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I always thought that the American Empire would be dismantled when it elected a leftist steeped in anti-imperialist ideology who wanted to better the world. N

• pydry 2y ago
  It's not being dismantled at all. It's engaged in a sudden retrenchment which has been brought on by years of slow decline. They even say this - Rubio said that we do not live in a unipolar world any more - a comment which attracted weirdly little notice. Biden's approach assumed a unipolar world which did not exist. That's why the Ukraine war, from the American imperialist perspective, backfired. The achilles heel of the American empire was, ironically, always profit and greed. If there is one thing that could be used to persuade America to let its industry rot it is profit and its industrial malaise is largely responsible for the ever-more-obvious decline in hard military power.
  • masklinn 2y ago
    > It's not being dismantled at all. It's engaged in a sudden retrenchment Sounds like a destruction. The administration is abandoning both the US soft power and its abilities to project through allied countries.
    • pydry 2y ago
      USAID and NED propaganda and agitation are nowhere near as effective as they used to be and they have a stronger tendency to piss off foreign leaders and push them into the arms of rival powers. The golden days of the color revolution are over. The failure in Georgia to push back on the "pro Russian law" (a law similar to one the US has which required all foreign propaganda to be clearly labeled) was probably seen as a watershed moment that it was about time to hit the reset button on that stuff. That one didnt just fail it backfired. No US military bases have been closed though, have they?
      • snailmailstare 2y ago
        Germany must be wondering why it is keeping enemy bases on its soil.
        • masklinn 2y ago
          Japan was just asked why the US spends so much defending it...
          • rad_gruchalski 2y ago
            Because they went in to protect their own interests in the world after the world war 2. They dropped 2 nukes on Japan, remained in the country, and now they want money. Crazy people.
            • epoxy_sauce 2y ago
              We also wrote their constitution that they can't have a military. They still have the jdf but we kinda forced this position, it's a bit of a baffling question.
              • masklinn 2y ago
                Of course it's only baffling if you assume it's asked in good faith.
        • mistrial9 2y ago
          [flagged]
      • rUwzx210 2y ago
        Given that all continuity of agenda posts are downvoted, they are probably true. Political truth is always downvoted. What is expected is to react to the latest headlines, accept them as truth and fight an approved R vs D battle.
  • standardUser 2y ago
    > Biden's approach assumed a unipolar world Incorrect, Biden treated China as a rival power and pursued an industrial policy based on this view.
    • pydry 2y ago
      Incorrect. He tried to box in China and contain it as a solely regional power by building military bases along the first island chain and flipping countries into the US sphere of influence. If China started doing something similar in North America the US would probably invade that country almost instantly (e.g. like it almost did to Cuba during the Cuban missile crisis).
      • mopsi 2y ago
        Probably not - the Cuban missile crisis was about nuclear missiles and nothing else. Cuba remained an ally of the USSR after the missile crisis and continued to host Soviet conventional forces, including fighter jets permanently stationed just 10 minutes from Miami, and regular temporary rotations of nuclear bombers like the Tu-95: https://www.warhistoryonline.com/guest-bloggers/tupolev-tu-95rts-bear-d-thetu-142-bear-f-cuba.html https://www.warhistoryonline.com/guest-bloggers/tupolev-tu-9...
  • causal 2y ago
    "backfired" makes it sound like you believe the US started the war
    • pydry 2y ago
      Few wars have exactly one cause, but to deny that NATO expansion was the main cause of this one is to be a western equivalent of an unequivocal and passionate Putin apologist. Even Donald Trump now admits that stalling NATO expansion and not treating Russian security concerns with utter contempt could have prevented this.
      • Juliate 2y ago
        NATO didn't expand. More countries joined it. That's rather a significant nuance.
        • pydry 2y ago
          Im not sure it's a distinction worth drawing. Other kinds of gang also expand by luring in fresh meat who join voluntarily in a fractious security environment. It's very vulnerable position being a prospective member of a gang. The fact that you try to join one for protection doesnt mean you wont end up being sacrificed when the gang leaders demand you "prove yourself" first.
          • ImPostingOnHN 2y ago
            From whom do the joining countries feel they need security, in this "fractious security environment"? :)
          • Juliate 2y ago
            That's not a gang against another here. Those are democratic, sovereign countries, in an international order governed by law. Joining voluntarily a _defense_ alliance. And one bully country that keeps on bullying, and pretends to be the victim of everyone, and unlawfully attacks a neighbouring country. Despite its own twisted narrative, if someone took the wrong decision, that's Russia.
