Depends. He seems pretty out of it right now and I don’t know how much he would really accomplish. He’s also pretty old and unhealthy.
But if he comes back angry and the people around him are effective, then yeah we would start looking for other places to live. I’m not trying to live in a Russian-style handmaid’s tale.
I don’t think it’s dramatic to suggest Trump may actually put an end to our democracy though. Another Lemmy commenter summed it up best. They pointed out that we on the left may have disagreed with McCain or Bush, but we never once feared that they would seize power or leave NATO. We trusted them to at least keep the ship afloat and respect the basic tenants of our free and democratic nation.
With Trump, we don’t have that. All bets are off because he’s an unhinged narcissist. He would leave NATO and risk the Pax Americana that has stabilized the world for almost 100 years now. And he would do it for money, for negative attention, or just because someone told him he couldn’t. America has some pretty major faults but China and Russia are not ready to take the reigns. Say what you will about the West but we at least endeavor to protect human rights. I think anyone who isn’t trying to build on the current Western peace is incredibly dangerous in a very scary way.
He would leave NATO and risk the Pax Americana that has stabilized the world for almost 100 years now.
Stabilizing the world is just flat out wrong. At best, the US has stabilized itself and a select few allies. Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan most recently, along with a whole bunch of countries in Central and South America over the last 100 years would probably feel quite strongly that the US has been a disruptive force for them.
As a devout lefty who thinks America and capitalism need a lot more checks and balances, I have to somewhat disagree with you.
When we talk peace, we are talking relative terms. And I suppose I should also add prosperity into the mix.
I think the West has enabled a period of relative peace and prosperity never before seen. And I think it’s getting, overall, better every day. Technology and capitalism, for all their evils, have lifted billions out of poverty and saved billions of lives.
I’m rather curious how you relativise a lot of the US’ recent history. Sure, Iraq and Afghanistan weren’t pillars of stability, but I think the balance comes down pretty hard against the US with Vietnam and other Southeast Asian nations as well. Our continued support of Israel and Saudi Arabia isn’t looking so hot either.
Then we’ve got military intervention in the Dominican Republic and support of Trujillo until he stopped being useful, installing the Pinochet regime after helping topple the government of Salvador Allende, support for the military dictatorship in Brazil, as well as backing dictatorships in Argentina.
Our colonization of the Philippines was pretty awful, as is our continued treatment of Puerto Rico as essentially a vacation spot and Caribbean ghetto.
You get the idea. Seriously, I’m hard pressed to think of an instance in the last century where the US has intervened on the international stage and actually has a credible claim to having done good with the exception of World War II.
The government has created and fought for stability for a small subset of monied interests and has largely left the rest of us to jump for whatever table scraps they deign to let fall to us plebs. As @Nokinori mentions, even domestically, things are increasingly coming undone at the seams and looking ready to get worse.
Unfortunately, that’s all come at a cost of destroying and destabilizing billions of lives. I’m not disagreeing that a lot of people have benefitted from that. Competition - which is what capitalism is when you distill it and ignore all the inside ball that corporations and governments play - generates new ideas and promotes the ones that generate the most capital. But it also leaves a lot of people behind. And for now let’s just ignore the idea that there could be anything else as noble as the generation of more capital.
In the US, wealth inequality is only getting worse, with homeless populations and food scarcity continuing to grow and things like access to healthcare and quality education on the decline. And there are areas of the world that have been radically destabilized by the US to retain that position of dominance and prosperity.
If you look for a nation with the current / recent, per capita record for ‘lifting people out of poverty’ you’d have to give the medal to China. Do I think the way they’ve done things over the last few decades is producing a healthy society? Nope. I’d much rather live in the US than in China. But I don’t think the US is producing a healthy society either. We’re all just screwed up in our own ways, fighting for resources and acting like our way of doing things is ok because it’s what we are indoctrinated into from a young age.
The US focuses on generating capital as a metric of success because it enables geopolitical dominance and prosperity for just enough people to keep the wheels rolling.
Everyone should read their Project 2025 plan, they plan on consolidating power by firing or arresting any non Right winger in power or employed by the government, among many other fascistic power consolidation wet dreams:
I did not view Bush at all like Trump. Really disliked his political takes on most things and thought he was embarrassingly dumb some times but it never ever even crossed my mind that he was a threat to the republic. And actually admired his composure and leadership after 9/11. They’re not even remotely comparable.
I viewed Bush as an incompetent moron with business cronies crawling in to every spot in his administration. I don’t recall people saying he was a wannabe dictator, he had at least some respect for the Constitution and the electoral process. Trump on the other hand, put extreme pressure on the DoJ to direct investigations away from him, minimize their impact or bury them as best as possible. His administration freaking extradited a convicted Russian agent back to her home country because she was funneling money and propaganda to the GOP through the NRA. Trump is a wannabe dictator, he didn’t get to be one because he didn’t have to spine to follow through with his coup because he knew he needed the thinnest amount of plausible deniability to give his GOP sycophants cover to justify letting him off the hook if it failed.
Depends. He seems pretty out of it right now and I don’t know how much he would really accomplish. He’s also pretty old and unhealthy.
But if he comes back angry and the people around him are effective, then yeah we would start looking for other places to live. I’m not trying to live in a Russian-style handmaid’s tale.
I don’t think it’s dramatic to suggest Trump may actually put an end to our democracy though. Another Lemmy commenter summed it up best. They pointed out that we on the left may have disagreed with McCain or Bush, but we never once feared that they would seize power or leave NATO. We trusted them to at least keep the ship afloat and respect the basic tenants of our free and democratic nation.
