Dems have only one way out of this mess, and I am utterly amazed that no Dem Pres. contender has yet to utilize it. It is, surely, just a matter of time until a Dem House or Senate member grabs a microphone, and tells seething Americans, he/she is every bit as mad, as every other rational American.
Then should explain, like most other Americans, they assumed foreign aid went to feed the starving, and provide medical care , where there was none. The candidate should express amazement at the idiotic programs that sought to bring DEI and LGBTQ theology to foreign countries, at tens of millions of tax payer dollars a pop.
They should apologize for the lack of Congressional oversight that allowed billions of tax payer dollars, to be flushed down ratholes, and promise to root out every bit of bloat, waste, and fraud they can find. An astute candidate would ask why Reps allowed the waste. Finally they would demand the federal government, once again start working for the American people, and not the other way around.
Dems lost the WH, House and Senate because they prioritized Progressive theology, that most Dems do not believe, needless spending, and 10 million migrants, over the well being of the bottom 3 quintiles of US families. Dems keep reassuring themselves, Trump did not win by much. Trump didn't, but Glenn Youngkin or Nickki Haley would have won in historic landslides.
Now Dems are doubling down on the very policies that cost them the last election. Lawsuits are flying fast and furious. Dems are going to the mattresses to protect criminal migrants, and federal employees, 90% of which never returned to their offices, after Covid.
Trump will spend his afternoon reading a list of the worst 200 government programs, in detail. Dems loath Trump too much to understand, this is where he is in his element. He will deliver lines better than Jimmy Kimmel, as he amazes Americans with programs that sound like they were invented at the Babylon Bee. And he is just getting started.
Meanwhile, Dems squeal and sing, to defend the indefensible. Dems are going to have to decide do they want Progressives to continue running the Party, or do they want to continue being a viable Party.
but in 2028 Trump will not be running....The Dems are laying a foundation for 12 years of a GOP Presidents and GOP judges....that will be 16 years of Trump+ judges to
4 years of Biden Judges....and a 7 to 2 SCOTUS. (Sorry but the life expectancy for 71 year old woman is 16 years minus 12 years for a type 1 diabetic....the next President may replace Justice Sotomayor)
Dems are going to be fine, at least for the next few years. These past two weeks have made it very clear. Trump and MAGA have promised Americans two things you cannot have at the same time—isolationism and continued superiority over China as the world’s pre-eminent superpower—and that is going to be he and the so-called ‘party of the working class’s downfall, alongside his economic blundering.
Trump is laying the foundations for a recession before 2028, just as the AI hype bubble is peaking in the capital markets—the bond market smells it. When Americans reach the end of his presidency with less jobs than they started with (again) and with the realization that the US is now inferior to the Chinese technologically, and less powerful than the Putin-Xi axis in terms of global socioeconomic influence…they are going to be *very* mad.
That interview was really enlightening. Benz believes that some of what USAID does is necessary to project American power. He is former State Department. But why are the dems defening a program that was recently trying to overthrow Castro ?
Pretty much correct. But again, Ruy, you are avoiding the much, much deeper problem in that now Democrats are seen (rightly so) as the party of big government/nanny government on every level---federal, state, local---while at the same time seen as the party of anti-people (support abortion, non-marriage, non-growth). I've looked at this for almost two years and as a historian this is exactly where the Democrat Party was with slavery: they simply couldn't repudiate it---they were too far down the road. Recent senate polls in GA (Kemp up 6-7) and AZ (Biggs up in Gov race by 4) or MI (Rogers leads) are the canary in the coal mine. It will be three or four months before Trump's economy begins to hit warp drive. After that, there will be nothing for Democrats to run on . . . AT ALL.
Some good points, but I think you’re off the mark on the last one. Plus that polling is premature. I think you are significantly underestimating Trump’s weak points on the economy. If he passes his tax cuts and increases the deficit, he will either have to choose between high interest rates or high inflation. He cannot have tax cuts, low rates, and low inflation. That will be his Achilles heel.
What is broken has taken decades of the same destructive globalist pursuit... and Trump will not see the results of the fix... that will be for JD Vance and others to leverage.
I think, actually, that this will be the anti-globalist peak.
The problem is that Trump and MAGA have promised Americans two things you cannot have at the same time—A.) isolationism/deglobalization, and B.) continued superiority over China and a maintenance of the US’s status as the pre-eminent global superpower. In terms of global influence, you can see it already in international organizations like the WTO,TPP and the WHO—as the U.S. has withdrawn from them, the Chinese (and the BRICS in general) have stepped into a more dominant leadership role. Hegseth just completed the transition by giving the Putin-Xi axis undisputed dominance over Eastern Europe, and leverage over Europe proper.
When Americans realize—likely before Trump’s term is up—that the U.S. has not only lost a great deal of its soft power in the world, but that it is also now technologically running behind Bei Jing, (DeepSeek is the canary in the coal mine of the state of the AI arms race) they are going to be angry, and the opposition is going to blame it on the anti-globalists, and kick off the anti-anti-globalist turn. Americans are perfectly comfortable with anti-globalism *until* they feel that they are ‘losing’—the Sputnik moment and the Cold War made that very clear.
