Yeah, I 've definitely been noticing a lack of comprehension by Americans about this. They think the default state of the world is with them as they were, and it will naturally return to that again once all this temporary difficulty is done. Nope. It was the result of a unique moment in history followed by constant maintenance. It's gone.
this post was submitted on 09 Dec 2025
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I would love to believe this but I don't. The American economy is huge and if it bounces back after 3 more years of Trump it well dominate again.
America didn't have the position it did merely because it had a big economy. China's economy is also huge but its relationship with the rest of the world is completely different from how America's was, for example.
Also, there's a big "if" on that "if it bounces back." What exactly did America do that was so unique?
America was the biggest success the world has ever seen in terms of running the government and economy with the consent of the governed.
As of the middle of the 20th century, the marginal tax rate on millionaires was 94% roughly speaking, and a lot of that money was reinvested into things that people needed: Roads, jobs, environmental protection. The elections were fair, journalists could challenge leaders and even break the law to expose wrongdoing by the powerful. It was a long way from perfect, I'm looking at the good side only when there was a hell of a rotten side to it too, but it was the closest the world has ever come to running a big scale system like that that was actually well-intentioned and that people could believe in and feel proud to be a part of. You can do it on a small scale, sure. Anyone can be proud of what they're doing to be part of any kind of movement or system that has some humanity and some justice in it. But to make it work on that scale, where you can hand individual people with all their individual petty corruptions and failures that kind of globe-spanning power, and still keep things roughly in check and sometimes on the people's side, year after year, it was a fuckin' modern miracle. People had fought for decades, died in prison or in some labor skirmish or war, to make it happen, and it showed.
That's what got us all that success and respect on the world stage. That stuff wasn't fake. But then as with literally 100% of empires throughout history people got complacent, new generations came up with the entitlement that comes with being born on 3rd base, everyone stopped maintaining the systems. Softness comes in and corruption, and then fall, and collapse. There's a lot of inertia, so as of 2015 we were still sitting pretty well on top without deserving it anymore, but now the emperor's clothes are off and no fuckin' mistake.
I don't really know what the parallel is, I am not a good enough history person for it. Maybe the Roman Empire or the USSR. Society is the foundation of good government, and American society and character is dogshit right now and has been for years and year. It's not surprising to me our government is collapsing. We are unlikely to recover I think. I'm in no way disagreeing with Gurney. I hope I am wrong, I love my country and I don't want to leave. But even aside from Trump, it just seems unlikely that this place has what it takes to run a modern society anymore. I don't see any way for us to go but down, a long way down. But anyway you asked what we did that was unique, that's what we did, if you ask me about it.
This feels very much like American exceptionalism. There are plenty of other democratic countries in existence some more democratic than the USA ever was. USA was originally only meant to be democratic for rich white land owning men. So for much of its history it was not a real democracy anyway. There has been only a certain period it could be considered democratic between the civil war up until recently. Now democratic backsliding has started it's not clear if it will remain democratic and how long it will take to recover to full democracy assuming it does return to full democracy at all. It could very much just get worse until there is a collapse.
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In comes the AI bubble with the folding steel chair.
Don't forget bird flu. It's airbone now between farms in the US, and it's still infecting people in a steady trickle of individual cases, often killing them.
In retrospect, when it does figure out how to spread human-to-human and our now gutted public health system has no answer but letting it rampage through like in the middle ages, it'll seem a little weird that it hesitated for so long before getting going.
the american economy is huge not because it’s special… the american economy is huge because it has a default position, and it has that because it was friendly for collaboration: america is what it is because the rest of the world has settled on it being what it is
Love the directness of the commentary “ we will never fucking trust you again”.!
I wish Australian politicians would wake up and dump the stupid AUKUS deal: spend $300 billion and ‘hope’ the americans will honour their word. Really a snowballs chance in hell they will honour their word or contracts.
I can't say never because that's quite a long time to make guarantees but I imagine it would take at least a couple generations for the international trust in the US to return to comparable levels.
