After one Trump presidency and on the eve of another, it is now clear that a once mighty global superpower is allowing its gaze to turn inward, to feed off resentment more than idealism, to think smaller.
Public sentiment – not just the political class – feels threatened by the flow of migrants once regarded as the country’s lifeblood. Global trade, once an article of faith for free marketeers and architects of the postwar Pax Americana, is now a cancer eating away at US prosperity – its own foreign invasion.
Military alliances and foreign policy no longer command the cross-party consensus of the cold war era, when politics could be relied upon to “stop at the water’s edge”, in the famous formulation of the Truman-era senator Arthur Vandenberg.
Now the politics don’t stop at all, for any reason. And alliances are for chumps.
The Republican war on the middle class is what’s killed the American Dream. Doing everything possible to reduce the buying power of white and blue-collar workers has gutted class mobility. The Democrats have played along to keep shifting the Overton Window towards the right to help make it happen. Donors happy all around as they move production offshore for low labor cost.
System working as intended.
It was an obvious lie decades ago. Nothing has changed
Oh yes it’s changed alright, the lie has become bigger.
Consider the TV show married with children, a shoe salesman is married and has 2 children a house and a car, on a single lower end income.
And it wasn’t completely unrealistic back in the late 80’s to mid 90’s.“late 80s to mid 90s”
Calm down cowboy! Grunge music didn’t come from nowhere, the X generation started to feel the pain in the 80s with high unemployment, McJobs and crazy interest rates! Things didn’t look good for them either!
Here’s a very brief explanation of what happened.
In 1960 minimum wage was $1.00/hour and the price of the average US home was $11,000.00 A popular tour guide was called “Europe on $5.00 A Day” [over the years they did specific cities like Paris or Rome or London…]
In 1964 LBJ decides that he can win the War in Vietnam with a massive buildup and increased bombings. He prints paper money to pay for it, because he doesn’t want to raise taxes. The plan is a miserable failure and protests force LBJ to step aside. In 1968 we elect ‘peace candidate’ Nixon [who sabotaged the Paris Peace Talks]
Nixon kept LBJ’s plan and increased spending. He knew the War was unwinnable but thought he could kick the problem down the road and let the 1976 President deal with ‘losing’ the war.
By 1976 inflation was a major problem, not helped by the Arab Oil Boycott that tripled the price of gas overnight. All those cool loft buildings you see in places like Manhattan used to be small factories making things like purses, clothing, toys etc etc. The owners moved the businesses to the US south where there were fewer Unions.
Jimmy Carter hired a man named Paul Volker to deal with inflation. Carter got voted out before the Volker plan could kick in, so Reagan got the credit for Carter’s ideas.
Reagan’s own Veep, George HW Bush called the Reaganomics trickle down “voo doo economics” until Reagan offered him the #2 spot on his ticket.
In 1968, when Nixon started waging War with paper money, “middle class” was one Union job paying for a family of four with a nice savings account. In those days, $1 million was still considered a vast fortune. By 1992, when Bush Sr. was finished, middle class was two incomes to run the house and $1 million was what a rich guy paid for a party.
That almost sounds like you are blaming LBJ. Nixon was the one who caused the 1970 economic disaster that led to everything after. He ended the gold Standard and gave unfettered power to banks. Inflation was the goal as inflation directly benefitted real estate. The owner class became obscenely rich quickly, and it never stopped.
LBJ thought he could win Vietnam with a single bold stroke. Nixon knew the War was unwinnable, but once the US forces were bogged down he kept redoubling down. LBJ made a terrible mistake, but it was Nixon who really screwed things up.
And you’re leaving out so much (just like I will)… While all of this is going on, Nixon jumps in bed with Kaiser Permanente to convert all health-care into a for-profit enterprise. All of the unions are demonized and bastardized. Now you have the majority of the people in the US vulnerable and afraid where they can be completely controlled. Simultaneously, you blame everything that is happening on public education so that you have generation after generation of stupid people who are even easier to scare and manipulate and who will no longer believe the actual truth-tellers.
Like I said, very brief…
Yes
There are worse ways to spend your life than chasing the American dream. But once you’ve found it, like I did in Vegas, what’s called the old Psychiatrist’s Club, then it is kind of puzzling. You feel kind of naked and alone out there, because once you’ve found the dream, it is generally just a slab of burned-out concrete in Las Vegas called the old Psychiatrist’s Club, then it’s kind of hard to go on from there on the same.