The US has been funding the Global Order for 80 years. The result is $40 trillion in debt, millions of homeless, suicides and opioid deaths, reduced life expectancy, massive wealth transfer from the working class to the already wealthy, $1 trillion annual trade deficits, crumbling infrastructure, corporate consolidation choking small business, real unemployment in the double digits with hundreds of labor surplus areas, crime exploding, etc., etc., etc.
Maybe things are good for you, but not the bottom 80%. And it will only get worse unless the US pulls back and takes care of itself instead of the the rest of the moocher world.
Except a quick glance at international finance will tell you that it’s the opposite—firstly, our standard of living has grown since 1945 more than any other country in the world. We did indeed achieve this from 1945-1970, when we owned half the gold reserves on the planet due to selling war arms to Europe, by rebuilding the Western world—but we deliberately rebuilt it in a very particular way, so that no rival power would emerge in our hemisphere. Secondly, since 1970, it is the rest of the world that has funded *us*. Our economy is now based on recycling the surplus savings of other countries via the treasury market. We sell them our debt, they give us their goods. This has given us a ‘free ride’ that arguably has no equal in history. It has also made us grossly uncompetitive industrially, but we largely haven’t cared until recently, because since the end of the Cold War, we haven’t had to deal with the one thing we’ve never been able to tolerate, which is the idea of a superior rival power that we don’t control. That’s a big part of what made Trump attractive to the public—he created a narrative that portrayed the Chinese as a rival power for people to scapegoat. The problem is that we are now too polarized to pull together to beat a rival with actual industrial power, and unlike presidents of the past, Trump is a complete know-nothing who doesn’t bother to understand how anything works, so he is essentially ceding the Great Power competition by giving away all our advantages at a crucial juncture.
Americans won’t tolerate it. They couldn’t with the Soviets, and they won’t with the Chinese. We are a fiercely competitive and fiercely prideful people. (See: American Exceptionalism). And when average Americans realize that the anti-globalist, anti-elitist, anti-education aspects of the MAGA agenda has given away the nation’s global influence and sabotaged its ability to technologically compete with a rival Sino-Russian axis in the arms race of the next century, they are going to turn on that agenda *very* quickly. (I expect there will be a recession before 2028, too, which will kick-start the backlash)
Again, DeepSeek is just the beginning. Remember how the public reacted to the ‘Sputnik moment’. There’s likely to be several more, because you can’t get ahead by putting a kakistocracy in charge. That’s why in China Trump is called ‘建国同志’—Comrade Jianguo , the comrade who helps construct China and Make China Great Again’. They see him as their greatest advantage in the Great Power competition—and they are probably right.
DeepSeek is the result of communist looting and our own corporatist greed. China would never have ended up close to its economic situation without the US. The US would be in much better financial and social position without China.
You are rewriting history except for the truth that the US benefited from the Global Order from 1945 - 1970. Where it all went to hell is trade agreements... especially NAFTA and China in the WTO... especially the latter. The post Bretton Woods Act was for the countries that modeled our democracy and capitalist system... not for fucking communists.
The problem has been Wall Street and corporate consolidation of power and wealth, and donor class politicians looting off of it. The middle class and the low income demographics...the bottom 80% have been screwed since Clinton.
Equivocate, that's the word that usually comes to mind when I read these articles and half the comments. Don't get me wrong, the analysis is strong from the authors, but there always seems to be an implied, 'but'. It's like, everyone acknowledges that Dems have been bereft of values, substance, authenticity, etc, BUT Trump is just so. . fill in your derogative for the week.
The majority of Republicans have simply gone along to get along, showing zero resolve to fix anything, just talk. Trump is action, doing, substantial, no BUTs. He'll make more mistakes, and you should call them out, but he's actually doing good things, he's actually working, he's actually expecting people in government to put in a honest days work. Get on board, stop caring so much what others might think (obviously, this is hard for all of us), and next time you are forced to compliment a good move, like DOGE, don't feel obligated every time to throw in the BUT because you sound hypocritical, IMO.
Rejoice always, pray unceasingly and in everything give thanks!
It's his expectation that they do, that's what I think is different. I don't know about you, but I never got the feeling that Biden, I'm on vacation 1/3 of the time, my daily schedule might include 3 things on a good day, inspired a strong work ethic. No doubt, hard working folks in the government exist, but I believe DOGE is going to make it very clear we have a massively bloated Federal work force full of 5th wheels. Hopefully I'm wrong, but just look at what's already been uncovered at the Treasury Dept. They didn't even have basic accounting practices in place.
Does that not imply that the majority are thinking why should I care, nobody is held accountable, in fact the system is set up to not allow accountability. That's not typically an environment where folks putting in a honest day's work, exist, in my experience.
I agree. When authors include gratuitous unsupported criticisms and insults regarding Trump's excesses, extremism, "antics," and the like, I am turned off. Authors should keep their emotional biases out of their articles.
These institutions are perceived as in the business of advancing narrow interests (i.e. the Democrat Party, the Great Awokening) and not national interests.
Given that USAID played a big role in the Russian Collusion Hoax and is funding all sorts of daffy culture war projects overseas, that perception is spot on.
IMO, the Left's political and cultural hegemony has taken several hits below the waterline between the opening of Twitter to all opinions, the overall demise of the mainstream media, and now the de-politicization of the Administrative State.
