Comment by atoav
8 days ago
I guess we Europeans have to get our stuff from elsewhere than a nation hostile to the world with an insane unpredictable leader. China may also be authoritarian, but at least they are stable.
The coolest thing to read are american takes that are like "hey this might be benefiting us for that obscure reason", totally ignoring the fact that you betrayed your allies. Land of fhe free my ass. The only ideology the US has is nihilistic greed paired with hyperindividualsm and transactionalism to the point where Americans think if someone else is getting a thing you are hurting.
If the US was a kid it wouldn't invite others over because it wants to eat the birthday cake alone. And then it shits on all the cakes at the bakery because it wants to be the only kid eating cakes. If that is the American idea of how to lead a great life the rest of the world is better of without it.
> totally ignoring the fact that you betrayed your allies
The US is following the example of its mentor, the UK. Perfidious Albion allied with the Germans and Russians to fight the French (Napoleonic Wars), then allied with the French and Russians to fight the Germans (WW1 & WW2), then allied with the French and Germans to counter the Russians (Cold War). Great powers don't have permanent friends, nor do they have permanent enemies, they only have permanent interests. Europeans were simply naive[0], thinking they were the equals of the world's hyperpower for some reason, just because our post-WW2 dealings were executed with substantially more carrot than stick. It's just normalcy bias. Somehow Europe didn't think they would ever end up like the South Vietnamese, the Hmong, the Kurds (against Saddam, in 1991[1]), the Afghans, the Kurds again (against the Turks[2]), and now the Ukrainians. Some argue there is more than a bit of latent racism involved, not expecting the White People Countries to be abused by the Empire the same way Brown People Countries are.[3]
> If the US was a kid it wouldn't invite others over because it wants to eat the birthday cake alone.
This is why I often state that Woodrow Wilson is the worst President in American history. Besides shackling us with both the Federal Reserve Banking System and Federal Income Tax, he dragged us into Europe's internecine bloodshed and normalized that interventionism despite Americans largely being comfortable with sticking to our own hemisphere. In 1913, the US already had the world's largest GDP, with a GDP per capita roughly equal to Imperial Germany and about 75% of the UK's (assuming Copilot isn't lying to me on this data). Imports were only 4% of GDP compared to 15% in 2023. I think the wealthy elite who are siding with Trump are charting a plan to return the US to the same kind of domestically-focused economy, but we don't have the sort of natural resources nor human capital to ensure a decent quality of life on a short timeframe (or perhaps even a longer one) given the "shock treatment" that they are implementing.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eh1zmDi0qN0
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Iraqi_uprisings#U.S._radi...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Claw_(2019%E2%80%932...
[3] https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/3/1/covering-ukraine...
> dragged us into Europe's internecine bloodshed
Roosevelt was president when the US declared war on Nazi Germany, not Woodrow Wilson. It was a very popular move at the time, with over 90% of people agreeing to it according to polls, and 100% of the House and the Senate agreeing to it, too.
> I think the wealthy elite who are siding with Trump are charting a plan to return the US to the same kind of domestically-focused economy
You're delusional, if you think there is any kind of plan going on here. Nobody knew any plan beyond "tariffs" and ideas about invasions coming out of thin air. The tariff numbers are a complete joke.
No, there is no grand scheme, hidden behind an act of absolute incompetence. It's just a short-term money/power grab for the already rich. An attempt to turn the world's "hyperpower" as you put it, into a second-world oligarchy. This may end up in total disaster, that is, a thirld-world oligarchy, if you look at China. But it's hard to actually look at China from the West.
Half the people complaining about Trump's actions say that it's all according to Project 2025, and half the people say what you're saying, that's it all chaotic incompetence with no plan.
I suppose the worst-case scenario is elements of both are true. They've got a fucked up playbook but can't even execute it correctly?
For the record I also don't think they are likely to succeed, I'm just trying to assess what/how they might be planning, or what direction they think they can take the country in. We can agree that they probably won't get the results they want and that America is in for a very rough ride.
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You might enjoy your Chinese overlords more then. Time will tell.
As if the things the US produces aren't predominantly made in China already. Cutting out the middleman can't hurt, especially if the middleman behaves like a mob boss.
I actually stopped buying from Amazon and went to either the producer's site or Aliexpress. Literally the same products but without the middleman.
I once needed to claim warrantee on a broken charger and after navigating all the dark patters Amazon just referred me to the producer's website. It's not even convenient.
oh the irony
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