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.
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.
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.
Juche.
I wish I was kidding.
They’re doing a North Korea. Building a completely isolated war economy.
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.
Bring back jobs via tax incentives for being local and cutting tax breaks and bailouts for taking industry outside the US.
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.
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.
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.
It is indeed dangerous to rely on any one country for too much
Cries in Canadian
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.
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.
He’s out of line, but he’s right.
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.
Honestly asking: what other way would anyone suggest to bring back outsourced manufacturing jobs?
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.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.
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.
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.
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.
Honestly asking: what other way would anyone suggest to bring back outsourced manufacturing jobs?
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?
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.
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.
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
I should have probably used usa republicans, but it feels strange to call people who voted for Donald Trump a word derived from republic
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.
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).
Nearly $3 billion USD flowed through the TRUMP cryptocoin
But wait, there’s more. Us taxpayer money will now be used to “invest” in these crypto scams.
Because they think it owns the libs, plain and simple!
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.
It pleases Putin.
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…
“”“conservatives”“”. Sometimes I think the DNC is the last place to find actual conservatives these days.
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.
…ew.
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
Trump’s Social Media Site Quietly Admits It’s Based on Mastodon
Mastodon had originally threatened to sue Trump’s ‘Truth Social’ site for allegedly violating its open-source license.
holy shit!
Oh so it was X before Twitter. Lmao
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)
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.
For Canada and Mexico and tarriffs in general. We need to bring manufacturing back to America and revitalize the rust belt.
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.
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.
The thing is, it’s not total rubbish. The problems are real - rust belt decline, life is harder for Americans than it was in the past. America is more protected from Russian aggression than Europe. He doesn’t seem to realise or care that the reason for that is because we trusted that the US would have our back and its not like the us wasn’t getting anything in return.
It’s just that these truths are mixed in with lies - immigrants are the problem, tariffs will fix anything, that if america abandons it’s allies and its promises (over protecting Ukraine after they gave up their nukes), this will lead to a better long term outcome for America.
Trump is too dumb to understand subtlety and he’s being played by multiple bad actors, domestic and foreign.
its not like the us wasn’t getting anything in return
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.
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.
Dad? Is that you?!
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:
- cost of living/financial security — immigrants’ fault, taxes, foreign nations taking advantage of US generosity
- fear of change/bigotry — immigrants, “DEI”, “wokeness”, border security
- American exceptionalism/egotism — immigrants, 1st ammendment
- distrust of federal government — “DEI”, government corruption, regulatory overreach, socialism = communism
- distrust of industry — vaccines harmful, science bad
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.
If they were capable of thinking critically, they wouldn’t be Republicans in the first place.
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
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.
Good luck finding many of them around here. They find out pretty quickly that they aren’t welcome.
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.
It’s the most obvious powerplay in my memory. Isolate and remove America on the world stage from the inside. And it’s being highly successful. You couldn’t get a better Russian agent then trump.