If I had to choose one site and jettison all the rest I would choose to keep Shellenberger. His writing is very clear, well organized, and riveting. He presents frequent, illuminating updates on the investigations by him and others into corruption in the U.S., Brazil, and Europe.
What I am looking for is a liberal publication. By liberal I mean someone with a liberal mindset, who is equally critical and analytical about both sides of the political spectrum, who relies upon data as their major source of truth, who admits to all data (even those data that contradict their beliefs). Liberal, to us, doesn't mean left-oriented, or Progressive, or Democrat. It's a way of thinking, not one's political orientation.
Someone like George F. Will who sees through everyone's weaknesses and blindspots. How would you compare Schellenberger to what we seek?
My understanding is that Shellenberger was a Democrat until 2021. I don’t know how he identifies now. He is an incredibly courageous champion of free speech both in the U.S. and in Brazil. His current focus is continuing the work begun with the “Twitter Files” on censorship perpetrated by the U.S. against our own citizens. Matt Taibbi and Bari Weiss were also involved in investigating the Twitter scandal. Shellenberger takes what might be called “moderate” positions on many other issues, but if you are decidedly “left” of center you might think he is to your “right.”
The authors on the Liberal Patriot appear to me to be more “loyal” to the Dem Party in that they are still trying to rescue it.
I am a former leftist activist, and my primary political stance is against authoritarianism. I am for that reason adamantly opposed to woke activism and I am no longer friendly to the Dem Party.
Democrats looking to reform USAID could make inroads on the left if their proposed overhaul assessed which programs were actually improving the lives of people in poor countries, and which weren’t and should therefore be axed. If domestic working class outrage doesn’t motivate progressives to act, maybe concern for developing countries will.
I will say I'm already exhausted. Democrats take his bait and then they go so much farther than he does, it makes them look even more out of touch. I don't get it. If you pull out "constitutional crisis" in the first 30 days for foreign aid, where are you going to go from there? It reminds me of people who spend thousands of dollars on their kids 10th birthday. What are you going to do at 14? Or 16?
I think there are few Democratic leaders who have lived in a business bureaucracy sometime over the last 30 years and experienced the upheaval as they modernized and shed workers to save money. It is cyclic and painful and part of a life of a healthy bureaucracy. The federal bureaucracy really increased in the late 50s to early 80s and has never gone through this cycle and has become bloated and inefficient When an organization gets this way all of a sudden stuff gets done that really should not happen. Middle class people and even many professionals know this and even if they dislike Trumps tactics they know it must happen and for some reason Democrats don’t get this. I look to the large cities they run and I have to assume that either a) they are incompetent administrators or b) there is some political benefit they achieve from letting this ever growing, inefficient and hard to control bureaucracy stay in place. If so they are in trouble
Living in one of those cities, I find the mentality of government here to be purely extractive, for multiple political reasons. These include 1) exploitation of poor people by machine politicians through appeal to racial and class resentments, 2) hostility to capitalist society of well off leftist professionals who have plenty of money and don’t mind spending some of it on wasteful social programs in order to demonstrate their virtue to themselves, and 3) one-party rule ensuring there is no countervailing power to end misrule, and that state and national offices are filled by appointment, not election. It’s been 12 years since we paid any attention to the productive part of the city economy, the part that brings the money in.
Yes Thoughtful spending and waste reduction are critical, as well as living within our means (a budget). I don't think I'm alone in supporting the idea of Trump, but with a better man (person) to do the job.
Please subscribe to all the left wing Substacks and check the comments. These writers have a lot of subscribers and it is clear that most of them are in need of cognitive behavior therapy. They are frankly unwell. They suck on all the partisan bubble Bluesky media feeds to rev up their frustration, anger, resentment, etc... and it turns into a perpetual derangement syndrome where they chew off their own political arms and legs in a constant fit of opposition to everything that they can define as being in opposition to their media-fed beliefs.
Trump noted this and is a master at keeping that going. It isn't that he does not care about what Democrats think, it is that he knows he can constantly inflame the Democrat leadership and influencers to take the path of opposition to everything he says and does. But the problem for the Democrats is that Trump's platform are ideas and policies that Democrats need to support to be attractive to voters again. Crime, border security, working class socioeconomic improvements, women's rights, free speech, government efficiency, eliminating government graft and corruption, no wars, focus on domestic problems, heath improvements, etc.
Trump sets their hair on fire and they go off with diarrhea of the mouth to rage against things that the majority of voters see as positive.
If USAID was used exclusively as it was originally designed for, that would be one thing, but when money is being funneled to many numbers of NGO's and from them spread in so many directions that accounting can't keep track of and agencies, can't account for the money and accomplishment of any goals, then an air of corruption begins to seep in and eventually snowball into what is being discovered in the DOGE audit. What doesn't help the demonstrators cause is shouting "fuck Trump". Usually people who start swearing in an argument have lost their ability to defend that argument.
I'm an independent voter who has voted for Obama twice and Trump 3 times. I am concerned that if the Democrat Party doesn't get it's s**t together, our nation is in trouble, regardless of oligarchs and plutocrats. We need, as a nation, a 2 or more party system to survive as a free nation. Democrats must find a leader!!!
The problem for Democrats is that they have no hills to die on. Progressives did, but they aren't Democrats. And they actually died on their hills (or actually on their little mounds).
