dear republicans, what's the point of alienating every single ally of the US?
it's like you believe you can tariff them expecting they won't do the same. Why do you believe the rest of the world is not going to retaliate and why do you believe America can prosper without the rest of the world?
What's the point of having a military alliance with countries you puts tariffs on? That's unfriendly to say the least.
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The people you need to hear from aren't using Lemmy.
OP should try Truth Social, I hear it's technically a Mastodon fork...
Ew.
I mean, yeah, but it's where they would actually find conservatives...
.......ew.
"""conservatives""". Sometimes I think the DNC is the last place to find actual conservatives these days.
There is a good reason for this. Money to win elections comes from CONSERVATIVE corporations and populism isn't on their wish list.
Yeah.
I dunno what these guys are on about, but their big-C conservatism isn't conservatism but stealing-in-the-name-of.
It’s mastodon? I thought it was a different fediverse platform.
https://www.pcmag.com/news/trumps-social-media-site-quietly-admits-its-based-on-mastodon
Oh so it was X before Twitter. Lmao
Gotta love the grift - how much did they sink on this thing? And then they just stole an open source project and tried to hide it.
What’s next, TrumpOS? Reskinned Ubuntu with wallpapers and icons for $300?
Actually - anyone want to join my OS dev team?
holy shit!
Can you imagine them federating their content? What a stream of odd toots that would be!
It would be gab all over again
Whoa!!!!?!
OP's also not going to get an answer that's interesting or helpful out of them even if you go to where they live and ask and don't get immediately flamed for asking.
There's no acceptable answer for it. I have plenty of conservative friends and I could make sense of voting for Trump the first time. Not for me, FUCK that, but not all Trump v1 supporters were racists and there were valid conservative reasons to vote for him. He was definitely an unknown, nobody could have told you with certainty how he would act once in office. I could have told you what I expected and it was about as horrible as I expected, but people often see things in politicians that they want to see, rather than seeing what's really there.
But any of the "OK to vote for Trump v1" falls apart completely for Trump v2. We saw what his first term was like and especially how it ended. His campaign in 2024 was even more unhinged and less grounded in reality than in 2016. Voting for him in 2024 is really inexcusable.
The US will be unimaginably worse off by the time Trump leaves office this time, tariffs and tax cuts for the rich and inflation, it's going to be bad for Americans on an individual level. On a global level, Trump will have shredded alliances and any goodwill we had built up over the past decades, while also validating and confirming the world's worst concerns about us.
And when Trump does finally leave office, the people you want to hear from will largely feel like it was a phenomenal presidency. It is a cult and logic and reason don't have anything to do with it.
I’d love to believe this, but cynical me is thinking about those conservatives that look at Milei in Argentina and legitimately think it’s going great.
Milei's performance really does depend on your metric.
If all you care about is inflation and regulations, then he's doing all right. Somewhere between fantastic and "eh, he's getting there" depending on how you squint.
If you care about how many people are in poverty, or struggling to eat, he has been a disaster.
Conservatives don't care about suffering. The suffering is natural. Life is hard. Lots of people are losers. Trying to stop the suffering just moves the pain from people who deserve to suffer (the poor) to people who don't deserve it. (The rich)
Some of them are, you just have to scroll way way way down
Conservative on sh.itjust.works appears to be conservatives.
I have my doubts about that. Most of the mass posters are too "conservative" and lean extremely hard into stereotypes. They take racism and bigotry just a bit too far in many cases and it doesn't quite align with actual conservative bigots and racists that I know.
It wouldn't be surprising if most of the "conservative" communities are part of the same troll farm that lives primarily on other instances.
This is all speculation, of course. But, organized campaigns to spread discourse on social media are real and some of these trolls are really good at what they do.
Nahh, they were pretty conservativy when I tried to interact with them.
Sadly true. We actively searched for alternatives when we realised other channels were getting too manipulative and full of hate. Those who stayed haven't even realised it.
If they were capable of thinking critically, they wouldn’t be Republicans in the first place.
You're never going to get a satisfying answer to this question, because there is no actual reason. If you want, you can go peek in on the conservative subreddits and watch their gold-medal winning mental gymnastics, but the reason Trump is doing this is Putin told him to. The U.S. is destroying themselves for no gain.
Nearly $3 billion USD flowed through the TRUMP cryptocoin rugpull, whoever owned initial coins made very, very large gains.
The $3 billion in quid buys a lot of anti-Ukraine pro quo
But, thanks to the Supreme Court, Trump could go on national TV and say he change US policy on Ukraine because he was bribed and he'd still be immune to any legal consequences (other than impeachment, but never anything criminal).
But wait, there's more. Us taxpayer money will now be used to "invest" in these crypto scams.
There's a lot of traitors in this country, but the conservatives on the Supreme Court may be at the top of the list.
Because they think it owns the libs, plain and simple!
The reality is that these people were/are unhappy in their lives due to stagnation in their finances/jobs, poor healthcare, and they don't have a tight local community. Then these dumb, angry people are primed to accept someone who says they'll fix their lives, and knows how to talk right to them. Everything else is just toppings, but that's really the meat of it.
It's like that scene in the Incredibles where Mr. Incredible gets inside the robot, and has it tear itself to pieces. Except an entire country. And ~88,000,000 people voted against self-destruction and are being dragged off a cliff.
Good luck finding many of them around here. They find out pretty quickly that they aren't welcome.
They don't care about cooperation, everything is a deal to them. If some other country has something, we don't. The entire worldview of Republicans is just capitalism, if something can't be framed in terms of profit it's not worth pursuing.
They're fucking Ferengis
Edit: as others have correctly pointed out, at least Ferengis have standards. This might be a disservice to them.
Ferengis were meant to be a caricature of our current society, so yes, Ferengi fits.
Don't insult Ferengis. They're actually smart.
And comply with contracts
They've been whitewashed over time as ST gets farther from the left. The OG ferengi would only have complied with a contract if they thought they'd get caught breaking it, which is honestly a more accurate satire.
Rule of Acquisition #17: A contract is a contract is a contract... but only between Ferengi.
Sounds like you’ve got the lobes for business.
"You're overlooking something"
Trump only ran to stay out of prison. Now he's ripping the copper out of the walls to get as much money as he can before it all collapses under his ineptitude.
Elon thinks he's gonna be a trillionaire at the top of a technofeudal oligarchy. (He wants to be Arasaka from Cyberpunk but he's gonna have a hard time doing that while all his businesses fail.)
Classic fascist strategy.
This country is circling the toilet FAST.
You guys do know that facism tends to be left leaning right?
Hitler was left leaning. What side was trying to censor opponents and throw political opponents in jail? It was the left and it backfired.
Hitler was not left leaning. He was supported by the old guard and the industrialists like Krupp until he out grew them and then turned on them. At the end of the day he was an autocrat, a totalitarian. Think was Gaddafi liberal? How about Suddam? They both had extensive social programs, but they were not left leaning. In the Weimar Republic it was the right wing courts that tried to censor and throw people in jail, and often let the right wing activists off the hook for similar offenses. Left and right wing groups can both censor and throw people in jail, ie USSR, but generally this is in service of totalitarianism, the ideology at that point is just a husk to keep people in line while people vye for control.
Well according to Hitler that his party was neither left nor right wing. He claimed it as a "syncretric movement". It was essentially his own little sick movement.
And why do you take the word of a man who was infamously one of history's greatest liars?
Consolidation of power to a tiny coalition of privileged cronies with conditional impunity as long as they backed the leader. That's not "conservative" or "liberal" or "right" or "left." It's just...autocratic. Have you read The Dictator's Handbook by Bueno de Mesquita and Smith? It's a very illuminating reference and eschews the entire argument of "left vs right" in favor of a ruling-coalition size relative to the ruled population model and it appears to be quite accurate in predicting and explaining the behavior of politicians and rulers, Hitler included.
Radical centrism strikes again!
Who does that remind you of sir? Kind of reminds me of the today's left with throwing political opponents in jail and letting the supporters of the left off the hook.
Exactly one political party in US history ran a candidate from a prison cell, do you know who it was and what the party was called?
Hitler put all the leftists in camps and also purged the left wing of his own party, he came to power by being appointed by center-right big business interests specifically as a way to crush the left and destroy labor unions, and those interests did quite well under his rule, the term "privatization" was literally first coined to describe the Nazi economy.
So those are the points showing the Nazis were right wing. The points showing the Nazis were left wing are... they censored speech (which the right also does, all the time) and they have socialist in their name (curious on whether you consider the Democratic People's Republic of Korea a democracy).
Extreme right wing nazis fought extreme left wing communists in WW2.
New troll account, ban speedrun.
The answer is: they do not give a shit.
