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Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting! NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets.
Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source.If you have any questions, comments, concern, or feedback regarding the USPMT, then please use this thread: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/website-feedback/510156-us-politics-thread |
On February 01 2025 23:20 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2025 23:14 WombaT wrote:On February 01 2025 04:57 maybenexttime wrote:On February 01 2025 04:43 KwarK wrote:On February 01 2025 04:28 GreenHorizons wrote:On February 01 2025 02:07 Sermokala wrote:On February 01 2025 01:52 Zambrah wrote:
My dude, everyone here has a long history with each other, theres no way you're gonna get any progress with your ideals around here in any super meaningful way, I've shifted more towards your viewpoints over the years as it seems like all of the electoral types here have as much of a plan as they accuse you of not having for dealing with basic shit like political corruption and all of the absurd issues we've had in this country for years.
Petulant, cynical back and forthing is all we have here, that and posting the news, usually cynically. Its extra funny considering he doesn't follow any of his advice. If anyone is petulantly shitposting its GH. Dude offers no solutions, no open hands to convince anyone of anything. He's never tried to convince anyone of anything other than cynically trying to opine why everyone else doesn't abandon their positions and admit he was right all along. On February 01 2025 02:02 GreenHorizons wrote:On February 01 2025 01:52 Zambrah wrote:
My dude, everyone here has a long history with each other, theres no way you're gonna get any progress with your ideals around here in any super meaningful way, I've shifted more towards your viewpoints over the years as it seems like all of the electoral types here have as much of a plan as they accuse you of not having for dealing with basic shit like political corruption and all of the absurd issues we've had in this country for years.
Petulant, cynical back and forthing is all we have here, that and posting the news, usually cynically. Alternatively, we could be adults capable of participating in a democracy? I'd really like us to be that *eyes glisten dramatically with optimism* On February 01 2025 01:55 Sadist wrote:On February 01 2025 01:03 GreenHorizons wrote:On February 01 2025 00:54 KwarK wrote:
[quote]
Ah yes, Sadist asking Oblade to defend the latest idiotic thing Trump said on teamliquid is why you're still 0 for 0 on revolutions. He should do better. Forget the revolutionary part, you guys need to be socialists ASAP or fascism is going to keep winning while your Democrat politicians collaborate with them. None of you libs/Dems have a real argument not to be socialists. It was so that you could beat Trump. That failed spectacularly. Nothing stopping you all from spending the next 6 months acting in good faith as socialists just to try it out. Well, nothing except your stubbornly undue hubris. Democrats have nothing else/better for you to be doing, and I promise bickering/shitposting with oBlade about dwarfs/genitals isn't more useful than developing a socialist worldview in community with your comrades. Can you clarify what you mean by becoming socialists? In the temporary sense and to be probably dangerously reductive, I basically mean approaching everything here with a sort of "how would a socialist I can relate to engage with this" and going from there. I mean look at this shit. He can't even answer what a socialist is without trying to put himself as the example people should be following. He doesn't understand that he lives in a democracy and that people can seriously engage with the one form of government that we have. I know communists and they're at least unafraid to tell people they don't belive in democracy and want authoritarianism. This guy is just scared to tell people how he thinks we should be doleing out power in this country. I agree with Zam on this. The question wasn't, as I understood it, "what is a socialist?" Though if Sadist or anyone else wants a hand finding a socialist they can relate to I'd be happy to assist their efforts. The US has something it calls "democracy", but there's more to democracy in any meaningful sense than ~30-70% of the country voting every couple years (if Trump/the fascists/Putin let you anymore). I'm advocating socialism. Socialism is democratic. I'm not "scared" to tell people we should live in a socialist, democratic country. It's easy to see the difference between how you describe my posts and what is actually in them for anyone reading both in good faith. To that point... I welcome anyone that wants to explore being a socialist while Democrats are busy appeasing Trump/fascists and bickering over ATC dwarfs and such, at least until it's time for them to tell you voting for evil (of the lesser kind) is your only hope (should Trump/the fascists allow it), to my Blog: Socialism Anyone?. The US has democracy. The problem with the US isn't Trump, the problem with the US is Americans. I don't think you have a plan to overcome that. Let's say that 20 years ago a democratic socialist America was the status quo. It would have been dismantled just as easily by conservative media and the breakdown of political norms. Your Americans would love Trump just as much as real Americans do. You spend so much time bashing America's choices and yet the best plan you can come up with is predicated on Americans somehow making better ones. Well, to be fair, isn't the whole socialist/communist utopia predicated on humans not being humans? No, I’d argue it never really was either. We’re multifaceted creatures, and also rather malleable to cultural conditions. There’s certainly challenges to transitioning to socialism, but most sensible thinkers I’ve read are rather aware of these. Capitalism isn’t merely an economic system, it’s a colossus that bestrides everything and imprints a hell of a lot of cultural attachment as well. ‘You have nothing to lose but your chains!’ is less potent a rallying call if people have been conditioned to see those chains as a natural state of affairs, and be quite fond of em. Things being so internationally interwoven and interconnected also rather complicates things for places who might want to give it a shot. And of course we’ve examples of bad implementations and where that lead as well. Folks who deny that tend to be myopic lost causes, but in my experience they wouldn’t necessarily be the majority, most have grappled with those lessons and how to avoid those pitfalls in some future hypothetical socialism. Broadly I find the charge of socialists being utopian hippies to be massively off the mark. I think the bigger issue a lot of people have, here at least, is that when pressed for a semblance of a plan or ideas on how to achieve it, they don't receive any details. + Show Spoiler +Reading a book or going out and joining a group isn't really helpful. People join groups all of the time. But why would joining this particular group lead us to a socialist culture? What's the next step after? What's that look like from those who have been part of said group? These are needed to paint the picture for some, as you can attest, because not everyone has the time or energy to spend on going socialist club shopping.
I'm going to need you to update your whinging. I have a blog where people that are willing to give socialism a good faith try can work with their comrades on answers to those questions and more.
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It's always been weird to me how so many people talk about USSR's attempt at communism being a failure. Soviet Russia was massively behind Western nations in the race to industrialize; they then had the majority of their country and a huge chunk of their population destroyed in WW2. As soon as that ended, they were stuck in an arms & economic race with the significantly richer and more developed NATO bloc. Nevertheless, they created a relatively prosperous society, and despite the common refrain of how there's no incentive to excel in a communist state, USSR absolutely did excel in a lot of things. Their education was second to none, they contributed massively to advancement of sciences and sports, their engineering projects (the ones that didn't fail horribly, anyway :D) were incredible for their time. By any measure, USSR was a superpower and not just because of their nuclear arsenal or the stockpile of guns. Was it perfect? Certainly not. But it's not as if 'muh communists' took a prosperous nation and turned it into shit.
