4 ms·

The pendulum is swinging back slightly, but I wouldn’t pronounce it dead just yet. We are seeing a decline of American hegemony, accelerated by this current re

by mstank 8mo ago

The pendulum is swinging back slightly, but I wouldn’t pronounce it dead just yet. We are seeing a decline of American hegemony, accelerated by this current regime. And the ascendancy of a non-democratic superpower. However, the largest chunk of GDP and growth still sits firmly in democratic countries and very consequential American elections are happening this year, and in 2028. The real question is, will Europe find its spine?

mjanx123 8mo ago
The European countries leaderships were each put in place by its responsible CIA compartment supporting liberal candidates/parties and undermining the competition. With the current conservative US admin they are supposed to interact with they don't know what to do and likely will do nothing.
- kreetx 8mo ago
  Where would you say the "CIA influence" is the strongest, so I could see better what you mean? I've observed that it's the messy process of democracy that has put the people in power. Sure, big countries (i.e, mostly Russia) would like to tilt governments their way, but it isn't succeeding. I can tell you though that local Facebook pages for newspapers are full of strange comments, seemingly Russian trolls (but I have no proof).
- pyuser583 8mo ago
  CIA is fanatical about following the State Department's foreign policy. Aside from gathering intelligence, they just take the State Department's lead. A lot "CIA influence" isn't the CIA at all, but the US Government, usually State or DoD, projecting soft power. I know this sounds pendantic. But whenever someone starts talking about the CIA like it's responsible for "supporting liberal candidates" - all seriousness leaves the room.
  - alephnerd 8mo ago
    > CIA is fanatical about following the State Department's foreign policy From past personal experience, inter-service autonomy over policymaking is tightly guarded, and arguments always end up with the NSA (advisor, not the agency) where the president essentially becomes the tiebreaker. Under the current administration, this rivalry has gotten much more intense due to the relatively hands-off management style that has been adopted.
    - pyuser583 8mo ago
      I'm sure fights happen all the time over inter-service autonomy. There was a book written recently about very nasty fighting between the CIA and DEA over whether to support a group of anti-communist guerillas who financed by running drugs. The CIA and DEA switched positions repeatedly: one day the CIA wanted to support them to fight communism, and the DEA wanted to cut them off to stop the supply of drugs. When communism fell, the CIA saw the group as a liability who knew too much, while the the DEA wanted to pay them to destroy their drug labs and plant licit crops. The group ended up destroying their drug labs, and focusing on money laundering, ransomware, and crypto-scams, which neither the CIA nor DEA cared about. But the CIA is very consistent in following state department policies. They jealously guard their ability to delivery intelligence that conflicts with State Department priorities, but they don't have any strong priorities that conflict with those of State. I'm sure things need to be ironed about by the NSA/NSC. That's normal. But the CIA isn't going fight the State department like they fight the DEA. I'm open to correction on this. Maybe I'm just not understanding the situation.
      - alephnerd 8mo ago
        > I'm open to correction on this. Maybe I'm just not understanding the situation It's much more gray simply because there are multiple agencies per department that can interpret and conduct intelligence operations. The current administration also decided to adopt the private sector practice of letting "middle managers" conduct and implement what they want on their own and only disturb "upper management" if there are irreconcilable differences. This is why policies change on a dime in the current administration.
  - igleria 8mo ago
    > But whenever someone starts talking about the CIA like it's responsible for "supporting liberal candidates" - all seriousness leaves the room. Nobody likes to admit their vote (or lack of) has consequences outside their little bubble.
    - 1718627440 8mo ago
      Do they? Isn't that kind of the point of voting to influence things that are far outside of your direct reach?
alephnerd 8mo ago
Hungary isn't the only illiberal democracy within the EU - France, Italy, Slovakia, Romania, Poland, Cyprus, Malta, Slovenia, Latvia, Belgium, Lithuania, Croatia, and Bulgaria are all either Illiberal/Flawed Democracies or Hybrid Regimes according to the EIU ranking [0]. Now that Babis is back in power with the backing of SPD and AUTO, it will also revert back into an Illiberal/Flawed Democracy. Furthermore, all states on the cusp of EU membership (Albania, Montenegro) are also Illiberal/Flawed Democracies. > largest chunk of GDP and growth still sits firmly in democratic countries The only Full Democracies in the 10 largest GDPs are Germany, Japan, and the UK. Japan under Takaichi Sanae is pro-Trump and Germany is likely to see the AfD break it's cordon sanitare by 2029. [0] - https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/democracy-index-eiu https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/democracy-index-eiu
- pydry 8mo ago