2017-2020 could have been a blip on the timeline. 2021 we had some progress but the US leadership was practically asleep at the wheel in terms of dealing with the open preparation of fascist takeover in 2025. Now in 2025 the largest military force in the world, its highest internal court, both its governing houses, the various departments that were supposed to serve the public interest are all led by a gaggle of self-serving clowns. And the country's commander-in-chief can barely remember what they said a minute ago and has trouble staying awake in public meetings.
So I think with a major reversal of fortunes and a program to de-Nazify itself at a scale unseen since WWII, the world could take the US seriously again after 2028 at the earliest. The trust will take a lot longer to come back.
I mean the de-nazifying would have to come with many expansions and clarifications of the constitution to make sure these things can't be done so easily again. Not even sure what all would be needed but I think a line stating no ruling of the supreme court can expand executive power might be one and maybe another saying any expansion of the executive power by congress has to be renewed every two years. I would like the executive split into a tribunal as well.
What would be needed is codification of the assumed "norms". That was the problem in Weimar, and that's the problem in the USA today: too many things were just "customs" and "norms of behaviour" without any actual legal teeth.
Maybe the US government can spend a decade or ten figuring out how to control themselves instead of controlling, say, what women do with their bodies. Or what people in general put into their bodies, for that matter. A whole lot of energy has been devoted to controlling women's biology. Maybe that energy could be redirected to controlling lawmakers' base instincts.
Oh. And cut the crap with "corporations are people". Or keep that crap, but extend it to jailing corporations and even executing them.
yes this is exactly the type of things we need or we will not completely crawl out of this.
Yup. You can't run a country based on "gentlemen's agreements", which apparently is what a large portion of the US federal government turns out to be made of.
Unsurprisingly, when people who aren't gentlemen gain power, those agreements mean nothing.
There would literally have to be many thousands of executions for this country to be trustworthy again. Anything short of that will result in the exact same shit happening again in 3 years.
yeah I'm not actually trusting the US until there are clear signs that this shit is not to be tolerated, and it's been that way for over a decade
anything less will just get a pat on the head and a half assed "good job kiddo, you're doing great" while I turn back to pay attention to worthwhile things
Fair. Let's just say that nobody alive now, nor the offspring of any of those, will trust the USA. It will be at least the third generation before the USA stands a chance of being trusted by anybody who is not suffering from genuine brain damage.
Even if the democrats return to power they would have to clearly demonstrate a commitment to the old values. Not just words, actual actions would be required.
So, an impossibly then. Their donors/sponsors/puppeteers are the same as the Republicans'.
Yeah that's the issue really. A lot of Americans seem to think that I'd the Republicans loose the next election / they do badly at the primarys (assuming there is one, I have my doubts) everything will go back to normal. It won't.
I suppose a 3rd party might rise to power due to public distrust of the big two.
I think Zohran Mamdani has a good chance of starting this.
That's exactly why the Democratic party never embraced him from the beginning; he's not playing by their rules, and he's not paid by their masters. I think that he and others like him have a very real chance of starting third political party in this country because it's not just that people are fed up with the Republicans or the people are fed up with the Democrats is that people are fed up with the complete ineptitude of both parties to get anything used for meaningful done.
In the case of the Republicans they play like there's some bad guy and they're fighting for their followers and pinning the blame on immigrants or trans people or blacks or whoever is convenient that year.
In the case of the Democrats they talk a good game but they never get anything done because if they actually solved something it would piss off the people giving the money. So like before when they had full control of house in Congress they didn't do shit. And then to keep from being voted out or to get voted back in they'll say hey at least we're not Republican.
I don't see the difference anymore because functionally they're doing the same thing, the Democrats are just quieter about it.
lol democrats returning to power is just more of the same. that's not gonna do it.
Yeah, the Biden administration was their last chance to turn this around and they blew it hard. Done now.
Best I can see coming out of a Democratic win would be another temporary pause in America's decline. I don't think they can recover without a complete shattering of their system so that it can perhaps be rebuilt or replaced.