It's also weird how so many people go, 'communism can't work because of human nature and greed' -- as if greed and psychopathic powermongering doesn't completely break capitalist systems just the same.
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On February 02 2025 00:38 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2025 23:20 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:On February 01 2025 23:14 WombaT wrote:On February 01 2025 04:57 maybenexttime wrote:On February 01 2025 04:43 KwarK wrote:On February 01 2025 04:28 GreenHorizons wrote:On February 01 2025 02:07 Sermokala wrote:On February 01 2025 01:52 Zambrah wrote:
My dude, everyone here has a long history with each other, theres no way you're gonna get any progress with your ideals around here in any super meaningful way, I've shifted more towards your viewpoints over the years as it seems like all of the electoral types here have as much of a plan as they accuse you of not having for dealing with basic shit like political corruption and all of the absurd issues we've had in this country for years.
Petulant, cynical back and forthing is all we have here, that and posting the news, usually cynically. Its extra funny considering he doesn't follow any of his advice. If anyone is petulantly shitposting its GH. Dude offers no solutions, no open hands to convince anyone of anything. He's never tried to convince anyone of anything other than cynically trying to opine why everyone else doesn't abandon their positions and admit he was right all along. On February 01 2025 02:02 GreenHorizons wrote:On February 01 2025 01:52 Zambrah wrote:
My dude, everyone here has a long history with each other, theres no way you're gonna get any progress with your ideals around here in any super meaningful way, I've shifted more towards your viewpoints over the years as it seems like all of the electoral types here have as much of a plan as they accuse you of not having for dealing with basic shit like political corruption and all of the absurd issues we've had in this country for years.
Petulant, cynical back and forthing is all we have here, that and posting the news, usually cynically. Alternatively, we could be adults capable of participating in a democracy? I'd really like us to be that *eyes glisten dramatically with optimism* On February 01 2025 01:55 Sadist wrote:On February 01 2025 01:03 GreenHorizons wrote:
[quote]
Forget the revolutionary part, you guys need to be socialists ASAP or fascism is going to keep winning while your Democrat politicians collaborate with them.
None of you libs/Dems have a real argument not to be socialists. It was so that you could beat Trump. That failed spectacularly. Nothing stopping you all from spending the next 6 months acting in good faith as socialists just to try it out. Well, nothing except your stubbornly undue hubris.
Democrats have nothing else/better for you to be doing, and I promise bickering/shitposting with oBlade about dwarfs/genitals isn't more useful than developing a socialist worldview in community with your comrades. Can you clarify what you mean by becoming socialists? In the temporary sense and to be probably dangerously reductive, I basically mean approaching everything here with a sort of "how would a socialist I can relate to engage with this" and going from there. I mean look at this shit. He can't even answer what a socialist is without trying to put himself as the example people should be following. He doesn't understand that he lives in a democracy and that people can seriously engage with the one form of government that we have. I know communists and they're at least unafraid to tell people they don't belive in democracy and want authoritarianism. This guy is just scared to tell people how he thinks we should be doleing out power in this country. I agree with Zam on this. The question wasn't, as I understood it, "what is a socialist?" Though if Sadist or anyone else wants a hand finding a socialist they can relate to I'd be happy to assist their efforts. The US has something it calls "democracy", but there's more to democracy in any meaningful sense than ~30-70% of the country voting every couple years (if Trump/the fascists/Putin let you anymore). I'm advocating socialism. Socialism is democratic. I'm not "scared" to tell people we should live in a socialist, democratic country. It's easy to see the difference between how you describe my posts and what is actually in them for anyone reading both in good faith. To that point... I welcome anyone that wants to explore being a socialist while Democrats are busy appeasing Trump/fascists and bickering over ATC dwarfs and such, at least until it's time for them to tell you voting for evil (of the lesser kind) is your only hope (should Trump/the fascists allow it), to my Blog: Socialism Anyone?. The US has democracy. The problem with the US isn't Trump, the problem with the US is Americans. I don't think you have a plan to overcome that. Let's say that 20 years ago a democratic socialist America was the status quo. It would have been dismantled just as easily by conservative media and the breakdown of political norms. Your Americans would love Trump just as much as real Americans do. You spend so much time bashing America's choices and yet the best plan you can come up with is predicated on Americans somehow making better ones. Well, to be fair, isn't the whole socialist/communist utopia predicated on humans not being humans? No, I’d argue it never really was either. We’re multifaceted creatures, and also rather malleable to cultural conditions. There’s certainly challenges to transitioning to socialism, but most sensible thinkers I’ve read are rather aware of these. Capitalism isn’t merely an economic system, it’s a colossus that bestrides everything and imprints a hell of a lot of cultural attachment as well. ‘You have nothing to lose but your chains!’ is less potent a rallying call if people have been conditioned to see those chains as a natural state of affairs, and be quite fond of em. Things being so internationally interwoven and interconnected also rather complicates things for places who might want to give it a shot. And of course we’ve examples of bad implementations and where that lead as well. Folks who deny that tend to be myopic lost causes, but in my experience they wouldn’t necessarily be the majority, most have grappled with those lessons and how to avoid those pitfalls in some future hypothetical socialism. Broadly I find the charge of socialists being utopian hippies to be massively off the mark. I think the bigger issue a lot of people have, here at least, is that when pressed for a semblance of a plan or ideas on how to achieve it, they don't receive any details. + Show Spoiler +Reading a book or going out and joining a group isn't really helpful. People join groups all of the time. But why would joining this particular group lead us to a socialist culture? What's the next step after? What's that look like from those who have been part of said group? These are needed to paint the picture for some, as you can attest, because not everyone has the time or energy to spend on going socialist club shopping. I'm going to need you to update your whinging. I have a blog where people that are willing to give socialism a good faith try can work with their comrades on answers to those questions and more.
I had to look up 'whingeing' because I've never heard of it. I don't think it applies to what I said though.
Also, I just literally came out of your blog and read the responses. I probably won't participate but I'll check it out from time to time, see how it goes. Not because I'm deepthroating the capitalism cock, I have other things going on that I need to focus my energy. Hope it works and there's a lot of high level engagement.
