This is silly because we’ve always thought America was doing those things
Been an American in America for 4 decades. From my perspective American decline is undeniable. It is simple fact.
Largely because we can’t connect the dots and accept that we should be focusing on the class war, not the culture war, because that’s the root of the problem. A lot of the hate and ignorance in America comes from desperation. We’re desperate because we aren’t losing, we’ve lost, a class war.
In my opinion the election that just happened was the nail in the coffin. We came together and the majority of us decided to let our oligarchs assume total control. It was a signal to them that they’re good to be open about it now, too.
RIP to the middle class.
Well said. We have indeed lost. Perhaps we can wipe the slate clean and start anew. I fear even if we did that though, there’s enough of the population that would prefer the old way that something better could never come to fruition.
Perhaps we can wipe the slate clean and start anew.
History indicates that to do so will require a lot of time, violence, and death. And without a plan in place for what comes afterwards, we’d just end up with another shitty system.
Evolution has no foresight.
Application for asylum status when?
Once they start putting people in camps. We’re a reactionary government. Proactive isn’t really in the lexicon.
Although idk we might do the same, atleast the Canadian de-transition camps will be free.
A fall from greatness is inevitable and I’m afraid that the fall of America, with all of her hubris, is going to be spectacularly bloody and unpleasant for everyone. :(
When exactly was this greatness America is falling from? Was it back when things were built off the backs of slaves? Was it back when women were not allowed to vote or be professors? Was it back when interracial marriage was illegal? Was it back when gay marriage was illegal? When was it?
They say Rome wasn’t built in a day. But also overlook that the Roman empire didn’t fall in a day either. It was a very gradual process.
So the real question is, if the US were to fall, would it be a quick or gradual process?
Gradual and ongoing since at least 1980.
It already fell, so I guess the real question is how long it takes for people to realize it.
The three branches of government are wholly owned by the triad of evangelicals, Moscow, and a billionaire, they don’t have any intention of following the law or constitution, and won’t give up power. America is dead.
You are mistaken, you are witnessing the fall of the US republic. At the same time you are seeing the rise of an empire.
Jeez, even resignation is grandiose for Americans.
I mean it’s true. It’ll be an empire because we have a ton of firepower and aggression. It’ll just be an evil empire.
Sorry world. I didn’t vote for the orange dipshit and his enablers.
The orange dipshit is just masks off. The real harm has been done under the current liberal administration. The rest of the world already has no expectations for conservatives but now liberals too.
Chris Hayes: Biden is leaving a ‘disgraceful legacy’ on Gaza
Rush by west to back Israel erodes developing countries’ support for Ukraine
Yes, exactly. The fascist Republican project could never have achieved this success without an opposition party that’s been relentlessly incompetent at best, and actively compliant at worst. The ideology of modern Democrats as an organization has been an import contributor to this collapse. Without a revolution within the party, we will never pull out of the death spiral by just swinging back to Democrats. We have tried that several times for decades. It would require one or both parties getting a fundamental realignment, or some equally dramatic third party insurgency. All of that is extremely unlikely. In the mean time, you and I will be poorer, sicker, less free, and subject to more violence.
Still a pale imitation of the British, they had a real empire. America had Puerto Rico and Guam .
I think you’re neglecting the Manifest Destiny period of westward expansion, and you’re limiting your consideration to the paradigm of colonial empire. The American empire is different, it’s a neo-colonial empire.
I’m a rank amateur but in my limited understanding of history it seems similar to the ancient Persian empire: basically a system of client states each with a permitted level of autonomy within a framework of tribute/favorable trade relations. Enforced with a network of garrisons.
When the CIA backs a coup and installs a friendly government that signs a defense pact, and makes it easy for American capital to thrive, what would you call that state other than a client state?
That’s just my understanding as a lay person though, how do you understand it?
I’m also an amateur and don’t have much more frame of reference then college history and quick internet searches that validated with what I remember professors lecturing.
The westward expansion should count as imperialism. The territories were meant to be integrated parts of the nation and not independent vassal states.
The US was Neo-colonial without being an empire. Which is a pretty jerk move when you realize that meant a groups of people had to agree in unison to use soft-power to oppress countries over decades.
America historically avoided the empire classification because of the division of power prevented there being a single supreme power. The erosion of the separate powers providing the checks and balances is what is sliding the US into empire by definition.
This is how liberty dies. With thunderous applaus.
Sometimes I wonder if George Lucas had been a better writer how things might have been different.
