Trump has destroyed trust like no other political figure in the history of this country. For what? To what end? The self-sabotage for no reason is unprecedented. Assuming we turn a corner and return to sanity, will we be able to recover?
Trump has never understood that one of the most valuable of all American foreign policy assets was the residual underlying good will that countries all around the globe felt toward the US. Even when they resented our power or when we threw our weight around, most people in most countries ultimately thought that the US could be trusted, in the end, to do the right thing. No more. Trump has completely lost that asset, and for nothing in return. It's tragic and will take a couple of decades to reverse on a best-case scenario. But I am not optimistic.
The core problem is that U.S. institutions lost the trust of about half of the U.S. electorate - and they deserved that loss of trust. How could the American people elect as president a candidate who had just been found guilty of multiple felonies? The answer is that it was fairly easy, because a plurality concluded - very reasonably - that the criminal proceedings were a politicized sham. Which was itself easy to do after the debacle of the government's COVID response and other similar examples. I agree with FF on the crucial importance of trust. That's why it is so important for our institutions to undergo a cleansing to regain the trust of the American public. They have a lot of work to do.
Re ‘the belief that NATO members will come to one another’s aid if a member is attacked.’ OK. But what happens when ‘come to one another’s aid’ is a one-way street, when Europe doesn’t pull its weight, when Europe insists that we compromise with the tyrants to retain peace? Shouldn’t we expect our partners to retain agency, to do something when they see bad behavior? Trump’s tough-love behavior is because he doesn’t trust the European to do the right thing. Only time will tell whether it makes the world safer.
"Europe insists that we compromise with the tyrants to retain peace"?? What would you call The Trump administration's cozying up to Putin against Ukraine, to Rodriguez in Venezuela, and to Orban in Hungary, to name but a few? Can you give me an example where Trump has actually done something in international relations in pursuit of doing "the right thing"?
And you are setting yourself (ves) up to be that judge? Do you actually know ANYTHING about Iran? Have you ever visited it?
I've been there (just before the US Embassy was sacked).
I've been to Israel, too. A Holy Land. I've stood in front of the Wailing Wall, by Abraham's Tomb, by Christ's birthplace in Bethlehem, by the Al-Aqsa Mosque etc etc. I've seen how the Palestinians are treated.
Do you think that the US Media provides a balanced approach to ANYTHING? Do you think you know how the Iranians would choose their government?
When you have such monumental ignorance, and such wicked forces at work, do you think you can offer a fair assessment of "bad behaviour", when your President provides the example?
And you think that Decapitating a government, killing over a hundred young girls, all without any legal support from Congress or the UN, is somehow "honourable"? That ANYONE would ever support such an action?
Part of what made America a more trusting and more trustworthy society was our sense—inherited from the English—that we were “exceptional” and more virtuous than such brutal earlier imperialists as the Spanish and the Portuguese. This informed our “Enlightenment” and democratic outlook. Over the centuries, however, perhaps beginning in earnest with the Supreme Court (contrary to mythology) sanctioning the Trail of Tears in the 1830s and culminating in Trump, the ideology of nationalism triumphed over this democratic outlook. In this way, the United States has come to affirm “Christian Nationalism”—the same idolatrous variant of Christianity with which the sixteenth century apologists for the Spanish empire sought to defend their genocidal misconduct—as the foundation of our imperialism. It is at this level that we must rethink our role and place in the world and, indeed, the “world order” as a whole. https://steven3c6.substack.com/p/world-politics-on-a-new-foundation?r=21x2h&utm_medium=ios
After Democrats elected a near corpse and then tried to insert a cackling word salad joke that never won a primary, well yes, why would the world trust the US?
The core of Americans trust Americans. What they don't trust is the elite ruling class... the corporatist oligarchy... the globalist administrative credentialed class... the fucks that fucked it all up before and then during the pandemic.
The rest of the world has been sponging off the US since the US passed the Bretton Woods Act to try and prevent the rest of the world from destroying the world. It isn't that they don't trust the US, it is that they are pissed that daddy is taking away their free apartment and car and making them work for it.
We are near $40 trillion in debt. Have crashing life expectancy. Millions of homeless. Crumbing infrastructure. A mess of socioeconomic problems. And the Democrats are pushing woke gender ideology, open borders, defunding police, and pronouns as the primary focus.
Who the fuck cares that other countries don't trust us. Do they trust communist China?
Fuck them. They mooch and loot off us and still claim we suck. So fuck them. They can protect their own damn country and sell their products to their own people. We will take our $1.5 trillion trade deficit and re industrialize buying our own products, and focusing our military on protecting ourselves.
You seem to believe that the solution to a Democrat President in obvious mental decline and a clearly incompetent VP is to replace them with a Republican President in an even more severe stage of mental decline and another incompetent VP (not to mention the underqualified nutjobs in the cabinet). It really isn't, and the fact that more Americans aren't really worried about the overall state of their ruling politicians on both sides should be a concern to Americans and non-Americans alike.
What percentage of Americans feel we are on the right path? 10%? 20%? We know we’re in trouble. This is bigger than Trump or the Democrats, liberals, conservatives, progressives, nationalists, etc. Where is the bold, positive, and authentically American vision of our nation’s future?
