In three weeks, Donald Trump has imploded whatever positive image the United States might have had internationally.
America’s wealth is tied up in perceptions. When the rest of the world views America the way I currently view Tesla, we’re going to have some very big economic problems. And of course we already have huge security and safety issues as blow back for turning on our allies. It’s impossible for me to imagine this isn’t all a deliberate attempt to destroy America. And we all know which world leader Trump worships who is very very interested in causing that.
Not much to add, other than I too am another person who sees the current affairs as the destruction, dismantling and sabotage of America as a country. I am not confident the country will make it to the end of this presidential term without splintering.
Part of me thinks life is gonna get really hard but some other part is more optimistic, thinking the fracturing of the states will lead to better lives for people, far far down the line. You gotta burn the old growth so the new can flourish. I wish we could just improve what we have now but it seems impossible to make progress with the current, very corrupted system.
Not to mention the way America is fucking with it’s own people. There’s bound to be some domestic “terrorism”.
Trump is creating a lot of enemies. Even turning allies into enemies. The reputation usually mostly recovers when there’s a Democrat in the WH, but since American voters walked right back into the same chaos again, eyes wide open, it’s going to be a lot harder to recover this time around. There’s just very little trust and credibility left.
fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me
By repetition, trust has been eroded beyond elections. For security or even trade partners, it’s bad to be erratic, violent and self-harming.
The American peoples have been played and fooled, much like it happened in GB. Hyped by fairytales of economic and nationalistic wonders, by stories of sovereignty appealing to the imperialistic dim-witted, in the misunderstood attempt to make their country “great again”, they flushed it down the toilet, cheeringly.
Apparently, both forgot how much of their power came from being central parts of powerful networks. Isolating yourself, alienating everyone else surely makes you lose these privileges quickly, makes you lose influence on so many scales. Wether these losses can be compensated by any means remains to be seen, I’m doubtful.
And as much as I enjoy seeing imperialist nations falling apart, the power vacuum they create seems to invite even more imperialism. Like they say, even more dangerous than an evil person is a stupid person, because the latter is unhinged. You never know how much they will fuck up next time, and you cannot even trust them being restricted by self-preservation or “common sense”.
I guess if it can happen to two nations from the West (and not just any two), it can potentially happen to any and all. They sure try.
I feel like saying it’s normal for empires to fall due to external causes is not accurate? It’s usually the exception. Maybe the external factor is the final kick, knocking over a rotting house of cards, but the cause is almost always division, internal conflict, or unsustainable growth. An empire is much more likely to collapse under its own weight than it is to have Alexander the Great kick its teeth in. The Ottoman Empire was called “The Sick Man of Europe” for a reason.
It’s absolutely not. It’s their very internal policies that force them into destroying themselves. They start believing their own propaganda. For both Rome and Constantinople it was wasting huge amounts of it’s power on fighting Persia and trying to extend its borders in ways that outran it’s logistics capacity. For the Ottomans it was the rise of nationalism and their ham fisted attempts to combat it. For the modern Western imperialists it was the base fact that direct colonial rule was always a monetary drain for the state and only made businesses money. Making these stupid decisions was because each empire had created a web of political commitments and internal propaganda that was unsustainable.
The Roman Empire took centuries to eventually collapse and a lot of it was corruption, hyperinflation, and complacency. It’s happening here but at a much quicker rate.
Maybe the external factor is the final kick, knocking over a rotting house of cards, but the cause is almost always division, internal conflict, or unsustainable growth.
Rome was a place where power consolidated, but the various eras might as well have been different empires.
The system collapsed, dissolved, reconstituted, and expanded several times during the 1400 years it existed.
Same with China. 5000 years of history emerging from Beijing, but each dynasty was distinct.
Even the US has reinvented itself several times over by now. Antebellum America might as well have been a different country. New Deal America was radically different from it’s Coolidge Era predecessor. Reagan’s America became it’s own thing in turn. Trumpian America is a new thing, not an end point.
Didn’t Constantinople outlast the Persian empire by quite a while?
They did, and were so weak and ineffectual afterwards that they even got sacked by the crusaders. It was essentially a long decline.
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LOL empire. They haven’t lasted for even a century. It will be a footnote in history.
The US…?
This fucker just swings at everyone.
I think someone shit on their waffle this morning.
yes
But it’s been around for more than two centuries?
As a country. Britain, Spain, Portugal have been around for much longer as a country. That period is not as long as they have existed in the capacity or form of being an ‘empire’.
