Interesting report from the world of diplomacy and military alliance.
The headline quotation is a direct quotation of a non-American senior official to the Americans at the meeting.
80 years of effort to build up a world of shared values burned in under a year. 80 years of soft power tossed in the compost pile and recycled into fertilizer. 80 years of blood, sweat, and tears as Americans laboured to make the world safe for America.
All gone in the tantrums of a decrepit toddler.
Indeed, USA: We genuinely will never fucking trust you again.
America didn’t have the position it did merely because it had a big economy. China’s economy is also huge but its relationship with the rest of the world is completely different from how America’s was, for example.
Also, there’s a big “if” on that “if it bounces back.” What exactly did America do that was so unique?
America was the biggest success the world has ever seen in terms of running the government and economy with the consent of the governed.
As of the middle of the 20th century, the marginal tax rate on millionaires was 94% roughly speaking, and a lot of that money was reinvested into things that people needed: Roads, jobs, environmental protection. The elections were fair, journalists could challenge leaders and even break the law to expose wrongdoing by the powerful. It was a long way from perfect, I’m looking at the good side only when there was a hell of a rotten side to it too, but it was the closest the world has ever come to running a big scale system like that that was actually well-intentioned and that people could believe in and feel proud to be a part of. You can do it on a small scale, sure. Anyone can be proud of what they’re doing to be part of any kind of movement or system that has some humanity and some justice in it. But to make it work on that scale, where you can hand individual people with all their individual petty corruptions and failures that kind of globe-spanning power, and still keep things roughly in check and sometimes on the people’s side, year after year, it was a fuckin’ modern miracle. People had fought for decades, died in prison or in some labor skirmish or war, to make it happen, and it showed.
That’s what got us all that success and respect on the world stage. That stuff wasn’t fake. But then as with literally 100% of empires throughout history people got complacent, new generations came up with the entitlement that comes with being born on 3rd base, everyone stopped maintaining the systems. Softness comes in and corruption, and then fall, and collapse. There’s a lot of inertia, so as of 2015 we were still sitting pretty well on top without deserving it anymore, but now the emperor’s clothes are off and no fuckin’ mistake.
I don’t really know what the parallel is, I am not a good enough history person for it. Maybe the Roman Empire or the USSR. Society is the foundation of good government, and American society and character is dogshit right now and has been for years and year. It’s not surprising to me our government is collapsing. We are unlikely to recover I think. I’m in no way disagreeing with Gurney. I hope I am wrong, I love my country and I don’t want to leave. But even aside from Trump, it just seems unlikely that this place has what it takes to run a modern society anymore. I don’t see any way for us to go but down, a long way down. But anyway you asked what we did that was unique, that’s what we did, if you ask me about it.