• No1@aussie.zone
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    3 hours ago

    “I live in the best country on the planet!”

    “Have you ever been to another country?”

    “Well, no. But why would I do that when I’m already in the best country!”

    This doesn’t apply to just the US…

  • kent_eh@lemmy.ca
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    6 hours ago

    The End of American Exceptionalism

    But not the end of them claiming it regardless of the reality.

    Then again, their claims of being the bestest ever at everything have been false for a very long time already.

  • تحريرها كلها ممكن@lemmy.ml
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    7 hours ago

    There is a chance that Trump will inadvertently weaken the US long term, but nothing is certain so until it happens I am not getting my hopes up. The article though is neocon propaganda, they don’t even mention the genocide in Gaza or pogroms in the West Bank.

    • kent_eh@lemmy.ca
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      6 hours ago

      There is a chance that Trump will inadvertently weaken the US long term

      He already did that the first time.

      This time he’ll double (or triple) down on that.

  • mercano@lemmy.world
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    20 hours ago

    Trump was right about one thing, we are a nation in decline, but it’s not for the reasons he’s claiming.

    • joe_@lemmy.ml
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      18 minutes ago

      What do you, and others, mean by decline? I hear things like decline, late stage capitalism, etc. but keep seeing evidence that American capitalism is getting stronger not weaker e.g. record stock markets, right wing election results, enshittification.

    • nova_ad_vitum@lemmy.ca
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      3 hours ago

      Democracies grant immense power to the electorate. Including the power of suicide. Democratic systems are inherently capable of ending themselves because ultimately their survival depends on enough people believing in the system and holding the integrity of the system to be more important than any particular democratic outcome. That is lost in the US. Most voters don’t care.

      That truth alone makes a decent argument for US being in decline. It will take a long time , but it’s beginning.

      • OurToothbrush@lemmy.mlM
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        1 hour ago

        The US isn’t a democracy though, it is a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, where every election we get to select which group of oppressors will wield state power against us until the next one.

        Also decline is caused by anticolonial resistance and the logic of capitalism breaking down. I would suggest reading Lenin’s “imperialism” and Fanon’s “wretched of the earth”

        • nova_ad_vitum@lemmy.ca
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          50 minutes ago

          The US isn’t a democracy though, it is a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, where every election we get to select which group of oppressors will wield state power against us until the next one.

          Yes that truly one of the opinions of all time.

  • davel [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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    21 hours ago

    It is difficult to get Drezner to understand that American exceptionalism is already dead when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.

    • Cris@lemmy.world
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      21 hours ago

      I’d argue we’re a lot more like the British empire in their glory days- exporting authoritarianism, subjugation, and hate globally, for as long as it serves our material benefit.

      We learned from the best 🤷‍♂️

    • Meltrax@lemmy.world
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      22 hours ago

      We are not just like Russia.

      We aren’t exceptional though, you got that right. America hasn’t been exceptional in decades.

  • joe_@lemmy.ml
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    21 hours ago

    I view FA as an arena for American political elite to build legitimacy for their ideas.

    That, combined with an expected surge of corrupt foreign policy practices, will leave the United States looking like a garden-variety great power.

    I’m surprised to hear such strong language out of FA. I normally expect boring policy-style language.

    He believes that the U.S.-created liberal international order has, over time, stacked the deck against the United States.

    I’ve perceived that things have never been better for American international order than under Trump/Biden.

    he will likely use Schedule F—a measure to reclassify civil service positions as political slots—to force them out.

    Interesting precedence if so. Having career civil servants keeps things from changing too fast, and turning them political could enable instability. I’m curious how this interacts with the Hatch act.

    The first is the inevitable corruption that will compromise U.S. policies.

    I’m surprised at the emphasis on “corruption” language, especially in FA. This type of language gets people labeled “troublemaker” as Chomsky might say.

    • ℍ𝕂-𝟞𝟝@sopuli.xyz
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      4 hours ago

      I’ve perceived that things have never been better for American international order than under Trump/Biden.

      The last few cycles have been a weird time for NATO, as the escalating Russian aggression revitalised the alliance, but the unreliability of Trump vastly diminished the status of the US. Europe is now actively trying to get out of the military subordinate role.

      • joe_@lemmy.ml
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        3 hours ago

        The last few cycles have been a weird time for NATO, as the escalating Russian aggression revitalised the alliance, but the unreliability of Trump vastly diminished the status of the US

        Concur

        Europe is now actively trying to get out of the military subordinate role.

        Europe has been trying to get out of this role since WWII. I view that they were forced into this role post-WWII with American occupation. I also see that American power also led to European decolonization through the Atlantic Charter e.g. Vietnam and Asia, Africa, and controversially, India.

        I view that America maintains Europe’s subordinate role, both militarily and economically, through military influence, as discussed by prior NATO Commander Haig in 2002:

        … Q – Why is the United States still stationing 70,000 troops in Germany?

        A – A lot of good reasons for that. This presence is the basis for our influence in the European region and for the cooperation of allied nations whose security it enhances. A lot of people forget it is also the bona fide of our economic success. The presence of U.S. troops keeps European markets open to us. If those troops weren’t there, those markets would probably be more difficult to access.

        Q – I didn’t forget. I just didn’t know that if the United States didn’t maintain 70,000 troops in Germany, European markets might be closed to American goods and services.

        A – On occasion, even with our presence, we have confronted protectionism in a number of industries, such as automotive and aerospace. In addition to economic benefits derived from our presence in Europe, there is perhaps an even more important diplomatic and political benefit.

        Q – But the United States is not defending Europe against anything anymore. …