Australia made a massive bet on the U.S with the AUKUS agreement, thinking that the country would "correct itself" after Trump I. This looks like a huge strategic mistake now. No-one can be sure whether the U.S will honour their part of the agreement under Trump.
To the Australian government it never used to matter which party held power in Washington. Now Canberra has a clear preference, as a Republican Party that has allowed itself to become a whole owned subsidiary of The Trump Organisation is clearly a party that cannot be trusted.
Everyone has a responsibility to do something to better our future. May I guide you to “a third way” path? I am fighting for America in a new and different way, via an online “third path” to a better societal problem solving future at EthicalGovtNow.org. I urge all liberal thinkers to visit today, evaluate our path and join our patriotic movement.
Nothing to see here *, the collapse of trust in America by the rest of the world and by Americans themselves will have no negative real-world consequences.
On the one hand, I really like the distinction drawn here—https://substack.com/home/post/p-191235964—by David Benjamin Blower. On the other hand, I do not think it adequate precisely because virtue was of central importance to the figure most responsible for the democratic revolutionary jurisprudence undergirding the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution—the Pennsylvania jurist James Wilson—as is evident in his law lectures and in the understanding of democracy that we inherit from Wilson and his allies that is now crumbling along with the rest of the collapsing house of modernity.
To my way of thinking, any “universalism” that fails to center Indigenous ontologies and experiences is so inadequate as to be false. If we ask how these Native peoples could maintain what my friend Steve Newcomb calls their “original free and independent existence”—including their very impressive lack of a “managerial class” or anything like it—part of the answer seems to me their rejection of the emphasis on the decisions of virtuous consciences that was so important to Wilson in favor of an emphasis instead on the peaceful interaction of respectful consciousnesses that were each responsible to seek to maintain alignment with the balance, harmony, and abundance that our Mother Earth provides—to be in “right relations.” I go into this a little in https://steven3c6.substack.com/p/we-the-people-between-immanence-and
Here’s a short answer to the question of why eurochristians and their heirs and successors do not, if they wish to be honest, even ask about who has some sort of greater claim on being most indigenous: the question exists to deflect from their (our) historic moral depravity: https://steven3c6.substack.com/p/world-politics-on-a-new-foundation?r=21x2h&utm_medium=ios
Trump has destroyed trust like no other political figure in the history of this country. For what? To what end? The self-sabotage for no reason is unprecedented. Assuming we turn a corner and return to sanity, will we be able to recover?
Trump has never understood that one of the most valuable of all American foreign policy assets was the residual underlying good will that countries all around the globe felt toward the US. Even when they resented our power or when we threw our weight around, most people in most countries ultimately thought that the US could be trusted, in the end, to do the right thing. No more. Trump has completely lost that asset, and for nothing in return. It's tragic and will take a couple of decades to reverse on a best-case scenario. But I am not optimistic.
The core problem is that U.S. institutions lost the trust of about half of the U.S. electorate - and they deserved that loss of trust. How could the American people elect as president a candidate who had just been found guilty of multiple felonies? The answer is that it was fairly easy, because a plurality concluded - very reasonably - that the criminal proceedings were a politicized sham. Which was itself easy to do after the debacle of the government's COVID response and other similar examples. I agree with FF on the crucial importance of trust. That's why it is so important for our institutions to undergo a cleansing to regain the trust of the American public. They have a lot of work to do.
Re ‘the belief that NATO members will come to one another’s aid if a member is attacked.’ OK. But what happens when ‘come to one another’s aid’ is a one-way street, when Europe doesn’t pull its weight, when Europe insists that we compromise with the tyrants to retain peace? Shouldn’t we expect our partners to retain agency, to do something when they see bad behavior? Trump’s tough-love behavior is because he doesn’t trust the European to do the right thing. Only time will tell whether it makes the world safer.
"Europe insists that we compromise with the tyrants to retain peace"?? What would you call The Trump administration's cozying up to Putin against Ukraine, to Rodriguez in Venezuela, and to Orban in Hungary, to name but a few? Can you give me an example where Trump has actually done something in international relations in pursuit of doing "the right thing"?
Of course! A country that chooses Trump as its leader must lose all trust.
They strain at gnats and swallow camels.
"Bad behaviour" ?
And you are setting yourself (ves) up to be that judge? Do you actually know ANYTHING about Iran? Have you ever visited it?
I've been there (just before the US Embassy was sacked).
I've been to Israel, too. A Holy Land. I've stood in front of the Wailing Wall, by Abraham's Tomb, by Christ's birthplace in Bethlehem, by the Al-Aqsa Mosque etc etc. I've seen how the Palestinians are treated.
Do you think that the US Media provides a balanced approach to ANYTHING? Do you think you know how the Iranians would choose their government?
When you have such monumental ignorance, and such wicked forces at work, do you think you can offer a fair assessment of "bad behaviour", when your President provides the example?
And you think that Decapitating a government, killing over a hundred young girls, all without any legal support from Congress or the UN, is somehow "honourable"? That ANYONE would ever support such an action?
