3 ms·

Very good yesterday, very bad today. I understand completely why nations are not eager to bargain with a petulant child

epolanski 1mo ago
The problem is more long lasting. The world cannot accommodate 180 degree turns every 4 years in Washington. So anybody that will follow, regardless of the person's policies won't matter fully, as that person itself will be replaced 4-8 years later.
- toast0 1mo ago
  At least the timing of the turns is predictable... I imagine working with countries with snap elections is harder, especially when they have trouble forming a government.
  - epolanski 1mo ago
    No, why would that be? That's the reality of most mature democracies from UK to Germany to Italy. If anything, that makes change slower and based on coalition consensus, not a single winner-take-all individual mood. Which means that there isn't much to "work" as previous arrangements keep holding and they hardly change. I would never exchange our democracy for a king electing one like in US, Turkey or Russia. I'd rather have our democracies slower, the governments more unstable, but representative.
    - com 1mo ago
      Deliberative and hopefully self-stabilising. Real directional change happens over the span of a decade, not a few months. All arms of government (including non-kingship executive) brought to a rough consensus of choice and consequences.
  - biorach 1mo ago
    You might think. The UK would be the most prominent example and in fact has been a much more predictable and consistent trading and negotiating partner than the USA
    - philipallstar 1mo ago
      The UK hasn't really changed, regardless of who's in charge, in 20 years. Because it's mostly run by the state and not by the politicians.
      - Symbiote 1mo ago
        In case you hadn't noticed, within the last 20 years the UK made an enormous constitutional change by leaving the EU.
        classified 1mo ago
        But no government has reversed that step.
        vrganj 1mo ago
        Yeah but that step itself was a dramatic change within said 20 year timeframe
        imightbebatman 1mo ago
        You've probably noticed, people like this like to adjust the goalposts.
        philipallstar 1mo ago
        That is the one change, and it hasn't resulted in the thing people actually were voting for (but couldn't): less immigration. Because the state says we must just import 750k people a year, so that's that.
        1mo ago
  - expedition32 1mo ago
    Countries realise that trade agreements are too important for politics. They are usually negotiated by a nation's crack team of experts. America just does not take any of this seriously anymore.
- mschuster91 1mo ago
  > So anybody that will follow, regardless of the person's policies won't matter fully, as that person itself will be replaced 4-8 years later. There is only one chance the US has - they need to do what us Germans were forced to post-1945, rearchitect everything. The US and UK are the only major countries that didn't undergo some sort of revolution, war or other reset of their constitution and legal systems and it shows everywhere. If we Europeans (or anyone else) are supposed to ever trust the US again, we demand they properly fix their shit and prevent another madman's rise for good.
  - ed_elliott_asc 1mo ago
    I fear this is just the beginning, I’ve seen nothing to say the voting American public are any less into divisive politics than they have been for the last decade [edit autocorrect changed divisive to decisive]
  - benj111 1mo ago
    You do realise that Germany had a shiny new constitution, and then went on to elect that Austrian painter. And that's after the prior new and shiny constitution leading into ww1 Afghanistan had a new constitution and legal system when the US pulled out. As a Brit, my take away is that having a nicely laid out constitution doesn't matter if you don't have the culture there to back it up. The US did manage to deal with one term of Trump, so that's something.
    - mschuster91 1mo ago
      > The US did manage to deal with one term of Trump, so that's something. Trump caused a lot of suffering and damage even in his first term, his second term (especially "thanks" to DOGE) was orders of magnitude worse. A good democracy can survive one direct hit, maybe two, but anyone with a working brain cell left can clearly see the cracks in the foundation one needs to exploit to become President - and there will be such exploitation attempts, unless by a huge wonder the next President will be a Democrat, have a majority in both chambers of Congress and prosecutes everyone involved in the Trump administrations.
    - 1mo ago
- jjav 1mo ago
  > So anybody that will follow, regardless of the person's policies won't matter fully, as that person itself will be replaced 4-8 years later. That is the fundamental problem. The only way out, is to make changes to the constitution to specifically prohibit the executive branch from having any of this power to arbitrarily change things on a whim. That is the only way international peer could in the future trust an agreement made with the USA. As long as the US feels it is ok to sign an agreement and immediately violate it, nobody in their right mind will bother to negotiate any future agreements. Which is not a good state to be in.
  - imightbebatman 1mo ago
    That won't solve anything. Congress already has this power they just abdicated it to the Executive. The only fix is better voters electing better people into Congress. -- good luck with both of those. The US is cooked.
    - bamboozled 1mo ago
      No, it’s not good enough, you need a better system. Like in Switzerland
      - ElProlactin 1mo ago
        The Los Angeles metropolitan area has more people that Switzerland. Population aside, there's no system that fixes what's broken in the US in the 21st century. Trump, sadly, is the symptom of deeper structural ills that have been building in America for decades.
    - AnimalMuppet 1mo ago
      Congress moves a lot slower, though. Congress isn't going to change tariffs every 24 hours. It takes a lot longer to get anything through Congress. I mean, you still have the "every 4 years", or worse, "every few months". It's not at the pace that Trump changes things, though.
      - 1mo ago
- rich_sasha 1mo ago
  But we’re talking 180 degrees every… 2 weeks?
- JKCalhoun 1mo ago
  True. But a fundamental reshaping of the laws of the U.S. (who gets to set economic policy for example) could help. In short, attenuate executive power.
sandworm101 1mo ago
"That's like a toddler with a harpoon. There's a toddler wandering around in that office with a harpoon." The Thick of It s4e2.
- DyslexicAtheist 1mo ago
  "He's so dense that light bends around him"

