I recently read someone's comment here stating that "trust is efficient."
What we are witnessing is the devolution of the USA from a high-trust to low-trust business environment. "Low-trust business environment" is the euphemism we have used to describe other countries, where corruption is rampant. This is so sad to watch.
Not just sad to watch. Would a country with a low-trust business environment be allowed to have such a huge mountain of government debt, and continue to have its currency be the world's reserve currency? A lot of sadness hinges on those considerations.
it's the other way round, the military maintains the world order, the currency is used as reserve, and they get to provide services that nobody else can provide while they're top dog. they are not on a trajectory to remain top dog for very long.
Trust was its own reason. It's useful for the whole world to have a currency and business environment that operates by rules, even when the rules aren't perfect or fair.
That environment isn't being outcompeted by better, more fair rules - it's just getting vandalized for a few people's gain, and creating risk for everyone else .
But things can change no? Like the country whose currency we use becoming untrustworthy. Do you think the world watched the first trump presidency and thought to do nothing?
It was US policy to actively work against that and it was an acceptable deal for us given that we've been friends and allies forever. Now Trump has turned the US into our heroin-addict sibling we can no longer rely on them.
Those particular aspects are only good for Americans though. That those two things are ending is good for basically everybody else, from Brazilians, Chinese and Canadians to Frenchmen.
The speed with which things are ending are most important I think. For decades there has been a slow decline in US power. Today we have the BRICS trade block representing more than half of the world's population. And countries hold a basket of reserve currencies, where the dollar is still a large percentage, but not nearly as large as it used to be. If all these pillars of American empire are carelessly self-destructed, crashing the world order, it will be hugely disruptive. It forces other powers to act and move to occupy the power vacuum, while lacking the economic weapons may force US'es hand to engage with military force, to reestablish itself.
>Today we have the BRICS trade block representing more than half of the world's population.
As far as I understand, the BRICS block does not actually exist. I mean, being member of it does not mean anything serious. There are no obligations, no agreements, no roadmaps. We might as well talk about a alliance of countries whose names begin with the letter "S"
I really don't agree. Rather, the 2015-2024 period has seen a huge increase in US GDP relative to the EU, which is probably largely driven by the US ability to spend, due to these particular things.
Of course, countries like China are catching up anyway-- they're more than a billion people and very able, and of course, people are working hard to get out of this arrangement. I agree that it will be disruptive, but I think the crash has been in the making for years.
When US interest rates went from 1% to 4.5-5% without a drop in stock prices or a corresponding increasing in dividends I could only interpret that as pure irrationality, and even now companies like Tesla still have P/E ratios of 133.54 whereas excellent firms in the same business-- Volkswagen and Toyota have P/E ratios 3.24 and 6.21 respectively. I'm surprised it still hasn't gone through the floor. The traders by trading at these prices are implicitly assuming interest rates will go back to <1% without any drop in earnings, and that won't happen.
> When US interest rates went from 1% to 4.5-5% without a drop in stock prices
The Dow crashed from ~36k to ~28k in less than a year, and that decrease in value doesn't account for inflation. Adjusting for inflation I don't think the markets have actually fully reached their late 2021 peak.
Not sure that's true. America's military keeps peace for trade to happen in a lot of the world... Not always successfully but it's there. That works because they have the reserve currency and can therefore print money for free. Which benefits the US greatly in all sorts of ways. But everyone else also sees some good. If that goes away its going to have impacts on everyone else as well as America. Maybe not as much of an impact on the rest of the world but this is not good for anyone.
I can get the anger at the way the US acts, particularly over the last couple of weeks, but that doesn't mean that them doing badly helps the rest of us
France and Britain alone used to be able to defend trade routes. I don't think it's a huge expense. It really is good for essentially everyone aside from the US itself, once the disruption is over. Obviously we'll have some kind of crash though, but I think that was inevitable with or without this.
>> France and Britain alone used to be able to defend trade routes. I don't think it's a huge expense.
That was a different world. France and Britain today have nowhere the kind of force projection the USA does, via its military bases and aircraft carriers.
Yes, but the US basically had to intervene and tell them to stop using it. If that hadn't happened they wouldn't have.
The US probably wasn't in preventing an invasion of Egypt, but if not restrained I'm sure that Britain and France could have realised their objectives, and if they had had a continuous need to realise different changing objectives they would have retained more capability.