They do not care about the US as a country.
They do not care about the Americans as a people.
They do not care about the economy.
They do not care about anything apart from their own personal interest. Lining their own pockets is all they care about. If someone helps them do that, they are friends with them. If they don't, they do not matter.
Congratulations, you now officially live in a cleptocracy where they shake you down, take all of your money and give it to the guys who already have billions. All the taxes they claim to save by obliterating social security, affordable care etc? They are not going back to you, they will stuff them in Musk's pockets through bullshit contracts and other schemes.
And at the same time, they are critically crippling the IRS to make sure the billionairs no longer even have to pretend to pay taxes.
You're describing the Republican politicians. The Republican voters are a different bag entirely.
Out of the ones I have discussed politics with, their underlying motivations for supporting Trump are emotionally driven but explained through rhetoric aligning with their emotional motivations. It tends to be grouped into one of a few different feelings:
Aside from the bigotry and exceptionalism, those emotions aren't necessarily wrong. Cost of living increases, politicians owned by lobbyists, and profit-driven privatization of essential services are actual problems. The issue with conservatives is that they have scapegoats to blame those problems on instead of acknowledging the underlying causes. All it takes is some loudmouth, ignorant jackass offering an overly-simplified, emotionally-compelling solution to a complex problem, and others will latch on to it, oversimplify and exaggerate it even more, and disseminate it until the rest of them start believing it.
People can be hateful, narcissistic pieces of shit, and it goes without saying that this repugnant rhetoric is spread intentionally. But, it's also a direct consequence of a public education system failing among a landscape of patriotic propaganda and media controlled by a powerful few who put profit and self-gain above the health of society.
When someone grows up being told America is a flawless nation, that self-reliance is the foundational trait of success, is never educated to think critically of the government and media, and is bombarded by a neverending stream of false information that validates their fears and lulls them into feeling smarter than everyone else, they end up being indoctrinated into the right-wing cult we have today.
They won't blame foundational American principles (like the economic ideology) for American problems—they were made to believe America is perfect. It must be something external (like immigrants) making their life worse.
They won't question those they believe have authority over them—the teacher is always right. If Trump says it's the Democrats fault, it's the Democrats fault.
They won't make an effort to understand other views—self-reliance is antithetical to empathy, and they had it ingrained which one was more important. The only person they can trust is themselves and by extension those who agree.
They also won't need to understand other views. With the breadth of echo chambers available at the tip of their fingers, it's easy to seek and reinforce conservative views, social connection, and validation. Chuck McFuck has a sole trans daughter who begrudgingly interacts with him, in contrast to his 10,000 friendly and cooperative buddies on r/conservative.
To cripple the US so it is no longer a threat to Russia, and they can move in to "reclaim" all those Baltic nations and maybe even cop the EU.
Not just Russia. Any kind of meaningful restraint on multinational corps & billionaires requires international cooperation, or the entity just changes the region where it stores/performs/recognizes whatever thing.
I think we're gonna learn the hard way its actually not okay to let corporations become more powerful than most nations.
look at moussilini and hitler. they all sided with him
Going to steel man this since theres obviously no one on here answering this question seriously. Not a republican and don't agree with all this, just imagining what my republican dad would say about this:
For ukraine and Europe, we have no interest in protecting them besides sentimental attachments. Ukraine is not our problem, it's Europe's and if they want to dump money into a lost cause by all means go ahead, but leave the u.s. out of it unless your going to compensate us for it. The u.s. isn't threatened by Russia, we have an ocean, the world's largest navy and nukes to protect us. The larger threat is China and we should be focusing on them, not russia which can barely invade it's neighbor, much less march across Europe and the atlantic. Europe can handle its own problems.
For Canada and Mexico and tarriffs in general. We need to bring manufacturing back to America and revitalize the rust belt. We can't do that if companies find it more profitable to go over seas and pay people pennies when they'd have to pay Americans much more. The only way to get them to come back is to make it too expensive to import things.
This is all about putting America first. For decades America has been spending billions to protect Europe and has been sending billions of dollars over seas to build factories owhile factory after factory closes here in the u.s. We need to stop all of that and spend our money in America for Americans.
Feel free to use this comment as a punching bag, I don't care, just trying to give OP an actual answer if this was a legitimate question and not some rhetorical question seeking affirmation on how dumb the Republicans are. They are, don't get me wrong, but just say so and don't dress it up in questions like this.
Canada has
One of those must be the issue. ;-)
When we spend money in other countries, we are spending it on Americans. When free people thrive, America wins. When people around the world have stable governments that at least try to look out for their own people, America wins. Even if 49% of it is wasted to fraud and abuse, we're still coming out ahead: the only Americans who have lived through a draft are in their 60s, and a nuclear attack in their 80s.
This hedgemony has staved of world war three and nuclear war for 75 years, and kept the world a relatively stable and safe place for virtually everyone.
Even if you completely disagree with me, and feel like voting for conservatives is the better alternative, two facts completely undermine that decision. First, the times America has failed to live up to its ideals or faltered in its highest pursuits have been exclusively presided over by conservatives. Second, the number of times conservatives have cut spending and passed the savings on to the 99% is exactly zero, but their track record of increasing spending while only significantly cutting taxes for the 1%...is 100%. And, as a bonus fact, this the wealthiest nation ever to exist in the history of the world. The diea that we can't afford to help Americans and keep up our global spending is meritless, for example, we could eat like three billionaires and end global hunger, provide healthcare and education to every American.
This is a good steel man response, very much like Facebook posts I have seen lately. It's really sad how much the right has abandoned listening to experts and just assuming we can apply "common sense" answers to fix problems that are complicated.
Thing is, what the USA was buying with its expensive umbrella over Europe was a disarmed Europe. At the time, the USA felt it was in their interest for EU to be weak.
For a variety of reasons, the rise of China perhaps being at the forefront, the USA no longer believes its in their interest to keep EU toothless.
Even before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it had occurred to me that the US disproportionately spends much, much more on military might than our allies do. Europe pulled a good one on us, ensuring they could lead more carefree lifestyles with first world social safety nets while we take on that heavy burden of being the sentry guard of the entire western world.
However, we made promises of security to Ukraine in return for their nuclear disarmament. It isn’t right that we turn our backs on them now.
Trump is a simpleton. He doesn’t truly understand the long-term butterfly effects of the decisions he’s making.
No, we did that to ourselves, by always cutting taxes instead of raising them to pay for things that are public goods, like single-payer health care, public transportation, public education, and so on. Our taxes are too low, and as a result we pay far, far more for the same things as private services rather than public. You can complain that the gov't is inefficient, but there's no profit; profit takes a far bigger bite than waste, inefficiency, and fraud does.
Great post! And I can see the point of most of that take.
My riposte, which I bring up frequently, is that a smart capitalist isn't going to invest in American factories, knowing damned well they'll be left holding the bag on a multi-million dollar facility when the tariffs drop.
That's not even mentioning the employment costs, which are far more than most on lemmy understand. tl;dr: If I'm paying you $15hr., it's costing me $30hr.
Dad? Is that you?!
For Canada anyway, there is a manufacturing trade surplus in favour of US. Canadians buy more autos than they make, and also provide affordability for US made products, through components. So it means a reduction in US manufacturing jobs, when better products are available from less hateful countries, and US made goods are too expensive for Americans.
Nailed it on the head. I think also that you need to include that Canada's relationship vis-a-vis trade with China will be affected by tariffs the US is placing on Canada, and same with Mexico. I think much of everything is from the viewpoint that China is a bigger problem than Russia at the moment. China is also recovering from some economic turmoil, and one way to do so includes expanding their reach, and so the intent is to limit China in other areas.
The answer is disappointingly simple: emotional satisfaction.
For decades, these people have been told that they are incredibly generous towards their allies, and that they get nothing in return. That their allies are abusing their relationships. Of course this is false, but they've been told so every day.
Now they get to abuse their "abusers" right back.
Victimhood is a requirement of conservatism. Like any cult or religion.
Project 2025. The goal is to remove all tariffs and other limitations against the US.
Canada for instance has laws on antibiotics for dairy, foreign ownership for banks and telcos, various things like that. India has tariffs on everything.
The document outlines crazy things like capital punishment and a border wall, its clearly Trumps handbook. It's all in there.
While I have no issue with Republicans being shunned for their unashamed fascism, it does mean threads like this are essentially pointless because almost none will actually participate and the ones who do will be downvoted into oblivion.
And dont forget, we are on Lemmy. Everything that's somewhat conservative gets bullied out quite fast. C/conservative started as a legit community and got turned into a meme community. I think this speaks for itself.