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On February 01 2025 22:35 KT_Elwood wrote:
+1 to Magic Powers remark.
I think Capitalism is dead and has been replaced with financial feudalism. It's damn near impossible for a normal person to get to be in the 1% within their lifetime.
Even if you happen to be 0.001% of top college athletes that get into a professional sports career, you'll make less in a lifetime than Elon paid to be a free agent on the government that you can neither fire or control.
Even all the "wunderkinds" of tech had a home supporting their ventures with free top notch education, networking and CASH.
Parents that were okay with their offspring ditching an ivy league university + gave them hundreds of thousands in cash to invest are ..rare.
And for every Elon/Zuckerborg/Gates, there are tens of thousand other rich fuckers that never made it and became some Nepobaby in their Parents Company only to be an "ordinary multi millionaire".
I am pretty tired on experts that suggest that "we the people" must work to make those mountains of cash ever larger, basicly offsetting the scale against normal people doing so.
An "ordinary multi millionaire" is not best described as someone who has never made it, that would be 1% probably. 90% of fortunes are lost in 3 generations, did you know? The notion that there is always a group of people with more money than other people doesn't encompass the entrenchment of the actual people. It's constantly redistributing. Jobs, Bezos, Gates, Zuck, Musk, Huang started basically as low as you can expect someone to start who can have the skillset to found a top 10 company. The way may not look clear how someone could do that now, but I guarantee it also didn't look clear or feasible decades ago when the people above started. Just because we won't do it, doesn't mean someone won't, but it's always been very unlikely for any one person to get to that level just like we don't have a high chance of winning the World Series or gold medaling in the Olympics. The system does churn and cycle. The goal of capitalism isn't to get everyone to the finish line of being a CEO and then the race is over - that sounds like when people think the goal of evolution is to make beautiful opposable thumbs fast running genius humans, and it must have failed when there are species that aren't us. Rather, the goal is to reallocate capital to drive productivity. That's a constant process. It can do that exploitatively like when the industrial revolution first broke. But I guarantee you there were naysayers back under Standard Oil too thinking "I guess this is it there's no more market after this, the market is over, Standard Oil won" but there is always a future. What it will look like depends how we steward the market via government.
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On February 02 2025 01:27 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2025 22:35 KT_Elwood wrote:
+1 to Magic Powers remark.
I think Capitalism is dead and has been replaced with financial feudalism. It's damn near impossible for a normal person to get to be in the 1% within their lifetime.
Even if you happen to be 0.001% of top college athletes that get into a professional sports career, you'll make less in a lifetime than Elon paid to be a free agent on the government that you can neither fire or control.
Even all the "wunderkinds" of tech had a home supporting their ventures with free top notch education, networking and CASH.
Parents that were okay with their offspring ditching an ivy league university + gave them hundreds of thousands in cash to invest are ..rare.
And for every Elon/Zuckerborg/Gates, there are tens of thousand other rich fuckers that never made it and became some Nepobaby in their Parents Company only to be an "ordinary multi millionaire".
I am pretty tired on experts that suggest that "we the people" must work to make those mountains of cash ever larger, basicly offsetting the scale against normal people doing so.
An "ordinary multi millionaire" is not best described as someone who has never made it, that would be 1% probably. 90% of fortunes are lost in 3 generations, did you know? The notion that there is always a group of people with more money than other people doesn't encompass the entrenchment of the actual people. It's constantly redistributing. Jobs, Bezos, Gates, Zuck, Musk, Huang started basically as low as you can expect someone to start who can have the skillset to found a top 10 company. The way may not look clear how someone could do that now, but I guarantee it also didn't look clear or feasible decades ago when the people above started. Just because we won't do it, doesn't mean someone won't, but it's always been very unlikely for any one person to get to that level just like we don't have a high chance of winning the World Series or gold medaling in the Olympics. The system does churn and cycle. The goal of capitalism isn't to get everyone to the finish line of being a CEO and then the race is over - that sounds like when people think the goal of evolution is to make beautiful opposable thumbs fast running genius humans, and it must have failed when there are species that aren't us. Rather, the goal is to reallocate capital to drive productivity. That's a constant process. It can do that exploitatively like when the industrial revolution first broke. But I guarantee you there were naysayers back under Standard Oil too thinking "I guess this is it there's no more market after this, the market is over, Standard Oil won" but there is always a future. What it will look like depends how we steward the market via government.
In what world is 'driving productivity' the goal of capitalism? The goal of capitalism is to enrich the shareholders, if 'driving productivity' happens to achieve that, that's a happy coincidence, but nothing more than that.
The churn and cycling you speak of is rather irrelevant, too. It doesn't matter if everyone has an equal chance of becoming rich if only a small percentage is has the room to do so while the vast majority of the population is left living paycheck to paycheck. It's not a matter of everyone just needing to work harder or smarter, our entire capitalist system has developed in such a way that only a small percentage at the top will ever be well off. Even if you had perfect social mobility, it's still a shitty system because the top few are living off the labors of the bottom many no matter how 'fairly' they got up to the top. If people on average start working more hard and more smart, the bar to 'make it' goes up, the number of people who make it does not.
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The drive of a company is to produce profits. Whether that's someone working for themselves who are their own shareholder, a family business, or a MNC conglomerate with billions invested from others paying dividends to issued stock. Capitalism drives productivity because the more productive company outcompetes the less productive one, and the more productive one earns more of said revenues -> profits.
When things go haywire, any stakeholder will turn the system to their advantage. Some monopolists like Standard Oil would be happy to beat the competition to death while extorting everyone else. You also have teachers' unions in the US opposing returning to the classroom after covid, making themselves impossible to fire due to seniority, making themselves impossible to fire despite being bad teachers or engaging in misconduct so they sat around in rubber rooms all day collecting paychecks even though they were removed from teaching. There is not an angel and devil in the management/labor tug of war. Even among those who consider others' interests, nobody is completely selfless.
Not everyone can be rich, that's a fact of life, it's not solved by making everyone equal and no one rich. Capitalism makes people less poor than the past, and than other countries.
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This exchange between WaPo reporter Jeff Stein and Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) is a pretty good example of how rudderless Democrats are. They are publicly complaining about Trump/Republicans being too stupid to let them help lay the foundations for fascism and give him more power/tools to implement his/his cronies fascist plans
At this point I am sorta expecting decent people to have more self-respect than is required to line up behind oBlade/capitalism and the Democrat party.