I don't really know what the Democratic Party stands for these days. I used to know what it stood for, which is why my wife and I were Democrats. But other than vague phrases ("for all working Americans..."), I don't know what it means to be a Democrat.
It seems as if Progressives, currently, are just searching around for a mound, any mound, instead of identifying the real hills to take a stand on.
The problem goes much deeper than the few bureaucracies Democrats are currently defending. Their hyperbole runneth over when they say Trump has created a fourth branch of government in hiring Musk and his DOGE associates, who are serving at the pleasure of the President.
The actual fourth branch of government in the United States is an extra-constitutional institutionalized mass of agencies called the Bureaucracy. It currently has 3 million employees and that doesn't count the 1.3 million active duty military employees. It's influence and scope of regulatory powers is vast. It is so vast that Congress is overwhelmed trying to exercise oversight upon it. As USAID shows, bureaucracies can go rogue and execute key policy decisions that can easily run counter to the public interest. You will find the same level of overreach in several other bureaucracies in the coming months.
Democrat hysteria over cost-cutting in the fourth branch of government, the Bureaucracy, is completely predictable since it's likely that at least 80% of federal employees vote Democrat, which if you do the math, computes roughly to 2.4 million votes for Democrats compared to 600,000 votes for Republicans. 2.4 million votes is more than Trump's margin of victory in the popular vote in 2024.
We are already seeing the find out phase of this with Americans/farmers that make their living supplying the aid loosing out.. Causing the death of other humans, largely children would normally be considered bad and should always be a way to attack the alleged pro life party. More generally federal workers make middle class wages, are largely veterans and donate work the public wanted. Taking care of veterans, managing federal prisons, keeping air and water clean, parks, etc. there is a better way for Dems to fight for us.
Federal workers make middle class wages? Average pay is $106,000. On day one, they get 13 paid holidays, 13 sick days, and 13 vacation days to start, it gets a lot sweeter after five years. Plus guaranteed lifetime employment and a sweet pension plan. And they've worked from home for four years now.
Killing children? When life-saving programs were continued?
If you watched the DOGE hearings yesterday you could actually hear voters stampeding out of the Democrat party. Dick pics? And calls to attack Musk?
You’re out of date on the pension plan. Federal employee pensions were dramatically cut in the 1980s. And federal employees are by and large highly educated people who would make far more money doing equivalent jobs in the private sector. I know, because I was one - and I know how much wealthier my classmates who went into the private sector are.
These federal workers are hopelessly and delusionally out of touch with those who pay their salaries. Just how far out of touch is best measured by the buyouts a mere fraction of the full federal workforce has accepted to merely walk away if they are dissatisfied.
The most shocking thing about the New York metro area as opposed to Dallas, Texas, to me is Con Edision is literally three times as expensive for electricity in winter as the Dallas utilities. I have the comparison power bills. 2/3 of that cost difference is in transmission and delivery charges, so shopping around for an electricity provider won't even help you in New York. Natural gas is 25% more expensive, actually exclusively in delivery and transmission charges. I imagine New York summer air conditioning costs will blow Dallas's costs out of the water despite the temperature differentials.
People I mention this to just seem to accept it. They will often make some crack about the grid staying up - for that price, it better be the most gold plated grid in the history of grids. I'm sure the establishment thinks Con Edison is doing an amazing job delivering electricity.
Correct about the optics and likely electoral outcomes of this.
What is worse is the activist judges affiliated with the Democratic Party. Whatever you say about bureaucrats, at least they know stuff and are more accountable and less arrogant than judges.
Conservatives are definitely going to respond to the blizzard of national injunctions issued by district judges. This can play out several ways. The Trump administration could go all Jackson on them and simply ignore the injunctions. The Congress could use the power they have in the Constitution and adjust the jurisdiction or even existence of the district courts. Probably couldn't overcome a filibuster and Republicans seem reluctant to break the institution. Or Republican state AGs could file suits in front of their selected judges and get rulings overruling the other rulings. Or the USAG and conservative activist groups could engage in sue and settle. The last two would produce chaos and make possible Congressional action. Or the Supreme Court could step in and just end it. Nah.
I do not think , Trump will ignore the injunctions , nor it is necessary. As the suits progress thru the Courts, ultimately Trump will win most of them. Federal employees are not entitled to life long employment, although they may need to be fired, in a specific manner.
The most important service DOGE will provide is informing Americans how govt spending wastes a trillion bucks a year, because no one sane, is paying attention. There is no need to cut worthwhile programs , because we have plenty of programs that will not be missed, when they are gone.
Please share the programs you would cut or eliminate to save $1 Trillion a year. You do know that the entire non-defense discretionary budget is less than a trillion?
Dems have only one way out of this mess, and I am utterly amazed that no Dem Pres. contender has yet to utilize it. It is, surely, just a matter of time until a Dem House or Senate member grabs a microphone, and tells seething Americans, he/she is every bit as mad, as every other rational American.
Then should explain, like most other Americans, they assumed foreign aid went to feed the starving, and provide medical care , where there was none. The candidate should express amazement at the idiotic programs that sought to bring DEI and LGBTQ theology to foreign countries, at tens of millions of tax payer dollars a pop.
