The sooner things become intolerably broken in the U.S. the better off I think the rest of the world is. The U.S. kind of scares me right now. So much power, wielded by deeply incompetent, broken, and evil people. And those who aren't those things are demonstrably too weak to do anything about it. I have a sense that things will only improve once they hit an intolerable low. And the longer it takes for that to happen, the more normalized it will become for all of those people. Basically: I really hope the current regime boils the water too fast.
A major part of the plot of The Every[0] is one protagonist's belief, akin to yours, that precipitating things to their worst outcome could be the fastest way to snap public opinion back to sanity.
I don't want to spoil the suspense, but I'll say that I do see the logic in hoping that a quick fire would call everyone's attention to the fire hazard. What you're failing to ask here is "What could possibly go wrong with this plan?"
The house is already on fire. The choices are to allow it to burn down and rebuild, taking the arsonists with it, or attempting to slow them down while the fire continues to burn and their supporters cheer them on.
American Democracy appears to be the same as second generation wealth: unappreciated until gone. Make Functional Governance Great Again. I wish it were not so.
Hahahahahahahhaa the arsonists aren’t going down with it, the arsonists are on mansions in a private island watching it go down. The idea that the people in power will _lose_ power as a result of widespread unrest is bananas. The only people watching the house burn are those with an insurance policy out on it.
> the arsonists are on mansions in a private island watching it go down. The idea that the people in power will _lose_ power as a result of widespread unrest is bananas.
Islands do make easy targets, though—they’re hard to move and they’re hard to hide.
Anybody with a $200 drone and a chip on their shoulder. All I’m saying is: if there is widespread civil unrest, billionaires are going to find themselves with giant targets on their backs.
The supporters are the people who keep voting Republican while Republicans (the arsonists) are stripping them of their SNAP benefits and ACA subsidies, while also dismantling the federal government out of ideology. The wealthy might influence (they spent over $40M to influence the NYC mayor election and still lost, for example), but the voters are the root cause.
I get the reasoning and I think it’s colourable. But I can’t help but be irritated having grown up hearing nothing but “Liberty or death” rhetoric of American identity, only to find it was all a pathetic cosplay.
"Liberty or death" never meant the first resort is detonating a proverbial nuke in Manhattan if a bad guy showed up in Time's Square.
But I agree that it's always been a pathetic cosplay. Most "patriots" I've met are by far the least patriotic and actively hate their fellow countrymen.
The fact that liberty died far before Trump was part of what he used in his cards to gain power. He sold a tale of draining the swamp, and tailoring back the federal of government. Of course, he's basically expanded the more dystopian power, and pumped in more swamp water, but part of the reason why his campaign is successful was that indeed liberty has been lacking in the USA for a long time and to some of the people that actually cared, he whispered the right lies.
With a measure of time, a counterpoint -- patriotism is that essential glue which holds together a pluralistic, multi ethnic, multi religious, multi cultural society.
Can it be corrupted and do excesses poison? Absolutely.
But can such a society survive without it? I say no: there's too much tendency for groups to fragment and revert to an us-vs-them, uncompromising mentality.
That said, my American patriotism is of the 'disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it' variety. Which is a different flavor than the en vogue militaristic machismo bullying.
When my brother and I argue this, that’s the position he takes: the risk is enormous. He’s the most brilliant mind I know (an immigration lawyer who has settled the Government’s hash more than once at the Supreme Court of Canada), so if I had any real say in all this, I would defer to him.
I can't deny that and maybe would even agree with that as an abstract theory, but I just can't stomach the amount of misery and death that would come along with this to ever use a word like "hope" to describe that outcome.
I don’t know if it’s reasonable or not to wish that, as an analogy, the German people had started a true civil war with the Nazis when they seized power. I can see how folks would wonder though.
I don't think this line of thinking has any merit. Genocides have happened before and yet modern genocides still make me sad for humanity and I wish we did a better job preventing them.
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>people like you post and talk about it but take no real action.
Jumping to this type of insult based purely on your own fabricated narrative about me does nothing but further justify my last comment calling out your worldview.
I completely agree. It's a good thing we're in a multipolar world now. The US (and its vassal states) have ruled terribly and the world suffered much over it. Sadly, there is still a lot of propaganda that needs to go away.
A great world leader would spread genuine peace. Not corrupt other countries, start wars and shed blood. The USA has failed to even keep its own citizens safe and secure. All I worry about is that they will drag a lot of other countries with them while they are falling.
So how can you completely agree if even you worry?
I worry more. I am certain, for all bad things the US did, the multipolar world will be much much worse. You think the other power players are better? No way.
Less and less likely they’ll drag others down, the first trump presidency was a warning, it’s gonna suck in the rest of the western world but we’ll survive.
The US hasn't been perfect, but you can hardly say we've ruled the world terribly. Because who has ever ruled it better?
We helped Europe and Asia rebuild after WWII instead of conquering them. To the extent that our previous enemies in Germany and Japan now have some of the strongest economies in the world.
There have certainly been wars, often with dubious justification or horrific results, but good luck finding any superpower in history that hasn't gotten into bad wars. Unlike the US, most of the time those other superpowers used war for territorial expansion, like Russia is doing in Ukraine today.
You can dream of your utopian world order all you want, but at some point you have to judge the US against the alternative instead of the almighty.
I love the DS9 reference. But it also reminds me of Hamilton:
You'll be back, time will tell
You'll remember that I served you well
Oceans rise, empires fall
We have seen each other through it all
And when push comes to shove
I will send a fully armed battalion to remind you of my love!
The idea that the world was better off under American rule is so deeply ironic that my brain is breaking.
The hope is presumably that the water boils fast enough to prompt electoral action before this regime eliminates voting rights and inevitably embroils itself in war to distract from its failings at home.
