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Of course they were. The United States has never before damaged its own reputation in Europe as much as they did in the last 12 months. And the same goes for C
by jacquesm 8mo ago
Of course they were. The United States has never before damaged its own reputation in Europe as much as they did in the last 12 months.
And the same goes for Canada, possibly worse. You don't go around threatening your allies unless you really have plans and that's why you don't elect senile old guys to positions of power.
- equilibrium 8mo agoEurope and the rest of the world.
- philipallstar 8mo ago> that's why you don't elect senile old guys to positions of power. Anyone of principle would have been saying this before 2025, and far louder.
- jacquesm 8mo agoNote that this is from a country that wouldn't exist if not for the allied countries and that the US has somehow managed to all but erase that reputation. We recognize our debt, we also recognize that this is to a country that no longer exists in a meaningful way. All we have now is multiple variations of the mob.
- jjtwixman 8mo agoYeah the US we knew is gone. I think about this sometimes when I am listening to American music from the 20th century, how much soft power they had, how great they made America sound either directly or indirectly. That America that we all looked up to and admired is gone. Pity.
- butILoveLife 8mo ago[flagged]
- jacquesm 8mo ago[flagged]
- jagged-chisel 8mo ago> ... but seeing how quick Europe and Canada turned on the US ... I think they rightfully turned defensive in light of the current administration. Remains to be seen how/if they change when the administration changes.
- StefanBatory 8mo agoUS turned on the Europe and Canada*
- jjtwixman 8mo agoOK but this is just an argument in favour of forever wars lol. That's realism I guess in the way that Nazi Lebensraum was also realism. > how quick Europe and Canada turned on the US It's YOU that turned on YOUR allies. YOU threatened to invade YOUR allies. Jesus fucking Christ. You are living in a different universe entirely. I agree that countries apparently can "turn on a dime" as you say, but it's not us that's "turned on a dime" it's YOU. America is lost.
- mcv 8mo agoExactly. It's the US that turned against its allies. Those allies are still loyal to each other; they didn't turn on anyone. Look at how many countries immediately sent troops to Greenland. There's no doubt who is the traitor and who is loyal here. If you want to rule purely through hard power, you become Russia.
- 3form 8mo agoWhich actually shows that trying to exercise that hard power made everything worse instead of better.
- terminalshort 8mo agoThat is the state of nature. It's not an argument. I don't argue in favor of "forever wars" for the same reason I don't argue in favor of gravity.
- lnsru 8mo agoI am the guy who participated in Green Card lottery for few years willing to work in most advanced planet‘s semiconductor companies. I changed my mind recently. Speedboat ambushes, Greenland, public executions by ICE „officers“ and now Iran war. US I knew is definitely gone. That’s not the country sharing culture and values peacefully anymore: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amerika-Haus_(M%C3%BCnchen) https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amerika-Haus_(M%C3%BCnchen)
- lores 8mo agoTo be fair, the US has never been peaceful, and it's the country that started the most wars since WW2. It's just that it used to be in our team, and human nature makes the aggressiveness of our team justified, or at least understandable, or at least ignorable, or at least not quite changing our deep feelings.
- benterix 8mo agoAnd, at least regarding the more recent ones in Iraq and Afghanistan, Europe witnessed the largest anti-war protests in history. From that perspective, the current "emperor is naked" development might be positive in the sense that Europe can relatively soon have enough military power to be taken seriously, and at the same time become impossible to drag into an offensive war because none of its countries wants any war and we only went there because US pressured us into - but now that the USA has became unreliable, there's no reason to sacrifice oneself.
- srean 8mo agoI really wish hard that Europe gets it shit together. They are adults now (rare commodity), but can still be pushed around, have their leash yanked. They have to come to terms with their islands of racist tendencies. My hope hasn't died yet
- AlexandrB 8mo ago[flagged]
- 8mo ago
- srean 8mo agoDid that US really exist without a self imposed convenience of blindness ? The brutality of the School of Americas might indicate otherwise. Now rebranded as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Hemisphere_Institute_for_Security_Cooperation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Hemisphere_Institute_f...
- jacquesm 8mo agoThat's a tough question. There has always been a meddlesome quality to the USA that the rest of the so called developed world turned a blind eye to. Along the lines of 'their bastards, but at least they're our bastards'. Of course that does not make it good, but the balance calculation worked out in favor of toeing the line and being careful not to get pulled out of joint too much. 9/11 changed all that and effectively Bin Laden forced the USA to lower its mask for long enough that the world could no longer ignore the bad sides of Uncle Sam. Even that would have not been enough to seal it, but Trump has managed to accomplish this in record time.
