4 ms·

The US has some grace here as most of the negative feelings towards it dies with it's government. You're going to pick better next time, right?

Eddy_Viscosity2 9mo ago
Except that everyone can see that the US is capable of putting this kind of government into power, and could do so again and again.
- rstuart4133 9mo ago
  Exactly. The fixes that would go some way to restore my trust are changed to the mechanisms surrounding the democratic process. Things like no more gerrymander, get rid of allowing corporations influencing the voting by flooding the system with money, somehow fix social media every ad is seen by everyone rather than allowing personalised lies be shown to specific voters, fix your electronic voting systems to a maintenance man with a screwdriver can't make new votes pop into existence (as happened once), stop disenfranchising voters - even to the extend of implementing compulsory voting. The distortions the USA allows now to the democratic process are beyond belief. Oh, and a system that allows a politician to incite a mob to attack the sitting parliament, and get away without punishment, then pardon the perps is a joke.
- UncleMeat 9mo ago
  And the opposition party has proven itself to be unable to take actions necessary to prevent this sort of thing. The democrats could have used the Biden administration as an opportunity to try Trump for his crimes and establish new boundaries on the power of the president. Instead they just hoped he would vanish into the night and left space for his return. If the dems win in 2026 and 2028, what is there to stop a return to fascism and further collapse in 2032?
EastLondonCoder 9mo ago
Not American. Also: reputational damage isn’t a skin that sheds when a government changes; allies and markets adapt structurally.
pupppet 9mo ago
Sort of. Those of us outside the US are aware his support hasn’t cratered. There’s going to be the concern the US will just swap him out for someone similar.
- rchaud 9mo ago
  If past history is anything to go by, the US will elect the current opposition, who won't be nearly strong enough to enact the reforms that would prevent an extremist party from returning to power in 4 years' time.
vidarh 9mo ago
Picking better next time won't be enough unless a lot of work is done to put in place safeguards to make it impossible for a future government to act the same way.
- rendall 9mo ago
  Most people do not understand this.
- cogman10 9mo ago
  That or decades of picking better. Regardless, we are looking at a long time before the world doesn't look at our government in disgust (rightfully).
  - vidarh 9mo ago
    Indeed, but it might be many decades - once this lesson is first learned, it will take a long time to unlearn because it tends to become self-reinforcing. To give an illustration of how long institutional memory over things like this can be: As of when I went to primary school in Norway in the 1980's, we were still taught at length about the British blockade of Norway during the Napoleonic wars due to Denmark-Norway's entry into the war on Napoleons side and its impact on Norway (an enduring memory for many Norwegian school-children is having to learn the Norwegian epic poem "Terje Vigen" about a man evading the blockade). Norwegian agricultural policy to this day has had a costly cross-party support for subsidies intended to provide at least a minimum of food idependence as a consequence of learning the hard way first during the Napoleonic wars with a reinforcement (though less serious) during WW2 of how important it can be. A large part of the Norwegian negotiations for EEA entry, and Norways rejection of EU membership was centered around agricultural policy in part because of this history. The importance of regional development and keeping agriculture alive even in regions that are really not suited to it is "baked in" to Norwegian politics in part because the subsidies means that on top of those who are about the food idependence a lot of people are financially benefiting from the continuation of those policies, or have lived shaped by it (e.g. local communities that would likely not exist if the farms had not been financially viable thanks to subsidies), so structures have been created around it that have a life of their own. Conversely, a lot of support for the US in Europe rests on institutional memory of the Marshall Plan, with most of the generations with first hand experience of the impact now dead. Create a replacement memory of the US becoming a hostile force, and that can easily embed itself for the same 3+ generations after the situation itself has been resolved.
Someone 9mo ago
Even if the US does that, trust arrives on foot, but leaves on horseback, so it will take years to get back to the old state of affairs.
- layer8 9mo ago
  Decades, more likely.
rjrjrjrj 9mo ago
True after the first Trump administration. But now? I doubt it.
fatbird 9mo ago
Trump's passing and his admin getting tossed won't erase the memory that a good third of America was always happy with him and wanted what he actually did. America is now branded with MAGA in a way that will take generations to fade.
- ben_w 9mo ago
  At this point, I'd say terms rather than generations. I mean, I'm old enough to remember people saying "Never Forget" about 9/11, but it's barely in any discourse at this point, and that was a single generation ago and had two major wars a bunch of PoW scandals, war crime scandals that led to Manning, and domestic surveillance that led to Snowden. And yet, despite all that, I've only heard 9/11 mentioned exactly once since visiting NYC in 2017, and that was Steve Bannon and Giuliani refusing to believe that Mamdani was legitimate. So, yeah, if Trump fades away this could be forgotten in 8 years or so; if this escalates to a war (I'm not confident, but if I had to guess I'd say 10% or so?), then I see it rising to the level of generations.
  - 1718627440 9mo ago
    You are talking about the US, the others do not.
    - ben_w 9mo ago
      I'm saying "never forget" fades. That's a human condition we all share. I mean, I live in Germany these days, and this country absolutely got the multi-generational thing, and I'm from the UK whose empire ditto, but… the UK doesn't spend much time thinking about the Falklands War and even less about the Cod Wars.
      - 1718627440 9mo ago
        Nobody disagreed with that it eventually fades, they were all saying it is going to take decades. The consequence of 9/11 of was mostly TSAs, following the USA into wars and the erosion of privacy at the mention of terrorism. The first and the last are still ongoing and I think the current US admin is still using the latter as a narrative, the second one may come at an end currently, because the USA is trying to use it against its (former) allies. What you describe is called "to historicize an event". The WW1 has been historicized by WW2 (some argue it's the same war). But not even WW2 has been historicized yet (at least in Europe) and it already ended 80 years in the past, so I doubt an atlantic conflict is going to be forgotten in the next few decades. Edit: I originally linked to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicization, but this does not describes what I mean. It is weird, because the supposed German equivalent does. The German article is about a concept from the science of history, while the English article is about a literature concept.
arw0n 9mo ago
You have to be incredibly naive to give that much credibility to the US system. A lot more than just a switch of parties would be needed. Personally I highly doubt a possible democratic would return a conquered Greenland. And even if it did, it would have to ensure that kind of derailment doesn't happen again. The opposition so far seems to be about as ineffectual as centrist parties across Europe at dealing with the far right.
donkeybeer 9mo ago
As long as the clinically insane trumpie population exists, the USA cannot be trusted.
mdnahas 9mo ago
For Americans, many foreigners use the word “government” where we would say “administration”. So, a “new government” or “the government falls”, would be a “new administration” or “the administration’s party loses the next election”.

