9 ms·
At least among voters, there’s been a realignment over the last decade along the globalism/nationalism dividing line. The factions that favor globalism seem to
by rayiner 2y ago
At least among voters, there’s been a realignment over the last decade along the globalism/nationalism dividing line. The factions that favor globalism seem to also favor American military empire (to keep the trade routes safe or whatever, I don’t know).
I don’t trust republicans in Congress to actually do it. But it could be a historic opportunity for democrats to call their bluff and support the cuts. A once in a century opportunity to end the age of American empire and reorient America for the inevitable multipolar future.
- lantry 2y ago> to keep the trade routes safe or whatever, I don’t know Americans benefit a lot from being the world superpower, a lot more than they know, in ways that aren't apparent until they're gone. In 10 years it will be obvious what a mistake it was to intentionally renounce this position.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- fourside 2y agoIt’s like if Google employees complained about Google paying Apple a bunch of money to be the default search engine on Safari. “Why are we spending so much money propping up another mobile OS when we have our own to worry about? Let them develop their one search engine.” Apparently paying so that most of the world is playing by your rules isn’t enough of a benefit and we’d rather the US not have nearly as much leverage.
- XorNot 2y agoThe US dollar as the global reserve currency is an advantage Americans really don't appreciate the magnitude of. The US government is the one nation on Earth that can mint it's own money, and then just pay for things it wants in that same currency directly. There is international trade not involving the US which is executed in US dollars, and country's where it's the de facto real currency compared to the local one. If the global political situation shifts and say, the Euro becomes the global reserve, just how much power the US will have shed is difficult to comprehend.
- 6510 2y agoVlad had it calculated. Using the dollar as the world's reserve currency has brought the US "unearned" $10 trillion over 10 years. > advantage Americans really don't appreciate How can they? They don't get any of that $2150.- per month per citizen? They are told everything must be paid from their taxes? Doublethink is hard?
- skinnymuch 2y agoAmericans on avg aren’t reaping vast majority of the benefits. America isn’t a Social Democracy.
- spamizbad 2y agoThe realignment is less about globalism vs nationalism + multi-polar world and more about creating a tolerance for expansionist nationalism whereby we establish an agreement with major powers to divide up the world for open conquest, with Russia, China and the United States all operating in their respective "sphere of influence" I think its proponents imagine a world where Russia slowly reassembles territories it lost in the '91 and maybe China takes Taiwan with some short wars and the United States just chills out. In practice the United States will likely aggressively pursue its interests in North, Central and South America as well as the Middle East and do so in a destructive fashion. We can also see people manufacturing consent on various male-audience podcasts for a hot war along the Mexican border in the name of destroying the cartels. The idea that an 8% or even 16% budget cut the pentagon could somehow neuter our ability to project power at our doorstep is naive.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- rayiner 2y agoThat’s what a multipolar world is. It allows Russia and China to do in their back yards what America has always done in its back yard.
- spamizbad 2y agoActually what Russia is doing is already much worse. What's the US equivalent of the first and second Chechen wars? China and the US are probably the closest analogs right now.
- whatshisface 2y agoIraq and Afghanistan were both pretty rough for the people living in those countries, and like the war in Ukraine neither one could be justified by reference to the interests of the invader, much less any of its citizens.
- 2y ago
- blackeyeblitzar 2y ago> I don’t trust republicans in Congress to actually do it. But it could be a historic opportunity for democrats to call their bluff and support the cuts. I think there’s a huge natural reason for both parties to get behind significant and aggressive cost cutting, which is the accumulating debt and wasted spending on interest payments. Reductions in costs, even outside mandatory spending, will have an effect on reducing the amount of debt and burden of financing. They will also make the economy more resilient since it will be less sensitive to interest rates. This is critical to retaining a stable economy even when other countries, such as China, are in difficult economic positions. > A once in a century opportunity to end the age of American empire and reorient America for the inevitable multipolar future. If there is a multipolar future, I hope the other superpowers are countries that are relatively peaceful and share values like free speech. I don’t trust China to be that country as long as it is led by the CCP, as long as it continues to hold onto (or threaten) territories that aren’t rightfully a part of China (like Tibet, Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Taiwan). It’s in America’s interests to prevent a multipolar future since the only other competitor is China. Maybe that will change - I’d be more willing to accept a future where the other superpowers are Europe or India or whatever. But any multipolar situation requires the US cut spending and fast. If there is a true competiting power, it will mean America will have to live with the realities of a weaker dollar, high debt, and other headwinds (like low growth, high interest rates, inflation).