- srean 8mo ago"Meddlesome" is certainly a light way of labeling torture training. What I find more troubling is that Trump has popular support. It's just not Trump. The rot goes far deeper.
- jacquesm 8mo agoFair enough.
- TheOtherHobbes 8mo agoTrump doesn't have popular support. Many of his 2024 voters are furious with him. What Trump has is oligarch support - an unholy alliance of weird and cranky tech billionaires, old(ish) money, foreign money, media owners, and insane white supremacist patriarch-wannabes, some of whom operate through think tanks, some through megachurches. The media are doing an excellent job of normalising this, not least - but not only - sanewashing Trump's obvious mental and physical decay.
- keybored 8mo agoReminder that “Born in the USA” was not a “patriotic” song.
- srean 8mo agoNeither was "This land is your land" Where is Guthrie's guitar ?
- imjonse 8mo agoAs a european I see what you mean, but that 'we all' in your sentence probably hasn't included those from Latin America, and large parts of Africa or Asia since long before Trump. The US pulled quite a few less than admirable tricks (to use an euphemism) on non-europeans during the 20th century.
- srean 8mo agoExactly.
- nxor2 8mo agoYou are seeing a side that always existed. Arguably in the past it was worse.
- ekianjo 8mo ago> how much soft power they had, Soft power? Have you been sleeping during the 20th century? The formidable military power of the US comes from a constant state of war.
- lambdasquirrel 8mo agoI wouldn't be that cynical. From the interactions I've had with people from mainland China, particularly those in the educated classes, I can say for certain that it was soft power that drew them towards the West and the US in particular. China already beat back the West in the Korean War.
- jjtwixman 8mo agoYes and they had a lot of soft power too.
- collingreen 8mo agoAs an American I feel this way too - there is a nostalgia and disappointed yearning for what was probably a propaganda pipe dream. I find myself disappointed and indignant at the long list of bullshit we are doing right now but I'm surprised by my own extreme sense of betrayal over how we don't even -want- to be "the good guys" anymore. I know the US has a long history of evil, dont get me wrong, but until recently (~covid) I thought most of us at least wanted to be a positive force in the world. For me, Dan Carlin said it perfectly - I want the America from the promotional material.
- jacquesm 7mo agoI think a lot of us do. But right now that promotional material looks more like a rigged Microsoft demo than the real thing.
- zabzonk 8mo ago> Note that this is from a country that wouldn't exist if not for the allied countries Which allied countries? And (I assume we are talking about the USA) why would it not exist?
- jacquesm 8mo agoNL (where I live), BE, FR, ES, IT, a good chunk of Germany, Austria, possibly the UK. We'd have been part of the German Reich or the USSR for sure. I make a point of visiting the war graves every year, just to remind me not to take anything for granted.
- disiplus 8mo agoThe post mentions, france, germany and nordic nations. France, Holand and nordic nations helped in the early stages of US.
- fodmap 8mo ago'Until early in 1778, the American Revolution was a civil war within the British Empire, but it became an international war as France (in 1778) and Spain (in 1779) joined the colonies against Britain. The Netherlands, which was engaged in its own war with Britain, provided financial support for the Americans as well as official recognition of their independence. The French navy in particular played a key role in bringing about the British surrender at Yorktown, which effectively ended the war.' https://www.britannica.com/question/Which-countries-fought-on-the-side-of-the-colonies-during-the-American-Revolution https://www.britannica.com/question/Which-countries-fought-o...
- mcv 8mo agoThe way you pay off that debt is not to the original liberator now turned oppressor, but by extending similar help to countries that are now in a similar bind as we were then. Like Ukraine. I really think we are morally obligated to liberate and help Ukraine. Our debt to the US has long been paid off. It was paid off when we submitted to their economic world order, when we bought their goods and their entertainment, when we bought their software and let our own software industry dwindle, and finally when we went to war on their side on their questionable military adventures. We owe the US nothing. I will still help them when they actually want it, but not like this.
- jacquesm 8mo ago> I really think we are morally obligated to liberate and help Ukraine. I am doing what I can and then some, and to be complete I should mention I am aware of multiple other HN'ers doing their bit too.