  • jajko 2y ago
    I don't think you understand some terms you are using, ie unipolar
• sho_hn 2y ago
  I think the meta is studying history, and wondering if any slide toward facism has ever been successfully stopped in its tracks without being beaten down in wars. The two sort-of examples in Western history I can think of are Spain after Franco, and the UK in the 1930s. In Spain a monarch's left-shift was perhaps the deciding and surprising variable, and in the UK it was a powerful civil rights movement. The US has neither, so I don't know what to expect. The two-party system also makes it very hard to bootstrap meaningful change, since both parties tend to try and chase the Overton window, but only one is really pushing to move it right now.
  • Maken 2y ago
    In Spain one of the deciding factors was the prime canditate for succeeding Franco as a dictator being blown up by Basque terrorists. Also, you should consider the Carnation Revolution in Portugal as another example.
    • sho_hn 2y ago
      Thanks -- I really don't know much about the latter
      • belter 2y ago
        The regime collapsed when the Portuguese colonial war in Africa consumed up to 40 percent of the national budget, and a new generation of university-educated military officials began spreading through the armed forces. Portugal endured a dictatorial regime for almost 42 years, one of the longest in modern Europe, which was tolerated by NATO due to its anti-communist stance. [1],[2] Interestingly enough, Russia is currently spending more than 40% of its budget on the war. [3] A far more effective strategy to force them out of Ukraine, would be genuine economic starvation. Instead, the West tolerated hundreds of businesses continuing to operate in Russia.[4] The most likely explanation for agent Krasnov’s, (currently occupying the White House), sense of urgency to halt the war in Ukraine, and use it as a pretext to restart economic ties with Russia is the impending collapse of the Russian economy.[5] If the USA were to leverage its real and soft power by issuing executive orders that refuse to allow any company to do business with Russia. And by threatening sanctions on India and China for enabling the Russian economy, it would force India and China to choose between access to the US market and economic prosperity, or support for Putin. The war would cease, employing the same tactics Reagan used to bankrupt the Soviet Union. Instead, the US administration chose to betray the entire West, by yielding to Russian demands. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnation_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnation_Revolution [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant%C3%B3nio_de_Oliveira_Salazar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant%C3%B3nio_de_Oliveira_Salaz... [3] https://carnegieendowment.org/russia-eurasia/politika/2024/12/russia-economy-difficulties?lang=en https://carnegieendowment.org/russia-eurasia/politika/2024/1... [4] https://leave-russia.org/ https://leave-russia.org/ [5] https://www.chathamhouse.org/2025/01/russias-economic-dilemmas-give-trump-important-leverage-negotiations-ukraine-will-he-use-it https://www.chathamhouse.org/2025/01/russias-economic-dilemm...
• randomNumber7 2y ago
  If you wanne see trump as the messenger of bad news, this could still hold.
• verandaguy 2y ago
  The myth of how much harm "leftists" can do/are doing in the US is probably what got you all here. It's another McCarthyist boogeyman, and it's not even being sold well -- a lot of the marketing's just outright lies, and people are eating that up.
  • spiderfarmer 2y ago
    That’s the most frustrating part. What America calls leftists is considered pretty centrist everywhere else. They’re so afraid of empathic policies it’s no wonder the country is falling apart.
    • lucasyvas 2y ago
      It has completely fallen apart to any outside observer. It will take decades, possibly a generational timescale to repair. The damage is already irreversible on any near to medium term timescale - how bad it gets on an absolute scale is the only thing left to speculate.
      • heresie-dabord 2y ago
        > decades, possibly a generational timescale to repair. It will easily take a generation just for people to find solidarity and courage again. Progress takes real sacrifice. People died fighting for basic dignity and rights. The anti-slavery movement in the US fought monied interests for centuries. It took real sacrifice for the labour movement to gain rights such as voting, education, housing, health care in the face of deadly opposition from the rich and their legislative puppets. It just takes a moment of complaceny on the part of progressive-minded people for the rich and their legislative puppets to undo the foundations of democracy.
        • _heimdall 2y ago
          The risk of undoing progress so quickly is only possible after nearly a century spent centralizing the very authority that makes a quick undo possible. The executive branch shouldn't have nearly as much authority as it does and anything we want to be difficult to be undone should be protected by law, with a legislative body needing something akin to a 2/3s vote to change it. Instead we have a massive, powerful executive branch and legislators that can wield way too much power with a simple majority.