Damn and they say American education is bad.
Well then, enlighten me and tell me exactly from when to when you consider them an empire?
Probably from the moment of our emancipation from England. Occupied more territory than most European states ever had at that moment.
If you want to be pedantic about it how about when we occupied the width of an entire contenant? September 9th 1850
We didn’t spring fully formed from Zeus’s forehead to fund the destruction of the Reich.
from the moment of our emancipation from England.
I was asking from what year, decade even to what year. This is as vague as it gets. If I wanted to be pedantic I would ask what a “contenant” is. That date you mention is about California? I think you don’t get what being an empire means. It’s not having a really big country.
1787 was less than 100 years ago? Because that’s when their Constitution was ratified.
Also their revolutionary war was 1776 to 1783.
How wrong are you willing to be?
They may be referencing the USA’s increased international hegemony starting after WWII rather than the founding of the nation.
Either way they are off
In just over three weeks, Donald Trump has been able to redefine the United States’ position in the world from a global power to an international outcast.
This is exactly what people uttering “Make America Great Again” were asking for when they chose Trump to be the figurehead. None should be surprised.
As a European I’m all for it. Fuck up your own country for once and leave the rest alone. Nobody needs the corrupt self-declared policeman of the world
Could you be quiet then?
At the low low price of a few million brown people
Mate aside from the whole global instability part of it from Australia Im happy for Mango Mussolini to be my president if he crashes the dollar and makes American products cheap as chips to buy
That’s a bit of a selfish view to look at it for your own profit. Really curious, what US product do you desperately need and are also costly? And LOL at the Mango Mussolini. He probably doesn’t know who that is.
Sorry I should of known the sarcasm wouldn’t get through. Honestly I’m scared shitless
Well I hear you spent a gigantic shitload of your money on buying their subs. Which they will actually man and use so I wasn’t sure of the sarcasm. You’re on the other side of the globe so why worry? Unless your gov feels the need to be the US spearhead against the evil Yellow Peril. Then you and Taiwan can become the next Ukraine. I’m sure the Americans will also sell you all the arms they can from a safe distance and support you in spirit. /s
Uj/ There’s a pretty credible conspiracy theory that the US deposed one of our Prime Minister Gough Whitlam because he opposed a US Military Base on our land called Pine Gap, add in how our quite possible next Prime Minister Peter Dutton is carrying on for all intents and purposes we are just a satellite US state with no voting power so yeah fucking scary
In just over three weeks, Donald Trump has been able to redefine the United States’ position in the world from a global power to an international outcast.
As a European I’m all for it. Fuck up your own country for once and leave the rest alone. Nobody needs the corrupt self-declared policeman of the world
The Schadenfreude resonates with me, but that power vacuum scares me more. All kinds of potentially violent forces, who have been constrained by US hegemony, will test what the new limits are in the coming years.
At least, a corrupt policeman still has to play and pretend, which somewhat aligns her with the designated role. The Mafia, on the other hand …
What I mean to say is, you cannot step down from that position “and leave the rest alone”. It causes ripples across the world.
The United States is imploding. The reign of Donald Trump is not only challenging and threatening the very foundations of its constitutional democracy, it is calling into question the U.S.’s post-World War II hegemonic role. Empires or hegemonic powers rise and fall. Often they are defeated by emerging powers. Sometimes their decline takes place over time. But rarely do they self-destruct as spectacularly as the U.S. is doing. The U.S. implosion is dramatic in its intensity and rapidity. In just over three weeks, Donald Trump has been able to redefine the United States’ position in the world from a global power to an international outcast. Despite whatever military and economic power the U.S. still has, its image and global leadership have been undermined by President Trump’s foreign policy decisions.
I just want to take a short, though probably unpopular, note that while you present it as something negative, to some people on the world, that’s actually something positive. There are communities all over the world who have suffered tremendously through the US’ global hegemony; and these people (me included) are sometimes actually in a very good mood about the news that have been coming the last few weeks.
While I absolutely agree that America has and continues to do abhorrent things overseas (and domestically), I fear that there currently exists no significant world power in position to replace them as #1 that isn’t considerably more exploitative, sadistic, and cruel. We’re currently in hell and have nowhere to go but down…
This is always my thought when I hear that kind of response too. “Replace US hegemony” great. With what? China? Russia? India? Iran? Maybe the EU would be better, but I don’t see an EU hegemony replacing US hegemony successfully any time soon. I feel like in a lot of ways the US dominated world order is/was a lesser of 2+ evils… We might be about to find out what the greater ones are :/
The thing about the EU is it doesn’t want to be a hegemony power like the US was, at least not when it includes military. Those who want are Russia (openly) and China (through the backdoors). Don’t know enough about India.
