Opinion | It Isn’t Just Trump. America’s Whole Reputation Is Shot.
What happens when a superpower goes rogue.
This is a well written piece full of astute observations. I have a problem with one point, though:
The new civilizational struggle is between hard and soft. Don’t overthink this. Trump is not playing four-dimensional chess and trying to pry Russia from its alliance with China. American foreign policy is now oriented to whatever gets Trump’s hormones surging. He has a lifelong thing for manly virility. In the MAGA mind, Vladimir Putin codes as hard; Western Europe codes as soft. Elon Musk codes as hard; U.S.A.I.D. codes as soft. WWE is hard; universities are soft. Struggles for dominance are hard; alliances are soft.
It's not the difference between "hard" and "soft" that matters here, it's the difference between "simple" and "complex". Trump, in every conceivable way, is a simple man, and his followers find that one of his most attractive traits. He, like them, neither understands nor accepts complexity and that informs his world-view and actions.
These are not mutually exclusive preferences, they can easily coexist in a single person. I think you're both correct, basically.
We could even examine if simplicity vs complexity have any coding as "hard" or "soft", if we wished. Say, a piece of equipment breaks, do I bust out technical sheets, troubleshoot what went wrong and replace a broken component, or do I whack the whole thing with a wrench? I would argue that the simpler option of intentionally failing to understand and whacking it with a wrench codes as "harder" than the alternative, due to stubbornness and unwillingness to learn/change being a component of our cultural understanding of "hard" in America.
Even if by some miracle we manage to stop this shit, which is looking more and more unlikely, we've basically lost the trust of pretty much every other country in the world we used to call a friend. You don't earn that shit back overnight and this is going to hurt every American for decades.
it will take a generation of good politicians trying to make amends, that aint happening if Republicans control all 3 branches of government
Its going to take generations of good leaders and good policy to repair the damage that has been done overthe past 25 years since citizens United passing.
and in my years on this planet, I have not seen a string of good leaders or good policy choices past a few years at atime.
additionally, throughout history when there’s ever a consolidation of power, it doesn’t get unconsolidated without a dismantling of that power. No leader, Democrat or Republican from here on will ever let go of the levers of power that have been consolidated. so we will be forever at the whim of the president we elect.
America’s cooked.
The experiment is done rampant cynical capitalism wins in America.
NO KIDDING.
Again, no shit? The whole system let this happen and we won't trust it again.