My general dislike for modern conservatism to the side, it does reflect a wider issue with lemmy. There is no diversity of opinion on anything. There are no niche communities. Either you like the political and tech subs and the meme subs which are, at a mininum, 60% political, or there really is nothing for you here.
The manga and anime subs can be good for keeping up with new releases, but not there's next to no actual discussion.
There's absolutely diversity of opinion, I see trans and Tankie arguments pretty frequently.
What is generally true is the majority of Lemmy users seem to lean left and are generally more techy, makes sense given the main reasons why you'd seek out the fediverse vs a centralized social media.
There's a lot of diversity of opinion between leftists and liberals. Generally speaking, conservatives don't contribute anything and drag down the quality of debate because they are openly anti-intellectual, and their presence also drives away people who are actually worth having. The only thing that would happen if there were more conservatives on here would be more cable news tier screaming matches and more verbal attacks on minorities. Liberals still only want to talk and think at a cable news level, but at least they aren't openly hateful and anti-intellectual.
People are more likely to change their minds or have productive conversations when they approach a topic from the same basic values and beliefs about the world, like if two people agree on the goal of uplifting the global proletariat, they can discuss how best to go about it, but if one person's goal is to uplift the global proletariat and the other's is, idk, to drop minorities out of helicopters, then both are just going to be screaming at each other. Not only that, but if two people are discussing how to uplift the poor while the other guy's in the room, it's going to have a negative effect on their ability to do so, because they'll constantly have to worry about everything they say getting attacked by dumb, right-wing arguments. Imagine two doctors trying to discuss the nuances of their profession in the same room as an antivax nutjob.
Yeah now try being absolutely unknowledgeable when it comes to tech and very much into makeup, skincare, 90 day fiance and parenting content. Lemmy, it's been nice, but after one and a half years I started lurking to Reddit every once in a while again.
It sucks that niche things like that haven't picked up yet, however be the change you want to see, create a community and invite like minded people to post there.
I think the biggest barrier of entry is that people don't understand it, and they're not going to until they try in all honesty.
Lurking is fine. I wouldn't bother creating an account. Reddit is bot-moderated now. It's been a real shitshow and it's not really worth having an account anymore.
I've definitely thought about trying to get back onto Reddit once I get a computer they don't recognize.
I disagree with a ton of stuff, but Ive already been banned from one community so for the most part I keep it civil. I haven't had much issue arguing against the common opinion here besides the down votes, but I see downvoted comment chains all the time so I'm not as concerned they will be hidden.
Isolating the US and breaking US hegemony. Trump is a Putin puppet, and what’s best for Russia is crippling the US economically and diplomatically. Alienating the EU cuts off the EU from the US who would otherwise help the Europeans against the Russians as they try to reclaim their former territories.
This also helps China who is trying to replace the US as the world superpower. BRICS is doing a good job of creating a competing economic alliance, and the US falling apart helps make it more attractive.
Not a conservative, by the way. Just someone who follows the news.
Not a Republican but big US billionaires recently cashed out their stocks.
https://finbold.com/warren-buffetts-cash-pile-hits-334-billion-record-high-what-does-it-mean/
Trump imposing moronic tariffs will crash the market and the Billionaires can buy back cheap.
this question could be rephrased to:
dear idiots, why are you so stupid?
OR
dear sociopaths, why are you so selfish?
the motivations don't matter. they can;t be reasoned with.
conclusion: guns.
This feels so much closer to the real truth than anything. It really can be this simple for the trump cult.
You could replace all the above by "trumpist". There is no such thing as american conservatives anymore, the only thing remaining is trumpism, a soon to be modern form of nazism.
you could also waste your time splitting hairs about words.
Shit like the other comment is why the left will never win in the US. They don't care about your point or even progressing the conversation.
As long as they get their little point they don't care. They got to "ackshually" on the internet and that hit of dopamine is good enough.
Go ahead and start shooting people, seems to be your proposition (edit: look at his post history lol). But are you only about words or will you actually do something? If not then stfu.
you're too stupid to understand what the point of any of this is. how about YOU STFU?
You comment on every post about guns lol. Well go ahead fucking do something with you guns, now's the best time. But like most american, all you do is run your mouth like you know everything but you wont do shit. Because like most americans your either an under-educated facsist or a privilege-ass wannabe rebel. What a stupid country you have, hope you will all enjoy being billionaire's bitches cause that's your future.
thanks for the support but if you don't have any constructive commentary, please fuck off.
Here's a constructive comment : Dear americans, please start shooting each other before we need to do it for you. It's really hard for us to make the distinction between an under-educated fat-ass who support pedo-president and an under-educated fat-ass who doesn't care what he does. Hope that helps.
You won't get logical answers to this because there isn't one. Maybe they're just that dumb. Maybe they just want to tank the economy a bit so the rich and gobble up more during the dip. Maybe they just actually love Russia. Maybe they're being secretly black mailed by Russia.
Easy answer. The entire Government of Putin is working for shit Kremlin.
I was just watching a panel discussion about Trump and the tariffs and had a thought. He's started adding exemptions. He just added one for the automotive industry following discussions with the big three auto makers. What if the tariffs were a grift all along? What if he put the tariffs on to generate tax dollars that he can use to give billions of dollars to the wealthy but what if he's double dipping and selling exemptions? Like, what if when he talked to the big three auto makers he said, "I'll make an exemption to the tariffs for the auto industry if you give me $100 million"?
If you seriously think that this isn't market manipulation then I've some lovely bridges you may be interested in acquiring for a low price!
Ya I have no doubt him and his gremlins are manipulating stocks. They probably heavily invested in EU MIC like Rheinmetall before starting all the drama that caused it to spike and US MIC to dip. In a week they'll cash out, buy the dip on Raytheon and suddenly trump publicly reverses a ton of bullshit. Rinse and repeat on all of his drama he starts. These tarrif games are screwing heavily with stock prices too. No doubt they're making bank with the whiplash they're causing.
Everything Donald Trump has ever done or ever will do, is a grift.
This is exactly what they were the last time around. They poked so many holes in that tarrif policy it was a seive
It pleases Putin.
they have brain damage.
You probably won't get too many of those to answer your question on Lemmy.
The president is a Russian asset
Juche.
I wish I was kidding.
They're doing a North Korea. Building a completely isolated war economy.
Yup. Fascists require enemies. If they don't exist, they must be created.
Eurasia is at war with Oceania.
there's no republicans on lemmy lol
I'm not a conservative but there's a logic to it beyond this, "because Putin!" circlejerk nonsense. Tariffs are a reaction against Neoliberalism and the economic intelligencia that has fucked everyone over. Many of them blame NAFTA and the offshoring of union jobs to other countries with cheaper labor and fewer protections, and they think they can bring them back through tariffs.
Many of these people understand well that they have been fucked, but can't really name capitalism directly because it's a sacred cow. Still they're going to react poorly to "the establishment" telling them they're dumb and wrong, and that includes libs screaming at them that they're "serving Putin" without even understanding what they're actually trying to do.
Tariffs aren't going to bring those jobs back, at least not without significant subsidies that the government will never do. Also, for the record, those jobs have raised the living conditions of the people they went to, and are one of the reasons China was able to lift 800 million people out of extreme poverty in the past 40 years, but the pitch of, "You might not be able to find a decent job, but hey, at least a poor Chinese rice farmer can afford a washing machine now," doesn't exactly go over well with the right. We should be focusing on the super-rich who have enough hoarded wealth to make everyone rich, regardless of national borders and whatnot, but they see that as communism, because it is communism.
Ultimately, tariffs are a way of rebelling against an economic orthodoxy that isn't working for a growing number of people and they fit into the nationalist narratives about why things are so bad (because of foreigners) without having to name capitalism itself as the problem.
This follows a long historical trend in America where people don't want the government to do anything ever but also need the government to do things to address crises and allow society to function so we have to come up with convoluted approaches that "don't count" as government interference, for whatever reason. For example, the New Deal was too restrained to actually end the Depression, but once WWII happened we could take the gloves off with government spending (on the military) which was economically necessary, and since then, military bases have served as an inefficient and corrupt way for the government to infuse cash into local communities by paying people to just walk around with guns in like Nebraska. This goes all the way back to people like Jefferson, who absolutely hated the idea of big government but also casually doubled the size of the country with the Louisiana Purchase. There's also the classic psychology of, "Keep your damn, government hands off my social security!" A big reason American politics are insane is because there is a battle in everyone's mind between ideology and material interests, and the way in which material interests are persued is roundabout, convoluted, and ineffective, because everyone's trying to avoid being/sounding like a communist.