Even with the current push for more military, the maximum I see from the EU is securing its most important trade routes and otherwise project soft power through economical influence.
I feel like in a lot of ways the US dominated world order is/was a lesser of 2+ evils… We might be about to find out what the greater ones are :/
Based on what metric, exactly? Vibes? White supremacy?
When the Americans came to put up a base in my country, we didn’t have to hide our women like when the Soviets did. They also let us travel and usually don’t shoot our prime minister.
This may come as a shock to you, but the USSR hasn’t existed in a quarter century.
And that’s good, but the Russians sure try to pretend otherwise.
It must be hard for you, trying to get through life without being able to follow even basic chains of thought
Social mobility.
So vibes.
Also, even if it was true that the USA had better social mobility, that doesn’t make it the lesser evil for dominating the rest of the world, now does it?
I think you have to be engaging in some serious American exceptionalism to believe that. In real terms, America has been much more exploitative, sadistic, and cruel than China - the main contender for next hegemon - and the argument otherwise is mostly just based on vibes.
If there was anything the US was good at, it would be marketing. Creating the image that it’s the greatest nation on earth, influencing mainstream media to tell their version of the story, keeping up appearances of a strong nation.
The moment these smoke clears and the mirrors break, that is when we see the real US. I think we have Trump to thank to show it to us.
Once, the US was actualy very food at funding innovation. The shit that Bell Labs alone discovered are things that shape the world today. But in the nature of US capatialism, if discovery can’t turn I to profit, why bother? It’s easier to market 2nd or 3rd place as 1st, then to actually be the 1st, especially if the Chinese are constantly breathing down you neck.
One of the stories about the US that I find inspirational is how, during the space race, NASA relied on various experts from somewhat unconventional places. It’s what I always think about at times like this, because it’s a snippet of what I consider to be genuine greatness, amongst all the propaganda and geopolitical awfulness.
The first example is how the Apollo spacesuits were sewn by seamstresses from an underwear company. This was because they needed craftspeople skilled enough to be able to reliably cut fabric and sew seams within a margin of error of a fraction of a millimetre. Whereas in regular garment manufacturing, you can typically tear out incorrect stitches and try again, this wasn’t possible for the spacesuit, so they needed to be perfect first time; many of the fabrics they were working on were so cutting edge that they needed to be locked away in a safe when not working on them. Synthetic fabrics were still fairly new, and this partly explains why an underwear manufacturer had seamstresses who were up to this challenge — the group of sewists who worked on the spacesuit were probably among the most experienced people in the world at sewing synthetic fabrics, and this experience allowed them to be an active part of the design and manufacture process for the spacesuits.
Another example from the same era is when NASA engineers were having difficulty getting the honeycomb insulating material they were using to adhere to the shuttle. This part of the program was happening near Seal Beach, in California, and when it was discovered that the local surfers were already experienced in using a material like this for their surfboards, NASA hired a bunch of the surfers to work with their engineers to figure out the problem. There’s a quote I absolutely adore from Donald Binns, a Project Engineer with North American Aviation[1]:
“[The surfers] did a great job with it. The only downside of those guys was that when the surf was up, there was a big absentee problem — they were out there doing their trick.”
I just find this incredibly sweet, because it captures both the strength and the difficulty of working with diverse skill sets. If ever there was greatness to be found in the US, we can see it in stories like this. I think this spirit of innovation has been lost over the years, due to the pressures of capitalism on individuals in particular.
Edit: forgot to add link for quote citation
[1]: Quote is from episode 1 of the 2008 documentary “Moon Machines”, accessible via the internet archive. Insulation section starts at around 16:45 https://archive.org/details/moon-machines/Moon+Machines+Part+1+The+Saturn+V+Rocket.mp4
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Unfortunately they believe their own bullshit
Well, you have to drink the kool-aid because there’s lead in the tap water.
Like, as much as i have to complain about the US meddled in other countries, i have to disagree that they only were good at marketing.
Lots of technology have been developed in the US, primarily computer chips and everything that has to do with it, including the internet. That can be a good invention, depending on what you use it for.
You should be fair and give credit where due, and part of the US’ power was because of technological proficiency. Of course, other countries also achieved good technological developments, like the Chinese with their solar panels, and the Europeans with lots and lots of scientific groundwork and cultural developments.