• hobofan 2y ago
  > when it elected a leftist steeped in anti-imperialist ideology who wanted to better the world You are saying this as a hypothetical that never happened, right?
  • pegasus 2y ago
    Probably some of the leftist dictators of South America would qualify. Chavez, Morales et. al.
    • hobofan 2y ago
      Yes, but not in the US, as OP was saying. I assume he was trying to allude to Obama, which at least in the recent decades came the closest to that in terms of media image, but the claim that there has been an anti-imperialist president of the US (on any relevant timescale) doesn't hold up to any scrutiny.
  • epistasis 2y ago
    That's what the "would be" indicates directly in front of the part you quoted. And in reference to your comment below, I am definitely not referencing Obama, that doesn't even make sense because he did not dismantle American Empire in his two terms, in addition to not really being a leftist at all.
    • DangitBobby 2y ago
      English is ambiguous. Your statement can be interpreted as "I thought the guy we elected (a specific individual to whom I refer coyly, not by name) would destroy everything" or "I thought it would take electing a certain type of person to destroy everything".
• onlyrealcuzzo 2y ago
  There's some truth to this, but the bigger issue is that we've been paying A LOT in taxes for A LONG time and because larger and larger portions of that are going to pensions, people are starting to second guess every expense. The good news - form my perspective - is that the GROWTH in the percentage of the workforce living off pensions is slowing dramatically and is now under REAL growth, which means working folks might feel like life is getting better again. The reason people have complained that life hasn't gotten better for workers over the last 20 years is because nearly all growth has gone to more people being retired and the 0.1%. If you keep the same growth, but the number of people retiring slows, there's a little more wiggle room with the pie.
  • kingkawn 2y ago
    The country has been growing and people getting rich taxes are not the issue that’s just Republican propaganda
  • bad_haircut72 2y ago
    I moved from Australia to the USA (be careful who you swipe on dating apps) and went from paying 50% tax to 15% tax for basically the same job with basically the same quality of life. Tax in America is outrageously low which is no doubt why it cant balance its budget (though I approve of cutting government spending aswell).
    • imajoredinecon 2y ago
      Counterpoint: I’m in the US and my effective income tax rate is in the mid-40s, with my marginal rate over 50%. And I’m not in one of the few states with the highest state income taxes.
      • bad_haircut72 2y ago
        Admittedly I live in Texas (no state income tax) but where do you pay 40%? California?
        • 2y ago
• colinprince 2y ago
  I read recently that Patrimonialism is a good way of describing the current regime https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrimonialism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrimonialism
• delusional 2y ago
  I really hope this realization makes you reconsider your distrust of "leftists steeped in anti-imperialist ideology", and whatever ideology you carry.
  • rhubarbtree 2y ago
    See also: “tax is theft.”
• Footkerchief 2y ago
  Horseshoe theory addresses this.
  • Karellen 2y ago
    I need to give a name to my theory which posits that horseshoe theory is a bullshit right-wing talking point, no different from the classic villain trope "We are not so different, you and I", where one side admits to being awful but uses false analogies to try and paint the other with the same brush, and the other rejects both the comparison and the conclusion. The underlying goal of horseshoe theory is not to create a meaningful comparison between two positions, but an underhanded attempt to demoralise those on the left, and to swing undecided centrists by convincing them that the left isn't really offering the progress that it claims. I think it's also used as a shield by people who are right-leaning but don't want to admit it out loud. ...unless you can find a single good example of a notable left-wing proponent suggesting that horseshoe theory is valid, actually.
    • dse1982 2y ago
      This and 1000 times this. It is so absurd: of course it seems ad hoc plausible to treat roughly similar things as if they were the same. However: never do this in this forum, since this is a community is looking a lot into all kinds details, so you will get called out. But somehow – SOMEHOW – the same people that ask for nuance in everything act as if it would be even remotely plausible that the two most polar opposites of political theory would be basically the same for all important intents and purposes if thought to an end. It is simply mind-blowing. People looking at something, seeing it is complex, stopping their thinking and just somehow feeling their way to the most empty assessment ever: "probably the same consequencesif you think it to the end". Without even having begun to think their way through it! But I get it: thinking is nice as long as it is a purely intellectual endeavor but not if any personal moral responsibility is concerned. You might be morally obligated to draw consequences in your behavior – Heaven Forbid!
