Good piece, but one caution. When an abuser starts to lose his ability to intimidate people into submission, to get to the liberation that comes in the mid to long term, you often have to get through some dangerous short term lashing out.
Yea I hope this is true, but I think the ship has sailed on trying to restore the traditional checks and balances on the executive. More importantly, the first Trump election could be dismissed as a fluke. But with everything the American public knew about Trump’s first term, PLUS January 6, the American public reelected Trump for a second term by a clear margin. So what makes anyone believe there won’t be another Trump type candidate—or worse—elected in the future even if the Democrats win a clean sweep in 2028? Then what about 2032 or 2036? I think especially Europeans don’t get it. The US has fundamentally changed and Europe had better get its act together on universal European defense and military and economic independence or it is going to end very, very badly for the European experiment. The US ultimately can survive on its own, but European countries are badly prepared for a return to a balance of powers world akin to the 19th century, economically, politically, and militarily.
I actually don't think the US has fundamentally changed. I think where power comes from has fundamentally changed, and I think we are spoiled. It used to come from appealing to the middle majority because that's where almost all the discursive power was: all the major media tried to appeal to the largest swath of the country, and local papers simply weren't very powerful and were rarely truly radical anyway. Magazines were more diverse, and more diffuse. So if you're a politician, you're consuming those sources of news and discourse and they all tend to aim roughly at the largest chunk in the middle, so that's your view of America, so the positions you take are those which appeal to those target audiences.
Now most of our media have polarized along with the discourse. The people themselves have only minorly polarized; but now because the more radical positions get the most space in the discourse, those are the positions we see in politics. Used to be that those on the fringes were almost completely left out of who our politicians tried to appeal to. Now it's the more moderate middle that's left out.
The biggest real change is that we went from politics of mostly aspiration (and of course self-righteousness, a perennial of politics) to a politics of doom and guilt, despite living conditions being better than they ever have been before. In many ways, our biggest problem is that we're spoiled: we've had 9/11 and its seeming forever wars and the great recession. Prior generations had Vietnam -- with its attendant draft -- Korea, WWII, the great depression, and WWI. We have few challenges that we must truly band together to fight, and we have so much wealth to argue over.
If our system survives - maybe. But a cornered animal who knows he will be trapped won’t play by any of the rules you depend on for your optimism to be true. If you think Jan 6 was something, just think what a guy in charge of the justice dept, military, and ICE militia might be willing to do. What story won’t he tell to justify it? What deepfake AI videos won’t be shared on Truth Social to suspend the system you believe will end him?
Trump has a 95% Republican approval rating. The rest is fake news media gaslighting and ranting. In the end the people have to consider that the alternative is nasty, dirty, woke-corrupted Democrats. You probably still believe those same media reports that Hillary and Kamala were going to win by a landslide.
Bill Browder's book, Red Notice, describes Russia during the 1990's when its economy crashed, there was massive inflation, and the Russian oligarchs stole everything they possibly could. According to information contained therein, wealthy Russians had 6,000 times the net worth of the poorest members of society during the Soviet era. By the mid to late 1990's, with the oligarchs stealing every financial resource, commodity and manufacturing facility they could imagine, the ratio became 250,000 to 1. The breathtaking income inequality made the populace angry, desperate and dejected. Russian income inequality has hardly improved during the intervening 30 years and the regime is more repressive than ever. Watching the current devolution of society in the United States and comparing it to the contents of Red Notice brings little confidence that there will be a correction in the current administration's corruption and malfeasance. Kushner and Witkoff are working hard to bring 1997 Russia to the United States. We are becoming Russia.
Are there bread lines in the US? Shortages of basic things unavailable? Our inequality is nothing compared to that in Russia. I simply don't think this comparison holds water. Better to argue we are becoming increasingly corrupt -- which seems to be true, though data would be preferable.
