Der Spiegel on Trump's America: 'Is the world witnessing the collapse of a superpower?' Aldous J Pennyfarthing Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.) Monday April 13, 2020 · 1:05 PM CDT I knew Trump would be a disaster, but I didn’t expect his feckless fucknuttery to cut this close to the bone. “Make America Great Again” — a slogan that was always laughable on its face — now seems like a cruel practical joke, and we’re left wondering how we’re going to get through the coronavirus crisis before sanity is restored in the form of a functioning adult president. -this is from April, even worse now Spoiler But even though we’re already deep in the soup, and it’s become increasingly clear that a chipmunk with its head stuck in a Mountain Dew can would make a better president, other countries’ perspectives are still valuable. And, as it turns out, pretty jarring. In a recent article, the venerable German magazine Der Spiegel didn’t just recount the now-familiar litany of Trumpian failures that have made us the new world COVID-19 champion, it also speculated on whether this moment in history will be an inflection point auguring America’s twilight years. nlike in previous global crises, the U.S. is failing as a global leader. The country is currently too concerned with itself. Trump, as is so often the case, is trying to save himself by attacking the international organization that is supposed to coordinate the global fight against the crisis: the World Health Organization (WHO). He has threatened to defund the WHO because, he claims, it "blew it.” During his inaugural speech in January 2017, Trump also said: "America will start winning again, winning like never before.” Now the U.S. has become the problem child in the global battle against the virus. While China and South Korea have stopped the spread of the contagion for the time being and parts of Europe are trying to slowly return to normality, the U.S. is setting one negative record after the other. No other country has as many infections, and the White House itself is predicting up to 240,000 deaths by fall. A study by the Federal Reserve Bank in St. Louis estimates that 47 million Americans will have lost their jobs by June. The article cites our weak, patchwork health care system as one of our greatest disadvantages, but it also notes that a “capitalist system that is unrestrained during boom times, and unimpeded when it crashes” could bring us even lower than other nations. So low, in fact, that it might be worth speculating whether Trumpian Republicanism will, far from making us great again, ultimately turn us into an also-ran. Is the world witnessing the collapse of a superpower? Is the U.S. facing a "Suez” moment, as Washington-based political scientist Rush Doshi puts it? In the fall of 1956, Egypt won the conflict over the Suez Canal, thus demonstrating to the world that the days of the British Empire were finally a relic of the past. The end of the American era has often been evoked, but the signs of crisis have never been as clear as they are now. Although the virus began its spread at a market selling exotic animals in Wuhan, China has become the first country to contain the pandemic. It is now airlifting simple, but nevertheless scarce products to the U.S.: fever thermometers, masks and protective gowns. Uh huh. China is now sending us supplies. Think about how that looks to others on the world stage. Think how that undermines our status as a leader in the eyes of the world. If German journalists can see our fumbling, bumbling, and tardy response to the biggest challenge we’ve faced in decades, how silly do we look to governments in the rest of the world? And who might step up to fill the leadership role we’ve held onto since the end of World War II? Trump has always been a bag of bluster and little else. For someone who has desperately tried to project strength, weakness and incompetence have always defined him. And if he succeeds in anything, it may be in finally bringing America down to his level.
Not sure where to put this but if you have an e-reader, Vitale's The End of Policing is currently free on Verso.
What’s the premise behind disband? Just disbanding the aforementioned militarized police force, or as in getting rid of cops, in general?
Wait wait wait wait wait, you mean this, maybe, possibly, this ouster of Eva Morales wasn't on the up and up?
Got a youtube rec for a Joe Rogan interview clip titled "How the DC Establishment Tripped Up the Trump Presidency" featuring Krystal Ball and her co-host I don't know. No way I'm clicking that nonsense but what the fuck are they getting at?
Krystal Ball lost her mind sometime in the primary. The conspiracy wing of the left is bizarre and it's no wonder its predominantly what Rogan has on his show.
Ball isn't that bad, her co-host is like straight up some weird kind of leftist/liberal version of Tucker Carlson and has pissed off a lot of the prominent left voices on twitter.
trevor noah never has been funny but this is pretty vile https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marikana_massacre
FACEBOOK PITCHED NEW TOOL ALLOWING EMPLOYERS TO SUPPRESS WORDS LIKE “UNIONIZE” IN WORKPLACE CHAT PRODUCT https://theintercept.com/2020/06/11/facebook-workplace-unionize/
Why the hell would anyone outside of Facebook want to use Facebook as the basis for their work chat solution?
We were going over this in the Democratic Candidate thread. Seems like no one in Kentucky who is actually tubed in to politics likes her. Hope like hell Booker can at least win the primary.
This is from the book I’m reading. Pretty clear framing about systemic racism in housing in our country. Haven’t seen it put this way “The housing deficit that historically affected African Americans also persists. Black homeownership in today’s America is nearly the same as it was during times when housing discrimination was legal. That discrimination began in the 1930s when the government designed a plan to increase housing—but primarily for middle- and lower-income whites. Segregation was further promoted when the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) was established. The FHA began redlining—refusing to insure mortgages—in and around African American neighborhoods, while simultaneously subsidizing builders who were mass-producing subdivisions, as long as none of the homes being built were sold to African Americans. This was justified by the FHA’s theory that if African Americans purchased homes in these suburbs, the property values would decline, and the whites’ homes they were insuring would decrease in value. Americans’ racism and Americans’ desire to keep their home values up combined in a self-justifying feedback loop. The Fair Housing Act was passed in 1968, to permit African Americans to buy homes in these “white” neighborhoods. But in a 2015 statistic, the black homeownership rate was 33 percent for thirty-five- to forty-four-year-olds—lower than in the 1960s when housing discrimination was legal and segregation was still promoted by FHA policy. Any effort to address our housing deficit thus must boldly address the ugly legacy of racial discrimination, which has restricted access to affordable homes and better-funded school districts.”
I can't remember who it was but I believe someone on here said that a home near them was owned by white people and had a black lives matter sign on the front lawn. This was next to a sign that was against a proposition that would allow for mass transit. NIMBYism amongst liberals is grotesque.
I'm having trouble understanding why people in the Left thread would hate on Krystal Ball, of all people. She's one of the only people in MSM who regularly advocates leftist principles. I think she's great. She knocked this one out of the park, in my opinion.
The basketball players at the University of Kentucky and Louisville can be the Mandela's of Kentucky. They should refuse to play and will come back after their "fans" vote Mitch McConnell out of office.
She's not bad, I think The Hill has a few people who regularly make bad or disingenuous tweets an articles. her co-host on the show is pretty shitty though, he seems to fetishize right-wing populism at times, and I think she gets wrapped up in it.
i've gotten yelled at for disliking this before but she's a little too propaganda-y for me. she also gives in to silly lefty conspiracies that I get the WHY its good politics to say it, but it doesn't make it true. its what made me stop following ryan grim actively. i dont really watch any of these people with regularity except when they're shown on a twitch stream i might have on in the background, but even they've moved past her now.
the left decided russia/ukraine/etc is all counter productive for raising class consciousness and that it was a distraction from material concerns being addressed so everyone* decided to pretend it was dumb and fake *not really everyone, just a certain type of american dem left
True. That's been the narrative from much the entire left though. From someone like Ball to the Chapo boys. Idk. Like I said, there aren't many representatives from the left in MSM. Just find it odd that so many people itt seem to dislike one of the only people who actually fits that role.