The Roman Empire fell because of a series of invasions by “barbarian tribes.”
I cannot take this author seriously after they wrote this. It was, you know, just a little more complicated than that.
I don’t think the author meant that seriously. You see the quote around “barbarian tribes”? I think he considered this notion sarcastically, as this is “barbarian tribes” is often used by people less knowledgeble abou the topic.
And for the US to implode within a few weeks, there must have been considerable rot inside. I am really not sure where precisely it started, but I consider Bretton Woods (both the system and it’s breakdown), Nixon with the final breakdown of honor in politics, Reagan and his “trickle-down economy” lie Reageanomics, and Bush Junior with his Gulf War key milestones in that process. Notice a trend? They were all Republicans. That Trump puts the final nail into the US’ coffin is only consequential.
Isn’t it crazy for Nixon to be a point of honor? Recent presidents have gotten away with a lot worse, but there is no resignation in dishonor, there are no consequences, nobody cares any more
This is actually a big part of what keeps pushing me farther left. The party of righteousness, fairness, strict legal enforcement, strictly adhering to the constitution, was always dishonest but they’ve completely dropped any pretenses in favor of outright criminality, corruption, throwing out the constitution, enriching their corporate benefactors. They no longer even pretend that oppression is about family values anymore or that we will be trickled upon
What made Rome fall?
It’s a rather complex topic, but the short answer isn’t barbarian invasion.
The simplest correct answer is the Roman elite became less interest in preserving the Roman state and more interested in increasing their own personal wealth and influence.
Hey that sounds like the USA
We’re doing the thing! Yay!
high five
What’s wild is that “being Roman” persisted a lot longer than the tax system and patronage networks that had collapsed. It wasn’t until a large portion of the people who thought of themselves as “Roman” were invaded by the Eastern Roman Empire that the Roman identity was broken up, to be replaced by the regional identities that people rallied around to defend themselves.
I feel like if the ERE’s leaders had taken a different approach, they could have stitched the Western Empire back together, but they broke it.
Also people stopped having enough kids
define “enough kids” for me please.
do you mean enough kids that their parents can’t feed them off their own little farm, and the kids had to be sent to the cities as slave / poor workers, so that the machines can keep churning for the sake of profit?
edit: sorry but i’m pissed and angry now. “not enough kids” like what? not enough kids to make sausage of them? not enough kids to burn them in the kettle of capitalism? not enough kids to flood the labor market with undervalued workers?
i tell you what, it’s capitalist propaganda that “people should have more kids”, because they think it makes the wages fall. what it actually does is create poverty, mass unemployment, working poor, and civil unrest. may the empire be intoxicated by its own poison. may the corporations fall due to the civil unrest that they helped create.
Like the birth rate was too low overall.
Of course more people makes wages fall. That’s why immigration is so popular in western world.
That’s potentially a global problem. It’s not specific to the US as long as we keep making ourselves an attractive destination for immigrants and keep welcoming them ………… crap
There are whole books on that topic, but this article gives a very basic explanation of some of the major factors that were involved.
Thanks
It all started with the reform known as the Pax Romana. Rome stopped waging wars that kept the influx of slaves, which were fundamental for their economic model. They didn’t realize the implications of such a decision and didn’t design a viable alternative in time.
It was the barbarian tribes, the kids are just being pedantic lmao
it took 100 or so years to really collapse and effective organization and leadership were big factors in that process. They didn’t lose a war and poof, everything was over, they were always fighting several other civilizations for dominance, they started consistently losing when the soldiers started showing up in rags.
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Take a history class.
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Article about how the states is falling apart.
Uses picture of a house no middle class family could reasonably afford.
“Uh it’s not about the house, obviously anyone who buys that will be bulldozing that house to build a new house, it’s about the property location.” The location: a swamp
I feel bad for the innocent Americans who are gonna suffer… people who honestly didn’t ask for or want any of this.
I mean the conservatives definitely asked for this, as did the democrats who didn’t vote, and the majority of Americans who don’t vote at all.
So you don’t believe there are any Americans who don’t deserve to suffer for what’s happening?
There is a minority who didn’t directly contribute to it, yes.
It was something like 48.5% of voters, maybe over 49% depending how you count third party voters
Ok, so we at least partially agree.
We may not have wanted any of this, but none of us are innocent. We all play our parts whether that’s the sociopathic capitalist or the empathetic commoner, with the consequences of our actions/inaction causing harm and suffering to the world. The very devices we’re having this discussion on were created with suffering.
