7 ms·

I’m not from the US and news like this change my perception of that country - it seems unstable; just like I’m not considering a Wordpress blog, I’d think twice

by thih9 2y ago

I’m not from the US and news like this change my perception of that country - it seems unstable; just like I’m not considering a Wordpress blog, I’d think twice before any long term plans that involve the US. The comparison to the Wordpress drama works surprisingly well for me, complete with vendettas and an overzealous leader, just on an even larger scale and affecting more people.

DyslexicAtheist 2y ago
imagine being energy dependent on a regime that bullies you from Washington, and being asked to increase security spending to 5% of GDP by purchasing US weapons systems. while being told by the same regime they might take over Greenland or the Panama canal. when putting US foreign policy into perspective over the past 30 (or more depending where you are) years, then aligning with China suddenly looks a lot less awful all of a sudden.
- SlightlyLeftPad 2y ago
  I think when you look holistically at the promises that China has made, and broken, it still doesn’t make sense to align with China. That could change in the future but the time isn’t now. An example; look at what they’ve been doing in the South China Sea, Hong Kong or Xinjiang. Some instability in the U.S. is definitely uncomfortable but the alternative is not better.
  - DyslexicAtheist 2y ago
    touché
  - monkeyfun 2y ago
    What are some of the broken promises? I'm not well informed on the subject and now you've got me really curious.
    - credit_guy 2y ago
      The promise that everything will be fine in Hong Kong?
      - guappa 2y ago
        I think "fine" and "you can ignore laws" aren't precisely identical in all cases.
        illiac786 2y ago
        “fine” and “you can enact any law you want on people because you are not accountable to them” also isn’t really the same. (Not that trump’s accountability is particularly high… but there’s some hope he’ll be gone in 4 years, whereas the situation is different in china)
        SlightlyLeftPad 2y ago
        Please don’t normalize the idea of elimination of nearly century-long term limits that are there for good reasons.
        illiac786 2y ago
        I 100% agree that the biggest damage Trump has done (so far) is normalizing a new (toxic/noxious) behavior for politicians. And everyone in the US should try to remember, every day, that this is NOT normal, and it should not become the new normal. I was being provocative a bit, to help remember it CAN get worse and we shouldn’t just ride it out.
    - lantry 2y ago
      The post mentions Hong Kong, which is something like this: - Hong Kong was ceded to the UK after the opium wars in 1842 - The British returned it in 1997, under an agreement that its economic and political systems wouldn't change for 50 years - starting in the 2010s (less than 20 years later), the PRC has been pressuring the Hong Kong government to drop colonial-era democratic reforms, extradite critics of China, and in general curtail civil liberties. Presumably OP is referring to the PRCs actions to integrate Hong Kong before 50 years have elapsed. I'm not an expert here, this is just my layman understanding from reading American news
- emptysongglass 2y ago
  Other NATO partners being asked to increase defense spending to 5 percent is entirely reasonable. And that's with or without Trump asking for it. I live in Europe, I am European: we've outsourced our own defense for far too long. It is absurd that a country presenting an existential threat to us has been met with more supplied resistance from a country across the earth than Europe. It's long past time for Europe to wake up.
  - mdhb 2y ago
    Agreed on this. It’s the other two parts that go with it that are the problem: 1. You have to allocate that budget towards buying from the US defence industry. You are not going to be allowed to spend that internally. Which arguments aside of if that actually makes sense is at least a conflict of interest. 2. We are also threatening to annex territory and rip up the only meaningful alliance that keeps you safe in practice at the same time. This is all to say nothing about trade wars also happening in the background or that literally the only time Article 5 of the same NATO treaty was invoked it was done by the US and paid for with European lives. I’m generally pro US alliance but it’s also entirely incompatible with a fascist takeover of their government and they absolutely cannot be trusted again until there is serious reform that honestly doesn’t look particularly realistic any time soon.
    - cinquemb 2y ago
      The realpolitik of the situation: you can only really have an alliance among equals and its foolish to believe otherwise with a massive power imbalance (I doubt the cultural boundaries in Europe will aid this endeavor for some kind of unified security umbrella, when unification of the sovereign euro debt markets has remained illusive as represented by the spreads). It's clear that the post wwii era where the US willingly funds everything under the sun ex-stateside without clear equivalent concessions that can be sold politically to the stateside is over for now. I'm hopeful that it will create a more robust governance systems on the local level in the long run, but not without more short term pain (after all, there were a lot of non-stateside mouths being fed who will have to figure out realistic alternatives and face once unpalatable choices that will need to be made out of necessity).
- illiac786 2y ago
  I still hope for a next election in the US. I don’t in china. That alone makes china significantly less stable /reliable on the long run (while on the short term it might be the opposite actually)
Juliate 2y ago
That. The impact on commercial, technical, cultural influence of the USA is incredible. How could we have any insurance that these (personal and professional) US-based infra/tools companies (even AWS, Microsoft, Apple) could be even operating as expected, and in good faith, now that some petulant, inconsequential mixed-business-political leader is able to trigger that level of damage on a whim?