How much shortage will be required to become aware of the destruction of our economy? And over what time period will the descent be perceived as noticeable? Perhaps it is beginning. CostCo is suing the US government over the imposition of tariffs. Society at large is largely unconcerned with the intolerance this administration has shown toward freedom of speech, fair treatment of others and the basic principles of representative government. Fact and truth are being replaced with fantasy and fictions. And the corruption? How will cryptocurrency, the unregulated and utterly concealed financial channel which is preferred for money laundering, the drug trade and sex trafficking interact with devaluation of the dollar (perceived as inflation). May 1995 exchange rates for the ruble were ~ 5000 rubles / $1 US dollar. You are correct that the bread lines seen during the Great Depression are not here now and it would take massive financial collapse like the Russian bond default to arrive at such horrible inflation. But the current administration has set the path toward inflating the value of cryptocurrencies at the expense of citizens who don't hold World Liberty Financial meme coins. Inequality is a natural phenomenon in human society and is not necessarily inherently bad. It can be motivating. But its extremes are problematic particularly when those few who possess much also have the power and the inclination to immiserate the many who are without. The road toward even greater inequality is under construction.
What specifically does Red Notice say drove Russia's massive collapse and pilfering? It's not clear to me what happened in Russian and how it's analogous to what's happening here.
Red Notice describes the malign influences of the powerful in post Soviet Russia but does not go into great detail about the bond collapse and inflation. We are but looking over the brink of the great pit into which they fell headlong. The point is to bring our voting citizenry to awareness of the threat. We are not in the pit. Yet.
Trump has so far had free intimidation services supplied by a fanatical subset of hits supporters, now these supporters are increasing realizing that far from Trump bringing "depraved elites" to justice he is one of them!
However, Trump still has a card to play r.e. intimidation services, buy them. He has ICE available and if he can get control of more budget he can buy more. Under his personal payment (with your money) they will do what he wants.
This would make a typical dictatorship, does Trump want to be a dictator - yes.
A predictable opinion from the quarter that this comes. In response another opinion, "For a variety of reasons, President Trump is a more pre-eminent figure in the world than any of his predecessors since Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a four-term president who led the nation out of the Great Depression and to the brink of victory in Europe and the Pacific. Even Trump-haters are now having great difficulty uttering the autocue jeremiad of American decline. It will be remembered that 10 years ago it was impossible to set foot out of doors anywhere in the world without someone telling you that China was about to surpass the United States as the world’s greatest economy. As of last year, China’s GDP was approximately US$20 trillion and that of the United States was US$31 trillion. The economy of the United States is now growing at a rate of almost 4 percent per year, while China has continued to adhere to its policy of declining to have an official statement or publish an official figure that is adequately supported to be believable." Attributable to a Canadian, Conrad Black.
Conrad Black is an obsequious buffoon and convicted felon who is a pre-eminent member of the pardoned-by-Trump club and hasn't a clue what he's talking about. You might as well be quoting Steve Bannon or Juan Orlando Hernandez or Joe Arpaio.
"Even Trump haters are now having great difficulty uttering the autocue jeremiad of American decline." Is he kidding? Whatever your opinion of Trump, that's just straight up baloney. The United States' standing in the world has never been lower, and it is entirely thanks to Trump. I can assure you we Trump "haters" have zero problem justifying the notion of American decline, as Trump has provided a veritable cornucopia of indefensible actions on the world stage to fume over.
Trump has trampled our alliances, greatly diminished trust in our economic competence and our overall reliability as an ally, threatened the privileged position of the dollar in the world economy, and cast serious doubt upon our commitment to Western, democratic values. His reign of terror over American cities and anyone who even looks like an immigrant has cratered our tourism industry and made America just about the least desirable destination in the free world.
The questions that Francis Fukuyama talks about getting from foreign allies? You hear that from virtually every prominent American who lives overseas, from Brian Klass to Anne Applebaum. The concerns are ubiquitous, and you have to have your head completely up your rear-end to deny it. NATO might as well vote us out at this point since it's entirely clear Trump would have no intention of upholding our obligations under the treaty were they to be called upon.
