4 ms·

> There are of course quite a few large US businesses being affected directly by this stuff. I imagine that they are not happy with this. And that level of unha

> There are of course quite a few large US businesses being affected directly by this stuff. I imagine that they are not happy with this. And that level of unhappiness will translate into shifts in political donations. Which, I'm sure is something that will get more apparent as next year's mid term elections get closer. That's a stick that can be (and probably already is) wielded that might produce results soonish. I sincerely hope you’re right, but all initial evidence is the oligarchs kissing the ring, not pulling the strings. Maybe when it becomes obvious that they’re not getting anything for all that abasement they change tacks, but nothing in the Trump era has suggested to me that these folks have the tiger by anything but the tail.

wing-_-nuts 1y ago
>all initial evidence is the oligarchs kissing the ring, not pulling the strings. It was comical how quickly amazon back pedaled on showing tariffs transparently in pricing as soon as the whitehouse complained.
- roughly 1y ago
  One thing that’s been interesting (in a Ralp-Wiggins-esque “I’m in danger!” type way) to watch over the last few years is all the “end of history” types re-learning that Mao was right and that economic might only translates into real power when you use it to buy guns. Europe spent a decade trying to tie Russia into the global economy only to find all that cheap energy meant that when Russia walked into the Ukraine, they were on the wrong side of the ledger to throw their weight around. In the US, our oligarchs didn’t realize how much they were relying on the fact that US government officials believed the same lies about the power of capital that they did, and were caught entirely off guard when Trump walked in, picked up the gun on the table, pointed it at them, and said “I’ll take your wallet, please.” There’s a whole generation of neoliberals learning Littlefinger’s lesson these days: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifaRhL95HUM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifaRhL95HUM - it’s a shame the rest of us are stuck on this ride with them.
  - lenerdenator 1y ago
    To be fair, life's better when you don't have to rely on the guns. If you're willing to work together to make the pie bigger for everyone, peacefully, you get further. Which is why you have to occasionally knock the people willing to exploit the peaceful order, off.
    - lazide 1y ago
      Which takes guns. And back at square 1.
      - otterley 1y ago
        I don’t know that it takes guns. If we moved to, say, ranked-choice voting and a multi-party system, the more extreme elements of our country would probably be sidelined.
        nebula8804 1y ago
        Did you see the bill introduced the other day? H.R.3040 - To prohibit the use of ranked choice voting in elections for Federal office. https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/3040 https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/3040
        otterley 1y ago
        I did not. Talk about a blatant attempt to power grab, though. Hopefully it never makes it out of committee.
        lenerdenator 1y ago
        It still takes them. You need to present it as a choice: you either bring about ranked-choice voting and a wider range of political parties so that issues can be dealt with peacefully, or, face real consequences for attempts to block the efforts at peace.
        1y ago
jpadkins 1y ago
is it not obvious the oligarchs control the globalist politicians and not the nationalists? Is it controversial to say that if you really wanted to "fight the oligarchy", your policy positions would be pretty similar to the America first agenda (sans social issues)?
- roughly 1y ago
  I think it's impossible to understand the relationships here without really grokking that the MAGA set is both incompetent and incoherent. The movement is properly seen as an angry tantrum - a reaction to the state of the world, not a coherent ideology and plan for improving it. The coherent ideology and plan for improving it involves actually investing in domestic manufacturing, a strong push for labor rights and unions to make sure people are getting paid, a commitment to antitrust action, and, yes, protectionism of domestic industry (as a fun bonus, compare that to Biden's economic policies), but that's not what we've got here - we've got rage and anger and personal vendettas and wishful thinking as policy. This is what I mean when I say the oligarchs have the tiger by the tail - from the time of the Moral Majority through the evangelicals of Bush's era through the Tea Party through MAGA, the business wing of the republican party has been cultivating the populist wing as an electoral strategy. They've managed to muddy the water with enough "government bad, immigrant criminals, trans athletes" rhetoric that what you've got now is a party and a movement that can _feel_ that there's something wrong - stagnant wages, inaccessible health care, deaths of despair, and Jeff Bezos - but the right wing message machine still has enough of a hand on the wheel that they can't actually get their way to things like labor rights and social security and all the other stuff we came up with last time this kind of thing happened. Then you get Donald Trump, who well and truly does not give a shit about anything at all, and so he's absolutely fine to grab the wheel here and yank it hard into populism land, and now the oligarchs have a problem, because they've got a mafia boss at the head of an angry mob, and no part of that has any coherent ideology except Trump's crystal clear vision of people paying him a lot of money and treating him like a king, and now you've got tantrum as policy and no actual adults left in the room. So, yes, America First and the MAGA movement are, depending on the day and time, anti-oligarch, but they're anti-oligarch like a dog is anti-car - there's not really a _plan_ there, just a lot of noise and motion and probably some teeth marks, but I don't really think it's gonna work out great for the dog either.
BurningFrog 1y ago
Dictionary definition of oligarchy: "a small group of people having control of a country, organization, or institution." If you're "kissing the ring", you're not in control. The people with the ring are. To spell it out, the US is not governed by a billionaire oligarchy.