Sorry, this was a reply to the post below (Irwin Singer), that somehow (my bad) ended up at the top level.
Part of what made America a more trusting and more trustworthy society was our sense—inherited from the English—that we were “exceptional” and more virtuous than such brutal earlier imperialists as the Spanish and the Portuguese. This informed our “Enlightenment” and democratic outlook. Over the centuries, however, perhaps beginning in earnest with the Supreme Court (contrary to mythology) sanctioning the Trail of Tears in the 1830s and culminating in Trump, the ideology of nationalism triumphed over this democratic outlook. In this way, the United States has come to affirm “Christian Nationalism”—the same idolatrous variant of Christianity with which the sixteenth century apologists for the Spanish empire sought to defend their genocidal misconduct—as the foundation of our imperialism. It is at this level that we must rethink our role and place in the world and, indeed, the “world order” as a whole. https://steven3c6.substack.com/p/world-politics-on-a-new-foundation?r=21x2h&utm_medium=ios
After Democrats elected a near corpse and then tried to insert a cackling word salad joke that never won a primary, well yes, why would the world trust the US?
The core of Americans trust Americans. What they don't trust is the elite ruling class... the corporatist oligarchy... the globalist administrative credentialed class... the fucks that fucked it all up before and then during the pandemic.
The rest of the world has been sponging off the US since the US passed the Bretton Woods Act to try and prevent the rest of the world from destroying the world. It isn't that they don't trust the US, it is that they are pissed that daddy is taking away their free apartment and car and making them work for it.
We are near $40 trillion in debt. Have crashing life expectancy. Millions of homeless. Crumbing infrastructure. A mess of socioeconomic problems. And the Democrats are pushing woke gender ideology, open borders, defunding police, and pronouns as the primary focus.
Who the fuck cares that other countries don't trust us. Do they trust communist China?
Fuck them. They mooch and loot off us and still claim we suck. So fuck them. They can protect their own damn country and sell their products to their own people. We will take our $1.5 trillion trade deficit and re industrialize buying our own products, and focusing our military on protecting ourselves.
You seem to believe that the solution to a Democrat President in obvious mental decline and a clearly incompetent VP is to replace them with a Republican President in an even more severe stage of mental decline and another incompetent VP (not to mention the underqualified nutjobs in the cabinet). It really isn't, and the fact that more Americans aren't really worried about the overall state of their ruling politicians on both sides should be a concern to Americans and non-Americans alike.
What percentage of Americans feel we are on the right path? 10%? 20%? We know we’re in trouble. This is bigger than Trump or the Democrats, liberals, conservatives, progressives, nationalists, etc. Where is the bold, positive, and authentically American vision of our nation’s future?
Australia made a massive bet on the U.S with the AUKUS agreement, thinking that the country would "correct itself" after Trump I. This looks like a huge strategic mistake now. No-one can be sure whether the U.S will honour their part of the agreement under Trump.
To the Australian government it never used to matter which party held power in Washington. Now Canberra has a clear preference, as a Republican Party that has allowed itself to become a whole owned subsidiary of The Trump Organisation is clearly a party that cannot be trusted.
Everyone has a responsibility to do something to better our future. May I guide you to “a third way” path? I am fighting for America in a new and different way, via an online “third path” to a better societal problem solving future at EthicalGovtNow.org. I urge all liberal thinkers to visit today, evaluate our path and join our patriotic movement.
Nothing to see here *, the collapse of trust in America by the rest of the world and by Americans themselves will have no negative real-world consequences.
(* sarcasm)
On the one hand, I really like the distinction drawn here—https://substack.com/home/post/p-191235964—by David Benjamin Blower. On the other hand, I do not think it adequate precisely because virtue was of central importance to the figure most responsible for the democratic revolutionary jurisprudence undergirding the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution—the Pennsylvania jurist James Wilson—as is evident in his law lectures and in the understanding of democracy that we inherit from Wilson and his allies that is now crumbling along with the rest of the collapsing house of modernity.
To my way of thinking, any “universalism” that fails to center Indigenous ontologies and experiences is so inadequate as to be false. If we ask how these Native peoples could maintain what my friend Steve Newcomb calls their “original free and independent existence”—including their very impressive lack of a “managerial class” or anything like it—part of the answer seems to me their rejection of the emphasis on the decisions of virtuous consciences that was so important to Wilson in favor of an emphasis instead on the peaceful interaction of respectful consciousnesses that were each responsible to seek to maintain alignment with the balance, harmony, and abundance that our Mother Earth provides—to be in “right relations.” I go into this a little in https://steven3c6.substack.com/p/we-the-people-between-immanence-and
Who is the most indiginous of the indiginous? If you can find them, does every other proto-indigenous get removed from worship?
Here’s a short answer to the question of why eurochristians and their heirs and successors do not, if they wish to be honest, even ask about who has some sort of greater claim on being most indigenous: the question exists to deflect from their (our) historic moral depravity: https://steven3c6.substack.com/p/world-politics-on-a-new-foundation?r=21x2h&utm_medium=ios