When I meet magas one of the questions I like to ask is something along the lines of describe your ideal healthcare system. 90% basically describe Medicare for all. I clarify, get more detail (basically make them really think about it as much as possible), and then ask which candidates or party they believe is in line with them. Obvs I want to avoid backing them in a corner so don't say 'Aha you're a socialist!'. Rather, I work though it with them, google candidates and see what their policy is. Bonus points when half the R websites don't even have policy so they can see that. Anyway we generally get to the point that they think they might be left of both parties on that issue. And then I try to plant a seed that this is a totally normal process for figuring out who to support and get out of there while they feel some mutual respect between us. It's harder these days when the fascism is so blatant but I don't know what else to do when I find myself living in a democracy with a bunch of insane people
So that when the oligarchs assume full unchecked control of the US, no one will lift a finger to help the rest of us.
You're speaking in the wrong verb tense there, buddy.
To own the libs
Stock market manipulation. Look at who moved in to make big trades after the market plunged. Follow the money.
I don't even think the majority of American conservatives are on board with most of what's happening anymore.
SomeLike almost half are, but they're especially stupid and usually ideologically oriented to Trump rather than to the traditional brand of US conservatism.The traditional conservatives are suspiciously quiet right now, so I count them as fully complicit.
To be fair to them though, they did just get comprehensively voted out from everywhere. They don't have a single majority to make any difference to anything. If I were them I'd be sitting back with a large bowl of popcorn going "yal'l voted for this, or at least didn't vote against it, hope you enjoy getting the full force of this orange idiot right in the face". But from the headlines I've read it would appear they've had a few things to say about Fart's latest hot smelly air.
They'd still rather stay silent than break with Trump and ally with leftists. To be really fair, they deserve no fucking credit whatsoever.
That is factually untrue. They did not get voted out everywhere and it is somewhat silly to say so.
House: R- 218, D- 215 Senate: R- 53, D- 47
That is what I call a fair fight.
Your position is indefensible.
I did a bit of maths at school and I know 218>215, and 53>47.
That is what I call a minority in both places. If all D get together and say "no", and all R get together and say "yes", then where a simple majority is required it'll be an R victory. Any D victory will need some Rs to either swing (and likely get fired), or abstain. Of course if a 2/3 majority is needed for something then R will need some D support to get it through.
Minority parties have a great deal of procedural power and with such a narrow minority, even a few defections from the other party can swing a vote.
Politics is theater and it is breathtakingly stupid to just lay down and let them do whatever they want without using the power at their disposal.
You know, I always try to avoid thinking that people with different opinions to mine are "stupid", but it's getting more and more difficult to credit republicans with being reasonable.
I think they would say something like “our allies have been getting more from their alliances with us than we have been getting from those alliances, and we’re tired of being the donor in all these relationships.”
Of course, they are ignoring the fact that our alliances add up to American world domination, which has uniquely tremendous economic benefits for the US. They take that for granted though, feel entitled to it, don’t want to pay for it anymore because they don’t think it can ever change.
It’s just like their attitude on vaccines. They take herd immunity utterly for granted now and only see the minute risks of getting the shot themselves.
You realize some americans dont want to be part of world domination right?
I realize that a lot of people casually brush it aside as a very evil, imperial sounding thing without understanding what a basic organizing model it has been for most of the world for 70 years, and how much their own little personal reality depends on it, whether they get that or not.
It has tremendous economic benefits for the ruling class. And since the ruling class is the direct enemy of the people, the more they benefit, the more it hurts us.
The only people who actually benefit from the empire are politicians and Raytheon executives. Please explain to me how the average person working in an Amazon warehouse benefitted from, how much their "personal reality depended on," shit like the invasion of Afghanistan.
The currency that person earns has more buying power around the world because of American empire. This is why people enter the US illegally to trim hedges, for example: because the money they’ll earn is worth so much when they send it home to family.
BOOM! And just like that, even your extremely cherry picked example is easily handled.
And in the meantime, their tax money has to go to support it, and the military equipment that's produced for the war is brought home and given to police, where it can be used against protests and labor organizing. All in the name of "cheaper foreign goods," which also means that it won't be as profitable to produce goods domestically. Fucking Reaganite, supply side economics. Hey, notice how in the time we've been doing the thing you want, wages have become completely divorced from productivity and everything's getting more expensive anyway?
"BOOM!" wow you really owned me, yeah you really showed me how stupid I am for thinking we shouldn't kill millions of random brown people in the Middle East. Calling neoliberals like you the moderate wing of fascism is being way too generous, you're literally just fascists.
Also, calling an Amazon worker "a cherry picked example" is so fucking revealing about which class you belong to. If you know a hundred employed people, on average, one of them would be currently working at Amazon - unless, of course, you don't interact with the poors.
Got me, I’m the CEO of Raytheon. Yes, in fact, you were completely owned. And yes, in fact, an Amazon worker is a loaded representation of “the people.” But that’s fine, because I already pointed out how the impoverished continue to risk life and limb to come here for even worse jobs than that. Do you want to argue about whether your example was cherry picked so you can continue to ignore how thoroughly it was put down?
Is it? Amazon and Walmart are the 2 biggest employers in the U.S. Like, there's a big Walmart in almost every meaningful city or town, and on the outskirts of that town are usually Amazon Warehouses. Walmart, Amazon, Target, Home Depo, (Lowes is Walmart), etc. I feel like these really are representative of "the people", or "the working man" in the U.S.
You are not the CEO of Raytheon, you're a smug petite-bourgeois who stupidly thinks your interests have more in common with the CEO of Raytheon than with the people of Afghanistan. You've probably sold your soul for their blood money and become a loyal fascist ghoul, or if you haven't yet, it's what you aspire to.
It absolutely is not. It's an extremely common job. The second biggest employer in the US next to Walmart.
It wasn't put down at all, least of all not thoroughly. You just act like it was because you're a smug asshole who thinks you're better than everyone because you align with the "smart" establishment, completely ignoring actual reality and material class interests.
I hope some day you find yourself on the receiving end of what you support.
Simple bully logic. If you are bigger than someone else, simply hit and threaten them to get whatever you want. Works really well until all the victims gang up and fight back together.
I haven’t seen any republicans here so I’ll also offer my opinion as a sane person ….
The point?
I see it like this.
Profit profit profit at the expense of all Americans for 4 years.
The next 4 years let Democrats clean up the mess, Democrats are weak anyway.
Then milk the American people again for another 4 years. The cycle is nonstop.
This is malicious greed but everyone keeps thinking these people are idiots.
"What's the point?" The point is to seize power and get rich.
They will destroy whatever they want or need in order to become rich and powerful.
thier ally is PUTIN, thats all they need. ive seen them shill hard for putin, one asians youtubers acc, have been shilling for rich white people and russia see the common thing, before they went full maga.
I'm not a Republican, but I'll bite.
The U.S. is kinda in a bad spot right now. Not just politically but economically as well. Our National Debt is the highest it's ever been. While I'm 100% for taxing Billionaires and their Trillion dollars companies more, by like, a lot, the Billionaires of course don't want that. So they're trying to cut what they can and wheel and deal. Why support Climate Change (French EU thing, I don't remember) acts when you can [pocket the money] use that to pay down debt? The War in Ukraine has unfortunately been drawn out too long for us to stay financially invested in it. Our allies across the sea won't be able to help our country balance our debt when they have Ukraine to worry about as well. So they've decided to put pressure on every external source of revenue while cutting what they can without getting lynched.
Let's talk about Canada and Mexico, but first, a bit of H I S T O R Y. Back in the 90s or 00s the Clinton Administration implemented NAFTA. The agreement sounded good on paper: Strength our border countries. Lifts us all up by giving all the countries jobs, more opportunity, more demand. While outsourcing our manual labor we can focus on the future: Technology! Hindsight is 20/20 though. Why not move our business to a country where we pay lower wages and will end up with higher profits for future investments (like yachts)? Why not get cheaper parts instead of paying the U.S. prices? A ton of manual labor jobs were lost, and many cities (car manufacturing cities, steel cities, etc.) simply never recovered. NAFTA stayed in place more or less until Trump Trumped it into the USMCA in 2020. That gets renegotiated in 2026 with all 3 countries either coming to an agreement or dissolving the agreement.
From all accounts, NAFTA certainly seemed harmful to the American industry at the time, but can that industry recover, and should it? Personally, I don't think so, but they seem to think so. So, from my point of view, the reason they're alienating allies is to extort them for money to help pay down the National Debt and hopefully grow back American industries lost over 2 decades ago.
Not a Republican. I assume Trump is making backroom personal deals to get the world's politicians and businesses to bribe him in some way. Aligns with how he seems to operate with everything else.
To create the enemy without.
Simple. We only really need one ally! Russia. With our good and dear friend Vlad!
/S
Simple actually, it's the good-ol American Exceptionalism kool-aid
They need the talking heads on Fox News to tell them how to answer that question first.