wing-_-nuts 1y ago

>all initial evidence is the oligarchs kissing the ring, not pulling the strings. It was comical how quickly amazon back pedaled on showing tariffs transparently in pricing as soon as the whitehouse complained.

roughly 1y ago
One thing that’s been interesting (in a Ralp-Wiggins-esque “I’m in danger!” type way) to watch over the last few years is all the “end of history” types re-learning that Mao was right and that economic might only translates into real power when you use it to buy guns. Europe spent a decade trying to tie Russia into the global economy only to find all that cheap energy meant that when Russia walked into the Ukraine, they were on the wrong side of the ledger to throw their weight around. In the US, our oligarchs didn’t realize how much they were relying on the fact that US government officials believed the same lies about the power of capital that they did, and were caught entirely off guard when Trump walked in, picked up the gun on the table, pointed it at them, and said “I’ll take your wallet, please.” There’s a whole generation of neoliberals learning Littlefinger’s lesson these days: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifaRhL95HUM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifaRhL95HUM - it’s a shame the rest of us are stuck on this ride with them.
- lenerdenator 1y ago
  To be fair, life's better when you don't have to rely on the guns. If you're willing to work together to make the pie bigger for everyone, peacefully, you get further. Which is why you have to occasionally knock the people willing to exploit the peaceful order, off.
  - lazide 1y ago
    Which takes guns. And back at square 1.
    - otterley 1y ago
      I don’t know that it takes guns. If we moved to, say, ranked-choice voting and a multi-party system, the more extreme elements of our country would probably be sidelined.
      - nebula8804 1y ago
        Did you see the bill introduced the other day? H.R.3040 - To prohibit the use of ranked choice voting in elections for Federal office. https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/3040 https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/3040
        otterley 1y ago
        I did not. Talk about a blatant attempt to power grab, though. Hopefully it never makes it out of committee.
      - lenerdenator 1y ago
        It still takes them. You need to present it as a choice: you either bring about ranked-choice voting and a wider range of political parties so that issues can be dealt with peacefully, or, face real consequences for attempts to block the efforts at peace.
      - 1y ago

jpadkins 1y ago

is it not obvious the oligarchs control the globalist politicians and not the nationalists? Is it controversial to say that if you really wanted to "fight the oligarchy", your policy positions would be pretty similar to the America first agenda (sans social issues)?

roughly 1y ago
I think it's impossible to understand the relationships here without really grokking that the MAGA set is both incompetent and incoherent. The movement is properly seen as an angry tantrum - a reaction to the state of the world, not a coherent ideology and plan for improving it. The coherent ideology and plan for improving it involves actually investing in domestic manufacturing, a strong push for labor rights and unions to make sure people are getting paid, a commitment to antitrust action, and, yes, protectionism of domestic industry (as a fun bonus, compare that to Biden's economic policies), but that's not what we've got here - we've got rage and anger and personal vendettas and wishful thinking as policy. This is what I mean when I say the oligarchs have the tiger by the tail - from the time of the Moral Majority through the evangelicals of Bush's era through the Tea Party through MAGA, the business wing of the republican party has been cultivating the populist wing as an electoral strategy. They've managed to muddy the water with enough "government bad, immigrant criminals, trans athletes" rhetoric that what you've got now is a party and a movement that can _feel_ that there's something wrong - stagnant wages, inaccessible health care, deaths of despair, and Jeff Bezos - but the right wing message machine still has enough of a hand on the wheel that they can't actually get their way to things like labor rights and social security and all the other stuff we came up with last time this kind of thing happened. Then you get Donald Trump, who well and truly does not give a shit about anything at all, and so he's absolutely fine to grab the wheel here and yank it hard into populism land, and now the oligarchs have a problem, because they've got a mafia boss at the head of an angry mob, and no part of that has any coherent ideology except Trump's crystal clear vision of people paying him a lot of money and treating him like a king, and now you've got tantrum as policy and no actual adults left in the room. So, yes, America First and the MAGA movement are, depending on the day and time, anti-oligarch, but they're anti-oligarch like a dog is anti-car - there's not really a _plan_ there, just a lot of noise and motion and probably some teeth marks, but I don't really think it's gonna work out great for the dog either.

BurningFrog 1y ago

Dictionary definition of oligarchy: "a small group of people having control of a country, organization, or institution." If you're "kissing the ring", you're not in control. The people with the ring are. To spell it out, the US is not governed by a billionaire oligarchy.