• exe34 2y ago
  I'm the most cynical person I know, and somehow I spent 38 years thinking the US would always be on top, and despite the smaller scale invasions and the odd assassination, would maintain world peace and fund prosperity for all in terms of fundamental research. I knew that democracy was fragile and that losing it could happen to all of us - except the US. somehow I believed their separation of powers would always work, that the pretence of freedoms would always be in the interest of Western oligarchs. it's been a tough 6 weeks for me.
  • TheOtherHobbes 2y ago
    The US has always been a plutocracy with democratic trimmings. Exactly like ancient Rome. The difference now is that the plutocrats are high on their own supply. There used to be an understanding that if they didn't give something back they'd end up hanging from a lamp post. Now they've decided the little people and their silly little planet are disposable, and AI, magic robots, and a cult of narcissism will replace them. Absolutely lunacy, with consequences as expected.
    • exe34 2y ago
      it does occur to me that maybe they think robot soldiers will soon be able to keep them safe from the revolution, but honestly, they're probably just greedy and reckless.
• pmarreck 2y ago
  > somehow completely controlled by Russia Yeah, about that... Analysis by Grok says "75-85% likelihood Trump is a Putin-compromised asset" https://x.com/i/grok/share/WQepvCpIJl2EJ0F7tHNbLAhm6 https://x.com/i/grok/share/WQepvCpIJl2EJ0F7tHNbLAhm6 Can you imagine if this were true?
  • typeofhuman 2y ago
    Trump's actions towards the EU has resulted in a massive increase in military spending by those nations. This is exactly what Trump has demanded of them. This is consequential to Russia and in no way good for them. To think Trump is "controlled by Russia" is such a tired, worn out farce.
    • rfrey 2y ago
      He has already ceded the two greatest Russian demands re: Ukraine, without a negotiating table even being set up yet. Why did he do that?
      • typeofhuman 2y ago
        [flagged]
        • rfrey 2y ago
          The only path to believing this is to accept Trump communications exclusively. The entire Trump ecosystem is now prohibited from saying that Russia invaded Ukraine. Reality plays no role in any of these narratives. Trump may or may not be a literal Russian agent. But his actions are indistinguishable from one. I'm sorry you're tired of hearing it, I'm equally tired of seeing it.
          • typeofhuman 2y ago
            I'm not sure if you saw my parent comment which circumstantially refutes your assertion that Trump's actions are indistinguishable from that of a Russian agent. I don't think someone courting the Russian interest would encourage the armorment of it's neighboring continent. > Trump's actions towards the EU has resulted in a massive increase in military spending by those nations. This is exactly what Trump has demanded of them. This is consequential to Russia and in no way good for them. To think Trump is "controlled by Russia" is such a tired, worn out farce.
• api 2y ago
  The idea that the empire has a burden to civilize the world is a common theme in empires throughout history. It's part honest desire to do something good with the position history has afforded the empire, and part self-serving rationalization, depending on who is doing the talking.
• sudoshred 2y ago
  It is, in my own opinion, a common fallacy to attribute the outcome as a direct consequence of the associated ideology, when more often than not the ideology is at best a post-hoc rationalization. Material decisions and their natural consequences are far more consistently impactful than any abstract justification for them.
  • cardamomo 2y ago
    Oft quoted on HN in these contexts: "The purpose of a system is what it does." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_what_it_does https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_wha...
• dse1982 2y ago
  The system is eroded by the people who were brought into the position of being capable to destroy the system: by the system!. In so far: "The purpose of a system is what it does" (Stafford Beer). This should motivate us to ask what properties of the system lead to this and how we might change it. To me it seems to be a bit like what the Böckenförde-Diktum points to, which is: "The liberal secularized state lives by prerequisites which it cannot guarantee itself." Basically the modern capitalist secularized society is so void of deep human values and only emphasizing legality and profitability that it brings out a certain kind of elite. An elite which is decoupled from all real human connection and value leading to a thinking like this: https://edition.cnn.com/2025/03/05/politics/elon-musk-rogan-interview-empathy-doge/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2025/03/05/politics/elon-musk-rogan-... Well and now we have to cope with this. But until we understand that these elites are no accident but logical results of the system we foster, nothing will really change. Or better: until we accept that the reductionist approach to human society and value that this system is based on is flawed and act accordingly everything we do is basically just flex-taping it and waiting for the next escalation.
