for what it is worth, trump II also really has convinced me that US hegemony is probably bad for America in and of itself. there needs to be credible consequences for electing a Mad Emperor again
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there really is a palpable difference in the general level of anxiety when you're in the USA vs. when you're in a country that isn't The Center Of Attention All The Time
This has been true since Bush 2 tbh. For me, the US refusing to go with the Kyoto protocol and then Iraq were the big points where the US showed itself as a rogue actor. The lack of accountability for this has reinforced this
an international system where a giant system provider "superpower" or not, can regularly do this without considering the interests of everyone else outside the US cannot survive. its like a neighbor with a dog that keeps shitting on the lawn, biting little kids, and generally being a menace
I have a gut feeling that, should the Dems take Congress in 2022, you’ll start to see the blow back because allies know they’ll be protected from the worst of his impulses legislatively. But I also think that should a poly crisis occur, they’ll take steps to punish the MAGA leaders directly.
Such as turn off social media sites like X, nationalise businesses, and the like. If they’re going to be treated like this, they’ll get a popular mandate to do things too.
However, until MAGA is truly dead—with Trump literally in the ground—they’ll never forget or forgive.
And judging by the first month of this admin, you don’t think they’re going to get a lot worse?
The US is on a path of a major recession, a financial crisis, the collapse of the tech sector, god knows how many strategic failures, an major environmental event (or many smaller ones), and isolation
a future in which the US has vastly less freedom to maneuver and is forced to take into account the interests of others is probably one that makes the domestic changes we need more feasible
what i'm saying more or less is that a future in which the US even making a peep about Canada causes markets to spiral down is superior to the one we have today, even if we will be less powerful
If you operate under the assumption that American military capability allows us to do whatever the heck we want the prospect of a petroleum colony cannot negatively affect markets
The impunity assumption is the addressable component
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However, until MAGA is truly dead—with Trump literally in the ground—they’ll never forget or forgive.
The US is on a path of a major recession, a financial crisis, the collapse of the tech sector, god knows how many strategic failures, an major environmental event (or many smaller ones), and isolation
There is a difference between America First and isolationism that is subtle and highly dependent on an illusion of American impunity
The impunity assumption is the addressable component
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250840554/undergroundempire/
https://bsky.app/profile/dkhunter.bsky.social/post/3ljb7seq4ts24
This is actually an amazing metaphor.