Many of us see it, but many others seem to be embracing it and trying to hasten it for reasons unknown. They pine for the glory days of post-WWII US hegemony but are actively undoing the institutions that were instrumental in US economic and political power at that time. They have no coherent world view, they are severely confused, but unfortunately numerous.
Well people pushing for this have a world view.
They see a bipolar world with China dominating Asia,
US dominating it's hemisphere and Europe fending for itself.
They also have major crypto holdings so instability of both major currencies benefits them financially.
I actually have a greater disgust for those who see it but don't act. I think this line from an incredibly relevant book is precisely this:
> "Your ‘little men,’ your Nazi friends, were not against National Socialism in principle. Men like me, who were, are the greater offenders, not because we knew better (that would be too much to say) but because we sensed better.
Those who act on behalf of evil are not free from guilt, of course. But the truly damned are those who sense better but look the other way. They walk in the footsteps of the millions who tacitly supported the last time this evil took hold of the world, by not acting.
"What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise"
Wow, seems on point.
Wow
"kept us so busy with continuous changes and ‘crises’ and so fascinated, yes, fascinated, by the machinations of the ‘national enemies,’ without and within, that we had no time to think about these dreadful things that were growing, little by little, all around us."
I think it's fair to say that neither ideology is free from evil, and choosing the "lesser evil" is still choosing evil. Every good or well-meaning movement I've seen has been taken over once it reaches a certain size.
1. Our post WW2 neocolonial activity and the current admins push to sort of blatantly get control over Venezuela and Greenland.
2. Our WW2 manufacturing and export based economy that made us wealthy. Is similar to the current admins push to reform us from importers to exporters using tariffs and rebuilding manufacturing (at least on the surface the execution of this has been terrible).
The number of Trump apologists lunatics who do not seem to understand what MAD was about is staggering.
Industrial scale warfare isn't some secret forgotten by accident.
The current American power-trip fantasy delusion is rightfully scaring the shit out of people, and the scary thing is the people who aren't scared.
It's reaching the point that I think the best thing is for Germany to detonate a nuke between the US and Greenland just to wake up the idiots who think it would be unreasonably difficult.
--
Edit: I see people are misunderstanding me as saying they should use the US bombs stationed there. I'm saying they should build their own - to have people remember that It's not really that hard if you have a functioning industrial sector.
Don’t let your hatred blind you to the ground we all stand on.
As pointed out you have built your worldview of drastically misunderstood table stakes.
I do agree Europe should become first mover but they are stuck in a world where they were a dependent and weakened non player for so long now they forgot how.
Germany is a non-nuclear-weapon state. Our bombs are there yes, but if you use one of our bombs without our approval there will be hell to pay. An invasion of Greenland will be all but guaranteed. Whether Germany will retain its military the next day is questionable.
Germany will be glass if they tried. Berlin will glow in the dark. They wouldn't even consider it in government. Their planes wouldn't make it off the ground.
This is a hilarious take. Which ally is the US a traitor to or will be a traitor to again? You sound emotionally invested in the fake drama and propaganda of Trump.
Not so fast, though. A state can be a "killer", or a "giver", or both, to gain followers and sell its currency to other states. The US was both back in the 40s as well as the late 80s when Germany and USSR crumbled. So hail to Pax Americana.
However, the US is more of a "killer" nowadays. The "killer" is usually more efficient than the "giver", because people value their life more than their wallet. So that's why I think she still has some time left. I don't blame it on Trump though. Being a "giver" is a lot more trouble than being a "killer", and I think the US elites gradually rolled back from the role of "giver" since many years ago. Trump is just here to remind other states that the US can and will be a very efficient killer.
And this is probably the most dangerous time for other states because she cannot afford to lose.
>The US was both back in the 40s as well as the late 80s when Germany and USSR crumbled. So hail to Pax Americana.
This is the historical equivalent of selective memory, and only really applies to a tiny slice of the planet - western Europe.
A lot happened in the world between 1945 and 1989. Outside of Europe and Japan, most people would probably not be so sympathetic of the US actions during those times. An abridged list:
* Iran 1953 - US and UK overthrow democratically elected PM, install brutal dictator
* Guatemala 1954 - US via CIA overthrows democratically elected president, install brutal dictator
* Brazil 1964, Chile 1973, Argentina 1976 - US supports brutal dictatorships replacing democratically elected governments
* Iran/Iraq 1980s - US funds both sides in the war
There are also many Americans who have always desired de-dollarization, since the dollar has been the foundation of our imperial system and abuses of state power. Say what you will about how dated a gold standard is, but it forces immediate fiscal responsibility upon governments; fiat currencies defer responsibility, turning it into a Sword of Damocles that catastrophically falls upon future generations. You trade geopolitical dominance now for guaranteed future withering. Of course, fiscal responsibility and the rejection of imperial ambition were core principles of the Anti-Federalists, Democratic-Republicans, and Whigs. It's baked into our history and tradition to not want to be the unilateral arbiters of a global trade and alliance system.