The problem is more long lasting. The world cannot accommodate 180 degree turns every 4 years in Washington. So anybody that will follow, regardless of the person's policies won't matter fully, as that person itself will be replaced 4-8 years later.

toast0 1mo ago
At least the timing of the turns is predictable... I imagine working with countries with snap elections is harder, especially when they have trouble forming a government.
- epolanski 1mo ago
  No, why would that be? That's the reality of most mature democracies from UK to Germany to Italy. If anything, that makes change slower and based on coalition consensus, not a single winner-take-all individual mood. Which means that there isn't much to "work" as previous arrangements keep holding and they hardly change. I would never exchange our democracy for a king electing one like in US, Turkey or Russia. I'd rather have our democracies slower, the governments more unstable, but representative.
  - com 1mo ago
    Deliberative and hopefully self-stabilising. Real directional change happens over the span of a decade, not a few months. All arms of government (including non-kingship executive) brought to a rough consensus of choice and consequences.
- biorach 1mo ago
  You might think. The UK would be the most prominent example and in fact has been a much more predictable and consistent trading and negotiating partner than the USA
  - philipallstar 1mo ago
    The UK hasn't really changed, regardless of who's in charge, in 20 years. Because it's mostly run by the state and not by the politicians.
    - Symbiote 1mo ago
      In case you hadn't noticed, within the last 20 years the UK made an enormous constitutional change by leaving the EU.
      - classified 1mo ago
        But no government has reversed that step.
        vrganj 1mo ago
        Yeah but that step itself was a dramatic change within said 20 year timeframe
        imightbebatman 1mo ago
        You've probably noticed, people like this like to adjust the goalposts.
      - philipallstar 1mo ago
        That is the one change, and it hasn't resulted in the thing people actually were voting for (but couldn't): less immigration. Because the state says we must just import 750k people a year, so that's that.
      - 1mo ago
- expedition32 1mo ago
  Countries realise that trade agreements are too important for politics. They are usually negotiated by a nation's crack team of experts. America just does not take any of this seriously anymore.
mschuster91 1mo ago
> So anybody that will follow, regardless of the person's policies won't matter fully, as that person itself will be replaced 4-8 years later. There is only one chance the US has - they need to do what us Germans were forced to post-1945, rearchitect everything. The US and UK are the only major countries that didn't undergo some sort of revolution, war or other reset of their constitution and legal systems and it shows everywhere. If we Europeans (or anyone else) are supposed to ever trust the US again, we demand they properly fix their shit and prevent another madman's rise for good.
- ed_elliott_asc 1mo ago
  I fear this is just the beginning, I’ve seen nothing to say the voting American public are any less into divisive politics than they have been for the last decade [edit autocorrect changed divisive to decisive]
- benj111 1mo ago
  You do realise that Germany had a shiny new constitution, and then went on to elect that Austrian painter. And that's after the prior new and shiny constitution leading into ww1 Afghanistan had a new constitution and legal system when the US pulled out. As a Brit, my take away is that having a nicely laid out constitution doesn't matter if you don't have the culture there to back it up. The US did manage to deal with one term of Trump, so that's something.
  - mschuster91 1mo ago
    > The US did manage to deal with one term of Trump, so that's something. Trump caused a lot of suffering and damage even in his first term, his second term (especially "thanks" to DOGE) was orders of magnitude worse. A good democracy can survive one direct hit, maybe two, but anyone with a working brain cell left can clearly see the cracks in the foundation one needs to exploit to become President - and there will be such exploitation attempts, unless by a huge wonder the next President will be a Democrat, have a majority in both chambers of Congress and prosecutes everyone involved in the Trump administrations.
  - 1mo ago
jjav 1mo ago
> So anybody that will follow, regardless of the person's policies won't matter fully, as that person itself will be replaced 4-8 years later. That is the fundamental problem. The only way out, is to make changes to the constitution to specifically prohibit the executive branch from having any of this power to arbitrarily change things on a whim. That is the only way international peer could in the future trust an agreement made with the USA. As long as the US feels it is ok to sign an agreement and immediately violate it, nobody in their right mind will bother to negotiate any future agreements. Which is not a good state to be in.
- imightbebatman 1mo ago
  That won't solve anything. Congress already has this power they just abdicated it to the Executive. The only fix is better voters electing better people into Congress. -- good luck with both of those. The US is cooked.
  - bamboozled 1mo ago
    No, it’s not good enough, you need a better system. Like in Switzerland
    - ElProlactin 1mo ago
      The Los Angeles metropolitan area has more people that Switzerland. Population aside, there's no system that fixes what's broken in the US in the 21st century. Trump, sadly, is the symptom of deeper structural ills that have been building in America for decades.
  - AnimalMuppet 1mo ago
    Congress moves a lot slower, though. Congress isn't going to change tariffs every 24 hours. It takes a lot longer to get anything through Congress. I mean, you still have the "every 4 years", or worse, "every few months". It's not at the pace that Trump changes things, though.
    - 1mo ago
rich_sasha 1mo ago
But we’re talking 180 degrees every… 2 weeks?
JKCalhoun 1mo ago
True. But a fundamental reshaping of the laws of the U.S. (who gets to set economic policy for example) could help. In short, attenuate executive power.

sandworm101 1mo ago

"That's like a toddler with a harpoon. There's a toddler wandering around in that office with a harpoon." The Thick of It s4e2.

DyslexicAtheist 1mo ago
"He's so dense that light bends around him"