They should apologize for the lack of Congressional oversight that allowed billions of tax payer dollars, to be flushed down ratholes, and promise to root out every bit of bloat, waste, and fraud they can find. An astute candidate would ask why Reps allowed the waste. Finally they would demand the federal government, once again start working for the American people, and not the other way around.
Dems lost the WH, House and Senate because they prioritized Progressive theology, that most Dems do not believe, needless spending, and 10 million migrants, over the well being of the bottom 3 quintiles of US families. Dems keep reassuring themselves, Trump did not win by much. Trump didn't, but Glenn Youngkin or Nickki Haley would have won in historic landslides.
Now Dems are doubling down on the very policies that cost them the last election. Lawsuits are flying fast and furious. Dems are going to the mattresses to protect criminal migrants, and federal employees, 90% of which never returned to their offices, after Covid.
Trump will spend his afternoon reading a list of the worst 200 government programs, in detail. Dems loath Trump too much to understand, this is where he is in his element. He will deliver lines better than Jimmy Kimmel, as he amazes Americans with programs that sound like they were invented at the Babylon Bee. And he is just getting started.
Meanwhile, Dems squeal and sing, to defend the indefensible. Dems are going to have to decide do they want Progressives to continue running the Party, or do they want to continue being a viable Party.
Well, Tulsi and RFK2 did exactly that and were blown off by the Democratic Party, so here we are.
Well said!
However, neither Youngkin or Haley have the political talent that Trump has in spades, and that is why neither of them is president right now.
Yes true,
but in 2028 Trump will not be running....The Dems are laying a foundation for 12 years of a GOP Presidents and GOP judges....that will be 16 years of Trump+ judges to
4 years of Biden Judges....and a 7 to 2 SCOTUS. (Sorry but the life expectancy for 71 year old woman is 16 years minus 12 years for a type 1 diabetic....the next President may replace Justice Sotomayor)
Dems are going to be fine, at least for the next few years. These past two weeks have made it very clear. Trump and MAGA have promised Americans two things you cannot have at the same time—isolationism and continued superiority over China as the world’s pre-eminent superpower—and that is going to be he and the so-called ‘party of the working class’s downfall, alongside his economic blundering.
Trump is laying the foundations for a recession before 2028, just as the AI hype bubble is peaking in the capital markets—the bond market smells it. When Americans reach the end of his presidency with less jobs than they started with (again) and with the realization that the US is now inferior to the Chinese technologically, and less powerful than the Putin-Xi axis in terms of global socioeconomic influence…they are going to be *very* mad.
Over 1,400,000 people have watched the 3 hour interview of Mike Benz (Foundation For Freedom Online) with Joe Rogan yesterday (2/12/2025).
The USAID work to direct news globally does not make for confidence in USAID.
That interview was really enlightening. Benz believes that some of what USAID does is necessary to project American power. He is former State Department. But why are the dems defening a program that was recently trying to overthrow Castro ?
Pretty much correct. But again, Ruy, you are avoiding the much, much deeper problem in that now Democrats are seen (rightly so) as the party of big government/nanny government on every level---federal, state, local---while at the same time seen as the party of anti-people (support abortion, non-marriage, non-growth). I've looked at this for almost two years and as a historian this is exactly where the Democrat Party was with slavery: they simply couldn't repudiate it---they were too far down the road. Recent senate polls in GA (Kemp up 6-7) and AZ (Biggs up in Gov race by 4) or MI (Rogers leads) are the canary in the coal mine. It will be three or four months before Trump's economy begins to hit warp drive. After that, there will be nothing for Democrats to run on . . . AT ALL.
Some good points, but I think you’re off the mark on the last one. Plus that polling is premature. I think you are significantly underestimating Trump’s weak points on the economy. If he passes his tax cuts and increases the deficit, he will either have to choose between high interest rates or high inflation. He cannot have tax cuts, low rates, and low inflation. That will be his Achilles heel.
What is broken has taken decades of the same destructive globalist pursuit... and Trump will not see the results of the fix... that will be for JD Vance and others to leverage.
I think that’s plausible!
I think, actually, that this will be the anti-globalist peak.
The problem is that Trump and MAGA have promised Americans two things you cannot have at the same time—A.) isolationism/deglobalization, and B.) continued superiority over China and a maintenance of the US’s status as the pre-eminent global superpower. In terms of global influence, you can see it already in international organizations like the WTO,TPP and the WHO—as the U.S. has withdrawn from them, the Chinese (and the BRICS in general) have stepped into a more dominant leadership role. Hegseth just completed the transition by giving the Putin-Xi axis undisputed dominance over Eastern Europe, and leverage over Europe proper.
When Americans realize—likely before Trump’s term is up—that the U.S. has not only lost a great deal of its soft power in the world, but that it is also now technologically running behind Bei Jing, (DeepSeek is the canary in the coal mine of the state of the AI arms race) they are going to be angry, and the opposition is going to blame it on the anti-globalists, and kick off the anti-anti-globalist turn. Americans are perfectly comfortable with anti-globalism *until* they feel that they are ‘losing’—the Sputnik moment and the Cold War made that very clear.
Oh fuck.