The USA should never have been trusted in the first place. The mask is dropping now, but they have ALWAYS been supporters of dictatorships, fascists, and genocide. They have been an oligarchy from the start, it was baked in to their constitution. Anyone believing their propaganda that they were a democracy or ever gave a shit about democracy is a weak minded fool. Money and guns are their only gods, they are incinerating the entire planet for profit, and have been LONG before the felonious pedophile conman currently in office.
The only reason the US ever gained "trust" was because their late joining of WW2 allowed their industry ramp-up (remember the US was selling equipment to both sides until Pearl Harbor, to the point where when Allied forces landed in continental Europe and began pushing into Nazi occupied territories, they noticed how parts for their trucks etc. were all compatible, in an age where cars had no standardisation even within a manufacturer), and the war playing out away from their homeland allowed for said industrial uplift to remain untouched.
Meanwhile Europe was ravaged by the wars - remember the primary reason for Hitler's rise was the overly aggressive Versailles Treaty that put considerable financial drain on the Central Powers (Hungary being split up was obviously a larger thing, but Germany also lost territories and had to pay restitutions), which limited the economic recovery of the countries, resulting in poor working and living conditions that people blamed on the newly formed democratic government - which in turn allowed Hitler to gain support using the usual far right demagogue, populist crap that is gaining traction today.
All that meant that Europe, while it had the manpower, lacked the available resources and ways to utilise them, and heavily depended on the Marshall Plan, which made the western European countries dependent on the US, making the latter appear as a reliable friend.
And for the Eastern European countries... The US continued a constant propaganda of "helping countries under Soviet rule fight for independence" (see Radio Free Europe) - and somehow managed to maintain the position of being a helpful friend after willfully ignoring the 1956 Hungarian freedom fight for which the US promised military help, then promptly ignored because a more lucrative opportunity in the shape of the Suez crisis, surfaced at the same time.
So yeah it's high time for Europe to realise just how fickle the US is as a partner. They've been literally the cause of every single major market crash in the past 50 years, allowing their internal financial clusterfuckup to spiral out and affect other countries even worse, taking absolutely no responsibility for it while reaping all the benefits... They've also pretty much caused all major wars in the past 50 years as a way to justify maintaining and increasing their "defense" spending (the one honest thing Trump has done in his second term was renaming the DoD to Department of War), forcing their subpar, overpriced military crapquipment on their "allies" and even demanding said allies to join unjustified wars through any means necessary...
No, fuck the US, it's time for Europe to wake up and be truly independent of their crap. The failed attempt at "freedom" failed enough by now. Let them collapse, let them burn, and maybe they'll rebuild something that actually resembles a country from the ashes.
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This I don't get how all their allies allowed them to build bases in their countries. Like you have a stepping stone already there for them to invade you. I don't get how the whold world has sold out to America and are no dependeant on them for "technology". It was stupid before Trump, to be so dependant on another country. We also know the US and China are not really differnt people always say China companies are beholden to Chinese law but so are American companies beholden to American Law. Microsoft has said if they get a order for something from American government it doesn't matter what the countries laws say they well have to follow it. So all the BS about EU citizens data has to be kept in Europe is BS as MS could just get the data fromt the US and give it to the government. Politicans are stupid it doesn't matter where the data is stored it can be accessed anywhere.
Read the article, it's fantastic and spot on! Read the comments there. Some crystalline clarity. Even better!! Thank you for this link. And yeah.. my state's Senator, Jeanne Shaheen is fearless. She's not gonna mince words about Trump right now.
Thank god. Hopefully that means the rest of the world won’t get dragged into the next gulf war and the US won’t join the next Vietnam.
Now, when does this get applied to the US ally that isn’t changing its mind (Israel)?
The US and Israel are functionally the same state. The oligarchs in both countries want the same things and 95% of US politicians support Israel as if it were the 51st state.
If we made AIPAC illegal you'd see Israeli support crater overnight.
As an American, this is totally understandable. There are many here who have similar feelings of betrayal.
Sorry guys. I think this is the series finale.
I think the world could excuse the US for the first Trump infection. There are a lot of flukes that happened that ended up in Trump's favour, plus the years of the right villainizing Clinton, a gaggle of stupid boomers being fed Russian Facebook memes. It was a perfect storm of shit.