- gib444 8mo ago> Our debt to the US has long been paid off. It was paid off when we submitted to their economic world order, when we bought their goods and their entertainment, when we bought their software and let our own software industry dwindle, and finally when we went to war on their side on their questionable military adventures. > We owe the US nothing. Hear hear. Well said
- benterix 8mo ago> when we went to war on their side on their questionable military adventures. And then they ridiculed us for that. And then asked for help in another war they just started.
- ALLTaken 8mo ago> How about Venezuela, Cuba, Greenland, Canada, Iran and other countries the USA seized / controls or plans to? Do Americans support this violent annexation and expansion? As a European I'm feeling threatened. Very few countries have Atom Bombs and can say NO to the USA.
- jacquesm 8mo agoCheck this thread. Examples aplenty. Fortunately not even close to a majority, but yes, Americans like that exist. Europeans too by the way, but at least we have managed to mostly keep them out of power.
- chewbacha 8mo agoJake Tapper was on the case… against Biden.
- dspillett 8mo agoAye. Though those making a big noise about “Sleepy Joe” didn't seem to have a problem electing Drooling Dementia Drone Don.
- bregma 8mo agoThere is no evidence that dozy Donny the paedo president has dementia. It's just that one of his personality traits is "Arbitrary". I can just imagine him saying, as he walks into the TV room in the Whitehouse, "I went to Glitterhoof's chamber and gave him a good tumble! It is good to be the king!"
- jacquesm 8mo agoYou can bet that it is exactly what his defense will be if he's ever in court for all of his crimes. I can dream, no?
- dspillett 8mo ago> There is no evidence […] Donny […] has dementia. Oh, there is plenty of circumstantial evidence, but nothing that would constitute proof without access to the results of a detailed medical examination. Source: watching the decline of family members, and others in the care home my mother is currently in. The increasing randomness and apparent lack of concentration, the “resting his eyes” in some meetings, the leaning, etc. A lot of the signs could be other things of course, like just plain ol' age related decline. But if the people close to him don't at least have concerns, would he have been subject to the cognitive tests he is so proud of “winning”?
- chewbacha 8mo agoTotally! I intended to imply that hypocrisy :)
- zeroCalories 8mo agoAnd partisan hacks will say that a stubbed toe and terminal cancer are both bad.
- philipallstar 8mo ago[flagged]
- gpderetta 8mo agoTrue. Yet he still managed to do less damage.
- input_sh 8mo ago...because he had competent people around him that he trusted enough to make decisions, and not former TV hosts. This isn't to say "oh he was just a puppet" nor "all US presidents are puppets", but to say that the decision of who they choose to fill important positions is in and of itself the most important decision in every presidential term. They only really need to be not senile for the first month or so, for the rest of the term it's just a PR problem.
- jacquesm 8mo agoBiden is looking pretty good right now.
- iugtmkbdfil834 8mo agoI know it kinda goes against the tribal nature of political conversations, but, hear me out here, they both suck in their own unique ways and, more importantly, they both may be a little too old to manage this country ( though, to be fair, for different reasons ). We really need to start enforcing principles over tribe. It has gone a little too far.
- jacquesm 8mo agoAgreed, but if you have that choice Biden and/or Kamala over Trump shouldn't be a 'too close to call'. You might as well put Al Capone on the ballot (and I'm fairly sure he would have won).
- drcongo 8mo agoLots of us were, but we were mostly shouted down as being hysterical for warning that fascism was coming.
- jfengel 8mo agoThe people who said that are still saying it. Few minds appear to have really changed. Everyone just believes the same positions, harder.
- drcongo 8mo agoBut the people who were saying that have been proved right, and those who shouted them down are now just putting their fingers in their ears.
- genthree 8mo agoI've seen actual people (mostly this year) who write stuff like, "sure, I can't deny that this is fascism now, but you've been calling lawlessness for the rich, concentration of power in the public and private sectors both, militarization of the police, the war on drugs, free speech zones, surveillance capitalism, voter suppression, pushes to roll back civil rights, and many of our wars, fascist, for decades! It's not my fault I didn't realize it was for-real this time." They're so close to getting it. So very, frustratingly close. At least one of them got published somewhere recently, might have been The Atlantic. You just wish you could smack them with a clue-stick.
- outside1234 8mo agoC'mon, everyone was saying this in 2024. It is just that people hate women and people of color more.