We can't even be relied upon to support Ukraine—the Western-friendly democracy—over Russia, the autocratic oligarchy openly hostile to the West. America's position as leader of the free world is effectively over, because the world can't count on us to stand up for the values we once unquestionably championed when it depends on a small sliver of Midwestern voters every four years.
Especially since our government, once a paragon of checks and balances where even powerful officials could be brought down and sent to prison for corrupt behavior, has now become a rat's nest of open wheeling and dealing after our reckless Supreme Court handed Trump an immunity ruling and he has unfettered pardon power—which he has used without hesitation in the kind of blatant quid-pro-quo that past Presidents wouldn't have dared even risk the appearance of.
And China? What is Black smoking? China is a serious threat to American hegemony and liberal democracy in general, and this fool President just negated one of our principle advantages by removing export controls to China for some of our most powerful CPUs. Meanwhile they can out-manufacture us with one arm tied behind their back, leaving us at a distinct disadvantage in a potential armed conflict.
Have a read of the recent National Security Strategy—practically written in crayon—to get a sense of how badly we're capitulating to China and effectively inviting them to claim ownership of the Indo-Pacific region. Good luck, Japan and South Korea. Nice knowing you, Taiwan.
The only reason this article is predictable is because it's incontrovertibly true. Two plus two predictably equals four, Trump is predictably destroying America's standing in the world, and people with any awareness of what's going on in the real world are predictably calling it out.
Good piece, but one caution. When an abuser starts to lose his ability to intimidate people into submission, to get to the liberation that comes in the mid to long term, you often have to get through some dangerous short term lashing out.
If the pathetic Dems would just walk away from wokeness and offer the people a sane and responsible government they could win a landslide.
End of history, end of Trump? Don't speak too soon...
Yea I hope this is true, but I think the ship has sailed on trying to restore the traditional checks and balances on the executive. More importantly, the first Trump election could be dismissed as a fluke. But with everything the American public knew about Trump’s first term, PLUS January 6, the American public reelected Trump for a second term by a clear margin. So what makes anyone believe there won’t be another Trump type candidate—or worse—elected in the future even if the Democrats win a clean sweep in 2028? Then what about 2032 or 2036? I think especially Europeans don’t get it. The US has fundamentally changed and Europe had better get its act together on universal European defense and military and economic independence or it is going to end very, very badly for the European experiment. The US ultimately can survive on its own, but European countries are badly prepared for a return to a balance of powers world akin to the 19th century, economically, politically, and militarily.
I actually don't think the US has fundamentally changed. I think where power comes from has fundamentally changed, and I think we are spoiled. It used to come from appealing to the middle majority because that's where almost all the discursive power was: all the major media tried to appeal to the largest swath of the country, and local papers simply weren't very powerful and were rarely truly radical anyway. Magazines were more diverse, and more diffuse. So if you're a politician, you're consuming those sources of news and discourse and they all tend to aim roughly at the largest chunk in the middle, so that's your view of America, so the positions you take are those which appeal to those target audiences.
Now most of our media have polarized along with the discourse. The people themselves have only minorly polarized; but now because the more radical positions get the most space in the discourse, those are the positions we see in politics. Used to be that those on the fringes were almost completely left out of who our politicians tried to appeal to. Now it's the more moderate middle that's left out.
The biggest real change is that we went from politics of mostly aspiration (and of course self-righteousness, a perennial of politics) to a politics of doom and guilt, despite living conditions being better than they ever have been before. In many ways, our biggest problem is that we're spoiled: we've had 9/11 and its seeming forever wars and the great recession. Prior generations had Vietnam -- with its attendant draft -- Korea, WWII, the great depression, and WWI. We have few challenges that we must truly band together to fight, and we have so much wealth to argue over.