With Trump, we don’t have that. All bets are off because he’s an unhinged narcissist. He would leave NATO and risk the Pax Americana that has stabilized the world for almost 100 years now. And he would do it for money, for negative attention, or just because someone told him he couldn’t. America has some pretty major faults but China and Russia are not ready to take the reigns. Say what you will about the West but we at least endeavor to protect human rights. I think anyone who isn’t trying to build on the current Western peace is incredibly dangerous in a very scary way.
Stabilizing the world is just flat out wrong. At best, the US has stabilized itself and a select few allies. Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan most recently, along with a whole bunch of countries in Central and South America over the last 100 years would probably feel quite strongly that the US has been a disruptive force for them.
As a devout lefty who thinks America and capitalism need a lot more checks and balances, I have to somewhat disagree with you.
When we talk peace, we are talking relative terms. And I suppose I should also add prosperity into the mix.
I think the West has enabled a period of relative peace and prosperity never before seen. And I think it’s getting, overall, better every day. Technology and capitalism, for all their evils, have lifted billions out of poverty and saved billions of lives.
I’m rather curious how you relativise a lot of the US’ recent history. Sure, Iraq and Afghanistan weren’t pillars of stability, but I think the balance comes down pretty hard against the US with Vietnam and other Southeast Asian nations as well. Our continued support of Israel and Saudi Arabia isn’t looking so hot either.
Then we’ve got military intervention in the Dominican Republic and support of Trujillo until he stopped being useful, installing the Pinochet regime after helping topple the government of Salvador Allende, support for the military dictatorship in Brazil, as well as backing dictatorships in Argentina.
Our colonization of the Philippines was pretty awful, as is our continued treatment of Puerto Rico as essentially a vacation spot and Caribbean ghetto.
You get the idea. Seriously, I’m hard pressed to think of an instance in the last century where the US has intervened on the international stage and actually has a credible claim to having done good with the exception of World War II.
The government has created and fought for stability for a small subset of monied interests and has largely left the rest of us to jump for whatever table scraps they deign to let fall to us plebs. As @Nokinori mentions, even domestically, things are increasingly coming undone at the seams and looking ready to get worse.
Unfortunately, that’s all come at a cost of destroying and destabilizing billions of lives. I’m not disagreeing that a lot of people have benefitted from that. Competition - which is what capitalism is when you distill it and ignore all the inside ball that corporations and governments play - generates new ideas and promotes the ones that generate the most capital. But it also leaves a lot of people behind. And for now let’s just ignore the idea that there could be anything else as noble as the generation of more capital.
In the US, wealth inequality is only getting worse, with homeless populations and food scarcity continuing to grow and things like access to healthcare and quality education on the decline. And there are areas of the world that have been radically destabilized by the US to retain that position of dominance and prosperity.
If you look for a nation with the current / recent, per capita record for ‘lifting people out of poverty’ you’d have to give the medal to China. Do I think the way they’ve done things over the last few decades is producing a healthy society? Nope. I’d much rather live in the US than in China. But I don’t think the US is producing a healthy society either. We’re all just screwed up in our own ways, fighting for resources and acting like our way of doing things is ok because it’s what we are indoctrinated into from a young age.
The US focuses on generating capital as a metric of success because it enables geopolitical dominance and prosperity for just enough people to keep the wheels rolling.
But that’s just my perspective.
I’m sure the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires would agree with you, haha.
Everyone should read their Project 2025 plan, they plan on consolidating power by firing or arresting any non Right winger in power or employed by the government, among many other fascistic power consolidation wet dreams:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025#:~:text=The plan proposes slashing U.S.,departments of education and commerce.
https://www.project2025.org/
https://www.heritage.org/conservatism/commentary/project-2025
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/conservatives-aim-to-restructure-u-s-government-and-replace-it-with-trumps-vision
https://bpr.berkeley.edu/2023/11/17/project-2025-democratic-doomsday/
https://www.advocate.com/news/project-2025-republicans-maga
https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/project-2025-heritage-foundation-christian-nationalism-rcna103510
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/27/project-2025-dismantle-us-climate-policy-next-republican-president
https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/16h9fqe/what_is_the_deal_with_project_2025/
I humbly request you post this in https://lemmy.cafe/c/benjamingetthemusket
Make the thread and I’ll pin it
They were saying all of the same things about W. Bush in 2004.
Not at all. The left viewed W. Bush as a wannabe dictator, not much different from how Trump is viewed now.
I did not view Bush at all like Trump. Really disliked his political takes on most things and thought he was embarrassingly dumb some times but it never ever even crossed my mind that he was a threat to the republic. And actually admired his composure and leadership after 9/11. They’re not even remotely comparable.
I viewed Bush as an incompetent moron with business cronies crawling in to every spot in his administration. I don’t recall people saying he was a wannabe dictator, he had at least some respect for the Constitution and the electoral process. Trump on the other hand, put extreme pressure on the DoJ to direct investigations away from him, minimize their impact or bury them as best as possible. His administration freaking extradited a convicted Russian agent back to her home country because she was funneling money and propaganda to the GOP through the NRA. Trump is a wannabe dictator, he didn’t get to be one because he didn’t have to spine to follow through with his coup because he knew he needed the thinnest amount of plausible deniability to give his GOP sycophants cover to justify letting him off the hook if it failed.