The question isn't stupid. But asking it here is
That’s easy. Constitutionally, you can’t be President longer than 2 terms. Wartime emergency powers can stop elections, cementing power permanently.
In the United States war and martial law does not stop the election cycle. There is zero precedent to support this, even Roosevelt had to campaign during WW2. In fact, the constitution is quite clear on the opposite - it perscribes elections must be held, offering no mechanisms for deferment.
If precedent still mattered, that would be comforting.
Ditto for the Constitution
Trump treats his friends in Europe like America usually treats Middle Eastern and African nations.
I'm pretty sure the only Republicans here are people who believe in Republicanism (the political ideology)
Ideology? GTFO with that communism libtard! /s
Oh no I have just been epically owned :3 /s /j
Soon, comments will need more flags than a C compiler.
Literally 1984 /s
Make liberals tears is the only reason in their hateful and stunted minds
Red Hat = HatRed
Europe is socially progressive, and Russia conversely is anti-woke
Is this question rhetorical? The people you’re addressing this question to aren’t on Lemmy. Try Fox News, lies social, or wherever other sewers the maggots live in.
I imagine it's so no one would be willing to come to our aid as he destroys the country.
Lots of the Musk Administration stuff has zero constituency. It's just stuff him, Trump, and a few Heritage Foundation guys thought up. This is one of them. Nobody was asking for tariffs on the whole world or thought it'd be a good idea.
But he floated his tariff garbage before the election and it was all over the media.
Conservatives absolutely voted for tariffs. Which every economist said was a bad idea.
They chose stupid and ran with it. As always.
Worst example of tail wagging the dog. Trump says stuff, and followers think it's a good idea because Trump said it. Nobody actually wanted this.
They voted directly for it, fool.
You would likely get an answer akin to “they aren’t our allies, they’ve been exploiting us and now that the bill is due they are flaking”
There’s a good discussion on The Ezra Klein Show from March 1 The Dark Heart of Trump’s Foreign Policy [Apple Podcasts link]
I'm not on my phone right now, but you can search online through the https://antennapod.org/ site on your phone and it comes up right away.
They are extremely low trust and simply can't believe they're not getting fucked by everyone else secretly
because there's a war coming soon that will destroy most global trade. trump wants the US in a better position in that near future by having more factories and such inside of the US.
in a peaceful world, you allow free trade and specialization to do its thing and everybody gets richer. you farm bananas, i farm apples, and we trade. we create value out of thin air, it's an amazing thing.
but in a world where superpowers are at war and the world splinters into factions, half of the global economy will be cut off from the other half. therefore it'll be a huge liability if we for example depend on Taiwan for 90% of our computer chips when China can blockade Taiwan and we cannot reliably break that blockade. that's one industry.. now imagine the thousands of other products we need for a modern economy. it would cause massive economic shockwaves.
so this tariff thing is accepting that this will happen in the near future and preparing for it, slowly weaning off the economy from that connection to the rest of the world. so when it does come, it doesn't hurt as bad.
it doesn't really matter if you piss off your allies. since you're the biggest military power they are going to have to rely on you anyway. you have leverage over them. the difference is that Trump is a reality TV star and so he is loudly exploiting this leverage whereas most past leaders would be more subtle and diplomatic about it.
Canada, Mexico, Germany, Japan, etc aren't really allies. Being someone's ally implies there's a sort of equal footing. When someone has no choice but to bend to your will, is that a voluntary relationship? the US essentially wrote Japan's constitution and they told the Germans what to write down for theirs. Canada and Mexico are heavily dependent on US trade- US growth might slow a half percent or two whereas Mexico and Canada are liable to fall into a recession because of these tariffs.
it isn't equal footing. it's a david v goliath situation
to give a recent example, Ukraine. Ukraine in 2014 had the Euromaidan coup and the president had to flee the country. The new government that was quickly appointed without an election realized one thing very quickly- Russia was about to invade them. they had only one option in terms of getting military aid and that was the US. so immediately, the same day that the government was appointed, they started cooperating with the US. a few days after that, little green men showed up in Donbas and the Russian army waltzed into Crimea
so you can say they "allied" with the US but a more honest way to say it is that they were desperately pushed into America's orbit. and the US ultimately doesn't care about a country like Ukraine. people are starting to see it more clearly today because of Trump, but I honestly don't think the situation would have been meaningfully different with Biden or Kamala. The primary difference would have been rhetoric. Instead of calling Zelensky a dictator, we would have just dragged our feet with military aid instead, like what has been happening the last year or so
tldr: the US is a imperialist superpower and this is what they do.
Trump isn't doing this because he's some brilliant strategist. He's a fascist and fascists require enemies to scare their subjects into complicity. If no enemies exist, they are created.
i don't disagree. that's why the rhetoric. but I would disconnect the rhetoric from the policy. trump says one thing and does another. he wants to deport everyone but at the rate he's going we won't even see a 10% reduction in the illegal immigrant population. mouth says one thing, hand does another
notice how tariffs were a trend that started a decade ago. Trump placed tariffs on China on his first term and then Biden increased the number of tariffs. the ban on Tiktok was a bipartisan effort- it's in the interest of US foreign policy. obviously tariffs on Canada and Mexico are insane and probably wouldn't have happened without Trump.. but more tariffs were a definite part of the future regardless who won in 2024
couple of things. first, i wouldn't underestimate trump. he successfully hijacked the Republican party which is a party full of wealthy and powerful people who did everything in their power to try and stop him
second, the people around Trump are very principled ideologues (ie people like Peter Thiel and the dark enlightenment ideology they're enamored in)
these people are educated, intelligent, and dedicated to their cause. they also have near-limitless money and now they have the control of the federal government of the strongest country in the world- a country that has an executive branch that has gotten progressively more powerful.
they have a vision and they planned for this and they are enacting it. this is not a spontaneous thing. they view a future where there is a showdown with China and tariffs play into that future
Well look at Zelensky shall we? Throws the Christians in jail
Proof please. Fox is not a news source
You have no clue what David v Goliath means, do you.
the analogy was in reference to the size differential between david (boy) and goliath (giant)
sure david wins in the parable but to quote bo burnham
You underestimate how grossly unqualified everyone at the top is in the US. Anyone who's even remotely qualified to lead the military is being replaced with sycophants. The US has never been weaker, which is exacerbated by the fact that any allies that could provide warnings of an attack, just won't. Since our intelligence agencies have been neutering any early warning systems set in place, we will not see it coming, or worse, ignore it, because like the parable, an extremely incompetent group of leadership thinks it's too big to fail, when in reality, wouldn't take a huge enemy to win.
it's a purge. we're watching our own version of what Saddam Hussein did when he took power. it definitely weakens the country overall but it strengthens the hold on power for the executive.
as for the military, we've been spending more than like the next 8 countries combined for decades. it's hard to understate the relative power of the US military. there are hundreds of military bases all over the world.
even a weakened superpower is still a superpower
Bo Burnham sounds like a fucking idiot. Despite his size, Goliath was defeated by a well placed projectile.
The only way a war is coming for the U.S. is if it's a World War. If a new World War was coming, we would definitely want to be closer with our border countries than give our foreign enemies a chance. I don't think there is a war coming, I think this all has to do with economics and the National Debt. War is a great way to get rid of National Debt and boost an economy, reduce numbers, etc. but right now, I'm just not seeing it.
I personally think a more likely issue would be that the WTO exchanges the U.S. Dollar with the Chinese Yuan especially as the U.S. lags further behind in exports while Chinese exports continue to grow.
I do think leaving Ukraine was, unfortunately, inevitable. For the U.S. it was a war of attrition and Russia out lasted what the U.S. could monetarily support. I truly hope that the EU is able to support their fight.
I agree completely with the cash out scenarios listed. In the end it's all money and power, only the means and details change.
If you're asking the lay republican, you're going to get the propaganda. It's going to be that we've given all these people free rides too long. Money, Military Support and Health support and things are too bad here, we need all that money here to
help our own peoplestuff the billionaires pockets.Realistically, they are trying to A: stuff their own pockets and buy up everything they can. B: force us into an unopposable dictatorship Krasnov is owned. You remember right when he got into office, we saw some russian warplanes toying with us, that was his keeper pulling his strings. We're owned at the moment and the one that owns us is making sure the oligarchs get enough keys to satisfy A and B.
Isolationism and tribalism.
Make your people believe the rest of the world are against them and they'll look to you for leadership. It's not just the US - Europe and the UK have also had a rise in jingoism, fuelled by inflated reports of immigrants.
Maybe they're trying to smash global imperialism by disassociating from some of the worst colonizers in history? \s
Those Allies ARENT paying Their FAIR SHARE! If we give them LESS MONEY that means we have MORE to give President Elon Musk!
