No matter what happens, I believe the author is correct. Europe will not trust the US in a long time. Trump actually has managed to destroy the image of America in the entire world, in a few months.
This realization may be painful for Americans. But we should know that the rest of the world understands us more clearly than we understand ourselves.
It seems to me most Americans here know what’s going on, and understand it well.
But overall I think most Europeans understand USA in a way most Americans don’t. We generally understand how USA as a society is sick, sick with selfishness to a degree it’s become sociopathic, and for some reason it refuses anything that could help cure it.
50 years ago USA was to many Europeans an ideal to follow. Today it’s a warning of what NOT to do.
A lot of our citizens have felt that way for decades. The only way to change it is to remove the money and lobbyists from politics. So in other words we are fucked. The sickness has long set in. Whoever can steer the ship has decided this is who we are, and a lot of us that vote seem okay with it. I fucken hate it here.
There are a lot of good and bright people in USA, unfortunately they are not the majority.
I thought for sure Americans learned something from 2 Presidential periods with Bush. But when Trump was elected first time, I knew the American people were “Beyond pedagogical reach”. An expression used here about people who refuse to learn.
Hopefully this time will be bad enough for enough American people to finally understand the lesson, so this doesn’t happen again in a life time. But I wouldn’t bet on it.
I fucken hate it here.
I feel for the Americans that tried to prevent this, because they can see Trump is evil.
And anyone who denies that Trump isn’t evil has to be both blind and stupid socially. Trump is a flaming malignant narcissist, and that’s basically the definition of pure evil.
I just wish all these protest movements would come together and ask our old allies for funding. We can fix it. Its hard and a lot of work, but sustained effort from three generations and we could fix everything. Thats not even that long in the grand scheme. But nah, let’s keep giving the suits heavy wallets while they destroy everything. Yeah, that sounds good.
Spot on take. It’s not hopeless though; greedy and selfish people typically reveal their own weaknesses as a result of arrogance. I don’t think enough people in the US take it seriously, but Im hoping that an entire generation of Americans does not want to die fighting over Greenland and Canada. We’ll see though.
“It seems to me most Americans here know what’s going on”
1/3 didn’t vote and a 1/3 voted for this. so by no definition do most people have a fucking clue.
The other day I was on Facebook and a dude that flat-out refused to vote for Harris because of her history in California as a prosecutor, posted that Trump was a complete idiot when it came to economics…
I was like bro you didn’t even vote… You and on a rant about how she was horrific at that anything would be better… And now here we are…
STFU bro
From what I see, most Americans here on Lemmy seems to know better than most Americans on average.
Actually it’s pretty clear a significant portion of the American population is enthusiastic about this. I don’t know what is provocative about pointing out that Americans are renowned for their racism, transphobia, and misogyny. This country had literal slaves for 200 years, has only let women vote for less than 100 years, and still pretends the Civil War was about states rights. Open your eyes: this IS what America wants, and who America has decided to become.
the floor for being enthusiastic about this is voting for it, so your first assertion is flat wrong. that none voting third is too apathetic to care about other people. the saying has been floating around for a while about the 1/3 that wants to kill you while the other third watches.
every country has committed atrocities. inherited sin is stupid. we can acknowledge the errors and systemic issues of our forefathers and move passed them.
That is true but we have the same problems over here too. The Putin Party (AFD) will be the strongest party in Germany soon and the rest of Europe does not look much better. We are all in this together and we are fu#@£&.
The Putin Party (AFD) will be the strongest party in Germany soon
I seriously doubt that, we had a similar party here in Denmark that topped at 22%. And even with 22% they never became part of government.
Even if AfD manages to become part of a government in the future, they will never have exclusive governing power like Trump has in USA. That’s the difference between a functional democracy, and the flawed democracy USA has.
AfD is mostly popular in the old East Germany, and German politicians need to figure out why that is. Why do they want authoritarianism again?
I have my suspicions, that it may have to do with not doing enough for ordinary workers, and giving too many privileges to the 1%. This is the problem in USA, where ironically they see Trump as resistance against that, when in fact he is part of the problem.
If AfD isn’t topping now, German politicians are doing something wrong. Do East Germans really favor Russia above EU?
If they do, they must be grossly misinformed.
The real reason is that German unification was done poorly and it benefited West Germany in a very disproportionate manner.
Most people and jobs migrated to west Germany and East Germany was left to rot.
Couple that with the fact that communism/socialism became a big taboo in Europe and capitalism’s faults were completely ignored, even when it was visibly failing.