If our system survives - maybe. But a cornered animal who knows he will be trapped won’t play by any of the rules you depend on for your optimism to be true. If you think Jan 6 was something, just think what a guy in charge of the justice dept, military, and ICE militia might be willing to do. What story won’t he tell to justify it? What deepfake AI videos won’t be shared on Truth Social to suspend the system you believe will end him?
Foolish wet underwear musings based on Democrat unicorn fantasies.
Unicorn fantasies lead to wet underwear. Who knew?
Pay absolutely no attention to Frank Lee. He only subscribes to Persuasion so that he can "own some libs" with his sophomoric trolling.
Tiresome. Just blocked him.
Clearly you are not paying much attention, or are choosing to ignore what is right in front of you.
Don't feed the trolls. Frank's gonna Frank.
Trump has a 95% Republican approval rating. The rest is fake news media gaslighting and ranting. In the end the people have to consider that the alternative is nasty, dirty, woke-corrupted Democrats. You probably still believe those same media reports that Hillary and Kamala were going to win by a landslide.
LOL
"The president has done exceptional damage over the past year. Now he's losing steam.”
True enough, but with a caveat. No animal is more dangerous than when it feels cornered, and Trump is most defiantly feeling cornered.
Bill Browder's book, Red Notice, describes Russia during the 1990's when its economy crashed, there was massive inflation, and the Russian oligarchs stole everything they possibly could. According to information contained therein, wealthy Russians had 6,000 times the net worth of the poorest members of society during the Soviet era. By the mid to late 1990's, with the oligarchs stealing every financial resource, commodity and manufacturing facility they could imagine, the ratio became 250,000 to 1. The breathtaking income inequality made the populace angry, desperate and dejected. Russian income inequality has hardly improved during the intervening 30 years and the regime is more repressive than ever. Watching the current devolution of society in the United States and comparing it to the contents of Red Notice brings little confidence that there will be a correction in the current administration's corruption and malfeasance. Kushner and Witkoff are working hard to bring 1997 Russia to the United States. We are becoming Russia.
Are there bread lines in the US? Shortages of basic things unavailable? Our inequality is nothing compared to that in Russia. I simply don't think this comparison holds water. Better to argue we are becoming increasingly corrupt -- which seems to be true, though data would be preferable.
How much shortage will be required to become aware of the destruction of our economy? And over what time period will the descent be perceived as noticeable? Perhaps it is beginning. CostCo is suing the US government over the imposition of tariffs. Society at large is largely unconcerned with the intolerance this administration has shown toward freedom of speech, fair treatment of others and the basic principles of representative government. Fact and truth are being replaced with fantasy and fictions. And the corruption? How will cryptocurrency, the unregulated and utterly concealed financial channel which is preferred for money laundering, the drug trade and sex trafficking interact with devaluation of the dollar (perceived as inflation). May 1995 exchange rates for the ruble were ~ 5000 rubles / $1 US dollar. You are correct that the bread lines seen during the Great Depression are not here now and it would take massive financial collapse like the Russian bond default to arrive at such horrible inflation. But the current administration has set the path toward inflating the value of cryptocurrencies at the expense of citizens who don't hold World Liberty Financial meme coins. Inequality is a natural phenomenon in human society and is not necessarily inherently bad. It can be motivating. But its extremes are problematic particularly when those few who possess much also have the power and the inclination to immiserate the many who are without. The road toward even greater inequality is under construction.
What specifically does Red Notice say drove Russia's massive collapse and pilfering? It's not clear to me what happened in Russian and how it's analogous to what's happening here.
Red Notice describes the malign influences of the powerful in post Soviet Russia but does not go into great detail about the bond collapse and inflation. We are but looking over the brink of the great pit into which they fell headlong. The point is to bring our voting citizenry to awareness of the threat. We are not in the pit. Yet.
Maybe,
Trump has so far had free intimidation services supplied by a fanatical subset of hits supporters, now these supporters are increasing realizing that far from Trump bringing "depraved elites" to justice he is one of them!