We’ve collectively destroyed this entire planet - that was intended to sustain us all - so none of us are innocent, except the children who’ve no idea yet what right and wrong even mean. As for the rest of us, there are very real degrees of guilt and also sincere ignorance, and also repentance… if not, we would all deserve to just lay down and let evil roll over us.
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As it should. The rise of fascism shouldn’t go unnoticed. The United States is capable of better but, the rot of capital needs to be expelled first.
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The US falling apart would implicate that it was once whole, which it never was. It is just reaping the harsh fruits of half a century of aggressive 2 party campaigning.
All due to Ordinal voting. First Past the Post is the simplest Ordinal system, and completely broken if you have more than two candidates.
The only solution is a Cardinal voting system. Cardinal systems can handle two or twenty candidates without issues. Approval or STAR are the best options.
The sad part is, in 1780, First Past the Post was the only system available. It had to be adopted before mathematicians could look at it and say, hey shits broken.
The first was Condorcet. A French Mathematician who noticed the first problem with Plurality in the 1780s. But if you know your history, you’ll know that being a French Nobleman in the 1780s was not the healthiest thing to be, regardless of how fucking based you were.
As an aside here, Condorcet was fucking based. He was antislavery, and argued for full suffrage for both women and the slaves that he wanted to free. He argued for universal education for all, and thought it would solve so many problems.
Anyway the next guy who saw the problem with Plurality was another French Mathematician and political scientist named Durverger. He proved that First Past the Post voting will always result in two party dominance. And he proved this in the 1950s. So not much to be done about it.
The next guy to put his name to voting science was Kenneth Arrow, an American who in the 1970s, showed that all Ordinal voting systems were flawed.
But again, the data came in far too late to easily fix things.
So here we are. The saying goes, the best time to plant a tree was 20 year ago, the next best time is now. So call your local representative and ask them to sponsor a switch of voting system to Approval or STAR.
No technical system of voting resolved the problem of monopolized media and a population stuffed full of nationalist propaganda.
Implement Cardinal voting at the Vatican and you’ll still end up with a Catholic Pope
Fun fact, the Vatican did use Cardinal voting (Approval) for a few centuries, until some rich assholes took over.
But aside from that, your comment is useless.
The reason why the media can control the narrative is because of the voting system. See, it’s super easy to control two sides. Two teams.
But if you have a dozen teams, it’s much harder to control the narrative. And with a dozen teams, some of them will be on our side and will break up the media monopoly. Hell, we had Trust busters under or current system, we can have them again.
But I guess defeatism is comfortable for certain people. But it doesn’t get anything done, so fuck that shit.
The reason why the media can control the narrative is because of the voting system.
The media exists independent of the electoral system.
you have a dozen teams, it’s much harder to control the narrative.
ESPN would argue otherwise.
defeatism is comfortable for certain people
It’s only defeatism when you assume Cardinal voting is the only viable solution.
Obviously, that’s not the case.
ESPN, famous for controlling who goes to the Super Bowl… Oh wait, they have no control over that because there are 32 teams.
They can’t even control who fans cheer for. Again, because there are 32 teams. And dozens of sports that aren’t football.
I agree that the media landscape is a huge problem that won’t be directly solved by a different voting system, but I think that a changed voting system is a reasonable step towards solving the wider constellation of problems. A fairer voting system is a far more straightforward thing to solve than the media problem, which is probably better understood as a web of lots of different, but tightly linked problems.
If we imagined a world where the media/propaganda problem were solved, then that wouldn’t make First Past The Post (FPTP) voting fair i.e. it would still be something we’d need to solve.
Of course, this isn’t an either/or thing. I agree that we shouldn’t expect Cardinal voting (or any other alternative voting system) to magically solve this fucked up situation, because problems like media will still exist. However, I do think that FPTP is reinforcing the problem of media monopolies and nationalistic popularism. Even if implementing Cardinal voting (or similar) doesn’t directly improve the media problem, it would change the shape of the problem, such that we could tackle it on new fronts.
I think that a changed voting system is a reasonable step towards solving the wider constellation of problems.
If we’re forming a governing body from scratch, I agree. No reason to start the democratic process suboptimally.
But we’ve experimented with alternative voting schemes in the US before. Eric Adams was elected under Cardinal Voting, ffs. The rationalist theory of voting doesn’t work in districts or elections where one candidate has an outsized war chest or media presence.
However, I do think that FPTP is reinforcing the problem of media monopolies and nationalistic popularism.