The US has been funding the Global Order for 80 years. The result is $40 trillion in debt, millions of homeless, suicides and opioid deaths, reduced life expectancy, massive wealth transfer from the working class to the already wealthy, $1 trillion annual trade deficits, crumbling infrastructure, corporate consolidation choking small business, real unemployment in the double digits with hundreds of labor surplus areas, crime exploding, etc., etc., etc.
Maybe things are good for you, but not the bottom 80%. And it will only get worse unless the US pulls back and takes care of itself instead of the the rest of the moocher world.
China's policies are only good for China. And we are somehow wrong to shift our policies only good for the US?
Except a quick glance at international finance will tell you that it’s the opposite—firstly, our standard of living has grown since 1945 more than any other country in the world. We did indeed achieve this from 1945-1970, when we owned half the gold reserves on the planet due to selling war arms to Europe, by rebuilding the Western world—but we deliberately rebuilt it in a very particular way, so that no rival power would emerge in our hemisphere. Secondly, since 1970, it is the rest of the world that has funded *us*. Our economy is now based on recycling the surplus savings of other countries via the treasury market. We sell them our debt, they give us their goods. This has given us a ‘free ride’ that arguably has no equal in history. It has also made us grossly uncompetitive industrially, but we largely haven’t cared until recently, because since the end of the Cold War, we haven’t had to deal with the one thing we’ve never been able to tolerate, which is the idea of a superior rival power that we don’t control. That’s a big part of what made Trump attractive to the public—he created a narrative that portrayed the Chinese as a rival power for people to scapegoat. The problem is that we are now too polarized to pull together to beat a rival with actual industrial power, and unlike presidents of the past, Trump is a complete know-nothing who doesn’t bother to understand how anything works, so he is essentially ceding the Great Power competition by giving away all our advantages at a crucial juncture.
Americans won’t tolerate it. They couldn’t with the Soviets, and they won’t with the Chinese. We are a fiercely competitive and fiercely prideful people. (See: American Exceptionalism). And when average Americans realize that the anti-globalist, anti-elitist, anti-education aspects of the MAGA agenda has given away the nation’s global influence and sabotaged its ability to technologically compete with a rival Sino-Russian axis in the arms race of the next century, they are going to turn on that agenda *very* quickly. (I expect there will be a recession before 2028, too, which will kick-start the backlash)
Again, DeepSeek is just the beginning. Remember how the public reacted to the ‘Sputnik moment’. There’s likely to be several more, because you can’t get ahead by putting a kakistocracy in charge. That’s why in China Trump is called ‘建国同志’—Comrade Jianguo , the comrade who helps construct China and Make China Great Again’. They see him as their greatest advantage in the Great Power competition—and they are probably right.
DeepSeek is the result of communist looting and our own corporatist greed. China would never have ended up close to its economic situation without the US. The US would be in much better financial and social position without China.
You are rewriting history except for the truth that the US benefited from the Global Order from 1945 - 1970. Where it all went to hell is trade agreements... especially NAFTA and China in the WTO... especially the latter. The post Bretton Woods Act was for the countries that modeled our democracy and capitalist system... not for fucking communists.
The problem has been Wall Street and corporate consolidation of power and wealth, and donor class politicians looting off of it. The middle class and the low income demographics...the bottom 80% have been screwed since Clinton.
Equivocate, that's the word that usually comes to mind when I read these articles and half the comments. Don't get me wrong, the analysis is strong from the authors, but there always seems to be an implied, 'but'. It's like, everyone acknowledges that Dems have been bereft of values, substance, authenticity, etc, BUT Trump is just so. . fill in your derogative for the week.
The majority of Republicans have simply gone along to get along, showing zero resolve to fix anything, just talk. Trump is action, doing, substantial, no BUTs. He'll make more mistakes, and you should call them out, but he's actually doing good things, he's actually working, he's actually expecting people in government to put in a honest days work. Get on board, stop caring so much what others might think (obviously, this is hard for all of us), and next time you are forced to compliment a good move, like DOGE, don't feel obligated every time to throw in the BUT because you sound hypocritical, IMO.
Rejoice always, pray unceasingly and in everything give thanks!
What is your evidence that people in government aren’t putting in an honest days work?
It's his expectation that they do, that's what I think is different. I don't know about you, but I never got the feeling that Biden, I'm on vacation 1/3 of the time, my daily schedule might include 3 things on a good day, inspired a strong work ethic. No doubt, hard working folks in the government exist, but I believe DOGE is going to make it very clear we have a massively bloated Federal work force full of 5th wheels. Hopefully I'm wrong, but just look at what's already been uncovered at the Treasury Dept. They didn't even have basic accounting practices in place.
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1888314848477376744
Does that not imply that the majority are thinking why should I care, nobody is held accountable, in fact the system is set up to not allow accountability. That's not typically an environment where folks putting in a honest day's work, exist, in my experience.
I agree. When authors include gratuitous unsupported criticisms and insults regarding Trump's excesses, extremism, "antics," and the like, I am turned off. Authors should keep their emotional biases out of their articles.
These institutions are perceived as in the business of advancing narrow interests (i.e. the Democrat Party, the Great Awokening) and not national interests.
Given that USAID played a big role in the Russian Collusion Hoax and is funding all sorts of daffy culture war projects overseas, that perception is spot on.