- Juliate 2y ago
  It just hit me, in the same spirit, aside political affiliation concerns, who would still now drive a Tesla and feel "safe"? Just for the exercise, imagine Musk taking over Google or Apple: would you then still trust your computer/phone at the same extent as you do today?
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- guappa 2y ago
  The only insurance is using libre software only and dropping them completely.
- woodpanel 2y ago
  But in fact we see the opposite: Countries are quick to comply with the new admin's demands. Because put simply, there is no alternative available to US hegemony. Culturally you will still be writing on this platform in 5 years (because, put simply...), no critical mass is leaving twitter/x (because...) and technically you very likely will be using an american made co-pilot (...). Could it be, juuuust maybe, that you're believing what the US's other political side wants you to believe?
  - Juliate 2y ago
    > Countries are quick to comply with the new admin's demands. Are you so sure? In just a few days you come to that conclusion? What's certain is the damage that the US is self-inducing. The reaction from abroad, whatever form it may take, has not had the time to take shape yet. > Culturally you will still be writing on this platform in 5 years (because, put simply...) The more I read here, the more I realise how both part of the audience, and part of the hosting, is veeeeery skewed to some peculiar mindset I could not imagine in the past 10 years. Let's say that it is a good continuous learning experience. > no critical mass is leaving twitter/x (because...) [independant citation needed]. I found most of my active communities back on Bluesky and Mastodon, as they have gone almost extinct on X/Twitter. While I see a significant surge of bots (not hard to spot) both in comments, posts and follows. The mass may stay the same, to call it critical is a bit of a flex to me. > and technically you very likely will be using an american made co-pilot (...). I feel it's a bit early to say "likely". As it's a bit early to say that it may still be relevant to use it at all in a few years. > Could it be, juuuust maybe, that you're believing what the US's other political side wants you to believe? And that would be?
aaron695 2y ago
[dead]
hnbad 2y ago
I think "unstable" is the right word. You can argue that far more appalling things happen in places like Russia or China, sure. But this doesn't feel like a controlled assumption of power. It doesn't even feel like Trump is personally in control - let alone his "shadow president". It feels more like a chaotic romp through the federal government, disrupting operations and vital functions with little care or planning, then quickly dispatching a crowd of untrained, unqualified interns to put up scaffolding for something new and more aligned with whatever political goals may have inspired this. Not just the FBI, not just the onslaught of EOs that seem to be more designed to test the limits of power by defying well-established constitutional and legal limits, not just the inconsistent threats of tariffs either. But also random acts like dumping water reserves ahead of summer for no clear benefit other than spite. It's all very unpredictable - not Trump personally but the entire organism that surrounds him in this presidential term. I think this may be because of the many conflicting interests at play. You have Trump himself, the MAGA cult, the Evangelicals and hardline conservatives who supported him, the various interest groups within the GOP and so, so many billionaires trying to get a piece of the pie. I don't think he actually has much control over this. It's not just ideologically incoherent, it seemingly lacks direction. I wonder what it will look like once the dust settles and the momentum has died down. As much as libertarians like to talk about running the government like a business, if the USG were a business right now I would expect it to be on its way to being shut down and sold for scrap like e.g. Toys'R'Us.
- 1659447091 2y ago
  > ... not Trump personally but the entire organism that surrounds him in this presidential term ... I don't think he actually has much control over this. It was always strange to me when the far-right, and then mainstream republicans, started really leaning into this "Deep State" conspiracy theory--not liking the others politics is not reason to believe it was ever a thing on either side. Not in the way it was meant, there was no "shadow government". At some point during Trumps first term something about that idea started to seem like they knew what they were talking about--and not talking about their projection of it onto the "other side". Now, if there was anything that has actually resembled this "deep state", it's what is being put on full display: our emperor got new clothes[0] and we're only at the stage of everyone frozen in cringe. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor's_New_Clothes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor's_New_Clothes
dariosalvi78 2y ago
maybe the people from US will learn that presidentialism is not a good idea?
- fransje 2y ago
  They seem to be heading towards dictatorship, so it looks like the presidentialism issue will solve itself..
- Tarq0n 2y ago
  Honestly the legislative branch is welcome to act anytime they choose to, they just love hiding their own dysfunction behind the lightning rod of the presidency. Like the whole USAID debacle, this is the kind of task and budget that is set by the legislative branch, and the president can and should be held to account if he refuses to execute on that task.

by thih9 2y ago

DyslexicAtheist 2y ago

imagine being energy dependent on a regime that bullies you from Washington, and being asked to increase security spending to 5% of GDP by purchasing US weapons systems. while being told by the same regime they might take over Greenland or the Panama canal. when putting US foreign policy into perspective over the past 30 (or more depending where you are) years, then aligning with China suddenly looks a lot less awful all of a sudden.

