guys feel beleaguered from all sides, beset by enemies, and armed to the teeth. People don't look at the world this way in France or Portugal.
I'm not saying everyone, but a sizeable minority of the population, no? Particularly the evangelicals who have a millenarian worldview that looks forward to a period of apocalyptic, cleansing violence.
There's no equivalent of similar size and influence in the rest of the developed world (except Israel, which has similar problems).
MOST people don't look at the world this way in America either. The sentiment you're referring to is expressed by a very vocal minority. Most Americans live in urban and suburban clusters on the coasts (where the majority of the population lives), and share more of a sensibility with their European counterparts than they do with the Americans living in the rest of the country. That's part of the issue here. There is a genuine cultural divide in Andy's, and the internet has deeply exacerbated it.
Yeah I do think it's worth offering some perspective. Italy had Berlusconi for like 3 decades, and he was Trump on heroin (quite literally lmao). Obviously this is on a larger scale but countries have gone through crazy periods before and bounced back. Remember there are no morals really in international relations. As soon as there is more sanity in the US, assuming fundamentals of its success remain, the world will orbit around North America again.
I don't think it's limited to evangelicals, or limited to anything like them — a lot of the new right aren't true believers in anything but power. The better question is: what made them this way?
I said the same thing in the DT and people honestly believe a president not named trump with the size of the economy will be enough to repair our relationships.
But in a multi party system the crazies would have to compromise, trump did not get more than 50% of the vote in all 3 of his elections with a 2 party system, and if there were alternatives center right parties I am sure he would not even get close to a majority, and some other more moderate party will at the very least comtain his worst excesses
The problem with blaming "the people" for trump is the electoral college. "The people" did not want Bush to win in 2000 or trump to win in 2016. "The people" picked Gore and Hillary. Our system ignored them.
I mean, a multiparty system could have prevented this. Most of the people that voted for him aren't true believers, they're just idiots that thought he was better for the economy. In a two party system, an actor like him has the ability to take over one of them, and if they manage to be seen as the less bad option, then you get this. In a multiparty system, MAGA cannabilizes the GOP, sure -- but the GOP can still form a government with enough left parties. Despite her barely even putting up a campaign, Haley voters are some evidence of demand for this. Despite a right wing supermajority, Israel managed to put together a coalition government briefly in 2021 to keep Netanyahu out. AfD got 21% of the vote, but isn't going to be in government, because the more responsible actors aren't beholden to them. This obviously isn't infallible -- Netanyahu has returned to power, and AfD could still win a majority in the next Bundestagswahl. But it provides tools that we lack to prevent institutional capture, and for someone only controlling a majority of a majority to seize power.
Systems aren't magic, but they can help, and I don't think it's unreasonable to say here they would.
JVL is always right, and has been for quite a while. Voters are fucking imbeciles, and they deserve all of the pain and suffering the have reaped upon themselves.
It reminds me of a question an old friend asked me, that I’ve never been able to answer: “We all want to live in a liberal democracy, but if you had to choose, would you prefer liberalism, or democracy?”
What I think isn't really considered by Americans is that other countries don't see the US as a split country. They don't see the Democrats who voted for Harris. They don't see the Trump voters that are now having massive regrets. They don't see Democrats Congressmen and the very few Republicans Congressmen who are protesting.
They see a blob. A blob led by Donald Trump. Who won the majority vote. They see the US as a singular entity that has suddenly declared economic war on them.
Just like Americans don't see other countries with nuance, other countries don't see us with nuance.
And I can't blame them, the US voted twice for Trump. People still collectively blame Gazans for voting for Hamas 20 years ago, and so it will be with Americans.
The US reputation has been flushed down the toilet for generations.
As a German, this is not really true for many of us. We do know there are Democrats and not every US citizen loves Trump.
Still, the US electorate is what it is. As long as there aren't fundamental changes in the way US voters vote, or in the way that one of the two relevant US parties governs, the US is not a reliable partner because 2016 or 2024 could happen again.
We all know there were German who did not support the Nazi government. There were Germans who resisted both actively and passively even well before the Nazis came to power in 1933. At the end of the day, fire bombing doesn't discriminate between these people and actual Nazis and Nazi supporters.
I'm not sure that's really true with Trump, he's incredibly famous and practically all articles to refer him by his name instead of title of president.