IMO, the Left's political and cultural hegemony has taken several hits below the waterline between the opening of Twitter to all opinions, the overall demise of the mainstream media, and now the de-politicization of the Administrative State.
Could we see a link showing that USAID "played a big role in the Russian Collusion Hoax?" thanks.
Check out Michael Shellenberger's Substack. He went into it yesterday.
Thanks. But we couldn't get in. After awhile all of these $5-10 charges are adding up. Anywhere else?
If I had to choose one site and jettison all the rest I would choose to keep Shellenberger. His writing is very clear, well organized, and riveting. He presents frequent, illuminating updates on the investigations by him and others into corruption in the U.S., Brazil, and Europe.
I appreciate your feedback on this.
What I am looking for is a liberal publication. By liberal I mean someone with a liberal mindset, who is equally critical and analytical about both sides of the political spectrum, who relies upon data as their major source of truth, who admits to all data (even those data that contradict their beliefs). Liberal, to us, doesn't mean left-oriented, or Progressive, or Democrat. It's a way of thinking, not one's political orientation.
Someone like George F. Will who sees through everyone's weaknesses and blindspots. How would you compare Schellenberger to what we seek?
Thanks for this.
My understanding is that Shellenberger was a Democrat until 2021. I don’t know how he identifies now. He is an incredibly courageous champion of free speech both in the U.S. and in Brazil. His current focus is continuing the work begun with the “Twitter Files” on censorship perpetrated by the U.S. against our own citizens. Matt Taibbi and Bari Weiss were also involved in investigating the Twitter scandal. Shellenberger takes what might be called “moderate” positions on many other issues, but if you are decidedly “left” of center you might think he is to your “right.”
The authors on the Liberal Patriot appear to me to be more “loyal” to the Dem Party in that they are still trying to rescue it.
I am a former leftist activist, and my primary political stance is against authoritarianism. I am for that reason adamantly opposed to woke activism and I am no longer friendly to the Dem Party.
Democrats looking to reform USAID could make inroads on the left if their proposed overhaul assessed which programs were actually improving the lives of people in poor countries, and which weren’t and should therefore be axed. If domestic working class outrage doesn’t motivate progressives to act, maybe concern for developing countries will.
I will say I'm already exhausted. Democrats take his bait and then they go so much farther than he does, it makes them look even more out of touch. I don't get it. If you pull out "constitutional crisis" in the first 30 days for foreign aid, where are you going to go from there? It reminds me of people who spend thousands of dollars on their kids 10th birthday. What are you going to do at 14? Or 16?
I think there are few Democratic leaders who have lived in a business bureaucracy sometime over the last 30 years and experienced the upheaval as they modernized and shed workers to save money. It is cyclic and painful and part of a life of a healthy bureaucracy. The federal bureaucracy really increased in the late 50s to early 80s and has never gone through this cycle and has become bloated and inefficient When an organization gets this way all of a sudden stuff gets done that really should not happen. Middle class people and even many professionals know this and even if they dislike Trumps tactics they know it must happen and for some reason Democrats don’t get this. I look to the large cities they run and I have to assume that either a) they are incompetent administrators or b) there is some political benefit they achieve from letting this ever growing, inefficient and hard to control bureaucracy stay in place. If so they are in trouble
Living in one of those cities, I find the mentality of government here to be purely extractive, for multiple political reasons. These include 1) exploitation of poor people by machine politicians through appeal to racial and class resentments, 2) hostility to capitalist society of well off leftist professionals who have plenty of money and don’t mind spending some of it on wasteful social programs in order to demonstrate their virtue to themselves, and 3) one-party rule ensuring there is no countervailing power to end misrule, and that state and national offices are filled by appointment, not election. It’s been 12 years since we paid any attention to the productive part of the city economy, the part that brings the money in.
Yes Thoughtful spending and waste reduction are critical, as well as living within our means (a budget). I don't think I'm alone in supporting the idea of Trump, but with a better man (person) to do the job.
Please subscribe to all the left wing Substacks and check the comments. These writers have a lot of subscribers and it is clear that most of them are in need of cognitive behavior therapy. They are frankly unwell. They suck on all the partisan bubble Bluesky media feeds to rev up their frustration, anger, resentment, etc... and it turns into a perpetual derangement syndrome where they chew off their own political arms and legs in a constant fit of opposition to everything that they can define as being in opposition to their media-fed beliefs.
Trump noted this and is a master at keeping that going. It isn't that he does not care about what Democrats think, it is that he knows he can constantly inflame the Democrat leadership and influencers to take the path of opposition to everything he says and does. But the problem for the Democrats is that Trump's platform are ideas and policies that Democrats need to support to be attractive to voters again. Crime, border security, working class socioeconomic improvements, women's rights, free speech, government efficiency, eliminating government graft and corruption, no wars, focus on domestic problems, heath improvements, etc.
Trump sets their hair on fire and they go off with diarrhea of the mouth to rage against things that the majority of voters see as positive.
If USAID was used exclusively as it was originally designed for, that would be one thing, but when money is being funneled to many numbers of NGO's and from them spread in so many directions that accounting can't keep track of and agencies, can't account for the money and accomplishment of any goals, then an air of corruption begins to seep in and eventually snowball into what is being discovered in the DOGE audit. What doesn't help the demonstrators cause is shouting "fuck Trump". Usually people who start swearing in an argument have lost their ability to defend that argument.