> Say what you will about how dated a gold standard is, but it forces immediate fiscal responsibility upon governments
We were on metal standards for millenia. Governments routinely spent beyond their means, including for imperial aims. This is like four centuries of Roman history.
Yes, but there were practical limits to currency debasement when the currency was a physical commodity with intrinsic value. People notice when their coins start getting filled with lead, and there were serious political repercussions for it. You cant just conjure a trillion gold/silver coins out of nothing like you can with fiat, and the ability to do so is 100% guaranteed to be abused.
> there were practical limits to currency debasement when the currency was a physical commodity
"In the second century, a modius of wheat (approximately nine liters), during normal times, had sold for ½ Denarius…. the same modius of wheat sold in 335 AD for over 6000 denarii, and in 338 AD for over 10,000" [1].
Note that inflation can also occur with zero debasement if the economy around the fixed money supply collapses. This happened in Rome when Pompey and later Augustus were trashing trade routes. It may have even led to the collapse of India's ancient democracies.
> there were serious political repercussions for it
There weren't. The state historically borrowed from the hilt of the sword. Economic collapse constrained kings and emperors. Not politics.
What @cheeseomlit said, plus: During the Age of Exploration/Colonization, competing European powers each minted metal currencies and couldn't reasonably debase their metals without immediately being out-competed (which is why the trusted purity of Spanish gold and silver coinage slowly dominated). The primary mode of failure for those empires was bankruptcy via war. The impossibly high cost of fielding armies around the globe was laid bare during that era. Paper money lets us (funnily enough) paper those costs over and live with the illusion that it's all a free lunch. But what we're actually doing today is debasement, and eating, vociferously, all of the deflationary efficiency gains won by 20th century technological progress.
> During the Age of Exploration/Colonization, competing European powers each minted metal currencies and couldn't reasonably debase their metals without immediately being out-competed
You're hitting the nail on the head. Metalness didn't matter. It was competition in money supplies (and strength of private property).
The fact that a banker in Italy could finance (or not) a war by Great Britain is what restrained governments. Same as in the 1990s, the bond market was king.
The historical record simply does not support the hypothesis that metal-based economies are more peaceful or inflate less than modern fiat-based ones. I'm open to revising that opinion if someone has re-run the data. But everything I've seen comes from blogs that start with the conclusion, itself reached from assumptions from first principles that rarely contemplate how armies were actually financed in antiquity. (Hint: they take your shit. Marketing campaigns sharing the martial term isn't a coincidence. If you're a general in the olden times, you got wealthy through your commission because your army took the enemy's shit. If you needed help getting there, you paid a 'friendly' visit to your nobles.)
Saying “we gotta get Greenland” when the people in Greenland say they don’t want to join the US. Then refusing to rule out using force. If you want to say that no exact act of treachery has been committed, then substitute “treacherous words”, which also harms alliances.
Invading ones allies has been treacherous for millenia. If you want to be pedantic, you can say the U.S. President is openly threatening treachery, and showing as part of his character an affinity for it.
This is about way more than a few tariffs. Think Venezuela, think madman jizzing over the idea of invading greenland, or just throwing tantrums on an international scale.
But Iraq, Afghanistan, Grenada, Panama, Vietnam ... were not a problem?
Ahistorical BS, I am sorry. As if Trump is a radical departure of NORMS. Euros were chanting HO HO HO CHI MIN in 1968 in the streets of Berlin and Paris.
There is a long tradition of anti-American feelings outside the US, like with any hegemon.
The global left had to build walls to keep their people IN, crush them with tanks, from Prague to Berlin to Beijing. So there is that.
HN turning so left is weird to watch, I guess a reflection of PG's stances and moderation/group votes. Well, money does not give a fig.
We're not going to debate the measuring stick when the stick itself is incapable of measuring the outcome.
In none of those scenarios provided did a sitting US president come close to insinuating acquisition of land by "hook or crook" - either agree with us or we take it.
The closest modern discussion that comes to mind is the PRC saying they could militarily "walk in and take the whole this afternoon" in regard to Hong Kong.