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On February 02 2025 01:27 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2025 22:35 KT_Elwood wrote:
+1 to Magic Powers remark.
I think Capitalism is dead and has been replaced with financial feudalism. It's damn near impossible for a normal person to get to be in the 1% within their lifetime.
Even if you happen to be 0.001% of top college athletes that get into a professional sports career, you'll make less in a lifetime than Elon paid to be a free agent on the government that you can neither fire or control.
Even all the "wunderkinds" of tech had a home supporting their ventures with free top notch education, networking and CASH.
Parents that were okay with their offspring ditching an ivy league university + gave them hundreds of thousands in cash to invest are ..rare.
And for every Elon/Zuckerborg/Gates, there are tens of thousand other rich fuckers that never made it and became some Nepobaby in their Parents Company only to be an "ordinary multi millionaire".
I am pretty tired on experts that suggest that "we the people" must work to make those mountains of cash ever larger, basicly offsetting the scale against normal people doing so.
An "ordinary multi millionaire" is not best described as someone who has never made it, that would be 1% probably. 90% of fortunes are lost in 3 generations, did you know? The notion that there is always a group of people with more money than other people doesn't encompass the entrenchment of the actual people. It's constantly redistributing. Jobs, Bezos, Gates, Zuck, Musk, Huang started basically as low as you can expect someone to start who can have the skillset to found a top 10 company. The way may not look clear how someone could do that now, but I guarantee it also didn't look clear or feasible decades ago when the people above started. Just because we won't do it, doesn't mean someone won't, but it's always been very unlikely for any one person to get to that level just like we don't have a high chance of winning the World Series or gold medaling in the Olympics. The system does churn and cycle. The goal of capitalism isn't to get everyone to the finish line of being a CEO and then the race is over - that sounds like when people think the goal of evolution is to make beautiful opposable thumbs fast running genius humans, and it must have failed when there are species that aren't us. Rather, the goal is to reallocate capital to drive productivity. That's a constant process. It can do that exploitatively like when the industrial revolution first broke. But I guarantee you there were naysayers back under Standard Oil too thinking "I guess this is it there's no more market after this, the market is over, Standard Oil won" but there is always a future. What it will look like depends how we steward the market via government.
The claim that 90% of wealth is lost within 3 generations (and 70% within 2 generations) comes from the Williams Group.
The problem is they have absolutely no publicly available information on who owns or runs any part of the group. Nobody knows who works there today, who's funding the group and whose research their 90% claim relies on. For all we know their research could be completely made up because there's no independent verification of their claim.
Late edit: I also just realized this doesn't even mean anything for workers. That money that one rich family can lose simply ends up in another rich family's hands. The workers see none of it.
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The new DNC chair has been selected (be honest, did any of the people still inexplicably backing Democrats and electoralism even know this was happening?). Ken Martin caught flak from a handful of people outside of the DNC paying attention to the race for saying Democrats will only take money from the "good billionaires" to fight the "bad billionaires"
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On February 02 2025 00:47 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 02 2025 00:38 GreenHorizons wrote:On February 01 2025 23:20 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:On February 01 2025 23:14 WombaT wrote:On February 01 2025 04:57 maybenexttime wrote:On February 01 2025 04:43 KwarK wrote:On February 01 2025 04:28 GreenHorizons wrote:On February 01 2025 02:07 Sermokala wrote:On February 01 2025 01:52 Zambrah wrote:
My dude, everyone here has a long history with each other, theres no way you're gonna get any progress with your ideals around here in any super meaningful way, I've shifted more towards your viewpoints over the years as it seems like all of the electoral types here have as much of a plan as they accuse you of not having for dealing with basic shit like political corruption and all of the absurd issues we've had in this country for years.
Petulant, cynical back and forthing is all we have here, that and posting the news, usually cynically. Its extra funny considering he doesn't follow any of his advice. If anyone is petulantly shitposting its GH. Dude offers no solutions, no open hands to convince anyone of anything. He's never tried to convince anyone of anything other than cynically trying to opine why everyone else doesn't abandon their positions and admit he was right all along. On February 01 2025 02:02 GreenHorizons wrote:On February 01 2025 01:52 Zambrah wrote:
My dude, everyone here has a long history with each other, theres no way you're gonna get any progress with your ideals around here in any super meaningful way, I've shifted more towards your viewpoints over the years as it seems like all of the electoral types here have as much of a plan as they accuse you of not having for dealing with basic shit like political corruption and all of the absurd issues we've had in this country for years.