- lo_zamoyski 8mo agoMen of old age are indeed generally ill-suited for the presidency (as are the young; middle age best balances vigor with prudence and wisdom). The elderly function better as advisors where they may be consulted for their experience, or as amici curiae. That being said, I don't think we can pin this particular expression of derangement on age, or at least not age alone. Trump has nothing to lose. He cannot run again. He doesn't care one whit about the common good or even tawdry partisan interests. This is his unhinged narcissism at work, abetted by a cultish, smarmy, obsequious coterie of yes-men that surrounds him.
- eastbound 8mo ago[flagged]
- jacquesm 8mo agoWho left the door open?
- jumpman_miya 8mo ago[dead]
- empath75 8mo agoThe only way the US can fix our reputation will be to try and imprison our current leadership after they are eventually removed from power. And in particular, the Trump family needs to have all of its assets seized.
- nxm 8mo agoImprison based on what and seize assets based on what exactly? You not liking the administration is not a valid reason for asset seizure
- FpUser 8mo ago>"You not liking the administration is not a valid reason for asset seizure" Civil forfeiture would do just fine. Such a wonderful tool. /s
- _bohm 8mo agoStarting illegal wars and engaging in extreme corruption, for starters.
- terminalshort 8mo agoThe war isn't illegal. The president has that power. I don't like it either, but since the Korean War this is simply a statement of fact.
- vrganj 8mo agoThe president of the US does not have the power to start a war without getting it approved by the UN security council. You're arguing internal implementation details, but the legality is not determined by your courts.
- terminalshort 8mo agoI care less about what the UN says is legal than I do the local traffic cop
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- kingleopold 8mo agoThis is why two party system is really great. because they both don't try to put old guts into power in last decade. /s Younger people are not fit to power in 300M country with lots of smart and rich people. Instead these smart and rich people back these old guys because when it comes to election they use half of their brain or sometimes not use their brain at all. One of these rich one was recently bl00mberg and he tried to get elected at age of 500 year old but couldn't do it.
- butILoveLife 8mo ago[flagged]
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- dukeyukey 8mo agoSurely there's a massive overlap, in that a country that has been trustworthy in the past derives a certain level of power from that? Like, Trump randomly declaring tariffs means a deal is not worth making, which erodes American economic power as countries find other suppliers and customers.
- deaux 8mo agoIf reputation with the masses was completely irrelevant, the likes of Saudi Arabia wouldn't throw dozens of billions at trying to improve it. Neither would there be any use in Hasbara outside of lobbying. Soft power is still power. It might not be as good as hard power, but you sure would rather have it than not.
- throwpoaster 8mo ago[flagged]
- llm_nerd 8mo agoMilitarily, absolutely. Absolutely no one misunderstands this. It would destroy the US on the worldwide stage, and even internally. Not to mention it absolutely annihilates the American delusion that you're the "good guys". Right now the US is a staggering idiocracy, and is absolutely the most dangerous rogue nation on the planet. And how utterly pathetic. When the "join us, please, we're so great" fell absolutely flat -- the 51st state nonsense, which is spectacularly unpopular in Canada (in fact, it's significantly more likely for an American to want their state to join Canada than for the reverse) -- now every gun-fellating uneducated American MAGA blowhard sits in their basement and fantasizes how, much like their halfwit rapist leader, they're just going to force it on Canada. Good god, what an absolute collapse to worldwide pariah. And do Americans realize how close your country is to absolute fracture? https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2026/03/05/in-25-country-survey-americans-especially-likely-to-view-fellow-citizens-as-morally-bad/ https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2026/03/05/in-25-countr... Dude, that isn't sustainable. That is an absolute powder keg where rural, low-density shithole states full of angry, poorly educated alcoholic clowns keep lording over urban, educated Americans. That it has been endured this long is an absolute mystery. The coming decade is going to see the worst nuclear proliferation in history -- courtesy of the spectacularly stupid Trump and his MAGA misfit clowns -- and the end result is going to be some mushroom clouds in American cities. And sadly it won't be the rural garbage states like Oklahoma, it'll be American cities that never wanted any part of this idiocracy.
- GerryAdamsSF 8mo agoNo one has believed the US are "good guys", probably ever. 9/11 was met with many celebrations across the 3rd world. America's power has never been greater. In the 60s we had low level paramilitary street insurgencies. American politics are deliberately designed to be un-actionable by the public and opinion is irrelevant. European countries and their governments are satrapies that we allow a limited independence to. If they try to step too far out of line they will find their government collapses. We did this to Australia at Pine Gap in the 70s and have a whole word for it "color revolution"
- srean 8mo agoI think learned wisdom has institutional memory of a few generations only, unless mythologized. Thus, some lessons need to be learned again and again. Some rights fought for again and again.