- Hunter S. Thompson, November 1, 1977, Lecture at the University of Colorado (Boulder)
I still think a bloody class war would go a long way.
More than half your class is too busy licking their boots to unite against them. They’re grateful for the scraps they’re being given, while worshipping their masters.
I completely agree. That’s why Fox News exists. It was meant to create the bootlickers, and create the division.
There’s a lot more than Fox out there echoing the narrative that times are hard, inflation is killing you, and there aren’t enough homes to go around. Wapo and NYT would happily recount Trump’s claims that it’s because immigrants are taking all the houses and jobs while Biden policies are making everything expensive. Doesn’t matter if they follow up with long-winded explanations that his claims aren’t true, because most people stop listening when they hear there’s someone to blame.
You make excellent points. The divide in this country was well researched, and well planned. The fears, and insecurities of the conservative base have been coddled, and amplified to great effect.
You see and hear it all the time, the “news” repeats the lie and says something like “and while there’s some truth to that, what’s more impactful…”
So they sort of disputed it but not really and they got to repeat the lie.
Trump was right about one thing, the media are not our friend. They’ve profited from him at every step, propped him up, coddled him, both sides of the media are complicit. When the pogroms start, I hope the talking head media elite are on the lists.
I think the boot lickers will change their minds when it starts to affect them.
i hope so. we need it to collapse asap so the rest of the third world can thrive
Sudden collapse of the world’s largest economy will severely fuck up third world countries.
it wont be sudden. we are preparing for tge eventuality already. the writing is on the wall.
it wont be sudden, and we are ready for the eventuality
How would that in any way help developing countries?
Not saying I agree that the fall of the US would help others, but we sure have fucked up a lot of countries over the years and it would be great if we stopped doing so. We’ve illegally prioritized the capitalist agenda at the expense of international progress time and time and time again. Imagine what South America might be like without US interference in their governments.
I agree the fall of the US would definitely hurt basically every other economy in the world, in the short term at least.
The rest of your statement lays out a really good reason why a lot of people would cheer though. The U.S. has absolutely brutalized South America with its constant meddling (almost always at the behest of private industry) and is responsible for most the pain there. I can’t really say I’d blame them.
we wont get forced to use your financial system, and we wont be under constant influence to liberalize and sell assets to the us. under threat of invasion and destruction.
did you ever notice every single country not subjugated by the us is considered a “brutal dictatorship” that must be invaded and killed?
No I didn’t, because it isn’t true.
Yet another case of accurate tagging. Accelerationist trash.
the only thing id like to accelerate is popular revolt
us collapse != world collapse.
An ignorant and heartless position that I accurately sussed out
💔😢
toughts and prayers to you
Tankies gonna tank
Many of those countries use the USD as their primary or only currency. Though if the collapse is more gradual I suspect they’ll be using the RMB like the rest of us before it’s all said and done.
That’s unrealistic. You think the fall of America is going to be a simple affair? Here’s just one reason it won’t. All those aircraft carriers and submarines full of nuclear weapons. What happens with those?
Be careful what you wish for.
All those aircraft carriers and submarines full of nuclear weapons.
they stop being used against us.
this threat is empty because you already use all of these against us.
Who is “us” here?
What happens with those?
What happens when the crews stop getting paid? You think they are just going to walk away? You think those weapons will just disappear?
What makes you think the next boss is going to be any better?
Fascism loves a power vacuum.
I have no idea why someone down voted something that obvious.
Don’t worry about it. That’s a dozen reasons someone might downvote a perfectly good comment, and none of them are worth thinking about.
How did one so young gain such wisdom?
they can be taken care of by the rest of the world once the terror infrastructure stops being maintained
I’m sorry, but that’s an absolute fantasy.
When have you seen anything like that level of international co-operation?
And have you stopped to think that there are a lot of rich and powerful people with a strong vested interest in keeping things going the way they are.
yes. and these powerful people are mostly located in the us.
collapse away, please.
Mostly.
Think the world would be all sunshine and friendship if the Saudi princes had the US arsenal? Putin? The people at the top didn’t get there because they played nice and shared their toys.
Be careful what you wish for.
No dumbass, they don’t just go away.
we can clean it up once the boots are off our throats, thanks for your concern.
That’s unrealistic. You think the fall of America is going to be a simple affair?
