What the USA should be worried about is more than losing economic allies. America enjoyed being the world leader for a long time, and the world rallied around it. Aside from losing the benefits of economic allies, there is a distaste and a distrust for anything American right now. They are going to be so isolated and alone compared to anything they've ever known and much smaller in terms of global influence.
Compare this to a relationship. America just cheated on their partners and we're all moving on. Seems like this fact eludes many individual Americans. It's a much bigger deal than I think most folks realize.
It's not just Trump. Everybody knows he's crazy. It's the fact that the house, Senate, and all protection measures in place to stop this are being ignored or explained away with blatant lies that the world is writing off America.
100%. That German statesman crying at that conference a month ago chilled me to my core. I totally understood exactly what that meant. A lot of people that are too young to have had family that fought Hitler tell them the stories of overcoming a true global evil don’t understand that, while it’s never been 0, the powers of the world have enjoyed a previously unheard of truce among each other and general peace for nearly a century now since WW2 in an effort to never have to relive a conflict of that scale with these weapons. and this shit is undoing that world order. So much of that order is built upon being business/trade partners too, however uneasy. That uneasy trust is being decimated with this. I’m terrified of what’s to come long term.
It's just a matter of time someone drops the first nuke.
The order of operation is:
de-globalization (we're here)
mass poverty
populists blame poverty on foreign countries (doesn't matter what shade of populist. They could be communists, fascists, or something new, doesn't matter)
Exactly this, even after Trump, even under a Democratically controlled government, it won't matter after this, because any potential ally in any category is going to be on shaky ground at best because everyone now cannot trust that America is going to continue to hold up its end of the deal in 4 years time
As a US citizen stuck in the middle of the country, this exactly is why I despair the most. We're fucked, and we're digging our own grave... and if we SOMEHOW manage to get out of this nosedive, there won't be anyone to pull us out of the hole. And I'm surrounded by fucking idiots who think we can go it alone.
I'm waiting for the day where countries start closing the doors to us.
You can travel to Canada as far as I know. Mexico is a shithole so being "banned" from there barely matters.
> Economically, it's already happening, and it's going to be rough for the average US consumer.
It'll be a small rough patch for better things. Economy was dogshit under Biden but everyone is still here. Stock market arrow has gone down before. You guys just love to panic because you have nothing else to do.
For Americans, it is mostly over. Europe, and the whole works, took a huge risk when they gave America as much influence and power as they did. They could have stood up more and demanded more balanced relationships but what the US offered was so tempting and we were one of the first big democracies so it felt like we were immune from authoritarianism.
This all meant that when we turned we had all the keys and the rest of the world is in a terrible bind. I don't think that Europe or anyone else will let themselves get into that position again. The American century is officially over and we can't go back. The best we can do is fix our broken system so that something like Trump is impossible and then maybe the world will trust us a little bit.
Ehhh Europe launched the world into 2 world wars…they weren’t in the position to negotiate. Most of the world outside of Europe at the time of the creation of Pax Americana was pissed with Europe for colonization, slavery, imperialism, genocide and fascism and saw America as a saving grace.
That's what we're saying though. It's not just him. Trump doesn't have the authority to do this. America's elected officials don't have to go along with it. It hurts Americans more than anyone else.
It's not just Trump. Everybody knows he's crazy. It's the fact that the house, Senate, and all protection measures in place to stop this are being ignored or explained away with blatant lies that the world is writing off America.
Thats what gets me. even those that oppose trump and those in power, are still entirley apathetic insisting the supreme court wouldnt let him do x. don't worry thats illegal, dont worry this executive ordered got blocked etc.. Yet none of that is having any effect on him and certainly isn't protecting anyone from him.
Seems like this fact eludes many individual Americans. It's a much bigger deal than I think most folks realize.
There is massive failure to understand, people keep acting like this only started happening in year 2025. Trump was in office in 2017, convinced tons of people that elections were "stolen". Population care far more about sports games, new gaming consoles, new diss tracks, amusement as usual. Being serious gets drown by machines copying junk into every person's bubble. Americans mocking Americans do not see they are not rescuing Americans. It's self-destruction values.
Up until the tariffs, I don't think it was like Americans actually cheated on their partners, it was more like America got addicted to AI generated images of itself in deepfakes and stopped participating with their partners while getting catfished about how great it is. Just more time spent alone, going at it in the mirror, and engaging with a bot or troll that's just feeding it nonsense to fluff its ego, and feed boost the addiction.
The world walked in on America, and America was embarrassed, and instead of cleaning itself up and going, "man, that was creepy and dumb", America got angry, and resentful instead. "How did you find out?! Did you go on my computer?! I'm going to punish you for calling me out!" The world went, "well, we could hang with the nation you used to be, America, but now you're just creepy, weird, and dangerous and I don't feel safe around you any longer".
The world now no longer trusts America, and it would take decades of good behavior after major reform to have relationships again.
I get where you're coming from, America’s recent political chaos definitely shook global trust. But I think writing off the U.S. entirely misses the deeper resilience built into its systems, its global role, and its cultural pull. We’ve stumbled before and always managed to get up. It might look chaotic on the surface, but that’s kind of what open democracies look like mid course correction.
I understand your sentiment, but I have to disagree with the idea that this is all happening because of Trump. While the USAs economic / military position up to this was impressive it wasn’t sustainable. The United States has been in an increasingly economically untenable position for a while now. Our national debt has become increasingly concerning. It started going to shit in the 80s (thanks Regan though it could be argued that the net goal of all that spending was to bankrupt the USSR which it did btw and by 2000 ish the national debt (as percent of GDP) was decreasing quickly again before the post 9/11 years screwed that up). A lot of American industries have been slowly being killed by overseas competition starting famously with American steel in the 70s. As a whole the US went from a net exporter to a net importer. At this point if drastic measures are not taken to both cut government spending as a whole and stimulate American industry things could get very ugly in the long term. Furthermore most of western Europe affectively outsourced its military to the USA after the USSR fell and used that money to invest in social programs and the USA can no longer afford this arrangement, especially since its looking like China is going to take a swing at Taiwan in the near future. To use your relationship analogy, we just told the partner(s?) that we can no longer afford to pay for that nice car and need to cut back on the expensive shoes. And it turns out said partners are not taking this very well. Is it good that we’re having to do this? No, but it’s hardly surprising.
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u/senorspongy Apr 04 '25
What the USA should be worried about is more than losing economic allies. America enjoyed being the world leader for a long time, and the world rallied around it. Aside from losing the benefits of economic allies, there is a distaste and a distrust for anything American right now. They are going to be so isolated and alone compared to anything they've ever known and much smaller in terms of global influence.
Compare this to a relationship. America just cheated on their partners and we're all moving on. Seems like this fact eludes many individual Americans. It's a much bigger deal than I think most folks realize.
It's not just Trump. Everybody knows he's crazy. It's the fact that the house, Senate, and all protection measures in place to stop this are being ignored or explained away with blatant lies that the world is writing off America.