SlightlyLeftPad 2y ago
I think when you look holistically at the promises that China has made, and broken, it still doesn’t make sense to align with China. That could change in the future but the time isn’t now. An example; look at what they’ve been doing in the South China Sea, Hong Kong or Xinjiang. Some instability in the U.S. is definitely uncomfortable but the alternative is not better.
- DyslexicAtheist 2y ago
  touché
- monkeyfun 2y ago
  What are some of the broken promises? I'm not well informed on the subject and now you've got me really curious.
  - credit_guy 2y ago
    The promise that everything will be fine in Hong Kong?
    - guappa 2y ago
      I think "fine" and "you can ignore laws" aren't precisely identical in all cases.
      - illiac786 2y ago
        “fine” and “you can enact any law you want on people because you are not accountable to them” also isn’t really the same. (Not that trump’s accountability is particularly high… but there’s some hope he’ll be gone in 4 years, whereas the situation is different in china)
        SlightlyLeftPad 2y ago
        Please don’t normalize the idea of elimination of nearly century-long term limits that are there for good reasons.
        illiac786 2y ago
        I 100% agree that the biggest damage Trump has done (so far) is normalizing a new (toxic/noxious) behavior for politicians. And everyone in the US should try to remember, every day, that this is NOT normal, and it should not become the new normal. I was being provocative a bit, to help remember it CAN get worse and we shouldn’t just ride it out.
  - lantry 2y ago
    The post mentions Hong Kong, which is something like this: - Hong Kong was ceded to the UK after the opium wars in 1842 - The British returned it in 1997, under an agreement that its economic and political systems wouldn't change for 50 years - starting in the 2010s (less than 20 years later), the PRC has been pressuring the Hong Kong government to drop colonial-era democratic reforms, extradite critics of China, and in general curtail civil liberties. Presumably OP is referring to the PRCs actions to integrate Hong Kong before 50 years have elapsed. I'm not an expert here, this is just my layman understanding from reading American news
emptysongglass 2y ago
Other NATO partners being asked to increase defense spending to 5 percent is entirely reasonable. And that's with or without Trump asking for it. I live in Europe, I am European: we've outsourced our own defense for far too long. It is absurd that a country presenting an existential threat to us has been met with more supplied resistance from a country across the earth than Europe. It's long past time for Europe to wake up.
- mdhb 2y ago
  Agreed on this. It’s the other two parts that go with it that are the problem: 1. You have to allocate that budget towards buying from the US defence industry. You are not going to be allowed to spend that internally. Which arguments aside of if that actually makes sense is at least a conflict of interest. 2. We are also threatening to annex territory and rip up the only meaningful alliance that keeps you safe in practice at the same time. This is all to say nothing about trade wars also happening in the background or that literally the only time Article 5 of the same NATO treaty was invoked it was done by the US and paid for with European lives. I’m generally pro US alliance but it’s also entirely incompatible with a fascist takeover of their government and they absolutely cannot be trusted again until there is serious reform that honestly doesn’t look particularly realistic any time soon.
  - cinquemb 2y ago
    The realpolitik of the situation: you can only really have an alliance among equals and its foolish to believe otherwise with a massive power imbalance (I doubt the cultural boundaries in Europe will aid this endeavor for some kind of unified security umbrella, when unification of the sovereign euro debt markets has remained illusive as represented by the spreads). It's clear that the post wwii era where the US willingly funds everything under the sun ex-stateside without clear equivalent concessions that can be sold politically to the stateside is over for now. I'm hopeful that it will create a more robust governance systems on the local level in the long run, but not without more short term pain (after all, there were a lot of non-stateside mouths being fed who will have to figure out realistic alternatives and face once unpalatable choices that will need to be made out of necessity).
illiac786 2y ago
I still hope for a next election in the US. I don’t in china. That alone makes china significantly less stable /reliable on the long run (while on the short term it might be the opposite actually)

Juliate 2y ago

That. The impact on commercial, technical, cultural influence of the USA is incredible. How could we have any insurance that these (personal and professional) US-based infra/tools companies (even AWS, Microsoft, Apple) could be even operating as expected, and in good faith, now that some petulant, inconsequential mixed-business-political leader is able to trigger that level of damage on a whim?