Petulant, cynical back and forthing is all we have here, that and posting the news, usually cynically. Alternatively, we could be adults capable of participating in a democracy? I'd really like us to be that *eyes glisten dramatically with optimism* On February 01 2025 01:55 Sadist wrote:
[quote]
Can you clarify what you mean by becoming socialists? In the temporary sense and to be probably dangerously reductive, I basically mean approaching everything here with a sort of "how would a socialist I can relate to engage with this" and going from there. I mean look at this shit. He can't even answer what a socialist is without trying to put himself as the example people should be following. He doesn't understand that he lives in a democracy and that people can seriously engage with the one form of government that we have. I know communists and they're at least unafraid to tell people they don't belive in democracy and want authoritarianism. This guy is just scared to tell people how he thinks we should be doleing out power in this country. I agree with Zam on this. The question wasn't, as I understood it, "what is a socialist?" Though if Sadist or anyone else wants a hand finding a socialist they can relate to I'd be happy to assist their efforts. The US has something it calls "democracy", but there's more to democracy in any meaningful sense than ~30-70% of the country voting every couple years (if Trump/the fascists/Putin let you anymore). I'm advocating socialism. Socialism is democratic. I'm not "scared" to tell people we should live in a socialist, democratic country. It's easy to see the difference between how you describe my posts and what is actually in them for anyone reading both in good faith. To that point... I welcome anyone that wants to explore being a socialist while Democrats are busy appeasing Trump/fascists and bickering over ATC dwarfs and such, at least until it's time for them to tell you voting for evil (of the lesser kind) is your only hope (should Trump/the fascists allow it), to my Blog: Socialism Anyone?. The US has democracy. The problem with the US isn't Trump, the problem with the US is Americans. I don't think you have a plan to overcome that. Let's say that 20 years ago a democratic socialist America was the status quo. It would have been dismantled just as easily by conservative media and the breakdown of political norms. Your Americans would love Trump just as much as real Americans do. You spend so much time bashing America's choices and yet the best plan you can come up with is predicated on Americans somehow making better ones. Well, to be fair, isn't the whole socialist/communist utopia predicated on humans not being humans? No, I’d argue it never really was either. We’re multifaceted creatures, and also rather malleable to cultural conditions. There’s certainly challenges to transitioning to socialism, but most sensible thinkers I’ve read are rather aware of these. Capitalism isn’t merely an economic system, it’s a colossus that bestrides everything and imprints a hell of a lot of cultural attachment as well. ‘You have nothing to lose but your chains!’ is less potent a rallying call if people have been conditioned to see those chains as a natural state of affairs, and be quite fond of em. Things being so internationally interwoven and interconnected also rather complicates things for places who might want to give it a shot. And of course we’ve examples of bad implementations and where that lead as well. Folks who deny that tend to be myopic lost causes, but in my experience they wouldn’t necessarily be the majority, most have grappled with those lessons and how to avoid those pitfalls in some future hypothetical socialism. Broadly I find the charge of socialists being utopian hippies to be massively off the mark. I think the bigger issue a lot of people have, here at least, is that when pressed for a semblance of a plan or ideas on how to achieve it, they don't receive any details. + Show Spoiler +Reading a book or going out and joining a group isn't really helpful. People join groups all of the time. But why would joining this particular group lead us to a socialist culture? What's the next step after? What's that look like from those who have been part of said group? These are needed to paint the picture for some, as you can attest, because not everyone has the time or energy to spend on going socialist club shopping. I'm going to need you to update your whinging. I have a blog where people that are willing to give socialism a good faith try can work with their comrades on answers to those questions and more. I had to look up 'whingeing' because I've never heard of it. I don't think it applies to what I said though. Also, I just literally came out of your blog and read the responses. I probably won't participate but I'll check it out from time to time, see how it goes. Not because I'm deepthroating the capitalism cock, I have other things going on that I need to focus my energy. Hope it works and there's a lot of high level engagement.
Welp...
For now it seems we'll have to stick to the healthy discussions here with no desire/intent of influencing/informing each others' political opinions or recruiting people in efforts to prevent the rise of fascism in the US.
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On February 02 2025 02:05 oBlade wrote:
The drive of a company is to produce profits. Whether that's someone working for themselves who are their own shareholder, a family business, or a MNC conglomerate with billions invested from others paying dividends to issued stock. Capitalism drives productivity because the more productive company outcompetes the less productive one, and the more productive one earns more of said revenues -> profits.
When things go haywire, any stakeholder will turn the system to their advantage. Some monopolists like Standard Oil would be happy to beat the competition to death while extorting everyone else. You also have teachers' unions in the US opposing returning to the classroom after covid, making themselves impossible to fire due to seniority, making themselves impossible to fire despite being bad teachers or engaging in misconduct so they sat around in rubber rooms all day collecting paychecks even though they were removed from teaching. There is not an angel and devil in the management/labor tug of war. Even among those who consider others' interests, nobody is completely selfless.
Not everyone can be rich, that's a fact of life, it's not solved by making everyone equal and no one rich. Capitalism makes people less poor than the past, and than other countries.
Initially it works well. But something in it always breaks in the long-term and most of all, it turns the entire world into a casino that destroys itself over time with the massive consumption of resources, pollution etc.
There is no way humanity can run the show based on capitalism ad eternum because a few dudes defended the right to earn gargantuan amounts of money by doing nothing except owning stock and sitting in skyscrapers with hookers and blow.
Right before it fails or maybe afterwards they‘ll send you to war and level the field. It‘s been the same shit for all of history. With the warring at least. Why should it be different now ? We‘re about to sober up from all that hedonism of the last post-war times imo.
I don‘t really see attractive leadership around in the west though. A few maniacs and zombie economy billionaires who got rich from printing presses aren‘t really what you want for that.
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Northern Ireland26221 Posts
On February 02 2025 05:08 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On February 02 2025 00:47 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:On February 02 2025 00:38 GreenHorizons wrote:On February 01 2025 23:20 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:On February 01 2025 23:14 WombaT wrote:On February 01 2025 04:57 maybenexttime wrote:On February 01 2025 04:43 KwarK wrote:On February 01 2025 04:28 GreenHorizons wrote:On February 01 2025 02:07 Sermokala wrote:On February 01 2025 01:52 Zambrah wrote:
My dude, everyone here has a long history with each other, theres no way you're gonna get any progress with your ideals around here in any super meaningful way, I've shifted more towards your viewpoints over the years as it seems like all of the electoral types here have as much of a plan as they accuse you of not having for dealing with basic shit like political corruption and all of the absurd issues we've had in this country for years.
Petulant, cynical back and forthing is all we have here, that and posting the news, usually cynically. Its extra funny considering he doesn't follow any of his advice. If anyone is petulantly shitposting its GH. Dude offers no solutions, no open hands to convince anyone of anything. He's never tried to convince anyone of anything other than cynically trying to opine why everyone else doesn't abandon their positions and admit he was right all along. On February 01 2025 02:02 GreenHorizons wrote:
[quote]
Alternatively, we could be adults capable of participating in a democracy? I'd really like us to be that *eyes glisten dramatically with optimism*
[quote]
In the temporary sense and to be probably dangerously reductive, I basically mean approaching everything here with a sort of "how would a socialist I can relate to engage with this" and going from there.