Putting him in place a second time is inexcusable.
I was mad the first time. This time I'm finding myself cheering louder when I hear about something going wrong in the states.
I know this was the Russian plan - to bring the US down from the inside. I know Russia wants to see a US civil war. But I think they underestimated how long that would take and how the rest of the world is getting really sick of the US's shit.
Take Canada. The US has been attacking it and trying to hurt it but we're coming out looking like the good guys and we're making other great deals left and right. It's a few roadbumps instead of a sink hole.
I'm looking forward to watching the US slowly crumble.
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Yes, the US is awful, but it should not be underestimated. The power the US has over traditional allies and others is still massive, and everyone else suffers from the challenge of having to solve the coordination problem if they want to collectively oppose them. The US knows this and constantly works to defeat any attempts to coordinate. Also, the US government primarily represents collections of oligarchic powers and supranational corporate and financial powers that also have huge influence in the countries that could try to coordinate against them. So, their power is not just via the tools of the state itself, but also the supranational powers that control the state. Pretty hard to stop, and the US is still basically getting what it wants, even after all of the insanity and ugly corrupt bs of Trump.
It's not. It's allies have started divesting. They continue to cooperate because it's the path of lest resistance, but every day the move away from the US.
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The US knows this and constantly works to defeat any attempts to coordinate.
Or, it did, until Trump gutted the State Department and drove out anyone anywhere near government who cared about good outcomes. There's surely still some of this going on because of pure inertia, but it will not continue going forward.
Also, the US government primarily represents collections of oligarchic powers and supranational corporate and financial powers that also have huge influence in the countries that could try to coordinate against them.
Yes, but they can still do that stuff without needing to be tied to the US geographically or governmentally. They're still tied to the US because it is a stable growth medium right now (stable currency / decent government if you're rich / etc) and makes an easy home base from which to interact with a lot of different countries, but literally all of that is coming to an end. Once things are more stable and profitable if they uproot and live somewhere else, because the US has terminal rot and has become a liability for them, they're going to move to Europe like a bunch of Russian oligarchs and do everything you just said on behalf of someone else instead.
A good read, if a little sparse and overly casual. What strikes me most was the "Thank god, somebody had to tell them" quip.
There must have been a thousand conversations between counterparts at all levels of government, business and military who have been over to the other's house after work for beer and conversation and dropped that nugget of truth, let alone the countless op-eds, you tube videos, reddit posts and of course lemmy and the fediverse.
They know. Everybody knows.
The fact that Jeane Shaheen said what she did, speaks loudly to the fact that there is ZERO trust of the Trump Administration even within the US itself. Democrats v. Republicans aside. For the most part, the politicians DO get along while they are working.. this is what is not understood by the public.. so for any Senator to not deny a hard, ugly truth about what is hapening inside the Beltway is an indicator of just how bad an Administration really is. It's a hold onto your beer, the water's gonna be rough for a while moment. My hope is that younger Americans will vote in actual progressives as the older politicians leave. We don't need idiots that think Autocracy is okay as long as it makes us look 'tough'..
This has taught me that America is only a loyal ally as long as your interests line up, the second they waver you are worthless to them.
We will never forget.
understandable. Countries that are not internally consistent. IE they don't follow their own laws. Those countries can't be trusted which is why they don't do well. The list of countries by corruption and the list by quality of life are inversely proportionate.
Why should we trust a country that imposed fake currency to all the world?
Currency based on farts and promises
Actually, the US dollar is backed by vast and stunning violence, so, maybe jot that down.
/me gets on with some jotting
Uh... ALL currency is "fake". No exceptions.
Except gold and silver.
You can make a fucking morning Star with them and start acquiring real assets with it using force and violence.
You can't make a weapon with a bunch of paper money.
Lol you had me in the first half, amazing goldbug bait.
I have to say I find your theory of violence-backed currency quite compelling.
I am just rediscovering what our ancestors knew millennia ago
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We never should have in the first place
Fantastic article - thanks for sharing
lmfao to anyone who put trust in tis shit hole to begin with
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