What do we call it when a stronger person decides to rob a weaker person because he can? It is just gangsterism. We are the most dangerous gangsters in the world today. Not in the sense of being charming rogues or alluring antiheroes. We are the bad guys. Americans, as a people, are extremely allergic to the belief that our nation is a malign force in the world. It goes against our national mythology, it goes against our national education, it goes against the natural human impulse to imagine ourselves as good people. Additionally, under our current regime, it goes against a deliberate program of quasi-religious nationalist propaganda now being rolled out as fast as possible through every channel of the government’s power. Even the most credible news outlets in America can rarely bring themselves to portray us in the cold, accurate light that our conduct deserves. And the number of credible news outlets is shrinking as they are systematically being taken over by regime allies in order to broaden the larger propaganda campaign we are all living through.
The most generous interpretation of the U.S. as a global actor in 2026 is that we are in the hands of a bunch of amoral, dangerous gangsters, and that the stability of the world depends on the political opponents of Trumpism winning back control of the US government before too much damage can be done. The less generous interpretation is that the many systematic political and economic flaws built into our nation—investor capitalism, gerrymandering, the Electoral College, the antidemocratic nature of the U.S. Senate, the Supreme Court—are now, at long last, bringing about the final end of the age of American global dominance. That we are, in other words, on a ship whose thin hull has finally rusted through in too many places, that is going down no matter how fast the passengers desperately try to bail it out. Which of these interpretations you believe is mostly a matter of attitude. What is not debatable is that the United States government under Donald Trump is the most dangerous force on earth, and a serious potential threat to every other nation, and the leading cause of geopolitical instability. That usually causes a backlash.
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This is nothing new. The United State has behaved like the bad guys in some country or other for most of its existence.
But at least it tried to come up with justifications. Trump basically does away with that entirely. That’s what’s new.
The United State has behaved like the bad guys in some country or other for most of its existence.
And in its own territory too. This is just “manifest destiny” all over again.
You could paraphrase Trump this morning thus: “The oil is ours because we’re stronger and besides, we saw it first.”
Trump basically does away with that entirely. That’s what’s new.
This is one of the major lessons Trump is teaching the piece of shit future politicians. You can literally do whatever the fuck you want, no one will stop you and your state media will keep your voters in line.
Not sure if it’s just me paying attention more or what, but it has felt like since 2016 politicians globally have followed in trumps footsteps. There’s always a group that just acts like complete awful people with no repercussions
Yeah, that veneer of good intentions and plausible deniability hiding the fact that the US has always been a warmongering country was the basis of its position as a world leader. Now it’s gone, and the bare, ugly truth is right there for anyone to see
Well, of course we’re the bad guys. We’ve always BEEN the bad guys. The United States was founded on genocide and land theft.
I despise the disinterest I see in “normal” peoples’ reactions to this. Saying “that’s horrible”, then literally tuning out and checking their investments and raising rents on their tenants and clicking their tongues at anyone who brings “politics” up further. We created a nation of completely selfish and self-interested cowards, and handed them the title of “Centrist” to hide behind so they could tell themselves their cowardly inaction was not just justifiable, but in fact morally superior to taking a stance.
I’m not a Christian, but I grew up in an on-again, off-again religious household. I never understood the emotion behind Revelation 3:16:
But since you are like lukewarm water, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth!
Feeling the disgust and rage I do at seeing the selfish indifference and willful ignorance of the “moderate” people in my life towards what is happening, I understand it now.
To every innocent we’ve been responsible for killing, maiming or causing suffering we’ve always been the bad guys. The difference now is the scale.
So far it’s a much smaller scale than your war on terror when you fucked up Afghanistan and Iraq for 20 years.
Ugh. The its always been like this. It has never been like this. Since trump took office we are functioning in a way we portrayed russia as behaving in the 80’s. How well a country does is pretty closely aligned with how low the corruption is but we are so tied into the world economy. Ugh this is just bad for everyone.
It’s always been like this, you’ve been fucking over South America for basically your entire existence.
The only difference is the PR.
I think the Vietnamese and Iraqis and Afghanis and Native Americans might disagree with you. Red Scare and Manifest Destiny and Islamophobia were the convenient ideological covers used to pretend we were not just goons with guns and bombs in the past, but Europe (who is usually our partner in whitewashing our violent actions) don’t share our current government’s anti-hispanic hate in the same way they did those others, so we’re not finding the same ‘support.’
We’ve been corrupt since our founding (morally, killing native americans to steal their land. Economically, being built on slavery despite it being considered repugnant even at that time. Politically, enshrining rights like voting or property ownership only for white men, etc etc.). People around the world have been discussing our evils from the beginning, but since we only really get exposed to either Ameri-centric and Euro-centric views, it’s easy to think this is new or different, behavior-wise.
Ugh. These args are tiring. Basically if you can point to anything historically then its always been bad and its never been better. What you talk about is something in mankind and has equivalents everywhere. The difference now is a baldface ignoring of the system the us is governed by and with international law. Previously shenanigans were done either by intrducing bs laws or fucking with the system or good old fashioned cover ups. This is literally 1984 newspeak now in the country.
@alyaza “Always have been”
Welcome to the last fifty years.
Shoot. Now what?