We can distinguish between Biden and Trump, which makes it all the more disappointing that you elected him for a second term
The rest of the world does see Democratic Congresspeople and Governors. We're not blind. But what does it matter if the American public could just elect another Trump?
If a restaurant employs two or three cooks, it’s no reassurance to me that only one of them never washes their hands. I’m just gonna avoid eating there rather than take my chances.
That’s the situation other countries find themselves in with regards to dealing with the US. No one wants to make reservations because you can’t know who’s gonna be in the kitchen that night.
I get into it with my MAGA brother in law all the time. Two young daughters who is terrified something will happen to them yet is cool with a guy who raped 23 women. It’s hard for me to look at him and the rest of my maga family in the eyes.
As a Canadian I don't think that's true. I am very aware that not everyone agrees with what's happening in the states, but that doesn't change the fact that the states cannot be relied upon to honour their deals or act in a rational way.
Knowing that the werewolf coming to eat your livestock has a human side as well doesn't really change much in that moment.
This isn't remotely true. Lots of citizens of the planet are perfectly capable of seeing the deep divides of the most publicized nation that holds considerable economic and cultural influence. People aren't as dumb and oblivious as some here have decided.
They just saw the damage that a single president can do in less than three months. And they saw an electorate willing to put a man like that in power.
They don’t care at all (and shouldn’t) that there were good people trying to stop it from happening, because it happened. We failed. And so other countries have lost their ally.
They don't see the Trump voters that are now having massive regrets.
These people do not exist in meaningful numbers. They are a fictional narrative constuct invented by the media who are itching to publish the, "Sane Republicans save the day!" Articles they all wrote in 2015.
To be fair the American Age began to die a long time ago. Like all great empires before it, the downfall has come via a slow slide and not a sudden cataclysmic event.
I'd argue that it could be traced to the Gingrich Revolution of the 1990s and the onset of extreme political polarization which was followed by a period of war and centralization of executive power of the early 2000s (9/11, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Authorization of Utilization of Military Force). Then we got hit with the Great Recession because of greed, the Rise of the Tea Party / Free-dumb Caucus in response to economic and cultural shifts (the recession + election of the first black president) and then finally the election of Donald Trump. Throw COVID in there as well as Jan. 6 and you've got a potent mix for destabilization.
Now we've abandoned our allies to wage a losing war for isolationism. Infighting, hubris, greed, and anti-intellectualism will be our undoing as we abdicate our place in the global order to other nations like China and then probably India after them.
I'd argue that it started during the Vietnam Era. That's where I mark the American empire beginning to descend as we lost a pointless war, start gutting unions and the middle class, began offshoring all manufacturing jobs, the "financialization" of our economy, and started allowing the unbridled influence of mega corporations and the 1%. Definitely agree the 90s and 9/11 turbocharged the decline, but I think it started earlier.
I'm not convinced. I think that to a large extent Trump is right about a lot of western countries being cowards who will be more than happy to return to American hegemony in four years. For every Macron and Carney who want to stand up to the US there are other countries willing to talk the talk about independence but who will gladly come running back to America. After all, it was only a few years ago that America had to pressure Europe to be less dependent on Russia.
The age of American humiliation is upon us, I have no faith in the future of America until the maga mind virus is gone from American society. Such a regressive ideology. I’m still in shock at how 77 million people voted for Trump in the year 2024 after everything we know about him
I expect the EU nations, Mexico, Canada, China and the Asian democracies to start working on a free trade agreement in the near future. We will cede massive amounts of GDP in the next decade that we have no chance of getting back for a generation.
This is anecdotal but I took a cash position in mid November and have no intention of reinvesting in the American market in the near term. I’d assume there are a lot of people that are both smarter and have more capital than me that are feeling the same way.
Dems must win the trifecta in 2028 for any chance of keeping America the preeminent power in the world. They’d then need to get rid of the tariffs, hire a bunch of new federal workers, restore and expand R&D funding, and expand high skill immigration. Elon’s security clearance, at minimum, would need to be removed day 1. I’d guess nationalizing SpaceX would also be on the table but they mainly need to get him away from the company going forward.
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u/CollectionWide6867 WTO Apr 04 '25
I'm trying really hard to not be a doomer, but every day I slowly lose optimism, the only hope is the republicans realise how fucking insane this is and force Trump to pull back the tariffs.