  The Economist (who runs the EIU) celebrated the Romanian democratic vote being canceled: https://www.economist.com/europe/2025/05/18/maga-misses-the-mark-in-romania https://www.economist.com/europe/2025/05/18/maga-misses-the-... When they refer to liberalism or democratic values they mean neither. These are bywords for western hegemony, which is what they really care about. This is what was under threat when they celebrated Romania's democratic first choice of president being denied.
- anon291 8mo ago
  Reminder that in the full democracy of the UK , you can be prosecuted for social media posts questioning the governments immigration policy.
  - pjc50 8mo ago
    No, you can't. You can be prosecuted for encouraging people to burn down a hotel though.
    - pydry 8mo ago
      There are hundreds of elderly people in prison right now in the UK charged with supporting terrorism because they opposed a racism inspired nazi-style genocide. Greta was among them. 0 have ever threatened or supported any kind of violence against any person ever. Social media posts on this topic are treated the same way as holding up a poster in public.
latexr 8mo ago
> very consequential American elections are happening this year, and in 2028. Let’s hope they are (happening).
- tdb7893 8mo ago
  There's no way to stop them federally without a full coup since they are administered by the states. The US has a long history of not cancelling election but suppressing votes (e.g. literacy tests, gerrymandering, closing polling locations, etc). I would look more for voting place shenanigans, voter ID laws with only a weird subset of IDs allowed, radical gerrymandering, and stuff like that. Some of it will be blatantly partisan but also people are using justifications like "restoring trust in elections" to advocate for things that reduce the general franchise. They don't need to do a lot since a few percent is enough to swing the general balance of things.
  - AnimalMuppet 8mo ago
    A few percent may not be enough to swing 2026. What there are also going to be are allegations, claims of cheating, lawsuits...
  - tcb678 8mo ago
    Your contention only works in a functioning democracy. Republicans currently control ~55% of all state legislative seats nationally and hold governing majorities in most states. In some of these states, they are incredibly partisan and just don't care - they will burn it all down to stay in power (MO, TX, etc.) Congress is required to certify the results of presidential elections, but state and congressional elections are a different matter. Those are certified at the state level, by state officials. So what happens if Republican led states simply decide to declare, "We certify that the incumbent representative has been reelected," regardless of the actual vote count, or play other games e.g. discarding votes, eligibility, etc? It would be wildly illegal, of course. It would almost certainly trigger lawsuits, protests, and significant political repercussions within each state. But here's the problem: in many of these jurisdictions, the federal district courts are controlled by Republican-appointed judges. The circuit courts are too. If the state officials certifying the results are Republican, the state courts and legislatures are friendly, and the federal courts that would hear any challenge are also sympathetic, how exactly would anyone stop them? Who enforces the ruling if the courts themselves are part of the alignment? The U.S. DOJ will not take up these cases on anyone's behalf. And in such a circumstance, you're unlikely to find a Congress willing to impeach the officials failing to do that. More importantly, the National Guard and/or the Army gets activated under the Insurrection Act. So. That's the ballgame.
idibiks 8mo ago
That so many people still think we're in a recoverable state for a near- or even mid-term return to "normal" is part of why we're definitely not. The fundamental fixes we need to make, and even awareness of what those problems are that need to be fixed, remain nerd-shit that normal people aren't even aware of, let alone pushing their representatives to achieve. If you want a primer on where we're already moving into, and likely to remain for some time, this wikipedia article is the place to start: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_regime https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_regime In a decade, the year most scholars of political science will say the US slipped fully into this will likely be either 2025 or 2026. But yes, we'll probably still have elections. Functionally nobody's talking about what those elections would need to be laser-focused on achieving to turn us from this path, though. Court reform, eliminating much of the post-9/11 security apparatus, revoking a great deal of authority congress has ceded to the president. Even the democrats won't have the votes to get a majority on most of that, even if they didn't have to worry about a veto and if they took a slim majority in both chambers. They won't get more than 90% of their own members on board with any of that, in many cases, probably not even 50%. We're toast. The very best we might get is a little push-back on tariff power and, if we're very lucky, a substantial reduction in ICE funding. No restructuring the absurd and dangerous under-the-executive(?!) immigration courts to fall under the judiciary instead. No court reform. No undoing large parts of the USA PATRIOT Act. No full abolition of our paramilitary domestic police force. We'll relieve a few symptoms, maybe, in the very best case, but not treat any part of the disease. And that's the best plausible outcome.