I'm an independent voter who has voted for Obama twice and Trump 3 times. I am concerned that if the Democrat Party doesn't get it's s**t together, our nation is in trouble, regardless of oligarchs and plutocrats. We need, as a nation, a 2 or more party system to survive as a free nation. Democrats must find a leader!!!
The problem for Democrats is that they have no hills to die on. Progressives did, but they aren't Democrats. And they actually died on their hills (or actually on their little mounds).
I don't really know what the Democratic Party stands for these days. I used to know what it stood for, which is why my wife and I were Democrats. But other than vague phrases ("for all working Americans..."), I don't know what it means to be a Democrat.
It seems as if Progressives, currently, are just searching around for a mound, any mound, instead of identifying the real hills to take a stand on.
The problem goes much deeper than the few bureaucracies Democrats are currently defending. Their hyperbole runneth over when they say Trump has created a fourth branch of government in hiring Musk and his DOGE associates, who are serving at the pleasure of the President.
The actual fourth branch of government in the United States is an extra-constitutional institutionalized mass of agencies called the Bureaucracy. It currently has 3 million employees and that doesn't count the 1.3 million active duty military employees. It's influence and scope of regulatory powers is vast. It is so vast that Congress is overwhelmed trying to exercise oversight upon it. As USAID shows, bureaucracies can go rogue and execute key policy decisions that can easily run counter to the public interest. You will find the same level of overreach in several other bureaucracies in the coming months.
Democrat hysteria over cost-cutting in the fourth branch of government, the Bureaucracy, is completely predictable since it's likely that at least 80% of federal employees vote Democrat, which if you do the math, computes roughly to 2.4 million votes for Democrats compared to 600,000 votes for Republicans. 2.4 million votes is more than Trump's margin of victory in the popular vote in 2024.
We are already seeing the find out phase of this with Americans/farmers that make their living supplying the aid loosing out.. Causing the death of other humans, largely children would normally be considered bad and should always be a way to attack the alleged pro life party. More generally federal workers make middle class wages, are largely veterans and donate work the public wanted. Taking care of veterans, managing federal prisons, keeping air and water clean, parks, etc. there is a better way for Dems to fight for us.
Federal workers make middle class wages? Average pay is $106,000. On day one, they get 13 paid holidays, 13 sick days, and 13 vacation days to start, it gets a lot sweeter after five years. Plus guaranteed lifetime employment and a sweet pension plan. And they've worked from home for four years now.
Killing children? When life-saving programs were continued?
If you watched the DOGE hearings yesterday you could actually hear voters stampeding out of the Democrat party. Dick pics? And calls to attack Musk?
You’re out of date on the pension plan. Federal employee pensions were dramatically cut in the 1980s. And federal employees are by and large highly educated people who would make far more money doing equivalent jobs in the private sector. I know, because I was one - and I know how much wealthier my classmates who went into the private sector are.
These federal workers are hopelessly and delusionally out of touch with those who pay their salaries. Just how far out of touch is best measured by the buyouts a mere fraction of the full federal workforce has accepted to merely walk away if they are dissatisfied.
The most shocking thing about the New York metro area as opposed to Dallas, Texas, to me is Con Edision is literally three times as expensive for electricity in winter as the Dallas utilities. I have the comparison power bills. 2/3 of that cost difference is in transmission and delivery charges, so shopping around for an electricity provider won't even help you in New York. Natural gas is 25% more expensive, actually exclusively in delivery and transmission charges. I imagine New York summer air conditioning costs will blow Dallas's costs out of the water despite the temperature differentials.
People I mention this to just seem to accept it. They will often make some crack about the grid staying up - for that price, it better be the most gold plated grid in the history of grids. I'm sure the establishment thinks Con Edison is doing an amazing job delivering electricity.
Correct about the optics and likely electoral outcomes of this.
What is worse is the activist judges affiliated with the Democratic Party. Whatever you say about bureaucrats, at least they know stuff and are more accountable and less arrogant than judges.
Conservatives are definitely going to respond to the blizzard of national injunctions issued by district judges. This can play out several ways. The Trump administration could go all Jackson on them and simply ignore the injunctions. The Congress could use the power they have in the Constitution and adjust the jurisdiction or even existence of the district courts. Probably couldn't overcome a filibuster and Republicans seem reluctant to break the institution. Or Republican state AGs could file suits in front of their selected judges and get rulings overruling the other rulings. Or the USAG and conservative activist groups could engage in sue and settle. The last two would produce chaos and make possible Congressional action. Or the Supreme Court could step in and just end it. Nah.
I do not think , Trump will ignore the injunctions , nor it is necessary. As the suits progress thru the Courts, ultimately Trump will win most of them. Federal employees are not entitled to life long employment, although they may need to be fired, in a specific manner.
The most important service DOGE will provide is informing Americans how govt spending wastes a trillion bucks a year, because no one sane, is paying attention. There is no need to cut worthwhile programs , because we have plenty of programs that will not be missed, when they are gone.
Please share the programs you would cut or eliminate to save $1 Trillion a year. You do know that the entire non-defense discretionary budget is less than a trillion?
He didn't as 1.0 but they ran out the clock on him