The Sassanians alienated their Lakhmid allies -forcefully annexed them and slaughtered their ruling dynasty-. Everyone knows what happened to the Sassanians not too long afterwards.
Who knows if history will repeat itself but worth waiting and finding out.
Edit: not sure why this is getting downvoted. I gave an example of an empire which at the height of its military might went through a period of political instability which lead to it turning against one of its major allies which eventually brought its downfall. The parallels are obvious, but whether we will get a repeat of the outcome or not, is yet to be seen. The replies are as-if the Sassanians are a little unknown empire at the edge of the world rather than one that was at one point an equal to Rome.
Yes, everyone knows that if Gudenni, the Prince of Hadenach had just married Essane, the Princess of Hawali, all the bloodshed could have been avoided. Instead, they formed the Caliphate of Ultigo and their iron-fisted rule led to the siege of Khobenar, which left their kingdom in ruins.
Or maybe you overestimate everyone's knowledge. 😉
Just for the record, I didn't downvote you. I think that would be unkind.
And I hope you can forgive my joke; you'd be surprised how little the average European knows about the history of Iran.
Their feeling, or at least the way their leaders are telling them to feel, is that America is the world's Daddy and our "so-called" allies are leeching off us like no-good adult children who still live at home and eat all the Nutella, so we have to shake them off to be Great Again.
I dont think this is the right website to ask this on. This became a post to hate on usa conservatives, not to genuinely answer the question
Edit: replaced us with usa to avoid confusion
Are you sure you mean conservatives or do you just label fascists, reactionarys, nazis and anything that isnt "left" as "conservative?
Well the conservatives are fascists right now so that's a pretty easy connection to make.
Then the conservatives arent conservative anymore. They are fascist, so please call them that :)
Fascism is a conservative ideology, so they are both.
No. Facism is not in the same league as conservatism. I should know. People of my country got inspired by fascism, started their own thing aaand ww2 and holocaust
Fascism is at the far end of social conservatism. This is not something that can be argued.
This is a, "all squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares" thing. All fascists are conservative, by definition. But (typically) not all conservatives are fascist.
I should have probably used usa republicans, but it feels strange to call people who voted for Donald Trump a word derived from republic
I'm not a republican, but from my perspective the US empire has been a force for evil in the world for almost all of its existence. International free trade elevates the power of corporations above countries (ex. international IP law enforcement). The neoliberal status quo sucks, and even if tariffs and pressuring US allies to build up their own militaries and not rely on us are being done for the wrong reasons and not in the right way, they still act to dismantle it. I can see it being better than the alternative in the long run, at least for the world if not for those of us living in the US.
Accelerationist trash take
Not accelerationist, I think tariffs are genuinely a good direction to go, and so is reducing US military influence.
How do you know they are going to reduce military influence? How are tariffs going to help people who are struggling to afford anything as it is? If the goal is to get people to buy American, what is stopping everything from only being controlled or made by corrupted people or corporations who set up on American soil?
I don't, but it seems like other countries are getting the message that they can't count on the US to defend them and their alliance is shaky, which seems like it could lead to working towards replacing our role and becoming less dependent, which would be great, because again, we're the bad guys.
They are not going to help with that, unfortunately. A worse economy is the price of cutting back on free trade, and the current administration will put as much of that price as they can on the people least able to afford it. Done right, it would be in combination with redistribution to the people who are worst off. I'll admit, this part is bad.
To me, the desired outcome of inevitably mutual tariffs isn't getting people to buy American, it's reducing the leverage and influence of international corporations, which are malevolent and can use that influence in harmful ways. If local companies have a built in advantage, divide and conquer tactics shouldn't work as well (ie. cut safety regulations or face retaliatory job loss). The typical corporate pattern of building up a monopoly and then using that leverage to extract money by fucking everyone over shouldn't work as well on an international scale. Free trade agreements that give companies rights at the expense of people will hopefully have less appeal and make less sense.
Ah, my favorite kind of poster.
One who posts a self-congratulatory "question" to a group who obviously isn't going to read it and then never replies to any of the comments.
[Edit] downvote all you want but this wouldn't be the first time OP didn't recognize any of the answers
Trump obviously wants to sever those relationships and forge a new path forward. I like Europe, it's a beautiful place, but I don't want to live there. SUre the super liberal places hate us now EU, Canada, and UK but South Korea and Japan will stay with the US. Asia has most of the projected economic growth and that is where our future will be.
Honestly asking: what other way would anyone suggest to bring back outsourced manufacturing jobs?
I’ve always heard broad public support on both sides of the aisle for bringing back those jobs. Wasn’t that always going to make things more expensive?
ETA: the downvotes lead me to believe a lot of y’all are caught up in the nationalism of the arguments, and refuse to consider the logistics of what you want. That goes for both Red MAGA wanting recklessly applied tariffs, and Blue MAGA wanting to start WW3 without any existing domestic production. Neither of you are thinking shit through.
I don't think there is any way to bring back those jobs. You guys are dreaming if you think you can just go back to an economy of the past.
The world has globalized, America can't just pretend it hasn't. Sure you can try and bring everything in house but by alienating allies there are lots of things you just can't get yourselves like many raw materials, and then you need to worry about exporting to actually bring money into your economy not just move it around in circles.
Plus, think about the logistics of that.
Goods produced in the US are categorically more expensive due to infrastructure, cost of living (and therefore wage expectations). If we could wave a magic wand to transplant an effective manufacturing facility from Pakistan and place it in rural Mississippi, hire Americans to do the work, and begin pumping out goods, the price to produce the goods would increase substantially.
Americans wouldn't be able to afford American made goods, which is true even now. Many Americans try to buy American "when possible", but cost quickly outweighs patriotism.
Your last paragraph is completely off course and backwards. Americans can’t afford American made goods precisely because of the outsourcing.
We’re proposing the Henry Ford model of paying your workers enough to be able to afford your products.
I agree with your position, but I’m struggling to reconcile that with the western push for war with global superpowers.
The pandemic temporarily crippled our economy with an interruption in shipping from China. How the hell are we planning to survive a hot war with China over Taiwan? They could defeat us without firing a single shot, by just refusing to ship here.
China also doesn't want to interrupt trade, it benefits them just as much as America, that's how. They won't invade Taiwan if there's a threat of war disrupting trade.
If you isolate the country from China too much then there is no benefit to China not invading. Globalization encourages peace because trade benefits all. Russia is suffering from all their sanctions now, they made a mistake thinking things would be over in a few days and people would get over it. Now they need to grit their teeth and pull through it. No one else wants to be Russia.
Why wouldn't China do exactly the same mistake in some point?
As European I would advice against the trust that the strong economic ties would keep totalitarians in check.
But China is much better positioned to outlast us during any interruption in trade for the same reason Russia has survived sanctions. They have the local production capacity and access to vast mineral & resource wealth that we can’t match.
Do they? As much as we like to play it quiet, the US exports a lot of food globally- China gets some $17b worth. Those tend to be perishable, so any hot war would have to be over quickly for China to come outahead, and any protracted war would see them need a new breadbasket eother domestic (reducing the industrial/military work pool), or international (which comes with the same risks they have now over US ties).
Right, but China is making broad new alliances every day across the globe, and we’ve spent the last century making enemies. So who’s better positioned to find alternative trade partners?
“Every time China visits, we get a hospital. Every Britain visits, we get a lecture.” And every time the US visits, we’re bringing barely concealed threats.
China isn't reliant on imported food, from the US or anywhere.
Plus there's no one saying you can't reduce reliance on specific countries like China. It is indeed dangerous to rely on any one country for too much. But if you spread it out to many countries and make sure to have some domestic supply for the most important things it would be fine.
At the moment Trump is targeting all countries, and many for no reason at all.
Cries in Canadian
I'm having a hard time following. How is the trade war going to lead to recovering outsourced jobs? Isn't it more likely to cause businesses to decrease their US operations?
The reason why jobs are outsourced is so companies can take advantage of cheaper labor and operation costs. Other than sending the us economy into a downward spiral that makes people want to work at slave level wages.... Not seeing the connection.
Well the people will still need that things that were imported, eventually you'll have to have an industry to cover that need. Picture this just an extreme case. All clothes are made abroad, imagine the tariff makes it "unbuyables". The people will still have the need for clothes so that creates the space for someone to start making clothes and sell them eventually making a textile industry.
Now the problem is this could take years the internal industry could be shit and a myriad of other problems that will surely will affect the poorest people the most. Economics explained has a good video on it you should check it.