Eddy_Viscosity2 9mo ago

Except that everyone can see that the US is capable of putting this kind of government into power, and could do so again and again.

rstuart4133 9mo ago
Exactly. The fixes that would go some way to restore my trust are changed to the mechanisms surrounding the democratic process. Things like no more gerrymander, get rid of allowing corporations influencing the voting by flooding the system with money, somehow fix social media every ad is seen by everyone rather than allowing personalised lies be shown to specific voters, fix your electronic voting systems to a maintenance man with a screwdriver can't make new votes pop into existence (as happened once), stop disenfranchising voters - even to the extend of implementing compulsory voting. The distortions the USA allows now to the democratic process are beyond belief. Oh, and a system that allows a politician to incite a mob to attack the sitting parliament, and get away without punishment, then pardon the perps is a joke.
UncleMeat 9mo ago
And the opposition party has proven itself to be unable to take actions necessary to prevent this sort of thing. The democrats could have used the Biden administration as an opportunity to try Trump for his crimes and establish new boundaries on the power of the president. Instead they just hoped he would vanish into the night and left space for his return. If the dems win in 2026 and 2028, what is there to stop a return to fascism and further collapse in 2032?

EastLondonCoder 9mo ago

Not American. Also: reputational damage isn’t a skin that sheds when a government changes; allies and markets adapt structurally.

pupppet 9mo ago

Sort of. Those of us outside the US are aware his support hasn’t cratered. There’s going to be the concern the US will just swap him out for someone similar.

rchaud 9mo ago
If past history is anything to go by, the US will elect the current opposition, who won't be nearly strong enough to enact the reforms that would prevent an extremist party from returning to power in 4 years' time.

vidarh 9mo ago

Picking better next time won't be enough unless a lot of work is done to put in place safeguards to make it impossible for a future government to act the same way.