by mstank 8mo ago

mjanx123 8mo ago

The European countries leaderships were each put in place by its responsible CIA compartment supporting liberal candidates/parties and undermining the competition. With the current conservative US admin they are supposed to interact with they don't know what to do and likely will do nothing.

kreetx 8mo ago
Where would you say the "CIA influence" is the strongest, so I could see better what you mean? I've observed that it's the messy process of democracy that has put the people in power. Sure, big countries (i.e, mostly Russia) would like to tilt governments their way, but it isn't succeeding. I can tell you though that local Facebook pages for newspapers are full of strange comments, seemingly Russian trolls (but I have no proof).
pyuser583 8mo ago
CIA is fanatical about following the State Department's foreign policy. Aside from gathering intelligence, they just take the State Department's lead. A lot "CIA influence" isn't the CIA at all, but the US Government, usually State or DoD, projecting soft power. I know this sounds pendantic. But whenever someone starts talking about the CIA like it's responsible for "supporting liberal candidates" - all seriousness leaves the room.
- alephnerd 8mo ago
  > CIA is fanatical about following the State Department's foreign policy From past personal experience, inter-service autonomy over policymaking is tightly guarded, and arguments always end up with the NSA (advisor, not the agency) where the president essentially becomes the tiebreaker. Under the current administration, this rivalry has gotten much more intense due to the relatively hands-off management style that has been adopted.
  - pyuser583 8mo ago
    I'm sure fights happen all the time over inter-service autonomy. There was a book written recently about very nasty fighting between the CIA and DEA over whether to support a group of anti-communist guerillas who financed by running drugs. The CIA and DEA switched positions repeatedly: one day the CIA wanted to support them to fight communism, and the DEA wanted to cut them off to stop the supply of drugs. When communism fell, the CIA saw the group as a liability who knew too much, while the the DEA wanted to pay them to destroy their drug labs and plant licit crops. The group ended up destroying their drug labs, and focusing on money laundering, ransomware, and crypto-scams, which neither the CIA nor DEA cared about. But the CIA is very consistent in following state department policies. They jealously guard their ability to delivery intelligence that conflicts with State Department priorities, but they don't have any strong priorities that conflict with those of State. I'm sure things need to be ironed about by the NSA/NSC. That's normal. But the CIA isn't going fight the State department like they fight the DEA. I'm open to correction on this. Maybe I'm just not understanding the situation.
    - alephnerd 8mo ago
      > I'm open to correction on this. Maybe I'm just not understanding the situation It's much more gray simply because there are multiple agencies per department that can interpret and conduct intelligence operations. The current administration also decided to adopt the private sector practice of letting "middle managers" conduct and implement what they want on their own and only disturb "upper management" if there are irreconcilable differences. This is why policies change on a dime in the current administration.
- igleria 8mo ago
  > But whenever someone starts talking about the CIA like it's responsible for "supporting liberal candidates" - all seriousness leaves the room. Nobody likes to admit their vote (or lack of) has consequences outside their little bubble.
  - 1718627440 8mo ago
    Do they? Isn't that kind of the point of voting to influence things that are far outside of your direct reach?

alephnerd 8mo ago

Hungary isn't the only illiberal democracy within the EU - France, Italy, Slovakia, Romania, Poland, Cyprus, Malta, Slovenia, Latvia, Belgium, Lithuania, Croatia, and Bulgaria are all either Illiberal/Flawed Democracies or Hybrid Regimes according to the EIU ranking [0]. Now that Babis is back in power with the backing of SPD and AUTO, it will also revert back into an Illiberal/Flawed Democracy. Furthermore, all states on the cusp of EU membership (Albania, Montenegro) are also Illiberal/Flawed Democracies. > largest chunk of GDP and growth still sits firmly in democratic countries The only Full Democracies in the 10 largest GDPs are Germany, Japan, and the UK. Japan under Takaichi Sanae is pro-Trump and Germany is likely to see the AfD break it's cordon sanitare by 2029. [0] - https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/democracy-index-eiu https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/democracy-index-eiu

