The question for experts is post Trump will the USA actually be a super power or just a big, rich country that is good at blowing things up? You could argue that the USA was the leader of the free world under Biden. Not now. For starters no one wants to follow it.
It's not entirely Trump's fault, but there has been a revolution in military affairs thanks to Putin and the Ukrainians. Events in the Persian Gult showed that when push came to shove the US was not prepared to put its ships in harm's way in the Gulf. They knew their ships could knock down a few drones but not swarms of them. There's only so many anti air missiles you can put on a warship and each costs a lot more than a drone. The Navy was the cheapest safest way of projecting power. Not any more.
Close air support is now done by drones not attack helicopters (that are sitting ducks to cheap drones) and fixed wing aircraft are not cost effective, or even effective at swatting down drones in large numbers. So the USA's military power is nowhere near as fearsome as was the case 5 years ago. Trump and his buffoon of a Secretary of Defense have done nothing to respond to this change.
But the bottom line is that as long as the Republican party fails to strongly repudiate Trump (which I can't see it ever doing) and as long as it remains a realistic chance of wining power in the not too distant future (which seems very likely) no foreign state is going to trust the USA as a reliable long term partner. My guess is the Trump will be the most consequential President in living memory. He single handedly made the USA a non-superpower.
Absolutely correct, yet Trump wants to increase our already outrageously bloated defense budget, laser-focused on now outdated, expensive technologies of warfare, and will likely succeed with a complicit GOP Congress. The rest of the world moves forward while we spend exorbitant sums to lag behind.
Yeah. This is why post-trump reforms (if there are any) can't stop at putting members of the regime in prison. The people who voted for him need to be punished as well. No one who voted for trump should ever be allowed to vote or hold office again.
Worse things happen if we don't. Republicans threw the rules out the window decades ago. If we keep both hands tied behind our back the way Schumer and Jeffries would have it, we're fucking cooked
Either the Republican party is allowed to exist, or we don't have a country anymore. Those are the options. There's no middle ground.
Deciding that some Americans don't deserve to vote because of their political beliefs is very Trumpian. This is fascist crap and you are what you believe. Shutting down political parties is a disgusting idea. There, I said it.
"Deciding that some cells shouldn't be allowed to stay just because they're malignant cancer is very trumpian. This is fascist crap and you are what you believe. Excising a malignant tumor just because it's right next to a vital organ is a disgusting idea. There, I said it."
Realize how fucking ridiculous you sound?
The Republican party doesn't want to have a political system. They *broke* the system. A party whose entire ethos is to destroy the system it's nominally a part can't be a part of a functional country.
Political parties have come and gone over the lifespan of the country. They're not sacred.
Try taking the time and energy you used to defend the American Nazi party and do a hint of introspection.
I traveled to Asia and Europe in the aftermath of Vietnam, low budget stuff where I put myself out there to be examined by the locals without the insulation of wealth. I can't recall any animosity directed at me by anyone beyond the normal give and take. Today, with a desire to repeat that experience in old age, I find myself questioning the wisdom of such travel. My hope is that this becomes less so as our country slowly recovers from the mass insanity that all to frequently descends on the USA. By then it might be too late, for me at least.
I have traveled abroad since the Orange Stain has been in office, and I have found that people did not treat me poorly. Of course, they kind of tiptoe around whether or not I support him, and when I say a vehement NO! they just want to talk to me about it. They are just so curious how anyone could have voted for him.
Interestingly enough, my mom and I were in Munich a few years ago, and we were on the train back from visiting Dachau. Some women from South Africa were sitting near us and struck up a conversation. They asked what we thought of Donald Trump, and we were both like we despise him. They were stunned. Really? We LOVE him! Afterward, thinking about it, it made sense.
I was on the other end of that conversation when I asked someone if they were from Britain. South Africa they replied, a recent white "refugee ". Did not get into politics for obvious reasons.
While I was living in Egypt I became friends with a South African woman who openly blamed the problems in her country on the government "giving everything away to black people." I was speechless.
Right you are Marianne. In Australia and the UK when it's clear a leader is driving the party to disaster he can be relatively easily removed by a majority of the governing party that will do this out of a sense of self preservation. But it's nearly impossible to move a toxic elected President in the US. And we've never had one as toxic and monumentally incompetent as Trump.
Those in the governing party these days behave like those who went into the phony phone booth and promised to do what Simon Bar Sinister (i.e. Trump) says.
It should have been very easy to remove this menace after January 6th. Instead, his party went for power over patriotism despite him much they try to drape themselves with the flag. The fact he escaped impeachment after J6 shows the system we have is flawed to the point it needs to be changed.
