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[–] 56 points 4 months ago (14 children)

America isn't failing, it has already failed.

People so fucking unwilling to face reality, for any number of reasons. No one likes to admit that their actions or lack thereof might make them in some way culpable.

The cancer's been in us since Reagan. The Bushes, Clinton, fucking Obama didn't do shit about it because they were profiting from it. Just like they still don't actually care, because they're part of the owner class. They ain't the ones at risk from any of the insanity in the world. Their wealth, status, and privilege protect them.

Trump wasn't the cause of this. He's just the point at which the cancer had metastasized to the point it couldn't be ignored. Maybe we'd have survived if Biden hadn't been such a drizzling, spineless shit of an administration. Radical surgery and treatment might have been able to bring us back from the brink. Weakened, damaged, diminished, but able to recover if we hold to a new way of living.

Trump 2 was us deciding as a nation to be the smoker with COPD and two heart attacks lighting up another smoke.

Biden refusing to make examples of the ringleaders of the Jan 6 coup attempt - the congresscritters, media personalities, and yes fucking Trump himself - sent a message that was heard loud and clear. Treason's okay. If the leaders of the coup had been charged and tried for treason, with all that entails, then maybe it would have caused the cult to wither. Because it's not just the dumb, poor cultists you need to go after, you gotta get the leaders too. Cults can't survive without their leaders.

But maybe if Obama hadn't been such a spineless fucking coward, we wouldn't have been here. Whip your stupid party into shape, run roughshod over any wet pants senator or representative that tries to get in the way of delivering on those promises of aid programs for the people, tell Glitch to pound sand and just bypass Congress entirely and appoint Garland to the SCOTUS if Congress refuses to do its fucking job. Because the failures of neoliberalism set the stage for a fascist populist to take over. People wouldn't buy into that messaging if they were happy.

But there's no coming back from the kinds of damage Trump has done, both domestically and abroad. The damage that piece of shit Musk did with DOGE will be paying dividends for years, let alone what his little Hitler Youths were doing by stealing social security data and selling it off to Palantir.

America's dead. People need to stop being stupid and accept it.

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  • [–] 9 points 4 months ago

    Ha, If americans ever admit that they will be in for a world of change. And since change is uncomfortable, they will always talk about vague risks in the future instead of admitting they have already come to pass. There is no logic here, they state USA is number one even when by every metric they are not. Education, life expectancy, average quality of life, average income, rights, democratic systems and more are all below number one. The last bastion of american greatness was military, and look at it crumble. Vietnam has a better track record, yet you don't see them banging their chests.

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  • [–] -4 points 4 months ago (11 children)

    You’re kidding right? The nation built on slavery and genocide, that fomented 99% of the coups and dictatorships of the 20th century… started “failing” around Reagan’s time? Suuure

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  • [–] 5 points 4 months ago (10 children)

    You're not wrong. But that line of reasoning is literally without end. You're essentially talking about the problems that are caused by formal, enforced hierarchies.

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  • [–] -4 points 4 months ago (9 children)

    … dude slavery and genocide are not facts or all hierarchies. And I’m not a pro-hierarchy guy. But this is basically whitewashing one of the greatest evils the world has ever known, the great Satan, the American Empire.

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  • [–] 6 points 4 months ago (8 children)

    Slavery has existed since antiquity. That's my fucking point. You can do this "the actual original evil was X!" shit forever, because humans have been monsters to each other since the time of Sumer. Slavery, rape, genocide, it's all there because some rich asshole wanted more.

    I'm not disputing the horrible acts of America or the colonists and explorers that predate it. I'm saying that your line of reasoning isn't useful here and just distracts from the topic of discussion.

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  • [–] -3 points 4 months ago (7 children)

    The topic of discussion is what? Americans are ignorant of their own history? You know we can discuss whatever we want right? You don’t even need to respond to me, if this isn’t a “topic of discussion” you’re not interested in.

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  • [–] 4 points 4 months ago (6 children)

    I was trying to point out the fallacious reasoning you're operating under but you apparently come into discussion threads to talk about things that aren't the subject of the thread so you do you, champ.

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  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago (5 children)

    he nation built on slavery and genocide, that fomented 99% of the coups and dictatorships of the 20th century… started “failing” around Reagan’s time

    Truly though, I thought they were making a connection between a nation built on slavery and genocide, fomenting much of the coups and dictatorships of the 20th century and recent failures. I thought they were just pointing out that there's a pattern, and that it's rooted in our country's history.

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  • [–] 0 points 4 months ago (4 children)

    Doing those things didn't result in the nation failing. Being evil doesn't mean a nation is failing.

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  • [–] 0 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (3 children)

    Being evil doesn't mean a nation is failing.

    Are you actually serious?

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago (2 children)

    Yes. If being evil was what defined whether a nation was failing, I'm pretty sure the world would have nothing but failed states.

    How can you possibly believe that morality has anything to do with whether or not a state is stable?

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  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    I guess it hinges on whether you think a "successful" state is one that is life giving versus just "stable". I'm not saying morality has to do with stability, but rather what (to me) is the sign of a successful state of affairs. Evil doesn't fit in to my idea of success.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago

    I don't disagree, but it's hard to think of many states that are still around today that haven't done evil shit. If you're against the idea of uneven trade and exploitation of developing countries, it's probably not impossible to find a moral state.

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