pydry 8mo ago
The Economist (who runs the EIU) celebrated the Romanian democratic vote being canceled: https://www.economist.com/europe/2025/05/18/maga-misses-the-mark-in-romania https://www.economist.com/europe/2025/05/18/maga-misses-the-... When they refer to liberalism or democratic values they mean neither. These are bywords for western hegemony, which is what they really care about. This is what was under threat when they celebrated Romania's democratic first choice of president being denied.
anon291 8mo ago
Reminder that in the full democracy of the UK , you can be prosecuted for social media posts questioning the governments immigration policy.
- pjc50 8mo ago
  No, you can't. You can be prosecuted for encouraging people to burn down a hotel though.
  - pydry 8mo ago
    There are hundreds of elderly people in prison right now in the UK charged with supporting terrorism because they opposed a racism inspired nazi-style genocide. Greta was among them. 0 have ever threatened or supported any kind of violence against any person ever. Social media posts on this topic are treated the same way as holding up a poster in public.

latexr 8mo ago

> very consequential American elections are happening this year, and in 2028. Let’s hope they are (happening).

tdb7893 8mo ago
There's no way to stop them federally without a full coup since they are administered by the states. The US has a long history of not cancelling election but suppressing votes (e.g. literacy tests, gerrymandering, closing polling locations, etc). I would look more for voting place shenanigans, voter ID laws with only a weird subset of IDs allowed, radical gerrymandering, and stuff like that. Some of it will be blatantly partisan but also people are using justifications like "restoring trust in elections" to advocate for things that reduce the general franchise. They don't need to do a lot since a few percent is enough to swing the general balance of things.
- AnimalMuppet 8mo ago
  A few percent may not be enough to swing 2026. What there are also going to be are allegations, claims of cheating, lawsuits...
- tcb678 8mo ago
  Your contention only works in a functioning democracy. Republicans currently control ~55% of all state legislative seats nationally and hold governing majorities in most states. In some of these states, they are incredibly partisan and just don't care - they will burn it all down to stay in power (MO, TX, etc.) Congress is required to certify the results of presidential elections, but state and congressional elections are a different matter. Those are certified at the state level, by state officials. So what happens if Republican led states simply decide to declare, "We certify that the incumbent representative has been reelected," regardless of the actual vote count, or play other games e.g. discarding votes, eligibility, etc? It would be wildly illegal, of course. It would almost certainly trigger lawsuits, protests, and significant political repercussions within each state. But here's the problem: in many of these jurisdictions, the federal district courts are controlled by Republican-appointed judges. The circuit courts are too. If the state officials certifying the results are Republican, the state courts and legislatures are friendly, and the federal courts that would hear any challenge are also sympathetic, how exactly would anyone stop them? Who enforces the ruling if the courts themselves are part of the alignment? The U.S. DOJ will not take up these cases on anyone's behalf. And in such a circumstance, you're unlikely to find a Congress willing to impeach the officials failing to do that. More importantly, the National Guard and/or the Army gets activated under the Insurrection Act. So. That's the ballgame.

idibiks 8mo ago

That so many people still think we're in a recoverable state for a near- or even mid-term return to "normal" is part of why we're definitely not. The fundamental fixes we need to make, and even awareness of what those problems are that need to be fixed, remain nerd-shit that normal people aren't even aware of, let alone pushing their representatives to achieve. If you want a primer on where we're already moving into, and likely to remain for some time, this wikipedia article is the place to start: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_regime https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_regime In a decade, the year most scholars of political science will say the US slipped fully into this will likely be either 2025 or 2026. But yes, we'll probably still have elections. Functionally nobody's talking about what those elections would need to be laser-focused on achieving to turn us from this path, though. Court reform, eliminating much of the post-9/11 security apparatus, revoking a great deal of authority congress has ceded to the president. Even the democrats won't have the votes to get a majority on most of that, even if they didn't have to worry about a veto and if they took a slim majority in both chambers. They won't get more than 90% of their own members on board with any of that, in many cases, probably not even 50%. We're toast. The very best we might get is a little push-back on tariff power and, if we're very lucky, a substantial reduction in ICE funding. No restructuring the absurd and dangerous under-the-executive(?!) immigration courts to fall under the judiciary instead. No court reform. No undoing large parts of the USA PATRIOT Act. No full abolition of our paramilitary domestic police force. We'll relieve a few symptoms, maybe, in the very best case, but not treat any part of the disease. And that's the best plausible outcome.