it's absolutely bewildering how ridiculous everything has been so far in terms of competence and this really takes the cherry on the top near Christmas too.
USA is still very high, so they can go much much lower, but I think they might go to some still lower places, finding them where we didn't even know such places could exist. Some ideas:
Slavery has never been illegal in the US. The 13th amendment leaves slavery legal as punishment for a crime. The US has the highest rate of crime punishment in the world (higher than places like North Korea), an industry that profits by selling slave labour of those punished criminals, and known ties between those who profit from selling slave labour and those who decide how many things should be crimes.
Oh also this isn't some quiet conspiracy or anything because the Union of correctional facility officers will openly say that things like legalizing recreational marijuana will hurt them, so they oppose it.
Same with cops.
They also oppose removing things like three strikes laws that haven't done a damn thing to make our country "safer" or better.
I know you’re joking, but grievance over the loss of slavery after the civil war is privately one of the major drivers behind Trumps extremely loyal core supporters.
Taking Greenland and Venezuela is given, as they took most of Latin America already. Just the new Mexican president looks like the next thorn in their eyes. Too competent, too social, too anti-corruption.
They effectively already left NATO and openly support Russia already.
ICC members are already under fire and some had their microsoft account banned by Trump.
Trump will invade Greenland and Canada first. China is less of an priority.
NATO works by projecting a united force. Nations unconditionally backing each other up. The USA is now clearly no longer a part of that. That's not to say that the USA will do nothing if a NATO member is attacked. It might. Or not.
Limiting Nuclear proliferation was already fucked.
Trump tore up Iran's "we won't do nukes" deal, doesn't matter whether you think they were genuine or not, it demonstrates we will go back on a deal so our word isn't worth anything.
Ukraine shows that the west will not actually protect you like they claim, so your only option is getting nukes to really deter people.
North Korea and Pakistan demonstrate that you can pretty much do whatever you want with just a couple nukes, the west will cower in fear over idle threats.
No country would look at any of this and conclude that they have any choice but to build nukes to protect themselves.
Any country without nukes, that is not currently developing them, is stupid imo.. Nukes are the only thing that can guarantee sovereignty now.
Ukraine gave up their nukes.
No need to consider. The UK and France have nukes. France even has a two-tier response. Not enough to vitrify Russia or China five times over, but enough to make them reconsider.
For much of NATO history, the US is NATO. The US doesn’t want it to be like that anymore because it needs to strategically shift to the other side of the world. So, the US says “What if Europe can be NATO? If we can force them to meet the GDP commitment then maybe we don’t need to worry about them too much and commit less of our own resources to this theater.” But of course people interpret this as if the US is abandoning the alliance. No, the US just has other problems to deal with in the world.
That is the rationalization, but don't be surprised if the US would not confront China at all.
The main flow of capital in the US had been going to the mil.industry, but that is not the case anymore. It is mainly surveillance tech that is receiving capital. In a very unhealthy economy, this all looks eerily pre-'30s.
The US, right now, is only threatening weak countries, they don't have the industrial power to confront China, nor do they want it. This shouldn't be a surprise, some ideologues behind this maga-project belief in an America from one pole to the other. They believe in "spheres of influence", and as such China has their own sphere of influence. A sphere of influence means a kind of colony, where natural resources, people and industry are all resources to be extracted by them. It is the Russian model, it is the model of criminal mobs, it is might makes right, it is a multi-polar world.
Meanwhile, re-industrialization projects have been scrapped, partners have been scared of, and tariffs have hit the industry that was still left in America.
Monopolists are parasites on the economy, and the US is already very weakened from that. As the Japanese said, the US is still a great power, but the throne is empty. I suspect there will be skirmishes with other "great powers" over exploitable resources like Africa, Middle East, Europe, but I don't expect the current crop to go all-in on China.
Yes, the US has always been the driving force behind NATO. It provides close to 40% of the combined military personnel, and an even higher portion of military spending.
No longer committing to defend other NATO countries, even if their military spending exceeds the target, is abandoning the alliance though. NATO is little else than that commitment.
There's a left wing cooker conspiracy theory that the guy who gave Ukraine the Javalin anti tank missiles and forced NATO to increase military spending to 5% of GDP is actually a secret Russian agent.
I didn't group NATO and the US separately. You thought I did, but I didn't and you just hadn't read properly.
I waffled a bit in my reply to not rub it in too hard.
And do you want to contribute with something other than nitpick or insult?
Do YOU think that an informed and intelligent person can conclude that Trump is secretly a Russian agent, given he was the driving force behind a massive hike in NATO spending (which Putin really hates)?
I'm not calling Trump competent, or consistent, or benevolent. You can say he has a weird crushed on Putin and is easily manipulated and corrupt.
You can even suggest a lot of the MAGA people who surround Trump are actually working for Russia, since Russia tries to influence a lot of groups and Trump's cronies (and the influencers Trump listens to) are often compromised.
But do you think Trump is actually consistently taking orders from Putin because of some kind of leverage Putin has? Because people say this constantly and it's (in my opinion) almost as embarrassing as Republicans and the Pizza conspiracy. Trump has done some things that are increadibly damaging to Russia, and blackmail doesn't work on a pathological liar with no sense of shame.
I'm sure you're smart enough to agree with pretty much all of this. But you disingenuously attack me because I'm attacking people who are on your side, even if you would privately admit they are dumb.
This is what I read in your comment: that Trump "forced NATO to increase military spending to 5% of GDP". Are you talking about the US there? No, tautologically, you are talking about those parts of NATO that Trump forced to increase military spending to 5% of GDP. So what is controversial about my observation that you used the term NATO to stand for a NATO without the US?
My point was that by doing so you yourself add weight (a very little weight) to the thesis of the grandparent that, at least in people's perceptions, the US has left NATO. It wasn't just a nitpick, but at the same time I did not intend to join this side or that side in some mad argument that is playing out in your mind. I freely admit that at this point I am not reading all your output.
Russian asset, not necessarily agent. At least that's the commonly spread idea, for which there is at least some circumstancial evidence: commercial projects in Russia for several decades and well documented links to Ukrainian and Russian oligarchs under Trump I just to name two.
This low https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_abuse_in_Pakistan aka a society where child abuse is simply accepted and mainstream, with the child abuse of child labour and dhijhadism being just additional nightmare fuel on top.
If we survive long enough I do believe historians will look back on this period and state as a matter of fact, rape and child abuse were completely acceptable, because it seems it’s totally fine with our elected leaders. If these leaders were democratically elected there is only one conclusion to draw from it…
how much lower can they go ?!