> France and Britain alone used to be able to defend trade routes. I don't think it's a huge expense
France and Britain used to be two of the world's largest imperial powers, and at any time you could plausibly claim France and Britain alone could defend global trade routes, Britain, at least, still was.
You really aren't making a case for it being an easy, cheap job.
Yes, but I think they can basically still do it. If they hadn't been buying F-35s they'd presumably have pushed their stealth fighter projects to be finished by now, and what more is really required?
I think these trade routes etc. will stop mattering rather soon. Batteries are coming and once that's here the oil trade's gone, and then you have no need to export things to get something to trade for it, so in a decade or so none of this will matter.
International trade will go from being mandatory to optional, and thus become much less important.
I don't think that's completely true. Wasn't the US Navy founded (by a Scotsman of course) because the US at the time lacked the funds to pay off the pirates? European countries did pay them off, hence didn't need as large navies.
I agree. I would argue that Pax Americana has been pretty great for even the USA's supposed "arch enemies." My gut feeling is that everyone loved that stability, whether friend or foe, and the fact that it's now gone will mess everyone up.
I am biased here, but I look forward to the next century of Pax Europa. This is the only way forward.
Europe isn't playing aggressively enough or really doing enough to innovate. China is in a position to reap a huge windfall from Trump putting the US in the dumpster. China will bring Europe into the fold with the promise of gradual reforms, and they'll win the global south with soft power and trade agreements.
My fear is that Trump sees America's position eroding quickly relative to China before his eyes and decides to do something an order of magnitude dumber than anything he's done before.
I know I’ll be downvoted but, since we’re going straight for scorched land, I prefer to voice it.
I think most voters think like me “I still prefer Trump to a leftist government”:
- Was there any need to be so extreme in terms of wokeness on the left? I am directly threatened by their program. Was there really any need to go for such a degree of revolution, ensuring everyone sensical would vote Trump? Could the left imagine being a little more democratic and making a few more concessions towards… omg, white males? Is it such a bane? It’s concessions for white males, or we vote for Trump, so did the left win anything with their scorched earth policy?
- It is true that savings needed to be done. The left refused to do any, and went to raise the public programs, reaching a few trillion debt per semester. At one point this has to stop, and the left ain’t gonna stop by itself, so the left provokes the people into voting for the only one who will stop public spending and, yes, he comes in, and has the bad role of taking the US to the cleaners. You will say “It doesn’t even save money” and whatsnot, but would the left have saved the money by themselves? No. Never. So someone else came in and saved for them.
This entire movement is a reactionary movement to the left. The left makes no concessions. So both sides go for a scorched earth policy.
What have we learned? What have we won, on either sides?
Do we agree that, staying closed-minded as they are, the left will resume public spendings by the trillions the moment they step into power? Do we agree that the left is a direct threat to meritocracy, stability of government, men in marriage, men at work, a direct threat to men’s financial stability, and that no-one on the left cares even a little what others-than-them feel?
> I am directly threatened by their program. […] Could the left imagine being a little more democratic and making a few more concessions towards… omg, white males?
I am not from the US, I am originally from Latin America. I am considered a “white male” there. I am now living in Europe as I am a dual citizen. This kind of position is interesting to me. What is so bad about being a white male in the USA at the moment?
I’d like to elaborate further, but I want to engage in an honest conversation so I would like to hear your opinion.
As a white male from northern europe, I learned during the most left recent years that I’m responsible for all the world’s injustices and ethnic/gender/sexual preference defines a human. I can see why so many gave a protest vote when the current system was trying to paint their existence as non-desirable. We went decades backward and this all just brought the focus back to our insignificant external factors like skin color.
I don’t support extreme right or their hate but it looked a lot like categorical hate against my “kind” that I didn’t have part in choosing.
What got me writing is that is debt actually so bad or is it like leveraged investment? If US would have chosen a bit more professional leader capable to at least maintain the position in world economy, the debt wouldn’t likely ever have to be paid off.
> I’m responsible for all the world’s injustices and ethnic/gender/sexual preference defines a human.
Rest assured you are not. But this could turn out to be true, maybe in a very minor way, the moment your resentment towards this straw man becomes the main driver of your political views.