You think
think
You are asking a lemmy.ml user…
Right wing propaganda networks pumping out fear of immigrants 24/7 was all too successful. We need to find ways to combat this and the type of drivel this article purveys. We have to find ways of coming together instead of letting these populist movements divide and conquer.
The US has lost faith in the american dream and the world has lost faith in the US.
We’re moving on!
Bit more than that, it’s maybe the end of American influence in the world because the neocon 3.0 agenda will bring intense economic strife and social suffering. The environmental and regulatory policies will lead to infrastructure deterioration and polluted air, water etc. The health policies will lead to a weak and sick population. The rich and upper middle class will live in Nordic countries or Europe, as they mostly already do, where they will enjoy the social policies that they deprive Americans of. Most talent will likely go to other countries. But I seriously hope I am wrong.
american dream was lost a while back. now its a matter of losing american sanity.
The American dream has changed so many times through the generations I’m not sure there’s any cohesive vision. I remember it used to be owning a house, having kids, and being self sufficient. Nowadays I don’t think young people even want kids- having time and money to have fun seems like the dream, which is sort of… bleak? That should be the bare minimum, but the older generations failed them.
If the kids in middle school are any indication the American dream is now to become a popular streamer
I’m still amazed at the catastrophic damage one single generation can do to a country, voting for terrible policies over and over again (Reagan, Bush, Trump). Refusing to admit when things are not working, turning instead to a propaganda apparatus, preferring to detach from reality. And they’re not even done (dead) yet…
Their hold is so strong we elected a guy with dementia over a healthy qualified person. At this point only death canl release their grasp
Pfft, they havent lost faith in it. They just voted against it because they’re all uneducated morons who take lies at face value.
ask again in 4 years when the rapist refuses to step down and his court lackeys back him on it
I dont think he makes it 4 years. He is just the means to an end. Vance i think 25th amendments him Jan 21, 2027. That way he wont serve 2 years and can run for 2 full terms. Its that or they just kill him. Dems will 100% get the blame and it could get even worse.
I think it is if you serve more than half a term it counts as 1 term for purposes of the 2 term limit.
You’re cute that you think we’ll have elections again. Before the midterms, they’ll run a false flag operation so they can declare martial law and cancel elections.
“If I’m elected, you’ll never have to vote again!”
We’ll have elections just like Russia and China do
This has been my thought lately as well. Donald Trump is simply a convenient means to an end. He is so ignorant and narcissistic that he will never see it coming when he is eventually given the Julius Caesar treatment by the techno-fascists.
The real oligarchy that is actually wealthy instead of pretend wealthy is chomping at the bit to get in the big chair permanently. Now that there is ample precedent with multiple assassination attempts on Donald Trump’s life, all they need to do is have him assassinated for real, declare martial law as you said, and then install their chosen dictator as the public lever puller.
They can blame this on whatever patsy is most convenient to allow them to swiftly tighten controls on an unsuspecting public. The ironic part being that in a twisted turn of fate, we may eventually end up in a situation where some of the people who got deported turn out to be the lucky ones. As Aimé Césaire warned, fascism is colonialism turned inwards, and whatnot…
This, of course, assumes he doesn’t just drop dead of any one of a dozen age-related health issues one day.
If Trump dies in office, I’d prefer it to be a lighning strike while he’s golfing.
Something that even the craziest of the MAGAts can’t get away with blaming on the democrats.
You think the Jewish space laser people won’t just immediately start screaming that the Haitians have built a lightning shrine on the island or something like that? We are no longer bound by reality in reporting, much less truth
Don’t forget that they claimed hurricane helene was manufactured by the dems and sent to the states it went through for the sole purpose of killing Republicans ahead of the election.
I really wish I was making that one up…
Trust him, the new ‘Messiah’ will hold back every hurricane with his neutron bombs. /s
If Trump dies in office, I’d prefer it to be a lighning strike while he’s golfing.
Believe it or not, some of them believe Democrats control the weather. I can hear it now, “Democrats assassinated Trump with lightning!”
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I’ve been thinking a lot about this, like others, and found one kernel of hope to hang onto: the only way to know a democracy is safe from internal threats is to test that democracy. This is that test. This is the tyranny of the minority that the founding fathers were worried about. This is the stress test for democracy and I pray wiser men have stymied the most malicious people in American history.
If we get through this, and are faced with another Reconstruction period, we must be diligent and exterminate bigotry and corporate undermining of government bodies.
“The reason they call it the American Dream is because you have to be asleep to believe it.” - George Carlin
Yes.
Yes it is.