I compare him to a murderer who nobody can prosecute because of the difficulty it presents. Oh, wait...there are plenty of Gazans, Venezuelans and Iranians who have learned that he is indeed a murderer. Too bad Congress is so full of sycophants who are accessories.
What makes no sense is that it's 100 times easier to elect a president than it is to remove them. This is intrinsically wrong. The reason Trump's presidency has been a nightmare is because he knows he can get away with every crime he commits.
I agree. Now that we know that the Republicans in Congress are as complicit as Trump is, the process to remove a corrupt president virtually no longer exists. We need to institute some sort of recall provision in our Constitution. It is just utterly ridiculous that this situation is allowed to continue.
It took just one corrupt inhuman walking deadly tumor just a few years to unmake what it took Americans 80 years to build. To their credit, it all held together until the deadly tumor came along, and became the first president not to have even a small understanding of patriotism's real meaning.
Yes, Canada here. We consider you nothing but a predator now, not an ally. We actively hope for you to be weakened, as much as possible, so that you are less able to harm all of us. We see you as nothing but a source of harm now. Egregious harm. —And the moral recoil is retrospective. How could we ever have been taken in by your story. It seems so obvious now that you were like this the whole time. How could we have been so stupid all those years. —Well—never again.
You do realize that nearly twice as many Americans voted against Trump than there are Canadians in total? We are not all evil morally corrupt Trumpers, and there are millions of us out here trying to undo the damage he is causing.
America has had dangerous flaws in its political system since its beginning. We have also been a bully and a hypocrite, it is true. However, most of our diplomacy in our history has done good things for the world, but not anymore. Americans are learning the hard way how easily a fox got into the henhouse, and because Americans stupidly let him in. Our entire country as we knew it fell apart. Putting this crazy bastard in office, not once but twice, is inexcusable and we will be paying the price for decades. I hope this makes your schadenfreude day.
Trump has destroyed so many domestic programs that the poorest Americans have depended on. Millions are now without health insurance, food assistance, and inflation keeps rising. There's a bridge linking the US and Canada, built by Canadians, that Trump refuses to open - out of spite. His stupid tariffs have hurt American farmers and manufacturers, costing farmers their livelihood and employers to lay off workers or go out of business. Trump is a madman and we are stuck with him and his clown car of dolts and crooks helping him wreck everything he wishes to destroy.
Our nation is becoming the outcast nation, the equivalent of the kid who eats lunch alone.
At the rate things are going, will other nations band together to nuke us away, like a cancer? And would the US become the cautionary tale like Sodom and Gomorrah, the two cities that were so "evil", they were destroyed, and nobody could ever live in those areas again?
That's a bit too gloomy. My analogy would be the world will look upon the USA as a not particularly bright rogue elephant that needs to be managed thoughtfully but is best left alone. But even if it seems rational the calculation will be that it could go troppo in the not distant future.
And we must remind ourselves that so far, no one and nothing has stopped him. Good god, that speech he gave last night, someone should've dropped a net on him and carted his ass to the funny farm.
Hoping for democrats to crush fascism looks like a pipe dream. What most Dems in power seem to be focusing on crushing is any candidate who runs on a popular platform, that is to say popular with the people, not with corporations, the wealthy, or the genocidal fascists abroad— Israel. So no matter how much voters want to crush fascism, it would seem little help will be coming from the people who hold power. America is in deep trouble.
I'm always reminded of Kirsten Gillibrand and her Islamophobic sniping at Zohran Mamdani and Chuck Schumer's persistent refusals to do anything remotely useful for young progressive candidates. And the number of Democrats who voted to install Trump's cabinet nominees. And the ones who voted for massive military spending and to increase funding for ICE - and they say Republicans are so terrible?
“Greenland does not want to be owned by the United States. Greenland does not want to be governed by the United States. Greenland does not want to be part of the United States.”
This is actually a quote from Jens Frederik Nielsen, the elected Greenlandic prime minister. Thanks otherwise for an informative article.
The question for experts is post Trump will the USA actually be a super power or just a big, rich country that is good at blowing things up? You could argue that the USA was the leader of the free world under Biden. Not now. For starters no one wants to follow it.
It's not entirely Trump's fault, but there has been a revolution in military affairs thanks to Putin and the Ukrainians. Events in the Persian Gult showed that when push came to shove the US was not prepared to put its ships in harm's way in the Gulf. They knew their ships could knock down a few drones but not swarms of them. There's only so many anti air missiles you can put on a warship and each costs a lot more than a drone. The Navy was the cheapest safest way of projecting power. Not any more.