This is what the US "left" got wrong though. Reality or not, there is a strong perception that what these guys are saying is true. I could not fault someone looking at any media whether social or traditional from coming to this conclusion. I think Andrew Tate is a direct symptom of this. He simply filled a void in confused young men's lives. You can point to data saying that there is still inequality all you like, but you need to deal with the current sentiment too. The left is as responsible for Trump as the ultra right.
Americans literally thought that this extremely easy to bribe, criminal, serial adulterer, whose is most likely trying to undermine your constitution (I expect all you 2nd amendment supporters to stop touting that) was a reasonable choice.
I know this is not an accurate portrayal of your point, but this sounds very much like the “the left needs its own Joe Rogan” argument to me.
The problem with it is that we delegate the duties towards our fellow citizens to the talking heads on TV or in our algorithmic feeds and wash our hands on it—I say “we” because it has been happening in basically every country at this point.
If democracy has failed, as some people love to say, it was not because it was supposed to fail, but because politicians have successfully managed to replace it by the current series of popularity contests we have in place.
No, sorry, I didn’t make myself clear. I said that I disagree with that take. Maybe you are not familiar with it, which is something that was raised by some people (maybe jokingly, I don’t know, but it made the rounds in left-wing social media).
I agree that the left should address young men’s struggles, namely the working class, but maybe not in the same sense you are implying. They are as responsible for their own political choices as anyone else.
[P.S.: Am I not from the US. How could I be a Democrat?]
Damn, as another nordic male, why did nobody tell me?
I noticed that someone in America said so, but the US had been extreme, in all ways, for many years and no sane person takes the stuff coming from there as gospel.
I am not responsible for 'all the world’s injustices', and nobody had tried to make me. Maybe if I spend some time on YouTube I can find someone at an American college thinking so, or a right-wing podcast saying that people think so about me. But that is not the mainstream here.
There's no "leftist" party in the USA, there's a Conservative Party called the Democrats, and there's an Ultraconservative Party that's now hellbound to become a Fascist Party called the Republican Party.
Do you also post on the /r/conservative subreddit? Because you should if you do not, you will find many likeminded people who are completely down the rabbit hole.
They're not saving money so far, they have been spending more money than the government spent in 2024. And in those cases where they will spend less they also did enormous damage, e.g. cancelling clinical trials midway through. This is pure destruction, not efficiency.
And your woke argument is a pure strawman. What were those extreme positions by Kamala Harris?
The “Trump is doing the opposite of his program” yields no constructive argument. Because voting for the opposite movement wouldn’t have made the left suddenly implement meritocratic capitalism.
I’ll candidly assume that this is not a rhetorical question aimed at making me pass as a spoiled child, as is frequent with leftism:
- AOC, known as “the squad” (!), has claimed the Congress has too many white males. President Macron said the same about the US tech sector, and he’s not even part of the extremists, so this issue permeates society. Basically everyone says white men should be fewer of them. This is a direct threat.
- Feminism was supposed to give women more place at work and give family a better representation of both genders at home. What happened: Men can’t apply for some jobs anymore; while men are assumed to not merit to see the children by default at home. This has been going on since the 1980 in every developed country, moreso in France and US, a little less in Sweden. Judges and lawyer family courts are often 100%-women (80.2% in the profession).
- We helped women when they were 38% of the university students. But they crossed the 50% in 1990. Men now represent 39% of university students. Do we help them? No, we drop help programs. And Sweden also dropped equality programs the moment men were in need.
This is what various groups have been militanting for years, but they were harassed into submission by the left (from Facebook’s pro-left censorship at the time, to directly burning their cars or killing their dogs, and of course cancelling conference centers for men support groups which they presented as extremists - which is true, men are angry).
How is Trump helping?
- His program basis is based on a meritocratic econonic theory (that does not favour women, which is all the left complains about), but, granted, elected presidents generally implement another program, and Trump isn’t helping much,
- Men thrive in both meritocracies and in the wilderness/lawlessness, because they work more. To this, Trump has choosen the latter. The more economic crisis there is is, the weaker the government, and the more women will need men. Given the left’s program is “let’s take men’s/white’s people money”, the scorched earth is the best situation.
Granted, it would be nicer if leftists didn’t hate white men’s guts so much that they could listen to them when they make reasonable demands such as equity in family courts or meritocracy at the workplace. Barring being sensible…
If you are eating too many carbs and you go to the doctor and he says "you should be eating way less carbs", he is not necessarily telling you to quit all carbs from your diet cold turkey.