However, Trump still has a card to play r.e. intimidation services, buy them. He has ICE available and if he can get control of more budget he can buy more. Under his personal payment (with your money) they will do what he wants.
This would make a typical dictatorship, does Trump want to be a dictator - yes.
A predictable opinion from the quarter that this comes. In response another opinion, "For a variety of reasons, President Trump is a more pre-eminent figure in the world than any of his predecessors since Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a four-term president who led the nation out of the Great Depression and to the brink of victory in Europe and the Pacific. Even Trump-haters are now having great difficulty uttering the autocue jeremiad of American decline. It will be remembered that 10 years ago it was impossible to set foot out of doors anywhere in the world without someone telling you that China was about to surpass the United States as the world’s greatest economy. As of last year, China’s GDP was approximately US$20 trillion and that of the United States was US$31 trillion. The economy of the United States is now growing at a rate of almost 4 percent per year, while China has continued to adhere to its policy of declining to have an official statement or publish an official figure that is adequately supported to be believable." Attributable to a Canadian, Conrad Black.
Conrad Black is an obsequious buffoon and convicted felon who is a pre-eminent member of the pardoned-by-Trump club and hasn't a clue what he's talking about. You might as well be quoting Steve Bannon or Juan Orlando Hernandez or Joe Arpaio.
"Even Trump haters are now having great difficulty uttering the autocue jeremiad of American decline." Is he kidding? Whatever your opinion of Trump, that's just straight up baloney. The United States' standing in the world has never been lower, and it is entirely thanks to Trump. I can assure you we Trump "haters" have zero problem justifying the notion of American decline, as Trump has provided a veritable cornucopia of indefensible actions on the world stage to fume over.
Trump has trampled our alliances, greatly diminished trust in our economic competence and our overall reliability as an ally, threatened the privileged position of the dollar in the world economy, and cast serious doubt upon our commitment to Western, democratic values. His reign of terror over American cities and anyone who even looks like an immigrant has cratered our tourism industry and made America just about the least desirable destination in the free world.
The questions that Francis Fukuyama talks about getting from foreign allies? You hear that from virtually every prominent American who lives overseas, from Brian Klass to Anne Applebaum. The concerns are ubiquitous, and you have to have your head completely up your rear-end to deny it. NATO might as well vote us out at this point since it's entirely clear Trump would have no intention of upholding our obligations under the treaty were they to be called upon.
We can't even be relied upon to support Ukraine—the Western-friendly democracy—over Russia, the autocratic oligarchy openly hostile to the West. America's position as leader of the free world is effectively over, because the world can't count on us to stand up for the values we once unquestionably championed when it depends on a small sliver of Midwestern voters every four years.
Especially since our government, once a paragon of checks and balances where even powerful officials could be brought down and sent to prison for corrupt behavior, has now become a rat's nest of open wheeling and dealing after our reckless Supreme Court handed Trump an immunity ruling and he has unfettered pardon power—which he has used without hesitation in the kind of blatant quid-pro-quo that past Presidents wouldn't have dared even risk the appearance of.
And China? What is Black smoking? China is a serious threat to American hegemony and liberal democracy in general, and this fool President just negated one of our principle advantages by removing export controls to China for some of our most powerful CPUs. Meanwhile they can out-manufacture us with one arm tied behind their back, leaving us at a distinct disadvantage in a potential armed conflict.
Have a read of the recent National Security Strategy—practically written in crayon—to get a sense of how badly we're capitulating to China and effectively inviting them to claim ownership of the Indo-Pacific region. Good luck, Japan and South Korea. Nice knowing you, Taiwan.
The only reason this article is predictable is because it's incontrovertibly true. Two plus two predictably equals four, Trump is predictably destroying America's standing in the world, and people with any awareness of what's going on in the real world are predictably calling it out.
"Viva La Resistance!"
This is a great piece Dr. Fukuyama. I hope you are right!! Merry Christmas!