Close air support is now done by drones not attack helicopters (that are sitting ducks to cheap drones) and fixed wing aircraft are not cost effective, or even effective at swatting down drones in large numbers. So the USA's military power is nowhere near as fearsome as was the case 5 years ago. Trump and his buffoon of a Secretary of Defense have done nothing to respond to this change.
But the bottom line is that as long as the Republican party fails to strongly repudiate Trump (which I can't see it ever doing) and as long as it remains a realistic chance of wining power in the not too distant future (which seems very likely) no foreign state is going to trust the USA as a reliable long term partner. My guess is the Trump will be the most consequential President in living memory. He single handedly made the USA a non-superpower.
Absolutely correct, yet Trump wants to increase our already outrageously bloated defense budget, laser-focused on now outdated, expensive technologies of warfare, and will likely succeed with a complicit GOP Congress. The rest of the world moves forward while we spend exorbitant sums to lag behind.
Yeah. This is why post-trump reforms (if there are any) can't stop at putting members of the regime in prison. The people who voted for him need to be punished as well. No one who voted for trump should ever be allowed to vote or hold office again.
Tempting Lucius, but terrible things lie down that path.
Worse things happen if we don't. Republicans threw the rules out the window decades ago. If we keep both hands tied behind our back the way Schumer and Jeffries would have it, we're fucking cooked
Either the Republican party is allowed to exist, or we don't have a country anymore. Those are the options. There's no middle ground.
Deciding that some Americans don't deserve to vote because of their political beliefs is very Trumpian. This is fascist crap and you are what you believe. Shutting down political parties is a disgusting idea. There, I said it.
"Deciding that some cells shouldn't be allowed to stay just because they're malignant cancer is very trumpian. This is fascist crap and you are what you believe. Excising a malignant tumor just because it's right next to a vital organ is a disgusting idea. There, I said it."
Realize how fucking ridiculous you sound?
The Republican party doesn't want to have a political system. They *broke* the system. A party whose entire ethos is to destroy the system it's nominally a part can't be a part of a functional country.
Political parties have come and gone over the lifespan of the country. They're not sacred.
Try taking the time and energy you used to defend the American Nazi party and do a hint of introspection.
I traveled to Asia and Europe in the aftermath of Vietnam, low budget stuff where I put myself out there to be examined by the locals without the insulation of wealth. I can't recall any animosity directed at me by anyone beyond the normal give and take. Today, with a desire to repeat that experience in old age, I find myself questioning the wisdom of such travel. My hope is that this becomes less so as our country slowly recovers from the mass insanity that all to frequently descends on the USA. By then it might be too late, for me at least.
I have traveled abroad since the Orange Stain has been in office, and I have found that people did not treat me poorly. Of course, they kind of tiptoe around whether or not I support him, and when I say a vehement NO! they just want to talk to me about it. They are just so curious how anyone could have voted for him.
Interestingly enough, my mom and I were in Munich a few years ago, and we were on the train back from visiting Dachau. Some women from South Africa were sitting near us and struck up a conversation. They asked what we thought of Donald Trump, and we were both like we despise him. They were stunned. Really? We LOVE him! Afterward, thinking about it, it made sense.
I was on the other end of that conversation when I asked someone if they were from Britain. South Africa they replied, a recent white "refugee ". Did not get into politics for obvious reasons.
Oh yes, the dangerous nation of South Africa where the white people are so persecuted. 🙄
While I was living in Egypt I became friends with a South African woman who openly blamed the problems in her country on the government "giving everything away to black people." I was speechless.
To bad we cannot have a recall or a vote of no confidence. Kick him to the curb and restore at least a little trust.
Right you are Marianne. In Australia and the UK when it's clear a leader is driving the party to disaster he can be relatively easily removed by a majority of the governing party that will do this out of a sense of self preservation. But it's nearly impossible to move a toxic elected President in the US. And we've never had one as toxic and monumentally incompetent as Trump.
And our governing party is more of an enabling party who lets "Dear Leader" do as he damn pleases.
Yep, Diane. You even understated matters.
Those in the governing party these days behave like those who went into the phony phone booth and promised to do what Simon Bar Sinister (i.e. Trump) says.
It should have been very easy to remove this menace after January 6th. Instead, his party went for power over patriotism despite him much they try to drape themselves with the flag. The fact he escaped impeachment after J6 shows the system we have is flawed to the point it needs to be changed.