It is safe to say that men are ~50% of any country's demographics. If you find any position of power and prestige where they are over-represented, it is safe to assume that there is an imbalance. People will come up with excuses for such imbalance, but one cannot deny that there is such an imbalance there.
this is called Identity Politics.. basing your judgement of other adults by their demographic classifications.. Replacing skills-based and merit-based promotion with "balancing" is racist and sexist in a polar opposite way from the historical trajectory. This parent statement is part of the unrepentant position of many in the USA. This position lost at multiple levels in a massive open election in the USA.
It is actually the opposite. I assume there is no inherent reason why people from other demographics with the required skills and merit cannot be found. Otherwise, there must be a reason why they can’t, and people who think that the current imbalance is perfectly good must have a pretty reasonable explanation to that. Do you have any?
So will the government mandate that 50% of stay at home parents be men?
Because as the other poster pointed out, if you push men out of the workplace and out of family life (by favoring custody for women) you just end up with a bunch of unemployed idle men, which is a recipe for revolution.
And if 50/50 is the goal, where is the government push for more men in places where they're underrepresented, like university students, nurses, teachers?
I can’t reply to your other comment for some reason.
You got me, I did not express myself well. I should have said “working people”. I framed it as a women’s issue since you said that the solution to that would be forcing men to trade places with them.
Re: the fact that bringing up men’s issues is kind of taboo to the left, it seems more of a language problem. If you frame it as a “war on men”, that will turn people off. If you say: “look, there are many bright young guys who could be on college that are otherwise deciding to look for work because the economy is not so great”… Maybe people will listen.
Edit: maybe they will reply “EKSUSE MEE??? WHY NOT WOMEN???”. That is obnoxious, I get it. But do they have a point? If you think so, concede. If you do n’t think so, I would like to know more about it. That is what politics is about.
About 40% of male domestic violence victims who seek help are accused of being the abuser.
Completely coincidentally I'm sure, the federal law on domestic violence is called the "Violence Against Women Act", which furthers the bias that men can't be victims.
How would you improve the situation for male victims without making people on the left hate you?
The same people who say that "firemen" is sexist, will hypocritically say that the naming of the law isn't sexist.
Well, certainly not by threatening to cut funding of humanities research grants. Otherwise they won't be able to conduct research such as this one... But I digress.
The "Violence Against Women Act" is from 1994. Most statistics of that time pointed to a disproportionate amount of women being victims of domestic violence in comparison to men. I tried to find more recent statistics, but this is a very serious topic, so it deserves to be treated with more caution. Also, this is one of the reasons why I think it should not be used as a "war on men" talking point. Do we want to solve the darn problem or use it as a weapon against political opponents?
Well most serious work injuries happen to men, but if we had a "Work Safety For Men" act I bet you'd call that sexist. A law that fails to protect male victims of violence is equally sexist.
The double standard is very visible. Maybe you should just admit that the left is blatantly the "party of women's interests" and give up on gaining men's votes.
This policy was very effective, in the first place. I could eyeball a 70% reduction in the period between 1972 and 2019.
Can it be reduced it even further? Probably.
Would I find it off-puting if any piece of legislation is eventually passed that addresses a hypothetical issue that is disproportionally faced by men and helps reduce it even further? Certainly not.
(I, for one, would approve of the "No More Balls Stuck in the Cogs Act".)
The left believes that any metric where women are worse off needs urgent attention, and any intervention must prioritize women.
But any metric where men are worse off can either be ignored, or fixed with an intervention that is either gender neutral, or preferably, prioritizes women again.
Yes, that sounds like the perfect conversation starter.
If that doesn't work, which I believe is highly unlikely, maybe try incorporating elements of speech as those found in this right-wing publication, the World Socialist Web Site: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/02/27/hefl-f27.html
Oh, my bad. I thought that the names and pictures of the deceased 66-year-old man and 16-year-old boy would be enough.
I guess we can brush this one under the carpet, right? Nothing to see here. Workplace fatalities are a serious issue, but not so serious to you that it is worth bridging that gap. Maybe I’m wrong. Feel free to correct me if that is the case.
On the other hand, I acknowledge that men are disproportionately affected by this issue and that it deserves serious attention from both left and right. I would wholeheartedly support their demand of better working conditions from their employers and representatives, and advise them to contact the media so that the general public can be informed of that and, who knows, maybe support unionization if their demands are not met. Do you think this is a reasonable stance, or do you see any problems with that?