I would argue it’s a symptom more than a problem. Systems that favor incumbents and reinforce entrenched interests are going to be championed by incumbents.
Past that, I don’t really need ten mid candidates. I need one good one, with a coalition ready to rally behind them. Raising the intensity of competition and the number of competing factions makes for better TV drama than an election system.
I think the biggest problem I can cook up is that it’s sort of hard to campaign on cardinal voting, especially at the federal level, because it’s sort of an apolitical and nerdy topic that people don’t know about and don’t give a shit about. You’d probably have to campaign on giving people healthcare, or, responding to the economy, or any number of other issues that might come up in that particular cycle. You’d have to pass it as a total footnote to something else, which, at the federal level, probably wouldn’t happen, precisely because it would threaten the power monopoly that both parties have as different sides of the same cardboard cutout. You’d get no votes congressionally to get that passed. You’d probably have to do a bunch of legislation before that, leading up to that, probably you’d have to get rid of citizen’s united, yadda yadda. If you were the president theoretically you could add a lot of rhetorical pressure to specific members of congress, but that’s more useful if you have like, a narrow margin, if you’re outweighed by most then you’d probably ironically end up doing a lot of what trump is doing right now even though he has a majority.
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“The empire that defined the last century is falling apart at the seams. People notice.”
It’s not “falling apart.” It’s being intentionally dismantled.
Rubio’s statement at his conformation hearing was basically “the Post WWII order isn’t working for us, so we’re ending it.”
Intentionally dismantled by a fascist theocracy.
And the theocracy is faked
It always has been
Right from when Constantin co-opted the Jesus movement to use it for state control of people’s behavior.
Nah. Parts of it, sure. But a substantial portion from top to bottom sincerely believes the fairy tale. We’re primed to have an old-fashioned power struggle between The Church and The King.
say what you want about the brits, but they wouldn’t have voted for brexit twice.
They kept voting for the conservatives for a while after Brexit. They kept voting for Boris fucking Johnson.
To be fair the other side was just as much for brexit as the tories
To be fair, we don’t have only two options. The Greens, Lib Dems, Plaid Cymru, and SNP were all opposed to Brexit.
You could say the same about the US though, but we still have the same shitty voting system that ultimately boils down to 2 parties barring massive upheaval.
Not at all, look at the linked map. We’ve only one party in ultimate control which flicks between the big two but we don’t have only 2 parties with any viable chance at politics at all. The SNP etc, despite having no executive power, still manage to influence political thought. The same can’t really be said for the USA in any meaningful way.
Except of Scotland none of these got enough votes, I guess it wasn’t important enough to sway most voters at that time.
You underestimate Putin’s psyops and overestimate people’s intelligence.
Eh, they just haven’t had a second chance yet. That kind of bigotry enhanced stupidity doesn’t go away easily.
You say that, but don’t forget they rejected alternative vote (abolishing FPTP) then voted for Brexit
Don’t be so sure about that. That piece of excrement Farange is back.
In three weeks, Donald Trump has imploded whatever positive image the United States might have had internationally.
If you were born in the last three weeks it may seem that way, but Joe Biden did the US’ reputation abroad no favors, nor did Trump 1. Obama is less bad than those on either side of him, but his admin at best still represents stagnation, as he failed to address Bush’s crimes and added to them in places like Libya. And before him was the guy who really got the ball rolling downhill after the high point that was the Clinton administration, Bush Jr.
Just to give you the perspective from Germany: Reagan is viewed as an idiot, everybody forgot about Bush Senior, people kind of loved Clinton, viewed GWB as an idiot and warmonger, Obama is seen as a great guy and Binden was also not viewed negatively by most people. Trump, however, is seen as the dangerous clown that he is.
Same here, in the more”European” parts of the US
Obama is less bad than those on either side of him, but his admin at best still represents stagnation, as he failed to address Bush’s crimes
Just a reminder that it’s a lot faster, easier and cheaper to break things than it is to build or repair them. A “bull in a China shop” like Trump can do a lot of damage in a few seconds, but it takes years to repair.
Bush had 8 years to cause the damage he caused, it’s not reasonable to expect the next administration to fix all that in the same amount of time, no matter how well intentioned and capable that president is.
Same with Trump1-> Biden.
And then you add in obstructionists in congress and senate slowing the process of repair.
He could have prosecuted him.
Instead he pulled a Ford and let him paint and give his wife candy.
Whatever his effect was, Obama was perceived exceptionally well. They basically have him a Nobel for just getting elected.
We are the dog.