• rchaud 2y ago
  > leftist steeped in anti-imperialist ideology who wanted to better the world. This is precisely how half of the US media characterized Barack Obama, who pioneered an even more impersonal style of American imperialism with drone warfare in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen and Syria.
  • colechristensen 2y ago
    Obama is responsible for advancing the power of the presidency pushing further the limits with executive orders to make law. When met with the uselessness and obstructionism of Congress, both parties elected officials choose authoritarianism. When faced with disagreement, both party's voters advocate for authoritarianism. If the opposition doesn't agree, we'll use the government to force them.
    • deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
• colechristensen 2y ago
  Calling Republicans jealous and afraid is a good way to make yourself feel better but very much misses the character of what's happening. The "I'm a superior son of a bitch" attitude of leftists is gross. Saying "they're just jealous" is something you tell children. What you're saying here is "we're better than everyone else and everyone else disagrees with my positions because they envy how awesome we are".
  • alabastervlog 2y ago
    Democrats have a real problem with saying true but demeaning things that you have to discuss when coming up with strategy, out loud in public. Hillary’s “deplorables” thing was maybe the most prominent example. Her point was that democrats who think that all republicans are committed to evil positions we can’t compromise with or entertain isn’t correct! Only about a third of them are, according to the data. The rest could maybe be reached or worked-with! This is true shit you say in blunt terms in a strategy meeting or nerdy discussion groups, not in public, because poli sci is just full of demeaning stuff about voters, because they are stupid and often evil and if you study democracy soberly that’s what you’ll find, and you have to grapple with it to act effectively, but you don’t say it in public because most voters also don’t know that stuff because they’re not poli sci nerds. She, and/or her speech writers, had been around strategists and wonks too much. [edit] on the other hand, one wonders how much this really matters when Trump wins while saying worse things about all kinds of folks. The way the media approach and characterize and amplify (or don’t) the messages may matter more than what’s actually said.
    • watwut 2y ago
      I find complaining about basked of deplorables coming from the conservative side to be the height of hypocrisy. The same people compete with each other who will be more insulting. They voted for Trump, twice. They love it when politicians are insulting.
      • DangitBobby 2y ago
        Trumpers are utterly immune to declarations of hypocrisy, as people who refuse to engage in good faith often are. There's basically no point in calling it out.
• 827a 2y ago
  It always ends up happening how you least expect it, though maybe that expectation is evidence that it was bound to happen via a different road anyway. At the end of the day, the problem isn't really Trump. The American Empire isn't going to end because its only exporting $300B of military might to the world instead of $600B, when no one else on the planet is scratching $50B (I made these numbers up as an illustration). It might end because it seems like the media landscape has entirely striated the US population into two groups: One group who genuinely and deeply believes that these actions are necessary for the continuity of the US way of life, and another group who genuinely and deeply believes that these actions will destroy the US way of life. No one makes any good faith effort to understand the other side; even my suggestion that this division is the real threat will get downvoted by HackerNews' overwhelmingly leftist bubble. American political discourse is now dominated by people who cannot allow even a single imperfection in their coat of armor, Trump cannot possibly be wrong about anything, his supporters cannot admit they might not have known the implications of what they voted for, the left cannot possibly be wrong about any of their criticism of him, we're screaming past each other. Interrogate your inner thought process right now; were you thinking "What side is this person on?" Its so difficult to get the full picture of understanding of the other side. Trump is rich, egotistical, and doesn't listen to the counsel of others; but Russia is controlling him? Trump wants to reduce the federal debt levels of the United States; but is hellbent on spending anything to deport economically productive illegal immigrants? Trump is silencing the media and kicking them out of the white house; while streaming more than Pokimane, direct from the Oval Office, just rambling for hours a day? Trump supporters were hoodwinked and lied to; yet more than any President america has had for decades, Trump is doing exactly, to the letter, what he said he'd do on the campaign trail; its just that the left didn't believe him back then, because we're so used to Presidents that do nothing. America's children have the worst test scores in the G20, and cost the most to educate; we should continue what we're currently doing? America's healthcare outcomes are among the worst in the G20, and most expensive; we should continue the path we're currently walking? We're in a crisis of understanding right now. We need more moderates. We need people who understand both sides of the coin, and can have a reasonable conversation about why the past 20 years hasn't worked for most Americans, and also why Trump's policies also won't fix things. My fear, however, is that we won't get that in 2028; instead we're just going to move into our camps further, with a leftist version of Trump v JD Vance, and we'll dig further down the hole of two sides that need each other to solve the problems we face, but refuse to work with one-another.