Also, are you available to organize so that we could bring some consciousness to the public about how men are disproportionately affected by workplace fatalities in developed countries? The condition being that we first agree on the causes leading to it.
We could start with the resources we have already found on the Internet. I can pay for the domain if you are interested.
> So will the government mandate that 50% of stay at home parents be men?
Well, obviously not. But there is always the caveat that suggesting government providing adequate child care to working women is communism of whatever. Is it feasible to have some compromise here?
> And if 50/50 is the goal, where is the government push for more men in places where they're underrepresented, like university students, nurses, teachers?
This sounds like a perfectly legitimate ask if young men do really care about it. Why not contact your local representative and explain the issue in an articulate manner?
> government providing adequate child care to working women
You see this is the bias on the left, that everything must be framed as "for women". If the childcare is only for "working women", will a single dad not be able to access it?
Why not government providing adequate child care to working people?
> Why not contact your local representative and explain the issue in an articulate manner?
I do, but your have to admit there is a chilling effect in left wing spaces where openly supporting men's issues makes you very unpopular.
> The more economic crisis there is is, the weaker the government, and the more women will need men
So, to put a finer point on it - you decided that aiming to destroy the United States, and the Pax Americana underlying western civilization, was an appropriate response because AOC and Macron (who represent "everyone", in your apparent media diet) hurt your feelings. As a fellow man, this is just pathetic and entitled.
There have always been groups in society you cannot criticize. There has always been groupthink bullshit that you just smile and nod, and then later share your real thoughts with your trusted close friends. The growing prevalence of talking about men's rights issues was the painstaking path to them getting better - there are some pretty harsh biological reasons why custody courts are slanted towards women, right? If you really wanted to phrase this in terms of "men", then maybe you needed to listen to your fellow wiser men telling you to hold your nose and vote conservative/democrat instead of lashing out with histrionic destruction. Alas.
You’re forgetting that the previous government was losing at least 2 wars (in Ukraine and against Houties) and destroying the United States - trying to jail political opponents, subverting elections, destroying the country’s borders, erasing meritocracy, instituting censorship and ignoring Supreme Court rulings.
Those topics weren't in the scope of the original discussion and I'm not really interested in litigating partisan entertainment propaganda based around taking shreds of truth (at best) and blowing them out of proportion.
The large scale facts are that under the previous administration we had working relationships with our allies, mostly functional executive agencies (aka law enforcement), and the US (ie USD) was seen as a source of stability. Meanwhile the current administration's actions are indistinguishable from a foreign power doing its best to destroy our country - we are now isolated from our allies (and even seen as hostile!), the ideal of rule of law has been replaced by brazenly corrupt rule by law, and we're staring down dedollarization.
It wasn't rethorical and I appreciate your extensive answer. Being male myself, I can relate to some of the points you made. But I don't feel threatened. I guess there is a wide range of the meaning of this word, but I would describe it as perceiving a danger to ones life, livelihood, happiness or something. I did not experience any more disadvantages from being male than being young or old, short, brown-eyed, not too smart, overweight etc.
And your reasonable demands...are you seriously at a workplace where meritocracy is lived? Ever? Out of the many different non-meritocratic factors that come into play in a workplace, being male certainly was never in the top 10 for me. If anything it was an advantage. I'm sorry if you had different experiences. It's not true, where I live, that men can't apply for certain jobs, and I doubt that is the reality for you. The usual term is "everything else equal, a female candidate will be preferred", which is just an encouragement to women to apply. If you want the male candidate, you always find a reason that he is not equal to the female applicant. So if you have the feeling that you didn't get a job because you are male - perhaps it was because the female candidate was better.
And those recurring "leftist", "leftism" references make your statements a bit biased. The time to put everything in left and right categories is somewhat last century. It's all more complicated than that. Nobody hates you because your male and white. But it sure sounds a bit whiny what you are complaining about - imagine you'd be black and female, you really think you would be in a better position, you would have an advantage then? Come on.
The left’s arguments are unfortunately a collection of your argument: Refuting entirely-developed speeches because of a single sentence missing one word.
Trump and meritocracy? You are insane. Oh, Hegseth the wife-(and alcohol-)abusing TV-presenter should be in charge the world's most powerful military? Brett Kavanaugh, who in the balance of probability did assault that woman, should be forced into the supreme court (even blocking the FBI investigation)? You're just going to excuse these flaws away, aren't you?