- dennis_jeeves2 8mo ago[flagged]
- DivingForGold 8mo agoThe Anti-NATO pact.
- lynndotpy 8mo agoI'm really happy these topics are being discussed here on HN, when they weren't ~1 year ago. When considering a post-USA world, we also get to consider a post-Microsoft, post-Meta, post-Google, post-CloudFlare, post-Amazon, etc world. I can't say I know much about how the EU operates or how quickly their Open Digital Ecosystems initiative could take shape, but this is a really opportune time to build a better tech industry.
- AlecSchueler 8mo ago> I'm really happy these topics are being discussed here on HN, when they weren't ~1 year ago. They were being discussed a year ago, too, they just got flagged. Make sure to check /active
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- swed420 8mo agoCorey Doctorow's speech was noteworthy. For anyone who missed it: The Post-American Internet https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46509019 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46509019
- gpderetta 8mo ago> Make sure to check /active Thanks, TIL.
- jacquesm 8mo agoWe call it 'the better homepage'.
- GeoAtreides 8mo agotbf, less flagged posts hitting /active lately either they kill them early (delete them) or hn policy quietly changed
- 8mo ago
- bko 8mo ago[flagged]
- xenocratus 8mo ago> The fact is Europe hasn't offered America much of anything other than a vacation spot over the last 100 years. And there's the cookie banners too. https://youtu.be/QEJ9HrZq7Ro?si=XCJWAtcZ0t633oLE https://youtu.be/QEJ9HrZq7Ro?si=XCJWAtcZ0t633oLE
- tomasphan 8mo agoThe United States is a bully in a China shop and that China shop is the world. It constantly destabilizes the Middle East under false pretenses and lets Europe pick up the refugees. It brain drains and takes innovation to be commercialized. It makes money on the hard labor of others. So yes probably for the best for Europe to do what China is doing and decouple. Specific examples: Francis Lowell stealing British Loom designs in 1800. Bessemer steel process replicas. Bell vs European Telephone patents. Radio: Marconi was initially backed in the US then Bell filed the patents. Operation Paperclip and all that entails (thousands of German patents invalidated and filed in the US).
- 05hundred 8mo ago[dead]
- jacquesm 8mo agoSpoken like someone who is utterly clueless about international relations. And then there were those Romans, what have they ever done for us?
- keybored 8mo agoI am one hundred percent in favor of villains just saying that they are villains.
- Vaslo 8mo agoAs an American, can’t say I’m too worried about Canadian opinion of us, let alone Denmark. Most Americans don’t know the name of a single politician in Denmark.
- chneu 8mo agoMost Americans also dont know that most of the world is laughing at us. Americans are oblivious by choice cuz we pretty eagerly consume misinformation, always have. We love our alternate histories that make us feel superior.
- cindyllm 8mo ago[dead]
- jacquesm 8mo ago> As an American, can’t say I’m too worried about Canadian opinion of us, let alone Denmark. Maybe you should be. You might need them one day. > Most Americans don’t know the name of a single politician in Denmark. Ignorance is nothing to be proud of.
- Vaslo 7mo agoWhy would we need to know that? I spend my time focusing on important things and Danish government or opinion isn’t one of them.
- sph 8mo agoAs a non-American, it’s attitudes like yours, quite widespread actually, that make me rejoice this moment in history where the US is taken down a peg or two. It’s not gonna be nice and fun for anybody, but it’s time to learn that you guys are just one country in a whole world, and you need friends to thrive. The ignorant bully attitude has run its course.
- Vaslo 7mo agoNo American I know except for far leftists feel like they’ve been knocked down at all. Seriously not worried about your opinion at all - never crosses my mind. I’d worry way more about China than Canada or Europe (or any of their colonies).
- DeusExMachina 8mo agoThe same should be said of the senile old women that damage Europe's reputation. That is, if they were actually elected and not appointed by bureaucrats.
- xiphias2 8mo agoProbably it's true from reputation standpoint. Some people in Europe were not that happy when Biden told on public television that the Nord Stream pipeline will be blown up somehow, but luckily the media was good in not talking too much about it and later he listened to his own advisors better about how to communicate.