Roughly 2,000 U.S. diplomats have been laid off or forced to retire, taking with them decades of institutional knowledge, crisis response experience and highly specialized language skills.
Roughly 2,000 U.S. diplomats have been laid off or forced to retire, taking with them decades of institutional knowledge, crisis response experience and highly specialized language skills.
Trump fired America from its job as global hegemon… His presidencies have been maybe the worst thing to ever happen in my lifetime, but I still see the humour in it.
a vote for trump is a vote for total collapse was the line man, back in 2015.
Aah yeah, you’d remember those days well by the sounds of that.
The general answers as you’ll recall to that were either ‘he won’t get elected’ or ‘our institutions will control him’.
You should also recall a whole heap of people overseas, particularly Europeans, urging Americans to vote and either being told it’s not their country, there’s a right not to vote and to mind their own business. These ones are why it’s hard to swallow for myself when I now see Americans looking to get out to other countries any way they can. It came from all walks of the US too.
Yeah it was the line, but it was the answers to the line we were all expected to accept. But absolutely the more astute among the US population were warning of complete collapse.
I wanted Bernie and still voted for Hillary but I knew sexism, xenophobia and celebrity status would win. I’m in an extremely blue state so the president vote is really just a joke, the rest of the country determines things after the primary.
Aside from the obvious tax gift to the wealthy, the first term damages seemed tame by comparison to this time around. For most of the term I thought the doom and gloom was an overreaction, and for the first term all the way through most of 2020 I still think it was. I was practically sure after the attempt to subvert the elections he would lose too much support. Unfortunately he never faced real consequences and hate still wins.
I can’t understand the total reversal in fortune from the first term to the second one though. He started off with practically active opposition from the gop and now it’s like they will do whatever he asks. The blatant open corruption hardly has opposition. Certain things that almost certainly would never have worked do get shut down - tariffs and now probably the slush fund - I think the point is the generalized distraction that keeps us from looking too deeply at anything.
This time with the concentration camps and total destruction of the US power base I think the plan is a cash grab and scorched earth as revenge for not installing him as dictator, if the plans to become dictator this term don’t work. The social media identity harvesting screams plans of disappearing the vocal political opposition. The “election integrity”is literally trying to rig the election, but hopefully won’t work.
All the while they’re instituting the policies and changes that make a handful of supporters billionaires or trillionaires. As long as the backroom deals keep coming the money and propaganda will be on his side unfortunately. The US will be a shadow of its former self after the ai bubble pops. The rest of the world has been moving on without us and their economic results are proving that.
It’s all just sad. I know we will never get the change we need to get ahead though. I think the only hope is that fears of collapse come to fruition and somehow Europe steps in to cover for what the US used to do, but that’s fantasy at this point.
Thank you for the effort you put into this, I just woke up, saw it and knew it deserved a cup of coffee.
The morning I found out he won the first time, I was so devastated for good Americans and shocked it ruined the entire working week. I’m in Australia and I pay a bit of attention to US politics because many of the decisions they make are crucial to us and our region.
I almost cried. Another country’s politics and here I am about to break down in front of my Scottish workmate who cared about nothing other than barbecues and getting on the grog.
I was somewhat hopeful Clinton would win, but that did not happen. Like you, I was originally on the Bernie train but something in the back of my mind told me he wasn’t getting the candidacy one way or the other and my rationale was that he was an independent and the DNC wouldn’t back an independent with their money.
Everywhere I could, I along with many others were urging Americans to vote and vote blue, especially in that primary. That was when we were told to bugger off and mind our own business. We saw where the possible weaknesses were with Clinton, being a woman and establishment. It was clear to me Sanders would flog Trump and it wouldn’t be close.
Still, she’d have been a far better president than Trump. She might have even been a good one; her husband wasn’t bad. As a surveyor, we hold his decision to switch GPS’ selective availability off as one of the most groundbreaking things our industry ever had happen, up there with the introduction of the theodolite and automatic level. It was a complete game changer.
I should have paid more attention to Election Day in 2016. I was caught a bit by surprise at first, but as I said I was hopeful, not confident. Knowing how a lot of the population had been farmed by Murdoch, I can’t say I was surprised at the result. Just disappointed when Greig told me.
The first term of course, internationally we knew he’d start breaking down the relationships and world order that had been built after the Second World War but at this time he didn’t have the full loyalty of his own party so he couldn’t do too much damage.
For his second term, the writing was on the wall when the court systems started to bend and the SC in particular lined themselves up to shoehorn him back into power. I became confident he’d win again when I learned the country uses vote counting machines run by private companies. That was it for me; I knew they be tampered with. They were and yeah, I definitely believe it gave Trump the election.
That said, the truth behind his rise for me still stands with the US populations laziness with voting. Had the vote attendance been around the 80% mark or better I think it would have been very difficult if not impossible to rig this vote. Then we have every other election beforehand and their low attendances too. The quality of leader really does reflect the participation. Bad candidates people seem to vote religiously, so they’re always going to win if the other side won’t turn up.
I don’t need to tell you how disgraceful his popularity being so close to 50% is; you live there and wear the embarrassment of that every day.
It’s clear that those he actually works for…Israel and Russia…have kompromat on him that forces him to do their bidding when they want. I actually think this kompromat is something quite pathetic or ego driven, like what the girls involved in the Epstein thing said about his lack of sexual prowess compared to Jeffy or something pathetic like that. Either way they have it and they use it. Without Trump, despite what the tankies might think there’s no way Netanyahu would be doing what he is now. I think this is why he has an iron grip on his party too…kompromat or they’ve been threatened directly.
Now, I think the only solution for the US to restore itself is for the population to shut the country down peacefully, not go to work, avoid trade of any kind, jam up the streets and roads. It’s hardship, I know, but unfortunately the easy route was ignored and the alternative, which is fast approaching, much worse. Had they done this at any stage, for a week or longer, they wouldn’t have Trump in power now. If the gears of profit stop in the US the Senate would impeach him and follow through real fast. Civil war or attempt to overthrow is definitely not the answer…the first would result in slaughter and the second in national breakdown.
I have hope…but I think there’ll be a heap of hardship first. I have to hope. The rest of the world is now beginning to slide. It being tried here now, fucking Gina Rinehart who is as big a cunt or worse than Murdoch is gearing up Pauline Hanson in the same light of reactive popularity. Thus us embarrassing for us; Hansons cHaRisMa is the Temuist version of Trumps you could ever see, but I shouldn’t be surprised and you wouldn’t be either if you saw the fucking b grade entertainers we have at half time during sports events. Australia really does put cheese on a pedestal in the tackiest ways. Horne wasn’t wrong about the Lucky Country either just quietly.
Yeah but since when do people believe campaign promises?
Best thing to happen*
It’s been long since time for the US hegemony to end. Maybe which ever countries end up taking the mantle will not be quite as “invade, on average, 50 countries a year”-y.