To be honest, this thread has shown what weak fragile egos some white men have. So your kind has had it easy for centuries. Yeah, probably the rhetoric that's made you "the enemy" is really dumb (hey it poisoned the mind of the richest man in the world, for one), but what do you expect, mollycoddling?
Hah, maybe the whole (white) world should have a truth-and-reconciliation committee, where men are invited to discuss their privilege, and what can be changed to make an equal world. (Actually not just white, men all over the world have had this tyranny. Then again maybe it's just the animal/biological nature that we shouldn't just suppress). But even with "committee", there'll be weak egos screaming about the tyranny against them. A bit like states wanting to hide away the civil war from their education, or not even allowing discussion about systemic racism or "critical race theory" (uh oh sorry if that triggers you, if I were mocking you I'd call you a snowflake now).
My wife likes to tell me that she'll know when feminism has succeeded when the US Supreme Court is all women. I tell her that I'll know when feminism has succeeded when the military is all women.
I do admit the existence of insanely moronic arguments that are sometimes made. "As a woman you have to vote for Hillary because she's a woman.". What a dumb argument, that's still identity politics. If the choice was between someone like female Sarah Palin that wants government control of women's bodies, because she thinks the Bible should trump the constitution vs. a man who would respect the separation of church and state (e.g. the catholic Biden who nevertheless supported Roe v. Wade), would a woman have to still be obliged to vote for Palin?
The power is right there, ready to be taken. Contrary to popular belief, you don’t have to wait for the “white man” to grant you more power. But, to do so, you will need to risk more than your online reputation.
Huh, let's just forget that women had to e.g. fight for the right to vote, or the whole civil rights movement... OK, fine, it's 2025, and let's see, is the discrimination that's in people's heads about "what's normal" totally gone? I can admit that if you ask me to imagine a CEO, I'd imagine a middle-aged white man, am I the only one? And what does this image of normality do to the idea of who will be picked for a particular job, by a group of people?
Yeah if I'm looking for a caretaker for my child, a male candidate would also make me go "Huh, interesting". Women have the advantage for this job, and men have it for the CEO job, I wonder which job is more powerful in the world (if we don't pull out a philosophical idea of "powerful"...).
The reason that military forces tend to be composed mostly of men is for two very practical reasons:
1. Men are on average physically stronger than women, and at their peak are physically stronger than is possible for any woman. This is more useful in a combat situation.
2. Women's bodies are specialized for pregnancy and childbirth. Without women providing this essential function, the next generation of humanity would not exist. By contrast, men are more disposable because all they do is provide the sperm.
A society where almost all women have been killed in battle cannot effectively repopulate, as there is a bottleneck of pregnancy: it is a long process that - excluding relatively rare cases of multiple births - requires one woman per newborn to conduct. A society where almost all men have been killed can repopulate much more rapidly, as it only takes a small number of men to fulfil the male reproductive role of providing sperm.
In fact the existence of sperm banks makes the widespread obliteration of males even less of a risk to the survival of humanity. Plus there is a promising subfield of stem cell research on growing viable sperm from female cells, which would remove the reliance upon males entirely.
What left are you talking about? The Democratic Party in the USA would be seen as neo-liberals too from outside the US. Calling it "the left" just shows how delusional the society in the USA seems to have become...
I agree, but I would also like to add that the Republican Party is not a conservative party, either. Trump brags about raising taxes on so many imports. And the current administration never saw a Chesterton’s fence they didn’t want to tear down. The party as a whole seems to be pretty happy with it.
So that’s America, no options if you want to vote for a liberal party or a conservative party.
> The Democratic Party in the USA would be seen as neo-liberals too from outside the US
Incorrect: This is an old argument from the left to pretend that US leftism isn’t very left.
Truth: The US government is in debt of 6 trillion per year, which makes it the most powerful government of the world. The right’s “Atlas Shrugged” vision is to have a very lean government, as in, weak and powerless as possible.
Conclusion: The American left wing proposes to build a government bigger than any socialist country in the world.
Correlation: Ironically, the leftists are often anti-war and they’d be much better defended if they supported defunding the US government to the point they couldn’t wage war outside their borders. The left should support Elon Musk ;) </s>
OP should have said that "The Democratic Party in the USA IS seen as neo-liberals too from outside the US".