I compare him to a murderer who nobody can prosecute because of the difficulty it presents. Oh, wait...there are plenty of Gazans, Venezuelans and Iranians who have learned that he is indeed a murderer. Too bad Congress is so full of sycophants who are accessories.
What makes no sense is that it's 100 times easier to elect a president than it is to remove them. This is intrinsically wrong. The reason Trump's presidency has been a nightmare is because he knows he can get away with every crime he commits.
I agree. Now that we know that the Republicans in Congress are as complicit as Trump is, the process to remove a corrupt president virtually no longer exists. We need to institute some sort of recall provision in our Constitution. It is just utterly ridiculous that this situation is allowed to continue.
It took just one corrupt inhuman walking deadly tumor just a few years to unmake what it took Americans 80 years to build. To their credit, it all held together until the deadly tumor came along, and became the first president not to have even a small understanding of patriotism's real meaning.
A brilliant article Noah, but please note that Mette Fredriksen is PM of Denmark and not Greenland.
Yes, Canada here. We consider you nothing but a predator now, not an ally. We actively hope for you to be weakened, as much as possible, so that you are less able to harm all of us. We see you as nothing but a source of harm now. Egregious harm. —And the moral recoil is retrospective. How could we ever have been taken in by your story. It seems so obvious now that you were like this the whole time. How could we have been so stupid all those years. —Well—never again.
You do realize that nearly twice as many Americans voted against Trump than there are Canadians in total? We are not all evil morally corrupt Trumpers, and there are millions of us out here trying to undo the damage he is causing.
America has had dangerous flaws in its political system since its beginning. We have also been a bully and a hypocrite, it is true. However, most of our diplomacy in our history has done good things for the world, but not anymore. Americans are learning the hard way how easily a fox got into the henhouse, and because Americans stupidly let him in. Our entire country as we knew it fell apart. Putting this crazy bastard in office, not once but twice, is inexcusable and we will be paying the price for decades. I hope this makes your schadenfreude day.
Trump has destroyed so many domestic programs that the poorest Americans have depended on. Millions are now without health insurance, food assistance, and inflation keeps rising. There's a bridge linking the US and Canada, built by Canadians, that Trump refuses to open - out of spite. His stupid tariffs have hurt American farmers and manufacturers, costing farmers their livelihood and employers to lay off workers or go out of business. Trump is a madman and we are stuck with him and his clown car of dolts and crooks helping him wreck everything he wishes to destroy.
Our nation is becoming the outcast nation, the equivalent of the kid who eats lunch alone.
At the rate things are going, will other nations band together to nuke us away, like a cancer? And would the US become the cautionary tale like Sodom and Gomorrah, the two cities that were so "evil", they were destroyed, and nobody could ever live in those areas again?
That's a bit too gloomy. My analogy would be the world will look upon the USA as a not particularly bright rogue elephant that needs to be managed thoughtfully but is best left alone. But even if it seems rational the calculation will be that it could go troppo in the not distant future.
Yes, I admit that was a gloomy forecast. But that's only if nothing stops the worst thing from happening.
And we must remind ourselves that so far, no one and nothing has stopped him. Good god, that speech he gave last night, someone should've dropped a net on him and carted his ass to the funny farm.
Hoping for democrats to crush fascism looks like a pipe dream. What most Dems in power seem to be focusing on crushing is any candidate who runs on a popular platform, that is to say popular with the people, not with corporations, the wealthy, or the genocidal fascists abroad— Israel. So no matter how much voters want to crush fascism, it would seem little help will be coming from the people who hold power. America is in deep trouble.
I'm always reminded of Kirsten Gillibrand and her Islamophobic sniping at Zohran Mamdani and Chuck Schumer's persistent refusals to do anything remotely useful for young progressive candidates. And the number of Democrats who voted to install Trump's cabinet nominees. And the ones who voted for massive military spending and to increase funding for ICE - and they say Republicans are so terrible?
Everything trump touches dies, including America;s standing on the world stage.
Ugh, don't reference Tom Friedman. He's an Israel apologist and has been for decades.
“Greenland does not want to be owned by the United States. Greenland does not want to be governed by the United States. Greenland does not want to be part of the United States.”
This is actually a quote from Jens Frederik Nielsen, the elected Greenlandic prime minister. Thanks otherwise for an informative article.
Mark Rutte's strategy may be well-intentioned, but it’s deeply misguided. He debases NATO while fueling Trump.
We are sitting ducks.
Jens-Frederik Nielsen is the PM of Greenland.
I appreciate that he is compared to Vito, not even good enough to be Michael.
Why are you chopping onions in my kitchen so early in the day??