Yes, and it will be expensive either way. When you buy a bag of imported tube socks for $5. You've got tube socks in a fair trade. When you pay $20, you have 4x less tube socks. The foreign seller can still buy US agriculture, resources, or houses, or bonds to lower our interest rates with the money without forcing you to overpay for tube socks. Globalization has multidirectional benefits.
Multidirectional benefits maybe, but most of the negative effects of shipping interruption are experienced by the receiver. You’re assuming any company has the capacity to make the socks here at all (to meet our needs). Production limits will cause most people to do without, regardless of if they could pay the increased cost.
I think your point is, first the tube socks go to $20. Then someone (maybe a Chinese who is now global expert in sock making) in US figures out a way to make them for $19, 2 years after their investment.
My point is there’s shortages, along with probably hoarding & scalping, and many people simply go without socks for years. It takes time to build up manufacturing capacity.
And that’s assuming a completely peaceful transition. God knows how long it’ll take to build up that manufacturing, if the loss is due to a hot war, and resources are primarily needed for a war effort.
How does creating a local industry of cheap knockoffs help the US economy exactly? What you're describing is turning the United States into a random poorer country. That plan only makes sense if the ultimate goal is to diminish the United States economy and its influence in the world. That benefits China and India. It doesn't benefit the United States domestically.
Here's a better idea, invest in your people to create an economy and society that doesn't rely upon raping other country for labor and materials.
Because turning your country into a service economy, with no local manufacturing capacity, is insanely stupid from a national security perspective. We’ve already made this mistake, and it’s part of how China is able to exert so much control over the US.
Just look at what happened to the US economy when shipping was only momentarily interrupted during the pandemic.
You understand that the only way the current economic policy results in what you're suggesting is everybody is brought down to such a desperate place that they are willing to work for pennies to possibly feed their family crumbs. All because the corporations that are paying the wages want 98% profit, not 97% profit. And the reason is national security concerns? If you're worried about national security concerns then why base a solution on capitalism? We are putting more and more power and placing more and more preference on the corporation as opposed to the individual. A corporation does not give two shits about national security concerns. The only thing they care about is how can we use national security breaches to make more money.
Therefore, your line of reasoning just doesn't make any sense. It assumes that you live in a world that doesn't exist. Furthermore, it completely ignores the source of the problem: unregulated capitalism. If your national security is dependent upon your economic policy, you're doing things wrong.
I think you’re misunderstanding. I’m a socialist. I’m pointing out to the capitalist supporters than none of this makes sense.
Personally, I think we should transition to a centrally planned socialist economy, and move away from mass manufacturing to as-needed small batch manufacturing by investing in local manufacturing capacity for individual communities wherever possible. Specifically, I believe 3D printing technologies can be expanded and improved upon for this aim.
But the neoliberals will oppose that, because their power is maintained by controlling imports/exports, and preventing communities from becoming self-sufficient to not rely on imports. It’s why the IMF and World Bank always force countries to become dependent on imports.
Which businesses? Foreign companies or local ones? Do you wish to have your money shipped overseas to purchase a vacuum cleaner? Or would you rather pay a bit more and have you hard earned dollars stay here in at home to help pay wages to your neighbors?
Who do you think transfers more money out of this country. The individual citizens buying vacuum cleaners, or corporations and billionaires who funneled their money to tax havens overseas. The only people harmed by the current economic policy are individuals trying to feed their families. Corporations are making more money than ever before. The wealthiest people in the world are more wealthy than they ever have been in recent history.
But you know what? Let's just put all the blame and responsibilty on the families. They should have bought their vacuum cleaners from cousin Billy down the street. The shitty economy is all their fault.
Do you hear how silly that sounds?
I agree with your sentiment, but I don’t believe there’s any way to put genie back in the bottle.
I think the more realistic path forward will be made available with advancements in automation and small scale, limited batch manufacturing. But neoliberals will fight those efforts tooth & nail, because neoliberalism requires large scale centralized and specialized manufacturing to maintain broad power by controlling imports & exports. Diverse small batch manufacturing would allow for self-sufficient smaller communities, and threaten the current power structure.
Does the foreign vacuum work better? Is it more compact? Are the technologies it is built on protected by IP law? If it's a cheap junk crescent wrench that I'll use once because I need it only once, I'd rather not pay double for quality.
How do you bring back outsourced jobs without a trade war? The capitalists will always prefer them outsourced, and a trade war is the only thing that’ll cut them off from that labor.
That position has a few inaccurate assumptions. The first being that the machines of capitalism, corporate entities, are tied to geographical regions. Today Apple could just move its base of operations to a country. Willing to have it. That isn't the US. All the company cares about is profit. It doesn't care about profit while having its base of operations in the United States. If the political climate is too unpredictable and the profits aren't easily obtainable, they're going to move to some place where the profits are more easily obtainable.
Another assumption you're making is that capitalism is the only solution. It really doesn't make sense addressing this assumption. If you believe one way, my words on the internet aren't going to make you believe it another way.
But another assumption implied in your thesis is that bringing back jobs is going to fix the problem. This conclusion fails to consider the fundamental nature of capitalism. Capitalism only prevails when there is constant growth of profit and more importantly for your position, growth of the consumer base. The reason why the United States were such successful Capitalists, was because of our booming population Post world war II. You had this constantly increasing stream of consumers that are necessary for the companies to make profit along with a stable and ever-growing manufacturing base. Those conditions don't currently exist in the United States.
To that end, the countries at an advantage for the next capitalistic explosion are those with huge populations like India and China. So trying to win the international battle of capitalism is a losing proposition for the United States in the foreseeable future.
To your point, I believe Apple’s based in Ireland on paper for tax avoidance purposes. But your statement leaves out any effects of tariffs, or possibly being blocked out of a market altogether. A company can leave, sure, but a country can just as easily retaliate.
For the record, I’m a socialist. I’m not onboard with any of this madness. Just pointing out that there are significant gaps in the capitalist logic here.
Yeah this line of reasoning doesn't really gel with actual reality considering Trump is now talking about repealing the chip Act. He's not actually trying to bring back Manufacturing. Trump has never cared about that. He doesn't give a shit about Outsourcing manufacturing jobs and his boss Elon Musk certainly doesn't.
But the chips act supporters paired it with plans for chip manufacturers visas, which would’ve imported cheap indentured labor from Taiwan. It wasn’t actually going to bring jobs here.
And the government not footing the bill for these companies doesn’t prevent them from paying for their own factories. Especially if tariffs give them little choice.
Sounds like you have no clue about the abuse endured by H1B recipients in this country.
Or you’re just another bad actor trying to adopt the language of the oppressed to defend their exploitation.
No, they often can’t. That’s one of the worst abuses imposed upon them.
Engineers from Taiwan that have chip design skills? Yes, they can walk at any time.
You're taking a general case of H1B visa abuse--which is completely valid in broad terms--and applying it to a specialized case where the materials conditions are different.
Probably with some sort of long term plan instead of randomly turning sweeping tariffs on and off.
Right. The issue is Trump doing it so recklessly.
But a lot of the people arguing against tariffs broadly seem to be telegraphing that they want to keep manufacturing outsourced indefinitely. Which is why I believe a lot of their tariff opposition is falling flat, and they’re not going to succeed in turning Red MAGA against Trump on this.
The thing is, with the way Dems were escalating on multiple war fronts, especially in regards to China, I don’t see how that’s compatible with a slow plan to bring back manufacturing. A short interruption in shipping during Covid brought our economy to its knees. What’s going to happen if neocons get their war for Taiwan?
Start by taxing the shit out of the CEOs and board of directors, with a mechanism built into the taxation so that any increase in their compensation is entirely offset by an increase in taxes. Then offer incentives to on-shore labor again.
This is the way.
Richard Nixon was great at weaponizing taxes against windfall profits to the benefit of the people. Also, if I recall correctly, this sort of taxation is partly why the US prospered so much from the 40's to the 60's.
It’s also a policy we are never going to get back in a post-Citizens United US. The people who wield the levers of power will never allow tax rates to get that high again.
All the more reason to stop voting Democrat and pull the lever for the Green candidate instead.
Greens are controlled opposition. Same for DSA. I like PSL.
You do it by incentivizing building factories, up to the point where a company can be competitive with those outsourced industries. Something kind of like the CHIPS act that Trump just axed. Random and blanket tariffs will not help. Tariffs can mainly only help prevent an industry from leaving. For example, we have huge tariffs on Chinese EVs because they would outcompete every US manufactured EV and we would lose those jobs.
The reality is that it's very difficult to take a centrist position here. Trump's tariffs make no sense. They will not bring back any jobs because no one is going to build a factory in the next 4 years if there's a chance the next president reverses Trump's decision.