There is obviously multiple axises you can place the left/right on. If you want to define anyone who accepts debt as 'left', and thus the USA is leftish then... ok whatever floats your boat. Just be aware that the rest of the world sees concepts like universal healtcare and education as more important than how much debt you accept. Using debt to pay for a huge military and unsustainable low taxes is not a typical leftish view.
> The right’s “Atlas Shrugged” vision is to have a very lean government, as in, weak and powerless as possible.
This is objectively not true of the right's actions. If you read Project 2025 or just look at the legislation/EOs passed, the right is currently trying to expand the power of the president to unprecedented levels. In addition, they're trying to undermine the checks and balances of the courts such that the government can make greater decisions faster.
This isn't a small government, it's teetering on fascism. The fascism analogs only grow greater when you here Trump speak of an enemy within, who must be eliminated. When he speaks as if he is the One True answer to every problem facing the US. Trump-ism is become more akin to a cult than a political platform, many people just following Trump because they view him a God. It's a bit spooky. It's very difficult to not draw parallels to fascist leaders of the past.
> Conclusion: The American left wing proposes to build a government bigger than any socialist country in the world.
Delusional, sorry. If you think the democrats, the ultra-capitalist right-leaning party, want to create a socialist country you are just delusional. I don't know how to help you there because it's just not in touch with reality.
There's, like, 2 representatives in all of the Democratic party who could maybe kind of be consider democratic-socialists. And there's a better chance of hell freezing over than those 2 convincing the other hundreds to go their way.
After a certain point, we have to come back down to Earth and acknowledge what is actually going on, instead of whatever we have allowed our minds to concoct.
> making a few more concessions towards… omg, white males?
I'm a white man. We already HAVE all the concessions. There's nothing left to give us. I mean, we're not gonna implement anti-racist stuff against white men because there does not exist any racism against white men. Ergo, that policy is defacto implemented.
White men also don't need DEI because we actually already have DEI. Studies show upwards of 50% increase in likelihood of being hired if you're white.
I mean, look at Trump's cabinet and admin. Full of white men... because they are white men. A lot of them are very unqualified.
> It is true that savings needed to be done.
This administration will only raise the deficit.
Also, the left at least admitted that taxes on the ultra-wealthy need to be raised. The Trump administration is continuing to raise YOUR taxes while cutting theirs. So, to recap: higher taxes for you, a greater deficit, and the programs will be cut. Wow, it's a lose-lose-lose! Almost impressive how shit conservative policy is.
> This entire movement is a reactionary movement to the left.
I applaud your honesty in admitting the reactionary nature of American conservatives.
However, you're incorrect in saying they're reacting to the left. They're not. They're reacting to a made-up version of the left. One formed and imagined through decades of conservative propaganda. One where the left are communists, baby eaters, and reptilians - not the reality, where the democratic party is a right-leaning ultra-capitalist party.
> Do we agree that, staying closed-minded as they are, the left will resume public spendings by the trillions the moment they step into power? Do we agree that the left is a direct threat to meritocracy, stability of government, men in marriage, men at work, a direct threat to men’s financial stability, and that no-one on the left cares even a little what others-than-them feel?
There is no need to get left/right political here. There are two political parties in the USA, and they both hit the feedback loop of $crack. One might have led to low-trust faster than the other, but they are both $crack addicts in the end.
Just to be clear as to what this means in politics on the ground... left or right, if you have a political position which disagrees with the biggest money, they will primary you. So, left or right, generally speaking, you only see politicians finally standing up for their morals when they are no longer up for election. The most obvious recent example of this is Mitch McConnell.
at some point you hit saturation on most anything, doesn't stop the fact that hundreds of millions were spent on both sides. Kamala lost because she was a female of color, not because of policies, no one will ever convince me otherwise. There are just too many misogynists and racists in the USA currently to have both of those working against you unless you're bordering on messianic in charisma
You mean a single day fundraiser beat Trump’s single day fundraising by 2-3x, that would be correct. If you think her 90 day campaign fundraising managed to beat Trump’s 8 year fundraising campaign that would be wildly incorrect.
What we are witnessing is the devolution of the USA from a high-trust to low-trust business environment. "Low-trust business environment" is the euphemism we have used to describe other countries, where corruption is rampant. This is so sad to watch.