Thatcher, for all her wrongs, provided a salient response:
"There is nothing I could do to stop you, but the eyes of the world would now know what China is like."
The US has shown the world what we're like with the current administration.
I believe Saddam Hussein would disagree with you, if he could.
Just bonkers how basic history is getting rewritten.
"The great satan USA" has been a slogan since the 1960s. The US dropped napalm and agent orange on Vietnamese civilians en masse - Lyndon B Johnson was what, a good guy?
Maybe, maybe not. We're currently the Soviet Union in the 1970s. Gerontocratic. Sclerotic. Hyped up on a new mythology. And economically uncompetitive on several levels, with the future (then computers, now elecrification) sweeping past us to our applause.
Unlike the Soviets, however, we can see it happening and debate it. If '26 and '28 change course, the damage will still be done. But the America Empire is still young. And Trump's stupidest policies–the tariffs, fighting the Fed, Greenland and raising a Gestapo–don't have the support of most Americans. That leaves hope for reform through electoral pressure.
It will take work. But it's as incorrect to assume indefinite American hegemony as it is to preëmptively concede the game.
> Unlike the Soviets, however, we can see it happening and debate it.
I think you’re severely underestimating how much public discourse has already been chilled. There are a lot of things leaders across business or government won’t say any more for fear of being targeted. And let’s be honest the people who rise to the top in America aren’t the selfless kind.
> How do you suppose we change the minds of the third of Americans who like having a Gestapo
You don't. You work around it.
10 to 20% of Americans will agree with just about any stupid proposal. It's idiosyncratic, however, so even if you shut off that position, they still find representation on other issues. (Unless they're single issue. In that case they're either incredibly powerful, but only when it comes to that issue, or worthless.)
Most people aren’t empathetic enough to learn from other people’s mistakes. So the answer is, you don’t. Hard luck. At least you had it good for a while.
My outsider's POV: the fact that there's a Gestapo-analogue in place already tells me that an electoral solution alone is almost certainly no longer sufficient (or at least, unlikely to be effective) at this point.
The Democrats have also had very weak messaging ahead of the midterms. Like, pathetically weak in the current context.
This is to say nothing of the hypothetical where the US makes moves against allies' territories before the midterms.
> the fact that there's a Gestapo-analogue in place already tells me that an electoral solution alone is almost certainly no longer sufficient (or at least, unlikely to be effective) at this point
Read up on the American Whig Party and President Andrew Jackson. Or, more recently, Poland. This is absolutely still in a reversible field.
> Democrats have also had very weak messaging ahead of the midterms
Utterly leaderless. In part because a lot of the party is compromised in having covered up Biden.
The Whigs would be new ground for me, but I'm quite familiar with modern Poland. The closest they've come was probably under the living Kaczynski's tenure as premier, or during Duda's early days as president, and neither have come close to what's going on with the police state in the US as it is today.
I'll read up on the Whig party, though if you have ledes that'd be good to start with, I'd love some links.
I'd agree with most of what you said, but there is no "raising a Gestapo". ICE has existed for 25 years. And the laws that give it permission to act haven't changed. It has gradually grown over the decades but what it fundamentally does has not.
What's new is finally the federal government pushing back against locales that refuse to allow local police to cooperate with federal law enforcement by means of massive influxes of federal officers to offset the lack of local support.
Also ICE has widespread support for what they are actually doing. Only when you ask manipulative questions that presume something is happening that isn't, do you get poll results that support a widespread dislike for ICE.
ICE has not been disappearing people to meet quotas for 25 years.
"Terrible things are happening outside. At any time of night and day, poor helpless people are being dragged out of their homes. They're allowed to take only a knapsack and a little cash with them, and even then, they're robbed of these possessions on the way. Families are torn apart; men, women and children are separated. Children come home from school to find that their parents have disappeared. Women return from shopping to find their houses sealed, their families gone."
“U.S. Border Patrol agents recorded nearly 238,000 apprehensions of migrants crossing the southern border illegally in fiscal year 2025” [1]. For 2012 to 2015, the chart shows about 360k, 420k, 480k and 330k, respectively.
That means ICE is spending $330 to 580 thousand dollars per additional Southwest border encounter in 2025 versus 2012. ($250 to 440 thousand if we average Obama’s second-term numbers.)
These numbers 10x even San Francisco’s circa 2016 homeless-industrial profligacy [2]. Unless ICE is a ball of wormy corruption, they’re clearly not focused on immigration enforcement.
