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>>- exhibiting a number of traits typically attributed to fascism Only if you actively misunderstand, or more likely only listen to selected clips by mainstrea

• Yoric 5y ago
  > Only if you actively misunderstand, or more likely only listen to selected clips by mainstream media I watched entire speeches by Donald Trump. Were they representative? I have no idea. Were they scary? Not all of them. But a sufficient number that I stand by my estimate of a perfect 14/14. I'll let you check on Umberto Eco's scale to see if something is missing. > Trump foreign policy was returning America to what it should have been all along, *Free Trade with all nations, entangling alliances with none* (emphasis mine) Interestingly, this is exactly what the EU has been moving towards for the past few decades. Hence the attempt to not be economically dependent from the US. Hence the refusal to take part in the trade war against China. I remember how France was – and, to some extent still is – covered with mud in US media for refusing to take part in the Invasion of Irak (forgot whether it was the first or second), but that was also a symptom of the same. Hence the balancing act with buying some things from Russia that the EU could also have bought from the US. Selling weapons to Russia and buying gas from them? Didn't turn out so well, we can all agree. The alternative to buying gas from Russia was nuclear power, which would have been much better, but got much maligned after Three Miles Island, Tchernobyl and Fukushima. This will happen, eventually, but too late. > I can see why the EU would worry about that but not for the reasons you seem to think I realize that the way I wrote my post could have been clearer. While I can't escape writing some of what I think (in particular, the Umberto Eco scale of fascism), the general idea was to explain what EU leaders think, as far as I understand. These worries are not personal to me. On the other hand, yes, what you're pointing out is also true. Life without an alliance with the US is a scary perspective. And the EU has been quite slow to build its own army, relying too much on the fact that it is a nuclear alliance and has a large intersection with NATO. I believe that, if Putin's invasion hadn't happened, EU countries would slowly have left NATO and concentrated on building a unified army. I hope that the latter will happen nevertheless. > You believe that started with Trump? That has been a mainstay of US foreign policy at least since WWII, it was not even the first time we fucked over the Kurds. Maybe? Also, you already pointed out (with different vocabulary) that, under Donald Trump, the US preferred isolationism. Does this mean that we agree that the US is not a reliable ally for Europe, especially under Trump? > I 100% support the decision to leave. I actually support that decision. But I think we can agree that leaving could have been done much, much better. > I disagreed with the Tariffs, however I absolutely supported his desire to increase our manufacturing base in the US, and hold other nations accountable for their abuse of trade policy at the expense of the US which has been going on since at least Bill Clinton if not longer. The US has and continues to be asked to "sacrifice" our prosperity for the good of the world while other nations refuse to do even a fraction of what the US does, and even when we meet the goals often the rest of our "partners" like the EU pants the US as a bully, as evil, as the problem. Frankly we need a president to stand up for the US. I had a scathing (and, frankly, rather stupid) reply for this. And then I realized one thing. I find this line of "The US has and continues to be asked to "sacrifice" our prosperity for the good of the world while other nations refuse to do even a fraction of what the US does" extremely interesting. Because I've heard this line being repeated over and over: - in the US, recently, by Trump-style Republicans; - in the EU, recently, by far right parties; - in the UK, recently, by the Brexit party (didn't Thatcher use that line, too, some time ago, now that I think of it?); - but also in the EU, for decades, by socialists and communists of various shades of pink-to-red. Of course, you need to substitute "good" and "bad" actors when you cross the Atlantic or the Channel. Bad actors (which can be the EU, the US or the UK) abuse "our" (insert whoever you are) good faith while "we" need to sacrifice our prosperity (the exact definition of prosperity may differ slightly between left and right) for the sake of others while other nations refuse to do even a fraction of what "we" do. It would be interesting to try and see where this discourse originates from. I suspect that it's largely propaganda, though. Have you ever had a single representative ask anybody to sacrifice prosperity for the good of the world? What I have seen aplenty, on the other hand, are political figures promising to create/return prosperity through $(magical cure of the day). > The side of the US citizen, first time in a long time the US President stood up for the US Citizen, not global corporations, or globalism So, if I understand correctly, you're basically agreeing with EU leaders that Trump's US was not a reliable ally? Perhaps not an ally at all?
  • emptysongglass 5y ago
    >> Trump foreign policy was returning America to what it should have been all along, Free Trade with all nations, entangling alliances with none > (emphasis mine) > Interestingly, this is exactly what the EU has been moving towards for the past few decades. Hence the attempt to not be economically dependent from the US. Hence the refusal to take part in the trade war against China. This fits with my original conclusion that the EU is hopelessly naive when it comes to global politics. Imagine someone with the bright idea to "diversify" so for the sake of diversity they sell half their energy imports to a dictatorship (this is actually what Germany did). It's quite obviously unwise, at least but they do it anyway because of that magic word "diversify". If I can compare it to my own profession it's like a DevOps guy coming up with the bright idea to go multi-cloud, a tarpit where engineering hours go to die and which most often makes the stack more brittle not less. Let's move on to Merkel and her magic stroke of genius to sell the EU on more of China, not less. Another bright mind walks in and declares, "with China on our side, we'll never have to worry about those bastards over in the US, protecting our ocean trade with their carrier fleets". Yet China is not a good partner, we know this already from their too-sensitive reproaches to such sovereign nations as Australia. Every time the EU gets bit. It's as if they don't realize that the foundations of autocracy are poison and any partnership, especially one that puts the junior at risk of coercion, is doomed. When will they ever learn? When will Germany, a land with personal experience in power-mad dictators learn that the price you pay for throwing your lot in with such company is paid for in blood?
    • Yoric 5y ago
      You are right, obviously, but I suspect that you're underestimating the complexity of the situation. On one end of the spectrum, one may imagine Europe allying entirely with Putin's Russia (or with China, or with any other dictatorship). That's obviously bad. You can live like this for a very long time, but that way leads eventual subjugation, through violence or otherwise. That's the choice of countries that join the Silk Road. On the other end of the spectrum, one may imagine Europe letting the US take all the decisions and being entirely dependent on the US for many critical imports. In other words, becoming a dominion of the US. Certainly better than an invasion, but a far cry from independence. To illustrate, I have heard it said and repeated that the UK has stopped being independent. That any meaningful choice on British policy is actually taken in Washington. I have no clue whether that is actually true, but let us assume for a second that it is, or may be in the future. If that's the case, this means that voting for anything other than local elections is pointless. That the UK is in a limbo, not a democracy anymore, not really a police state, either. Again,let me emphasize: I do not claim that this represents reality. I only claim that this something that many countries around the globe fear when they talk about the US. And, let's be frank, many of these countries also fear it when they talk about European countries. So, if you're a democracy, in Europe or elsewhere, how do you remain independent? Obviously, you want to ally with a strong country (e.g. US) against known predators (e.g. Russia) and suspected predators (e.g. China, Turkey). But you also want to guard against too much dependence on your protector (Russia, China, but also the US and European countries, for instance, have been known to use and abuse leverage for political control). You also want to guard against election interference from the your protector (European countries have been doing this all over Africa, while CIA declassified documents confirm that CIA has been involved in election interference all over Europe since its founding – undoubtedly also true of KGB/FSB, but they don't declassify their documents). Of course, if you spend too much time looking over your shoulder at your allies because you don't trust them, you risk delivering yourself to your predator. Remaining independent is a complicated balancing act that most countries, not just Europe, play as well as they can. Germany's recent fumble shows how complicated but not that it's unnecessary.