- 3eb7988a1663 2y agoI do not see how you square that with the tax cuts that are being proposed in the same breath. Some $4.5 trillion in reduced revenue makes the debt problem worse.
- blackeyeblitzar 2y agoIt depends on the details. It’s certainly possible that more money in the hands of consumers, entrepreneurs, and investors will lead to growth that will have larger revenue generating effects than the apparent losses. It’s also possible that an initial round of spending reduction and tax reduction will encourage the public to support further changes in the future, including bigger cuts in spending - meaning it doesn’t have to all balance out at once right now. I do think that public appetite for this will grow - just purely based on the numbers, it seems inevitable that the US will end up revisiting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. It’s painful but I think more people are recognizing this reality daily. Coming back to the revenue reductions: the Trump 2.0 administration is very different than Trump 1.0, and he has a lot of smart, experienced people around him to advise him. I can envision them coming up with plans that are successful in putting America back on the right track. But I certainly don’t “trust” the plan by default, for the same reason you’re bringing up. At the same time, I don’t want to be too negative about it either - we just don’t know enough about it. And maybe that’s okay, since it can be useful for the administration to not reveal their larger strategy publicly for many reasons. So I can’t square it, but I am hopeful about where all this is going. Continuing the trajectory of the last several administrations is worse.
- kevin_thibedeau 2y agoThere is a need to reign in spending to sustainable levels after 30 years of Republican driven largess. The problem is revenue is going to get kneecapped with another tax cut so the menace can prop up his self esteem.
- Waterluvian 2y agoRussia invading a country that was legitimately starting a new chapter in becoming more democratic is what changed my mind on military budgets. However you want to frame globalism, nationalism, etc. I think it’s a perfectly rational reason to think, “huh, maybe it doesn’t just have to be pork barrel spending and to invade countries with oil…”
- Seattle3503 2y agoI agree. American misadventures in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan have eroded the American peoples appetite for intervention. But there is somethings to be said for being the arsenal of democracy and defenders of a liberal world order. If we don't defend a LWO, we will sit and watch as illiberal dictators carve up the world and subjugate its people. Maybe thats okay if we save money and don't risk becoming the bad guy ever.
- 6510 2y agoThe US supports obedient dictators and actively creates them. There is no heroically rescuing people from terrible oppressors but you can imagine why it is sold like that.
- rayiner 2y agoAll of those disasterous mistakes were justified in terms of defending “a liberal world order.” Look in the mirror—you’ve become a Reagan Republican now. You’ve embraced the same disasterous ideology of liberal universalism.
- 6510 2y agoThe agreement was that we would not put rockets in their back yard. The response was therefore entirely predictable which means we should now consider if it was worth putting rockets in their back yard. What was gained by it? Weakening Europe was of course good for the US economy. Blowing up our gas pipe was also good for the US economy. But if you want to follow the official narrative: How democratic is Ukraine now that everyone is dead and the elections have been cancelled a year ago?
- hollerith 2y ago> to keep the trade routes safe or whatever, I don’t know During the Cold War, Washington used free trade as a bribe to get countries to consult with the Pentagon on security issues. It was able to do that because although it was mostly decoupled from international trade, the American economy was so large that what little international trade it did engage in (as a percentage of total US GDP) was quite valuable to smaller economies. I guess governance quality in the US could have declined so much since the end of the Cold War that narrow business interests have gotten control of US trade policy, but for many decades Washington cared more about preventing the rise of a competitor (in the Soviet Union) that could eventually challenge it militarily than about using international trade to improve American economic performance -- because the US economy ran well without international trade. The main reason the US had a dominant navy is that it is the most efficient way for the US to prevent the most potent military threat against it: namely, some other country's navy showing up on American shores and bombarding things or interfering with coastal shipping from one US port to another US port. The fact that this same navy has been useful for keeping the world's sea lanes free from piracy and privateering has been just a nice secondary effect. (Similarly, Britain's global empire was a secondary effect of centuries of British efforts to prevent Dutch, French, Spanish and North African fleets from raiding the British coast and raiding British ships operating near the British coast).