If you prefer anecdotes, I live in Wyoming. Our farms are de facto exempt from enforcement. I believe in enforcing our immigration laws while we work to reform through the legislature. But that's clearly not what ICE is doing. The most-generous interpretation is they're making videos that make people who want enforcement feel good.
I've said for a while that ICE needs to go after businesses that hire illegal immigrants. So if you're looking for some kind of conflict in what I'm saying that isn't it.
I don’t like that these kinds of posts get flagged. If a post is praising ICE or Trump it should be highlighted and mocked, not flagged and deleted. People should see how batshit insane MAGA people are.
Indeed. People are actively trying to repair something which cannot be fixed. Now that the US century is over, the only way forward is for the US to use present military power as a cudgel.
Given that the multipolar world is nigh, the only path forward is through. If America and her erstwhile allies are no longer aligned, then any attempt by America to repair this is doomed. Consequently, Trump’s approach is the only way forward.
This is a self fulfilling prophecy. It may only be over because the administration is actively trying to create the multi-polar world. It could absolutely be fixed by Congress re-asserting its power.
Something that is “already over” cannot be “un-over”. That’s not how “is already over” works. It means it’s done, finito, not a prophecy but a historical fact. We have to move on. And that means less interference in internal European affairs like Ukraine-Russia and more protection of our interests like consolidation of power over the Atlantic, the Arctic, and the Americas.
“Used to be” is not “is”. The USSR was an ally. As everyone is pointing out here, there’s no going back. Given that, and as much as I preferred the old order, we have only forward to go.
If there were a path back, there’d be a point. But in this discussion, everything has already happened. There’s not much point in saying “if you hadn’t”. Well, Trump did. Having done what he did, nothing to do now but to go full bore.
Now that we are on a war footing, potentially with our erstwhile allies who have no interest in renewing the alliance given present conditions, the only path to preserve US control is aggression.
Yes, obviously a path back to that. Self-inflicted or not, it has been inflicted, and Europe has made it clear that it's a one-way road. Half-measures here will simply ruin us. Two possible paths existed: an attempt back to the alliance, or an attempt forward where the US simply exerts what strength she has before it wanes. Now that Europe has made it clear the former isn't on the table, the latter is the only thing available.
Think of it like this: America fucked up, and maybe with other allies at other times we could have gone back to the old ways. But these aren't those allies and this isn't those times. So we close doors on old friendships and go at it the other way.
> Consequently, Trump’s approach is the only way forward.
It's the DoD.
Prior to Trump's actions, the American-led "world order" seemed to work, even if we couldn't get China to agree to a "Bretton Woods 2.0".
Biden tried diplomacy with the EU. He tried to get them to agree to a renewed US-led world order, but it wasn't working. The EU decided to play the US and China against each other to improve its own standing, which is why the US is now moving away from the EU.
I think the US could seriously pull out of NATO and leave the EU to fend off Russia by itself. It'll have to start spending enormous tax dollars on defense and war.
Meanwhile, if the world is truly becoming multi-polar, then the US wants to consolidate power in its own hemisphere. This is why there's all the rhetoric and action on Venezuela, Cuba, Greenland, Canada, etc. The US will keep Chinese ports, basing, and trade completely out and secure the trade routes for when the Arctic opens up. It recently changed control over the Panama Canal, and the DoD is dead serious about taking Greenland and maintaining complete hemispheric control.
With whatever energy the US has left, it will dedicate to Asia. It will strengthen alliances and project power there instead of dealing with Europe.
The world is going to be a much more violent place without hegemony. Free trade doesn't exist in that type of world. The US realizes this and is playing 50 years ahead. None of the nice words matter when the energy, trade, and economic lines are redrawn.
People like to say the US is led by lawyers and China is led by scientists and engineers. This is wrong. The US is led by war generals and intelligence. The career DoD folks are the ones impressing upon the administration to make these moves.
To be clear: I hate this. I loved the world I grew up in. I think we're headed for a violent world that could easily erupt into war. I don't like it.
> Biden tried diplomacy with the EU. He tried to get them to agree to a renewed US-led world order, but it wasn't working.
Can you elaborate on that? It seems to me it "wasn't working" mostly in the sense that Trump got elected again.
> The EU decided to play the US and China against each other to improve its own standing, which is why the US is now moving away from the EU.
Seems like confusing cause and effect. The EU is drifting away from the US towards China because the US pushed them away.
> The world is going to be a much more violent place without hegemony. Free trade doesn't exist in that type of world. The US realizes this and is playing 50 years ahead. None of the nice words matter when the energy, trade, and economic lines are redrawn.