Maybe if he had done a better job, perhaps it would have done nothing because some dumb movie plot doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things… or maybe it would have help to shift our culture just a bit more in the right direction… The prequel trilogy was meant to basically mirror the fall of the Weimar Republic to the 3rd Reich. You can’t tell me the “Execute Order 66” montage was not inspired by old “shlankily klankily’s” Night of Long Knives.
By the time he was making the prequels, George was basically God to anyone in his orbit. He no longer had anyone there to tell him “no” anymore, nor his awesome wife to save him in the editing bay, so we ended up with Jar Jar and…
It might sound silly at first, but Gore only lost by the tiniest of margins (and a garbage conservative Supreme Court decision). If even only a few minds had been changed, maybe there would have been no 9/11, no “war on terror” with Iraq and Afghanistan, no Patriot Act, and maybe real mitigations on climate change could have been instituted.
One of my favorite comedians said “The Star Wars prequels were great ideas… executed poorly… but the sequels were poor ideas… executed greatly.”
In 2011 Obama announce changes to the CAFE standards to raise the average efficiency of every manufactures annual vehicle sales to 50mpg by 2025. Actual average efficiency (thanks in part to Trump trying to dismantle literally everything Obama touched, including even his bad policies) as of late 2024 is a bit over 27mpg. There’s been so many opportunities where things could have been better by now if policies that almost got passed or were passed and repealed instead were passed
If even only a few minds had been changed, maybe there would have been no 9/11
9/11 had nothing to do with GWB and everything with the US has already done to that point. Clinton’s policies that lead to the death of 500,000 children in Iraq for example
The smallest alterations can change the world.
If the bullet had been an inch to the right we wouldn’t be about to give the reins of our nation to an anti-democratic felon rapist.
9/11 was happening . It was driven by the happenings in Afghanistan not the us. Basically the northern alliance was gaining ground hard and consistent against the tailiban.
Ahmad Massoud would have been assassinated regardless . September 9th was the day the taliban won. It just took 2 decades of hindsight to see that.
Oh fuck! You might be right 😯
It can’t end soon enough for me. It needs to die.
Classic trolly problem. 350 million of us vs 8 billion of everyone else.
Easy math.
if it wasn’t for the fact that Europe F’ed around for 20 years and disarmed, leaving itself vulnerable right around the same time Russia decided to go on a Russkiy Mir-redraw the world maps and kill everyone who resists adventure. I would have been indifferent to it. the never ending lunacy of the US has left me with the belief that it should be broken up into different states. Its clear they hate themselves and each other.
Alas, World War II was for nothing, Fascism is back with a vengeance, it started in 2022 with Russia, and it’s entering a new stage in America.
go on. keep making your jokes and memes.
if you think the rich fuckheads are going to stop at America you’re fooling yourself.
Oh I have no illusions they ever intend to stop. They’ll take and take until the world is burning into ash.
like the parasites they truly are.
To be fair a casual understanding of history shows they’re practicing Christianity as it always has been
They have always disgraced the name of Jesus. Taken it in vain, some might say.
Yeah, hard no there. Christianity in Europe is much more liberal, and I don’t just the mean the traditionally more liberal protestants
…you realize Christianity has existed in Europe for more than 50 years, right? Some of the most horrific things ever done to other people have been done in Europe in the name of Christianity.
Absolutely true, yet only looking at the crusades and the medieval times disregards that modern European Christianity is a far cry from what the American Christians are preaching.
If you ignore 1000+ years of Christianity in Europe then Christianity in Europe is pretty great!
American Christianity is far more “liberal” than how it has been practiced in Europe for nearly it’s entire existence. That’s my point.
Don’t worry, it’s obvious from the inside too.
I love that Gladiator, the 2000 film, showed us Commodus a rich emperor who was insanely obsessed with getting everyone’s attention and the US has Elon Musk showing everyone that he wants to be at least knows as the best digital gladiator of video games while we have Nero/Trump watching the city burn.
It is like we are working on The Decline of an Empire: Greatest Hits! double gate fold album for 2025.
It took centuries for the Roman Republic to fall. At some point in time, they were past the point of no return without themselves even realizing it.
I think we are in that position now. We have been on the decline for more than a decade now, and have had several opportunities to correct or reverse course, but the wrong decision is made at every opportunity because it’s far easier for powerful influential people to increase their power, wealth and status at the expense of everyone else and suffer no consequences for doing so than it is for them to sacrifice their own power, wealth, and status for the benefit of the collective. Are we past the point of no return? I’d say an argument could be made for either yes or no, but we are undeniably closer to the precipice than we have ever been as a nation since the Civil War (which never truly ended).