It's also a bad move to tariff our main allies because not only does it make things more expensive for Americans, it erodes trust in our nation and destabilizes our position of dominance globally. In the eyes of the world, we've gone from stable and reliable to dangerous and unpredictable. It will take a lot more than 4 years to recover from that.
The big worry people have is a potential incoming economic crash. We're already dealing with a very weak labor market, uncomfortably high inflation, irrational stock valuations, and high housing prices. If now a huge wave of federal layoffs, which will likely result in instability of federal programs many Americans rely on, hits at the same time as what will essentially be artificially caused inflation through tariffs, it could send things into a downward spiral.
Well said and I agree :)
Maybe something like the chips act ... which he just repealed.
The chips act wasn’t going to bring jobs here. They were pairing it with a chip manufacturer’s visa, which would have imported all of the labor. If the companies built the factories at all, and didn’t just plan to pocket the dough, as they tend to do.
Canada isnt a significant threat to US manufacturing, so why the tariffs on Canada?
China would make sense, but Canada? Why?
I haven’t seen any explanation that’s convincing. I think partly it’s a personal vendetta with Trump not appreciating the criticism from Canada of his administration. I think it’s also partly that Trump is fairly isolationist in foreign policy, and there’s a lot influence from the military industrial complex in the upper levels of Canadian politics.
My gut feeling is that this is all connected to capitalists flailing and taking any wild swing they believe will bring back the past glory days, and re-establish a unipolar world with the US at the top. Democrats believe they can do it with another world war, and Republicans believe they can do it with a trade war.
The reality is most of them haven’t really thought things through, and the ones who have are just hoping to delay & kick the can into a future profit quarter to deal with later. Neoliberalism is dead/dying. No matter how much they want it, we can’t go backwards. We’re at a fork in the road, and the options are neo-feudalist fascism or socialism. If we let the capitalists decide our fate, it’s gonna be fascism.
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. In the years since Reagan, the only thing we’ve consistently invested in is military supremacy, so it’s really the only trick we’ve got right now.
Lol. Please expand on this.
Dude, I don’t even know where to begin. I guess with their support for a live-streamed genocide that escalated tensions with every country in the Middle East. Full-throated support for a proxy war that threatens to turn nuclear with Russia. Threatening hot war with China throughout the Biden admin. Escalating tensions with the DPRK, and backing a coup attempt in South Korea. Continued support for destabilization of leftist countries in South & Central America.
I don’t know how you missed Dems escalating in multiple theaters of war throughout the Biden presidency. Especially his last couple months. After Harris lost the election, the State dept immediately canceled all leave for foreign service officers, and they went absolutely fucking wild from November-January.
At least they’re pretending to take a friendly approach in Africa, as our reputation there continues to deteriorate and they grow closer with China.
It’s going to get worse. The DNC keeps bringing in more & more former CIA agents to run, and they’re welcoming in neocons like Liz Cheney. The anti-war movement is absolutely non-existent within the Democratic Party now.
That's a pretty glossed over way of telling us you don't understand global politics and why America isn't going to alienate their most important ally in the Middle East. A country expressing displeasure with the way their ally is interacting with another nation but remaining their ally because of the geo-political importance is not "blue MAGA (lol)" starting WW3. Nothing about America remaining allies with Israel starts WW3.
Lol. You mean America supporting a democratic nation that was invaded by our greatest adversary so they can use their soldiers to prevent us from using ours to stop Russia from expanding their borders and their influence? Not only is that helping not start WW3 because we don't have to get directly involved with Russia, but no one is going nuclear because it doesn't benefit anyone.
Source your statements. No one is just going to believe you, especially after saying things like "blue MAGA".
Source your statements.
Source your statements.
Source your statements.
Honestly, I'm not going to keep saying it. You keep making wild statements you expect us to take your word for. Source every statement you said or I can't take you seriously. You just typed a lot of words to condemn Democrats for their handling of foreign affairs while 100% utterly and completely declining to acknowledge Republican's categorical destruction of our relationships with virtually all our allies over the course of a single month.
It's pretty obvious you're a shill.
And stop saying "blue MAGA". It makes you look ridiculous.
You seem confident that you have a superior grasp of international politics, which is wild considering you’re openly stating you aren’t even aware of major recent world events.
So you're openly admitting you can't support any of the ridiculous statements you made?
Not doing your homework for you.
Nah loser.
You don't seem to understand.
You made obscene statements and are now refusing to back them up, because you're wrong AND lazy.
I didn't make dipshit statements.
You did.
Back them up or continue being the clown loser you already are.
Bring back jobs via tax incentives for being local and cutting tax breaks and bailouts for taking industry outside the US.
Really I’d support blocking market access at all for companies that outsource what could be done locally. But again, that will make things more expensive. I don’t know if there’s any way to get around that.
Yes, just the act of not producing products in countries with slave wages will make things more expensive.
I just don’t see any future in the US where the powers that be allow the status quo to be changed in that way.
There is a balance to it. Yes, local manufacturing will make things more expensive. But making more durable goods tends to pay better wages for more people. And let's be honest here, most people can't be a doctor or write code. High paying collage degrees are beyond them. Or we can maintain low paying retail jobs for the majority of people.
But the is a balance and it can't be done over night without causing large amounts of economic pain to many people.
But doesn’t escalating tensions with China require it to be done relatively overnight? Seems like anyone wanting this done more carefully needs to also accept that will require giving up the fight over Taiwan.
Currency rate between US/China to drop 3x or more. That is also solution to US debt. Doubling down on dead ender energy will create high cost of living, not just from climate related insurance rates, but for expensive manufacturing energy, and need to pay high wages just to have home affordability.
Destroying NA auto industry will destroy it instead of auto companies writing off investments in Canada/Mexico to reinvest in US declining market that is smaller and uncompetitive. Massive auto subsidies would be needed, but still no export markets. Auto sector trade with Canada has a US surplus, with Canadians have specialized skill in parts making.
Manufacturing only makes sense if there is export potential for good products. Boeing and Caterpillar and US weapons getting blacklisted by world is bad. UAW cheering on Trump NA tariffs won't be forgotten. Blacklisting US agriculture means their share of massive subsidies.
The future (present in China) of manufacturing is robotics. There are plenty of jobs in constructing factories, but those are cheaper in other countries, and the best robot/manufacturing companies are in China. Trump has hinted at welcoming Chinese FDI in US manufacturing, but that would be factory construction jobs more than significant permanent manual labour jobs. UAW won't love that move.
The bigger question is "do Americans actually want these jobs?" According to the JOLTS surveys for the last several quarters there's about 100,000 open manufacturing jobs that are not getting filled, in a labor market sized about 500,000. Simply put, it's abundantly clear that people don't want the manufacturong jobs that do exist
I also saw this from the inside when I worked my last job with a company that does contract cleaning services for industrial facilities. Nobody wants to work industrial sanitation, and they end up primarily hiring immigrants and ex-convicts as they're the only people desperate enough to take these industrial sanitation jobs. And it's not for lack of pay or benefits, the fact is the nature of the work sucks!
No, a lot of those positions are left unfilled on purpose. Lots of ghost jobs. Lots of jobs left vacant in the hopes they can fill it with an H1B.
Your last point is also completely wrong. It’s not that people aren’t willing to do the jobs. They just want to be properly compensated. Hell, I’d take those jobs for the right pay level.
He's out of line, but he's right.
Echo chamber problems lol.
Y'all have banned or bullied every single Republican or conservative person off this website.
You can't talk to people who aren't here.
Aren't you a conservative? Are you banned? Is this real?
Still waiting on that source.
Fucking source for what?
All you have to do is look at what happened to the conservative community. There was a post asking whether it was meant for trolling conservatives or for actual discussion, and the resounding answer was that no conversation was possible with conservatives or anyone who holds right of center views.
There were a few lemmings who posted in support of allowing conservatives to have a place to chime in, and they were downvoted into oblivion.
That's being bullied off of Lemmy, which is fine, communities are self organized and managed, and chasing away wrongthink is apparently what the vast majority of this platform wants.
Again, all of that is fine, but we shouldn't pretend chasing those people off wasn't the intended outcome, or that this isn't an echo chamber.
I appreciate you reiterating my point much better than I was going to.
Very weird how some people are in denial about Lemmy and it's treatment of users that don't align politically with the majority.
Source on that claim? I've seen you claim that a bunch on here, and I have yet to see any of it being true.
Hold up! The truth matters again‽ I thought I'd never see the day.
Probably the downvotes on his comment are a liiiitttttllllllleeeee bit indicative
Well if none of them can have an adult conversation that happens. I've "debated" with them on here and it devolved into Twitter. Insults, grand claims with no evidence. Yes, we've created an echo chamber where you have to actually prove what you say, and they couldn't survive. I'm ok with that.