I mean look at this shit. He can't even answer what a socialist is without trying to put himself as the example people should be following. He doesn't understand that he lives in a democracy and that people can seriously engage with the one form of government that we have. I know communists and they're at least unafraid to tell people they don't belive in democracy and want authoritarianism. This guy is just scared to tell people how he thinks we should be doleing out power in this country. I agree with Zam on this. The question wasn't, as I understood it, "what is a socialist?" Though if Sadist or anyone else wants a hand finding a socialist they can relate to I'd be happy to assist their efforts. The US has something it calls "democracy", but there's more to democracy in any meaningful sense than ~30-70% of the country voting every couple years (if Trump/the fascists/Putin let you anymore). I'm advocating socialism. Socialism is democratic. I'm not "scared" to tell people we should live in a socialist, democratic country. It's easy to see the difference between how you describe my posts and what is actually in them for anyone reading both in good faith. To that point... I welcome anyone that wants to explore being a socialist while Democrats are busy appeasing Trump/fascists and bickering over ATC dwarfs and such, at least until it's time for them to tell you voting for evil (of the lesser kind) is your only hope (should Trump/the fascists allow it), to my Blog: Socialism Anyone?. The US has democracy. The problem with the US isn't Trump, the problem with the US is Americans. I don't think you have a plan to overcome that. Let's say that 20 years ago a democratic socialist America was the status quo. It would have been dismantled just as easily by conservative media and the breakdown of political norms. Your Americans would love Trump just as much as real Americans do. You spend so much time bashing America's choices and yet the best plan you can come up with is predicated on Americans somehow making better ones. Well, to be fair, isn't the whole socialist/communist utopia predicated on humans not being humans? No, I’d argue it never really was either. We’re multifaceted creatures, and also rather malleable to cultural conditions. There’s certainly challenges to transitioning to socialism, but most sensible thinkers I’ve read are rather aware of these. Capitalism isn’t merely an economic system, it’s a colossus that bestrides everything and imprints a hell of a lot of cultural attachment as well. ‘You have nothing to lose but your chains!’ is less potent a rallying call if people have been conditioned to see those chains as a natural state of affairs, and be quite fond of em. Things being so internationally interwoven and interconnected also rather complicates things for places who might want to give it a shot. And of course we’ve examples of bad implementations and where that lead as well. Folks who deny that tend to be myopic lost causes, but in my experience they wouldn’t necessarily be the majority, most have grappled with those lessons and how to avoid those pitfalls in some future hypothetical socialism. Broadly I find the charge of socialists being utopian hippies to be massively off the mark. I think the bigger issue a lot of people have, here at least, is that when pressed for a semblance of a plan or ideas on how to achieve it, they don't receive any details. + Show Spoiler +Reading a book or going out and joining a group isn't really helpful. People join groups all of the time. But why would joining this particular group lead us to a socialist culture? What's the next step after? What's that look like from those who have been part of said group? These are needed to paint the picture for some, as you can attest, because not everyone has the time or energy to spend on going socialist club shopping. I'm going to need you to update your whinging. I have a blog where people that are willing to give socialism a good faith try can work with their comrades on answers to those questions and more. I had to look up 'whingeing' because I've never heard of it. I don't think it applies to what I said though. Also, I just literally came out of your blog and read the responses. I probably won't participate but I'll check it out from time to time, see how it goes. Not because I'm deepthroating the capitalism cock, I have other things going on that I need to focus my energy. Hope it works and there's a lot of high level engagement. Welp... For now it seems we'll have to stick to the healthy discussions here with no desire/intent of influencing/informing each others' political opinions or recruiting people in efforts to prevent the rise of fascism in the US.
For fuck’s sakes mods, really?
Blogs are tangential, it’s the entire fucking point of their existence.
People continually moan that GH doesn’t codify his ideas in an easily digestible form. He tries to do that and you close it?
Fuck me
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On February 02 2025 02:05 oBlade wrote:
The drive of a company is to produce profits. Whether that's someone working for themselves who are their own shareholder, a family business, or a MNC conglomerate with billions invested from others paying dividends to issued stock. Capitalism drives productivity because the more productive company outcompetes the less productive one, and the more productive one earns more of said revenues -> profits.
When things go haywire, any stakeholder will turn the system to their advantage. Some monopolists like Standard Oil would be happy to beat the competition to death while extorting everyone else. You also have teachers' unions in the US opposing returning to the classroom after covid, making themselves impossible to fire due to seniority, making themselves impossible to fire despite being bad teachers or engaging in misconduct so they sat around in rubber rooms all day collecting paychecks even though they were removed from teaching. There is not an angel and devil in the management/labor tug of war. Even among those who consider others' interests, nobody is completely selfless.
Not everyone can be rich, that's a fact of life, it's not solved by making everyone equal and no one rich. Capitalism makes people less poor than the past, and than other countries.
I think your posts on this today have been quite good but I like to add more emphasis to this last point. Sure people are creatures of habit, but perhaps the main reason there is no revolution is actually because people see their lives improve, even with problems and in fits and starts. Ans I think part of what people mean whwn talking about leftists as being utopians. Always "looking forward" while dismissing the past.
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On February 02 2025 05:31 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On February 02 2025 05:08 GreenHorizons wrote:On February 02 2025 00:47 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:On February 02 2025 00:38 GreenHorizons wrote:On February 01 2025 23:20 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:On February 01 2025 23:14 WombaT wrote:On February 01 2025 04:57 maybenexttime wrote:On February 01 2025 04:43 KwarK wrote:On February 01 2025 04:28 GreenHorizons wrote:On February 01 2025 02:07 Sermokala wrote:
[quote]
Its extra funny considering he doesn't follow any of his advice. If anyone is petulantly shitposting its GH. Dude offers no solutions, no open hands to convince anyone of anything. He's never tried to convince anyone of anything other than cynically trying to opine why everyone else doesn't abandon their positions and admit he was right all along.