When you ban and stigmatize the left so much, people will turn to the only side that actually acknowledges something is wrong, and in this case, only the far right has done so.
I too hoped they would stop at 20% but it looks like they will overturn CDU in the next survey. Numbers are on the rise in west Germany too.
And regarding the “functioning democracy” I am not to optimistic either. 😔
Glad you said something. As an American, I know we suck, but so does everyone else (to differing degrees - of course USA is still #1 🥲). We had a target on us for a long time, but Obama was in office when Brexit was happening. We were hoping for change with a black president and the UK was hating immigrants. We’re all the same, they just got to us first. I really hope other countries disdain for the US (often deserved) help lead them in different directions. There is a worldwide disinformation campaign, and it’s already taken hold in so many places. We are screwed at this point, but there’s still hope for other countries. Hearing people act like this is a US specific thing is honestly a little scary. People don’t realize how fragile everything is.
I do agree that Trump managed to destroy the image of the US in a few months, he’s not actually the sole reason. It’s the ~33% of the population that voted for him again that really destroyed the image of the US.
The world has known for a while that Americans are dumb, but the fact that we not only let him run for president again, but let him get elected again is the real loss of trust. We (in the broad sense, probably not any of us actually in this thread) voted for a felon, and as far as anyone can tell democratically elected a man who had already made us the laughing stock of the world in the past. They graciously forgave us once, and then not only did we not change, we doubled down on crazy. We’re a democracy, we’re all also a bit responsible for the destruction of our reputation by allowing this to happen and continue. Even those of us who have never voted for Trump.
Honestly yeah, that was it for me. Seeing him get elected this time was really this feeling of “Oh, that’s just how it is over there huh?”.
The first time I could just believe your voting systems are messed up with the electoral college and all, and the massive push back that happened. Feelings were also optimistic coming off the Obama years.
But now that he’s spent the last several years fully mask off, investigated up and down revealing all the crazy things we’d been hearing about him and his cronies were true, and he still gets elected? By majority vote too?? There’s no excuses.
The US is actually just like that huh?
Yeah, right after the election, we all had a few days of reckoning with ourselves in realizing what we allowed to happen, and realizing that maybe the US really is just like this. And then a whole bunch of people, turned their own guilt around on trans people, and people who were against funding a genocide, and the concept of “woke,” blamed them for the loss, and convinced themselves that they aren’t responsible for what happens now.
And to Americans, I know that there are limits to what we can do when Trump has majority support of every branch of our Government, and we’re rightfully scared of what they’ll try to do to dissenters. I know how strong the temptation is to sit back and smugly watch the FAFO roll in. But we also need to be loudly rejecting this whenever we can, otherwise we’re going to normalize it for a generation. I know it’s gonna be difficult. I have some family members who are in the cult, and I don’t know if I can talk them out of it. But sitting around waiting for my parents and grandparents to wake up on their own, or pass away isn’t a good plan either.
I actually am so sad about this. I’ve always been a patriotic American. To see my country (which has had its fair share of shit fuck) being reduced to nothing but a pile of cult worshipping narcissists brings me so much pain. I love and respect other nations, so trump sowing salt into the fields is like a stab to my heart.
My neighbors have officially gone insane. My country and the immediate world around me has gone insane.
I feel the same. I imagine this was the feeling of watching Hitler come to power and seeing the entire world burn. I fear this is the beginning of that again. All the signs are there.
I dont know what else to say… Many good people will suffer.
I really hate when people jump to Hitler. Trump isn’t Hitler and the US isn’t close to Nazi germany… yet. But we are certainly following close to Franco or Mussolini
Yeah didnt mean to anger you. But Trump is a bit crazy. He acts like a dictator.
70 days. He ruined the American image in 70 days. He’s a disgrace.
no no, the image has been atrocious for decades… but they were more or less reliable. even an idiot like Dubya could only fuck up things so much, at least for allies. but now after getting out of deals, disrespecting sovereignty of allies, general hostility, and demonstration of the checks and balances being dismantled … everyone knows that’s not the case.
reliability was literally the only thing the US had. it’s not like they produce anything worth a shit anymore. no one needs the US.
These MAGA idiots don’t get it. We didn’t just have a seat at the table, we had the seat at the head of the table. We were the richest, most prosperous nation. The nation nobody dared cross. The nation looked to for guidance and leadership. And now we’ve thrown it all away to become a fucking backwater. The North Korea of North America. God damn these pricks for destroying our nation.