The US has been on the decline since the 80s. It’s been propped up on a strong economy and tech domination, but it’s losing its lead, and late stage capitalism is rotting it from the inside out. Reagan really got this crazy train going
Nah we’re at the part when Rome when from Republic to dictatorship
This sums up how it feels to me as well. To me it was pretty much the eighties with deregulation and lowering taxes and globalization.
Well, hopefully you can avoid Poilievre. Otherwise, you might be joining us on the crazy train.
If Carney wins leadership of the Liberals, then wins the election, we should ok.
Still a big hill to climb tho.
a big if. as it stands, the Liberal party has the trudeau ick to it, and I would be floored if they did any better than 3rd place.
From where I sit on Canada’s western end, I honestly expect America to never have a legitimate/meaningful election again.
As in, over the next 4 years the GOP will erode the election system such that it becomes equally as meaningful as elections in Russia or North Korea - theatre and a thin veneer of legitimacy, but nothing more. That the GOP will work things such that they will never “lose” another election, making America a permanent one-party state, no matter how many people would want them out of power.
The scary thing is, Canada risks much the same if “PeePee” (Pierre Poilievre, of the Canadian Conservative Party) gets elected. The man is a snake-oil salesman who is always eager to tell you what the problem is and who is to blame, but who almost never had any solution for the problem. Even his “axe the tax” shtick is a “solution” in desperate need of a problem to solve, will hurt working-class Canadians far more than it will help them, and is only meant to reduce taxation on the wealthy.
It was decided in 2010 with “citizens united”
It was decided in 2000 with “Bush v. Gore”
It was decided in 48BC with Ceaser vs Pompey
This is scary as they already win elections they should not because of lessons learned from the hanging chads. gerrymandering and voter disenfranchisement was always a thing but it was a bit more local and sporadic before then but after that it became part of national agenda.
Plus, they still have slavery! In the constitution it says slavery is not allowed, “except when incarcerated”. There are states where incarcerated people, convicted by a corrupt justiciary system, are forced to work without pay.
Plus, they just elected an autocratic hate and fear spreading idiot who is a puppet of Putin and does everything in his power to make the US an even worse oligarchy.
The world isn’t just watching, the world is watching in extreme horror and disgust.
The world isn’t just watching, the world is watching in extreme horror and disgust.
To be fair some are looking for ideas, the Americans are not the only ones with issues.
But they are one of the most influential in the world, and THE most influential ally we have.
We have slavery in our everyday lives without being incarcerated, we are debt slaves, we are wage slaves without freedom of movement.
Plus, they just elected an autocratic hate and fear spreading idiot who is a puppet of Putin and does everything in his power to make the US an even worse oligarchy.
Oh sure, but we do that with every President. Trump’s a Putin Puppet. The Clintons Shill for China. Biden bent backwards for Israel. They’re all deeply in the bag for the Saudis.
That’s before you get to Musk or Gates or Bob Iger or David Solomon absolutely leading our national leadership around by the nose
The world isn’t just watching, the world is watching in extreme horror and disgust.
They’ve been watching since Nixon. But they still keep cashing our checks, so they can’t be that upset.
Guys like Starmer and Truduea and Shultz were lining up to kiss the ring as soon as the election results came in.
They’ve been watching since Nixon. But they still keep cashing our checks, so they can’t be that upset.
It’s the other way around. The US national debt is more than it’s GDP. Where do you think they borrow that money from. We just don’t want the US as an enemy because we want our money back. And so far the US has been the only country fucked up enough to drop not just one, but 2 nukes, not to wipe out military targets but 2 entire cities.
The large majority (73.1%) of US debt is owned domestically. US foreign debt is well, well below GDP: https://usafacts.org/articles/which-countries-own-the-most-us-debt/
26.9% still is a lot of money.
I didn’t know the fact above. Assumed more. But for a familiar scale that’s like a $13,000 auto loan of an average income household.
That means the big scary national debt could be paid off fairly quickly with only a marginally higher tax burden to the biggest corporations. We may need to do that if, for example, a bunch of political grifters wreck our credit.
NOOOO! NO NO NO NO NO! Only tax the poor. How dare you speak those words.
As if the US will ever pay off its debt. They only want more money. “What are you gonna do about it?”
Not to wipe out military targets but 2 entire cites.
We call that “for funsies” in the States. You ever hear of the Amchitka Island Nuclear Tests? Those seals had it coming!! /s