rendall 9mo ago
Most people do not understand this.
cogman10 9mo ago
That or decades of picking better. Regardless, we are looking at a long time before the world doesn't look at our government in disgust (rightfully).
- vidarh 9mo ago
  Indeed, but it might be many decades - once this lesson is first learned, it will take a long time to unlearn because it tends to become self-reinforcing. To give an illustration of how long institutional memory over things like this can be: As of when I went to primary school in Norway in the 1980's, we were still taught at length about the British blockade of Norway during the Napoleonic wars due to Denmark-Norway's entry into the war on Napoleons side and its impact on Norway (an enduring memory for many Norwegian school-children is having to learn the Norwegian epic poem "Terje Vigen" about a man evading the blockade). Norwegian agricultural policy to this day has had a costly cross-party support for subsidies intended to provide at least a minimum of food idependence as a consequence of learning the hard way first during the Napoleonic wars with a reinforcement (though less serious) during WW2 of how important it can be. A large part of the Norwegian negotiations for EEA entry, and Norways rejection of EU membership was centered around agricultural policy in part because of this history. The importance of regional development and keeping agriculture alive even in regions that are really not suited to it is "baked in" to Norwegian politics in part because the subsidies means that on top of those who are about the food idependence a lot of people are financially benefiting from the continuation of those policies, or have lived shaped by it (e.g. local communities that would likely not exist if the farms had not been financially viable thanks to subsidies), so structures have been created around it that have a life of their own. Conversely, a lot of support for the US in Europe rests on institutional memory of the Marshall Plan, with most of the generations with first hand experience of the impact now dead. Create a replacement memory of the US becoming a hostile force, and that can easily embed itself for the same 3+ generations after the situation itself has been resolved.

Someone 9mo ago

Even if the US does that, trust arrives on foot, but leaves on horseback, so it will take years to get back to the old state of affairs.

layer8 9mo ago
Decades, more likely.

rjrjrjrj 9mo ago

True after the first Trump administration. But now? I doubt it.

fatbird 9mo ago

Trump's passing and his admin getting tossed won't erase the memory that a good third of America was always happy with him and wanted what he actually did. America is now branded with MAGA in a way that will take generations to fade.

ben_w 9mo ago
At this point, I'd say terms rather than generations. I mean, I'm old enough to remember people saying "Never Forget" about 9/11, but it's barely in any discourse at this point, and that was a single generation ago and had two major wars a bunch of PoW scandals, war crime scandals that led to Manning, and domestic surveillance that led to Snowden. And yet, despite all that, I've only heard 9/11 mentioned exactly once since visiting NYC in 2017, and that was Steve Bannon and Giuliani refusing to believe that Mamdani was legitimate. So, yeah, if Trump fades away this could be forgotten in 8 years or so; if this escalates to a war (I'm not confident, but if I had to guess I'd say 10% or so?), then I see it rising to the level of generations.
- 1718627440 9mo ago
  You are talking about the US, the others do not.
  - ben_w 9mo ago
    I'm saying "never forget" fades. That's a human condition we all share. I mean, I live in Germany these days, and this country absolutely got the multi-generational thing, and I'm from the UK whose empire ditto, but… the UK doesn't spend much time thinking about the Falklands War and even less about the Cod Wars.
    - 1718627440 9mo ago
      Nobody disagreed with that it eventually fades, they were all saying it is going to take decades. The consequence of 9/11 of was mostly TSAs, following the USA into wars and the erosion of privacy at the mention of terrorism. The first and the last are still ongoing and I think the current US admin is still using the latter as a narrative, the second one may come at an end currently, because the USA is trying to use it against its (former) allies. What you describe is called "to historicize an event". The WW1 has been historicized by WW2 (some argue it's the same war). But not even WW2 has been historicized yet (at least in Europe) and it already ended 80 years in the past, so I doubt an atlantic conflict is going to be forgotten in the next few decades. Edit: I originally linked to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicization, but this does not describes what I mean. It is weird, because the supposed German equivalent does. The German article is about a concept from the science of history, while the English article is about a literature concept.

arw0n 9mo ago

You have to be incredibly naive to give that much credibility to the US system. A lot more than just a switch of parties would be needed. Personally I highly doubt a possible democratic would return a conquered Greenland. And even if it did, it would have to ensure that kind of derailment doesn't happen again. The opposition so far seems to be about as ineffectual as centrist parties across Europe at dealing with the far right.

donkeybeer 9mo ago

As long as the clinically insane trumpie population exists, the USA cannot be trusted.

mdnahas 9mo ago

For Americans, many foreigners use the word “government” where we would say “administration”. So, a “new government” or “the government falls”, would be a “new administration” or “the administration’s party loses the next election”.