[quote]
I mean look at this shit. He can't even answer what a socialist is without trying to put himself as the example people should be following. He doesn't understand that he lives in a democracy and that people can seriously engage with the one form of government that we have. I know communists and they're at least unafraid to tell people they don't belive in democracy and want authoritarianism. This guy is just scared to tell people how he thinks we should be doleing out power in this country. I agree with Zam on this. The question wasn't, as I understood it, "what is a socialist?" Though if Sadist or anyone else wants a hand finding a socialist they can relate to I'd be happy to assist their efforts. The US has something it calls "democracy", but there's more to democracy in any meaningful sense than ~30-70% of the country voting every couple years (if Trump/the fascists/Putin let you anymore). I'm advocating socialism. Socialism is democratic. I'm not "scared" to tell people we should live in a socialist, democratic country. It's easy to see the difference between how you describe my posts and what is actually in them for anyone reading both in good faith. To that point... I welcome anyone that wants to explore being a socialist while Democrats are busy appeasing Trump/fascists and bickering over ATC dwarfs and such, at least until it's time for them to tell you voting for evil (of the lesser kind) is your only hope (should Trump/the fascists allow it), to my Blog: Socialism Anyone?. The US has democracy. The problem with the US isn't Trump, the problem with the US is Americans. I don't think you have a plan to overcome that. Let's say that 20 years ago a democratic socialist America was the status quo. It would have been dismantled just as easily by conservative media and the breakdown of political norms. Your Americans would love Trump just as much as real Americans do. You spend so much time bashing America's choices and yet the best plan you can come up with is predicated on Americans somehow making better ones. Well, to be fair, isn't the whole socialist/communist utopia predicated on humans not being humans? No, I’d argue it never really was either. We’re multifaceted creatures, and also rather malleable to cultural conditions. There’s certainly challenges to transitioning to socialism, but most sensible thinkers I’ve read are rather aware of these. Capitalism isn’t merely an economic system, it’s a colossus that bestrides everything and imprints a hell of a lot of cultural attachment as well. ‘You have nothing to lose but your chains!’ is less potent a rallying call if people have been conditioned to see those chains as a natural state of affairs, and be quite fond of em. Things being so internationally interwoven and interconnected also rather complicates things for places who might want to give it a shot. And of course we’ve examples of bad implementations and where that lead as well. Folks who deny that tend to be myopic lost causes, but in my experience they wouldn’t necessarily be the majority, most have grappled with those lessons and how to avoid those pitfalls in some future hypothetical socialism. Broadly I find the charge of socialists being utopian hippies to be massively off the mark. I think the bigger issue a lot of people have, here at least, is that when pressed for a semblance of a plan or ideas on how to achieve it, they don't receive any details. + Show Spoiler +Reading a book or going out and joining a group isn't really helpful. People join groups all of the time. But why would joining this particular group lead us to a socialist culture? What's the next step after? What's that look like from those who have been part of said group? These are needed to paint the picture for some, as you can attest, because not everyone has the time or energy to spend on going socialist club shopping. I'm going to need you to update your whinging. I have a blog where people that are willing to give socialism a good faith try can work with their comrades on answers to those questions and more. I had to look up 'whingeing' because I've never heard of it. I don't think it applies to what I said though. Also, I just literally came out of your blog and read the responses. I probably won't participate but I'll check it out from time to time, see how it goes. Not because I'm deepthroating the capitalism cock, I have other things going on that I need to focus my energy. Hope it works and there's a lot of high level engagement. Welp... For now it seems we'll have to stick to the healthy discussions here with no desire/intent of influencing/informing each others' political opinions or recruiting people in efforts to prevent the rise of fascism in the US. For fuck’s sakes mods, really? Blogs are tangential, it’s the entire fucking point of their existence. People continually moan that GH doesn’t codify his ideas in an easily digestible form. He tries to do that and you close it? Fuck me
Yeah I'm also disappointed by GH's blog closing, tbh. There are plenty of random blogs on TL that have nothing to do with "gaming and adjacent interests"... that's why they belong in the blog section. And GH's blog wasn't even terrible / low content / one-star imo, especially as far as blogs go.
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I also don't see the point in closing a freaking blog post. Nobody is forced to participate.
That being said, Second Thought is some shit tier propaganda. From claiming various social-democratic countries in Europe are socialist (they're capitalist) through painting Russia as some kind of a victim of the West to staunch defense of some of the shittiest regimes in the world. No to mention the author is a massive hypocrite - on his other channel he reviews luxury cars while harping about consumerism and capitalism on his propaganda channel...
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Nice moves by Trump. First, he bullshits about how Canada must secure its border to stop Fentanyl when everyone knows hardly any Fentanyl comes through Canada. At the start, Trump claims the tariffs are all about better border security on its northern border. Its total BS. Trudeau and the Liberal Party of Canada takes Trump's blapping as true and real. Then, Canada beefs up its border hoping to prevent tariffs. After the improved border security is in place Trump reveals his cards. Tariffs are all about lowering the trade deficit with Canada. Now, Trump can use Canada's own improved border security to stop black market Canadian products from being smuggled over the border. LOL. Well played by everyone's favourite flim flam man. Justin Trudeau got suckered. LOL. Fentanyl? you gotta be kidding me. LOLOL.
Trudeau and Ford are making bad moves now. They are not reacting correctly. They need to be the USA's best friend.
How long before sticking Canadian quarters in US vending machines becomes a crime? Soon a Canadian quarter is going to be worth less than 15 cents.
Canada used to know how to be best friends with both US Republicans and US Democrats. They lost that ability about 10 years ago. The Canadian people are about to pay a very heavy price. They voted for two guys in Jagmeet Singh and Justin Trudeau who do not know how to deal with Republicans. It is going to get ugly in the Great White North.
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I too lament the closing of GH's blog. But I'll endeavour to follow the mods' advice to discuss the topic in the politics threads, so here goes. I really liked the rephrasing and the thought provoking question.
What does China currently do about corruption?
How does that compare to the Trump administration?
How should socialists in the US/those in solidarity with them expect to see corruption handled differently than both of those in your view?
At first glance, it seems the cause of corruption seeping into politics is identical on both sides of the Pacific: an elite class who is not accountable, and a political system that does not adequately give power to the people. In China by removing any semblance of a democracy: there is one party and opposition will not be tolerated, and in the US by giving an illusion of choice: you can vote for the elites' lap dog or their attack dog, but either way you are voting for their pets. In China it's by design, and in the US it's by inertia, but in both systems there is a powerful elite that keeps a tight control on the reigns and the only way to get into positions of power is by being one of them or dancing to their music. In addition, the media is firmly under their control too, allowing them to fully shape the message the population hears. Whether that is through a giant firewall and state media organisations controlling the rest, or by outright ownership of the media. They are thoroughly uncritical of their own government and elites. Examples: try finding any info in China about Tiananmen Square. And anything Musk posts on Twitter, but also Bezos instructing the WaPo not to endorse either candidate, and a cartoonist having her cartoon cut when it threatened to be slightly too critical of the boss.
However, these similarities conceal a serious difference between the two. In China, the very institutions of government are the ones that incentivise corruption. The lack of democratic oversight is intentional, and the problem is party members using their mandate to ensure friends and family get lucrative business positions outside of civil service.
Meanwhile in the US the institutions of government are meant to prevent corruption. They have been degraded and eroded to the point they don't work at all anymore. You can't be a politician without spending millions on campaigns, which obviously makes you beholden to whoever gave you those millions. Combine that with an anachronistic constitution that specifically gives disproportionate power to lower population states, allows presidents to pardon their family members, and a disproportionately huge role to unelected judges, and it's clear the system that was supposed to protect the people from abuse of power has failed. But at least it existed.
