It’s just a common rhetorical tool used by fascists. If people don’t know when you are telling the truth and when you are “joking” you can say whatever you want and then judge public reaction before deciding whether or not to own what you said.
US products don’t dominate the information technology sector because they are inherently better than alternatives. They dominate because the US is the 800 pound gorilla and it’s just easier to use the defaults the US churns out. Every time a government uses proprietary technology, especially for anything that citizens/residents have to interact with, they give up a bit of their sovereignty. People and businesses that interact with the government shouldn’t be compelled to buy particular products from a foreign company just to interact with their government. I think Europe would be wise to move to open standards as much as possible, and start rolling a lot of their own technology. No, it’s not the easiest choice for the next quarter, or next year, but it will serve them well in the long term. The US is just too volatile.
Canada is definitely ditching the US, why shouldn’t Europe. As an American who will b negatively impacted, I can’t help but still encourage it.
All the fuck.
Removed by mod
I have no expertise, but I’m guessing that the world will adjust faster than expected and just start trading more with each-other and leave the US to rot on it’s own.
That’s pretty undeniable, but the important question is, will European liberals continue to be like Pelosi and Schumer? That’s the question that will determine if free Europe has a future. Fascists gonna fascist. It’s the rest of government that makes it possible for fascists to rule.
I feel like the image of America now is it’s true image.
Yes, and that’s embarrassing.
A culture of pawns ignorant or arrogant
I find that it’s “ignorant and arrogant” not an “or”. The two usually come together in my experience.
It’s not really all that different in America. We did a kinda informal merger between organized crime, local government, and big capital. Now we’ve merged in the federal government as well.
As an American, I feel like it’s us that Trump is humiliating. America is imploding.
But, why were they only in control for 2 years? What is it about Democrats that makes them so pathetic that they can’t beat fascists? They have theory, but it’s the same theory that has failed again,band again, and again, and again. If they just lean a little further right they will capture the precious “center” and start winning. It doesn’t work, and they are doing it again.
In an age of record inequality and the mass enshitification of everything by wealthy elites, the unstoppable force isn’t bigotry, it’s populism. A populist shift is inevitable. Right wing populism is fascism, and Republicans have embraced it with gusto. Democrats would rather lose elections to fascists than become a left populist party again. It’s that simple.
The Democrats blame a worldwide rightward shift for their latest loss, and it’s fair enough to see. However, the biggest exception to the trend is just over our southern border. They rejected neoliberalism for Democratic socialism, and their aging male president just successfully handed over power to a younger woman who will continue his work. This is in a country that’s culturally and religiously even more conservative than the US.
Democrats aren’t victims of our eroding culture, they are the ones responsible for the erosion.
I’m quite familiar with Biden’s accomplishments. How much of that won’t be undone by Trump? It’s no good to make what are really minimalist gains if you are going to throw the next election to a fascist. Biden certainly was an improvement over what we had with Obama and Clinton. So what?
The sad fact is that the Democratic party oligarchs just figured out the populist mood the country is in and gave Biden permission to loosen the reigns a bit. So he partially turned back just a few of the things we lost over the last 50 years. Income inequality continued getting worse though. That cannot continue if this country is going to survive, and neoliberals are incapable of doing anything that doesn’t make it worse somehow.
They are definitely the controlled opposition. In some cases it’s the same sponsors and in other cases it’s not. It’s a slightly more benevolent but also more elitist bunch of oligarchs funding the Democrats. There is more overlap in corporate interests though.
The Republicans never seem so pathetic when they are out of power. Besides, they have been (intentionally) pathetic for decades, not six weeks. Do you remember Trump disappearing when he lost to Biden?
At least the midterms is right. This midterm should be an easy sweep for the Democrats, but they are already blowing it. Democratic strategists are already openly declaring their intention to double down yet again on strategies that always fail. No matter how many elections you bungle as a Democratic strategist, they will always take you back.
Maybe they could help clue the Democratic party into the seriousness of the situation.
The hard power will be the next thing to go. Trump and his buddies are trying to make the US into Russia, and that comes with all the problems that rotted the Russian military from within. We already have plenty of corruption, but our generals have enough integrity to put their foot down when something might impact combat readyness. Trump’s loyalist buddies care only about the grift.
I’m not sure “drifting” is quite accurate.
That’s kind of a weird question. Russia isn’t communist and arguably never got further than state capitalism under the Soviet Union. Russia is certainly a dictatorship/oligarchy now, but so is the US (with extra steps that are currently being dismantled anyways).
We had that chance. We picked Biden instead. Now it’s “find out” time.
I didn’t predict it yet… it somehow feels like I should have.