Juliate 2y ago
It just hit me, in the same spirit, aside political affiliation concerns, who would still now drive a Tesla and feel "safe"? Just for the exercise, imagine Musk taking over Google or Apple: would you then still trust your computer/phone at the same extent as you do today?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
guappa 2y ago
The only insurance is using libre software only and dropping them completely.
woodpanel 2y ago
But in fact we see the opposite: Countries are quick to comply with the new admin's demands. Because put simply, there is no alternative available to US hegemony. Culturally you will still be writing on this platform in 5 years (because, put simply...), no critical mass is leaving twitter/x (because...) and technically you very likely will be using an american made co-pilot (...). Could it be, juuuust maybe, that you're believing what the US's other political side wants you to believe?
- Juliate 2y ago
  > Countries are quick to comply with the new admin's demands. Are you so sure? In just a few days you come to that conclusion? What's certain is the damage that the US is self-inducing. The reaction from abroad, whatever form it may take, has not had the time to take shape yet. > Culturally you will still be writing on this platform in 5 years (because, put simply...) The more I read here, the more I realise how both part of the audience, and part of the hosting, is veeeeery skewed to some peculiar mindset I could not imagine in the past 10 years. Let's say that it is a good continuous learning experience. > no critical mass is leaving twitter/x (because...) [independant citation needed]. I found most of my active communities back on Bluesky and Mastodon, as they have gone almost extinct on X/Twitter. While I see a significant surge of bots (not hard to spot) both in comments, posts and follows. The mass may stay the same, to call it critical is a bit of a flex to me. > and technically you very likely will be using an american made co-pilot (...). I feel it's a bit early to say "likely". As it's a bit early to say that it may still be relevant to use it at all in a few years. > Could it be, juuuust maybe, that you're believing what the US's other political side wants you to believe? And that would be?

aaron695 2y ago

[dead]

hnbad 2y ago

I think "unstable" is the right word. You can argue that far more appalling things happen in places like Russia or China, sure. But this doesn't feel like a controlled assumption of power. It doesn't even feel like Trump is personally in control - let alone his "shadow president". It feels more like a chaotic romp through the federal government, disrupting operations and vital functions with little care or planning, then quickly dispatching a crowd of untrained, unqualified interns to put up scaffolding for something new and more aligned with whatever political goals may have inspired this. Not just the FBI, not just the onslaught of EOs that seem to be more designed to test the limits of power by defying well-established constitutional and legal limits, not just the inconsistent threats of tariffs either. But also random acts like dumping water reserves ahead of summer for no clear benefit other than spite. It's all very unpredictable - not Trump personally but the entire organism that surrounds him in this presidential term. I think this may be because of the many conflicting interests at play. You have Trump himself, the MAGA cult, the Evangelicals and hardline conservatives who supported him, the various interest groups within the GOP and so, so many billionaires trying to get a piece of the pie. I don't think he actually has much control over this. It's not just ideologically incoherent, it seemingly lacks direction. I wonder what it will look like once the dust settles and the momentum has died down. As much as libertarians like to talk about running the government like a business, if the USG were a business right now I would expect it to be on its way to being shut down and sold for scrap like e.g. Toys'R'Us.

1659447091 2y ago
> ... not Trump personally but the entire organism that surrounds him in this presidential term ... I don't think he actually has much control over this. It was always strange to me when the far-right, and then mainstream republicans, started really leaning into this "Deep State" conspiracy theory--not liking the others politics is not reason to believe it was ever a thing on either side. Not in the way it was meant, there was no "shadow government". At some point during Trumps first term something about that idea started to seem like they knew what they were talking about--and not talking about their projection of it onto the "other side". Now, if there was anything that has actually resembled this "deep state", it's what is being put on full display: our emperor got new clothes[0] and we're only at the stage of everyone frozen in cringe. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor's_New_Clothes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor's_New_Clothes

dariosalvi78 2y ago

maybe the people from US will learn that presidentialism is not a good idea?

fransje 2y ago
They seem to be heading towards dictatorship, so it looks like the presidentialism issue will solve itself..
Tarq0n 2y ago
Honestly the legislative branch is welcome to act anytime they choose to, they just love hiding their own dysfunction behind the lightning rod of the presidency. Like the whole USAID debacle, this is the kind of task and budget that is set by the legislative branch, and the president can and should be held to account if he refuses to execute on that task.