So. Where do we go from here? Clearly a socialist rebuilding of the US political system would have to build on such institutions and ensure oversight. But how does socialism ever avoid the centralisation of power? It seems built into the system. Maybe an extreme form of direct democracy would allow for decisions about how to allocate resources to be taken collectively, rather than centralized in an elite. It would be very hard and require a full reeducation of the populace to be capable of this responsibility. Those same school teachers who voted for Trump and whose funding was subsequently slashed, will need to teach Freirean critical pedagogy. It seems like a utopian dream that anything like this would work. And how else do we empower people who don't know the first thing about medicine to take informed decisions about what and where to spend money on medical research. Or innovation in farming. Or AI. Not to mention "mundane" decisions like whether we need a traffic light at the intersection of Lenin Avenue with Trotsky Street.
So yes, I look at this and think this is inevitably how socialism succumbs to totalitarianism. I can start small: the day-to-day decision-making at my work cause enough meetings to add stress and overhead to my day. I have repeatedly been offered the possibility to move into management and have turned it down, because that is just not the kind of work I enjoy. I'm perfectly happy working under a competent boss. And the company is big enough that he has a boss, and then there is 1 further layer of directors before we reach the CEO. The CEO spends his entire day hopping from meetings with those directors to meetings with investors and other stakeholders, ensuring that everybody is strategically aligned to meet our company objectives, and find ways to work around obstacles to meet them in the face of adversity. I cannot possibly imagine how this, relatively simple, business would run with more democratic decisionmaking, and my workplace is a fairly young, fairly modern and fairly transparent workplace. I'm very happy to say that most decisions are taken in committee with employees who have a stake in that decision. However, the hierarchy is necessary. And that means that some people will have more power than others.
Even my brother, who runs a regenerative farming co-op had to abandon the ideas of decision-making by committee: the day-to-day practicalities of running a farm make that far too hard. Everybody has their speciality, and owns that and the decisionmaking in that vertical. But when push comes to shove in a decision that impacts the farm as a whole, one person's voice counts more than others. And that doesn't mean they don't have meetings to discuss these things, but decisions often need to be made in a timely manner, and especially on a farm, time is in spectacularly short supply! So instead of their ideal of unanimous decisionmaking or at the very least, voting, they often end up having the decision made by a dictator. A benevolent one who has the best interests of the farm in mind. And one that they can remove and replace if trust is lost. But still, hierarchy arises naturally. And as long as people are happy to give their power to others, how do you avoid them eventually giving it to a Trump, a Maduro or a Jinping, who do everything with that newfound power to (1) keep it and (2) abuse it. You're going to need very strong institutions. But institutions are als just people. So maybe you need a mechanism that allows for human greed to be harnessed to drive a lot of decision making, but curb its excesses by coupling that market with oversight and government whose main task it is to ensure that a rising tide truly does raise all ships.
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Northern Ireland26221 Posts
On February 02 2025 09:40 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
Nice moves by Trump. First, he bullshits about how Canada must secure its border to stop Fentanyl when everyone knows hardly any Fentanyl comes through Canada. At the start, Trump claims the tariffs are all about better border security. Its total BS. Trudeau and the Liberal Party of Canada takes Trump's BS too seriously. Then, Canada beefs up its border hoping to prevent tariffs. After the improved border security is in place Trump reveals his cards. Tariffs are all about lowering the trade deficit with Canada. Now, Trump can use Canada's own improved border security to stop black market Canadian products from being smuggled over the border. LOL.
Trudeau and Ford are making bad moves now. They are not reacting correctly. They need to be the USA's best friend.
So let me get this straight, it’s the fault of Canadian politicians for being unable to pick when Trump is bullshitting or serious about something?
Something tells me if they’d just ignored him and he threw down the tariff hammer for not doing enough to secure their border, you’d be criticising them for that as well.
It’s precisely the problem in having such an impulsive, capricious man in the White House, he’s straight up unpredictable, can flip on a dime and is a nightmare to plan around.
Within reasonable parameters it’s why I’ve always said I’d prefer a predictable asshole boss in work than someone who bounces between being your best pal and hating your guts, you know what you’re walking in to.
He has an odd obsession with tariffs and trade deficits, but what he’ll actually do? It could just be posturing for his base, it may not be. One has to plan around each eventuality
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On February 02 2025 09:59 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On February 02 2025 09:40 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
Nice moves by Trump. First, he bullshits about how Canada must secure its border to stop Fentanyl when everyone knows hardly any Fentanyl comes through Canada. At the start, Trump claims the tariffs are all about better border security. Its total BS. Trudeau and the Liberal Party of Canada takes Trump's BS too seriously. Then, Canada beefs up its border hoping to prevent tariffs. After the improved border security is in place Trump reveals his cards. Tariffs are all about lowering the trade deficit with Canada. Now, Trump can use Canada's own improved border security to stop black market Canadian products from being smuggled over the border. LOL.
Trudeau and Ford are making bad moves now. They are not reacting correctly. They need to be the USA's best friend. So let me get this straight, it’s the fault of Canadian politicians for being unable to pick when Trump is bullshitting or serious about something?
Pierre Trudeau and Jean Chretien did it all the time with US leaders of their time. And, Nixon bullshitted a lot. Pierre Trudeau cut deals with Cuba and the Soviet Union as he worked around Nixon. Pierre Trudeau had balls.
And the Canadian people benefited from having a street smart genius with balls running the place.
On February 02 2025 09:59 WombaT wrote:
He has an odd obsession with tariffs and trade deficits, but what he’ll actually do? It could just be posturing for his base, it may not be. One has to plan around each eventuality
the chaos is not a bug. its a feature. if you have a tough choice about whether to put your HQ in Canada or the USA... given the climate of uncertainty Trump created ... where are you going? The US of By God "A".
WP by Trump.
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Northern Ireland26221 Posts
You’re bemoaning a lack of balls, but also want folks to bend over backwards to stay on Trump’s good side, which is it?
It’s early doors, but initial indicators seem to point to Trump being even less reliable as an ally, more capricious and more volatile than he was in his first term.
Allies can stomach a Presidential term, but if we end up with a constant see-saw of direction every time the GOP/Dems are in power, other nations need to, and will make contingency plans.
Trump’s pissing away a ton of American soft power for no particular gain, and presenting it as a win.
Incidentally I’m not giving people a pass entirely, Trump being difficult to deal with doesn’t mean there aren’t ways that are totally asinine
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EPT