This is happening largely because of the US, although they stand to lose by replacing a world order that benefits them with a world order that benefits China and Russia. Well maybe the US will become sufficiently like China and Russia that they can benefit too. But even with a gradual loss of hegemony there was nothing inevitable about a transition to the law of the jungle and it's doubtful that the net result will be positive for the US.
> People like to say the US is led by lawyers and China is led by scientists and engineers. This is wrong. The US is led by war generals and intelligence.
I think the relevant distinction is that the US is democratic while China is authoritarian. But the current US government wants to be authoritarian.
> The career DoD folks are the ones impressing upon the administration to make these moves.
Again a reversal of cause and effect? I doubt old career DoD folks like the current developments. But the current government might give a bigger role to the war generals.
> I think the US could seriously pull out of NATO and leave the EU to fend off Russia by itself. It'll have to start spending enormous tax dollars on defense and war.
Disagree. If US pulls out of NATO, most likely scenario is EU continue to concede to Russia. I think EU will concede on Greenland too, but likely won't do it without any military action (unclear whether that will trigger nuclear escalation and how that can end).
> The EU decided to play the US and China against each other to improve its own standing, which is why the US is now moving away from the EU.
This is sanewashig this whole thing. The fact is, the US is moving away from the EU because Trump doesn't like democracies. It's that simple. You have a large percentage of your population in what is essentially a cult and you have givem them the reigns.
If the US can't build strong coalitions with Europe, it wants to spend its energy elsewhere.
Even pop-geopolitik wonk Peter Zeihan was pointing this out during Covid. I can't find his videos, but this has been top of mind for a lot of people for a very long time. These are anti-Trump people, too.
Multipolarity means instability, violence, fights over resources, fights over trade. Post-WWII was unusually (relatively) stable.
The US can turtle up, just like it did before WWII. It doesn't share a land border with any other major powers, unlike European and Asian countries. It commands the two oceans on its sides (and soon Arctic), and doesn't need anyone else - this was the US' defense posture since its founding.
Honestly, the idea of Trump making geopolitically informed decisions is so out of the realm of my perception of reality I don't even know how to engage with you. Trump is a narcissistic idiot that you voted into power. Your geopolitical direction is dictated by his narcissistic whims. "National security reasons Greenland" or "EU collaboration with China" or whatever is exactly what I initially said - sane washing a lunatic.
I am not saying you're stupid or misinformed, I'm saying you're missing the point. Understanding what Trump wants doesn't require you to understand geopolitics, it requires you know clinical psychiatry.
What do you expect (e.g.) Norway to do except disentangle, when their PM sends this text and gets back this response? And note that Finland's president (Alex there) has been one of the big proponents of continuing to engage with Trump. So, honest question, what should Finland, Norway, etc, do?
Trump absolutely drives this. You're deluded if you think this whole thing comes from the DOD. He is in effect a king at this point and he rules by posting in social media.
Except all of that will be for naught because the US is making the fatal mistake of doubling down on oil and coal. It's pointless to play 50 years ahead if you won't make it even the next 20.
The reverse is true: people who say things like "The US century is over" almost always dislike the US or wish its global influence would decline. Their commentary is wishful thinking.
There is some probability that US global influence does significantly decline but I wouldn't hold my breath.
Not true. Some, like myself, love the idea of the shining city on the hill, although we often find the behavior of the actual city less than shining.
I would like for the US to continue being a beacon of freedom where people can come and build great lives.
But that is not the direction we are going, and one might reasonably forecast that no country can maintain indefinite dominance. Paul Kennedy wrote "The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers" almost 40 years ago. Regression to the mean and all that, but also, great powers tend to overstep.
> Not true. Some, like myself, love the idea of the shining city on the hill, although we often find the behavior of the actual city less than shining.
Your first sentence says "not true". Your second sentence says "true".
Your dislike of the current US regime/behavior causes you to forcast the decline of US influence. I'm not saying you should like current US behavior, just that there isn't good evidence for any decline.
These things are hard to predict. The most likely situation is not decline: it is continuity, where the US retains its global influence for the time being.
Ignores the totally exceptional nature of some of the US changes/instabilities of this administration. I say "not true" because that is my read of where things are going, regardless of preferences.
Yep, and nobody ever goes on these types of threads and says the EU is collapsing, even though there's demonstrable evidence that things are not going great for the EU (the UK left, there is virtually zero economic dynamism or tech investment, Russia has seized 1/3 of Ukraine who was trying to join the EU, and the continent has no money, no navies and terrible demographics to compete globally in the next century). People gloss over issues about the EU because it aligns more closely with their political beliefs.
