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FuelDrop wrote:Has America finished descending into a dystopian third world hellhole yet? I hear that there are places over there where you can't even get clean water!
Of course there are. There always have been. America is BIG, and remarkably varied. Life has never been very similar for someone living in New York, New York vs someone living in McDowell County, NC, and that divide is only growing as of late.
But we're nowhere near third world hellhole. Trust me, everyone will know a long, LONG time before we get there, because once we can't play global sheriff anymore, other people will step into the void.
We're getting to that point now, honestly. Not the third world bit, but the "can't play global policeman" bit.
Since Trump came in, some have started taking to calling Merkel the leader of the free world. We still have a large nuclear arsenal, and the power that comes with it, but our government is so dysfunctional that I expect we've pretty much forfeited all political and moral leadership, except what we can command through free or that which is maintained by tradition/inertia.
The Romulan Republic wrote:We're getting to that point now, honestly. Not the third world bit, but the "can't play global policeman" bit.
Since Trump came in, some have started taking to calling Merkel the leader of the free world. We still have a large nuclear arsenal, and the power that comes with it, but our government is so dysfunctional that I expect we've pretty much forfeited all political and moral leadership, except what we can command through free or that which is maintained by tradition/inertia.
Leader of the free world is outdated. The best that can be don is to be an inspiration.
Why did the US deserve the moral leadership award before Trump?
The Romulan Republic wrote:We're getting to that point now, honestly. Not the third world bit, but the "can't play global policeman" bit.
Since Trump came in, some have started taking to calling Merkel the leader of the free world. We still have a large nuclear arsenal, and the power that comes with it, but our government is so dysfunctional that I expect we've pretty much forfeited all political and moral leadership, except what we can command through free or that which is maintained by tradition/inertia.
Leader of the free world is outdated. The best that can be don is to be an inspiration.
Why did the US deserve the moral leadership award before Trump?
I'm not sure we did.
We just deserve it even less now, and the whole world knows it.
The Romulan Republic wrote:We're getting to that point now, honestly. Not the third world bit, but the "can't play global policeman" bit.
Since Trump came in, some have started taking to calling Merkel the leader of the free world. We still have a large nuclear arsenal, and the power that comes with it, but our government is so dysfunctional that I expect we've pretty much forfeited all political and moral leadership, except what we can command through free or that which is maintained by tradition/inertia.
Leader of the free world is outdated. The best that can be don is to be an inspiration.
Why did the US deserve the moral leadership award before Trump?
I'm not sure we did.
We just deserve it even less now, and the whole world knows it.
Nice to see them catching up. Why is it less deserved now?
The Romulan Republic wrote:We're getting to that point now, honestly. Not the third world bit, but the "can't play global policeman" bit.
Since Trump came in, some have started taking to calling Merkel the leader of the free world. We still have a large nuclear arsenal, and the power that comes with it, but our government is so dysfunctional that I expect we've pretty much forfeited all political and moral leadership, except what we can command through free or that which is maintained by tradition/inertia.
Leader of the free world is outdated. The best that can be don is to be an inspiration.
Why did the US deserve the moral leadership award before Trump?
I'm not sure we did.
We just deserve it even less now, and the whole world knows it.
Nice to see them catching up. Why is it less deserved now?
Because leadership generally requires qualities like "empathy" and "tact" and "not conducting foreign policy via Tweet."
The Romulan Republic wrote:We're getting to that point now, honestly. Not the third world bit, but the "can't play global policeman" bit.
Since Trump came in, some have started taking to calling Merkel the leader of the free world. We still have a large nuclear arsenal, and the power that comes with it, but our government is so dysfunctional that I expect we've pretty much forfeited all political and moral leadership, except what we can command through free or that which is maintained by tradition/inertia.
Leader of the free world is outdated. The best that can be don is to be an inspiration.
Why did the US deserve the moral leadership award before Trump?
I'm not sure we did.
We just deserve it even less now, and the whole world knows it.
Nice to see them catching up. Why is it less deserved now?
Because leadership generally requires qualities like "empathy" and "tact" and "not conducting foreign policy via Tweet."
It depends on what happens, despite some hot rhetoric things are peaceful. Acting more like the rest of the West and large parts of other wealthy regions should give the US more moral authority if it stops warring proxy warring the fuck out of the planet.
The Romulan Republic wrote:Considering that Trump has threatened war with both NK and Venezuela in the last week, I'm not terribly hopeful of that.
I expect more "everything people hate about the US, dialled up to eleven, and done with less skill and more bluster."
He also said Hillary will be in prison. I don't take it seriously yet.
See, this is the thing about Trump, the perverse genius behind his stupidity: he throws out so many horrible, crazy, and often contradictory things that people don't know when to take him seriously, and can cherry-pick what they want to believe- or, as John Oliver put it, they can dismiss things "as just Donald being Donald".
It also makes it very hard to mount a coherent argument against him.
I'll grant Trump this much, and only this much- he has one true skill, and that is that he is a very effective con-man. In effect, he has taken bullshit to such a level that it has looped back around and become a perverse form of credibility.