• dtquad 2y ago
  >I always thought that the American Empire would be dismantled when it elected a leftist steeped in anti-imperialist ideology who wanted to better the world. Most leftist political parties in Scandinavia and the Baltics manages to be be both pro-Palestine, pro-NATO, and pro-Ukraine. They don't seen any contradiction because there aren't any. Why do some American leftists follow this 3rd worldist neo-Maoist thinking that Western civilization needs to burn down before you can get free healthcare and free college?
  • epistasis 2y ago
    It's quite frustrating, but it's clear propaganda spread. There's a complete vacuum of media for leftists in the US, and a tiny amount of money goes a long ways to cementing desired propaganda. Seeing the entire left in the US turn on Ukraine calling them Nazis, when in fact they were occupied by Nazis, with all the terrors that entails, and were planned to have half their population killed and the other half enslaved to Nazis, well, it's red pilling. The left in the US is so weak and leaderless that it is easily co-opted to any sort of end.
    • jayd16 2y ago
      What leftists are you talking about? These comments seem incredibly out of touch. Are we going to pretend the left elected Trump and these policies?
      • epistasis 2y ago
        DSA, Jacobin, Democracy Now, etc. etc. etc. have all been incredibly anti-Ukrainian and pro-Russian invasion. This is in contrast to the left in much of the rest of the world, though not all places (e.g. the German left is filled with Vatniks, as is the UK, and nearly every communist party the world over). Electing Trump has nothing to do with what I'm talking about. It's about being mouthpieces for Russian propaganda.
        • slater 2y ago
          "DSA [...] has been incredibly anti-Ukrainian and pro-Russian invasion" wait, what?
• belter 2y ago
  And the billionaires controlled by Russia: "Musk says he could 'collapse' Ukraine frontline with Starlink decision" - https://news.sky.com/story/ukraine-war-trump-zelenskyy-putin-russia-moscow-live-sky-news-latest-12541713 https://news.sky.com/story/ukraine-war-trump-zelenskyy-putin...
• rayiner 2y ago
  [flagged]
  • tptacek 2y ago
    No, he is obviously not.
    • jccc 2y ago
      It seems clear that rayiner is referring to this issue: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43311416 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43311416 "normalizing relations with Russia and disengaging with the rest of the world military was the goal for us liberals back then" ... and not some expansive idea that Trump is just like 90s Democrats.
      • rayiner 2y ago
        Yes, I’m referring specifically to the anti-imperialist angle. There were lots of factions within the anti-imperialist left, but fundamentally there was a distrust of “foreign-policy experts.” And while Trump isn’t a pacifist (and I’m far from one) that’s the part that he really gets.
        • alienthrowaway 2y ago
          The anti-imperialist angle is the same as pro-Ukraine, and opposing Russian imperialism. It's easy to confuse anti-imperialism with pacifism, but you have to remember the anti-imperialist supported anti-colonial warfare even back in the 80s and 90s. Supporting a war to resist imperialism is completely congruent with anti-imperialism, and explains support for Ukraine.
          • rayiner 2y ago
            That’s not anti-imperialism, it’s an argument for maintaining and using the american empire to enforce borders on the other side of the world. And your same logic would have gotten the US involved in the korean and vietnam wars as well. How do you distinguish those?
• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• throwaway48476 2y ago
  I don't see this driven so much by ideology as much as musks drug fueled conversations with putin.
• rad_gruchalski 2y ago
  It’s being dismantled by an immigrant from South Africa with a dude who’s grandparents immigrated about 100 years ago from Germany who has an immigrant wife.
• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• jnaina 2y ago
  If the current situation continues to unfold logically, it is inevitable that we may witness the secession of several states within our lifetime, to form a Federation of States. Hopefully California + Oregon + Washington State can secede and form the Western Federated States of America (WFSA). The combined nominal GDP of California, Oregon, and Washington is approximately $4.1 trillion. If these three states were considered a single entity, their combined GDP would rank as the world’s fifth-largest economy.
• pyuser583 2y ago
  Trumpian foreign policy isn't new. It's an "America First" ideology that goes back to Andrew Jackson. Arguably it goes back to George Washington, and his famous resignation speech. Playing nice with foreign empires, economic protectionism, domestic military action, an "all or nothing" attitude towards foreign wars, taking chunks of our neighbors back yards, etc. This isn't new at all. It's exactly what FDR had to overcome to build the American Empire.