The keyword is "may", it's not a guarantee it would give birth to self-sufficient industries. What industries are we talking about here? Hi-tech industry or lower end stuff? Americans aren't going to accept a lower standard of living so they can be making toasters. Even if America re-industrialized, after they saturated their markets who will they sell excess to? Surely you don't think they'd be able to compete globally with China.
Trump 2.0 official thread
- Thread starter siegecrossbow
- Start date
I am surprised that anyone takes the reindustrialization theory seriously now
Chinese people know this fight is about their wellbeings and economic future
“I haven’t met a single person, even manufacturers directly impacted by the tariff, who blames Beijing,” said one foreign manufacturer based in Guangdong province. “The mood that I’ve seen is a kind of defiance. I think the way the government is playing it is about national pride now.”
plawolf
Lieutenant General
Orange Overlord does successfully ‘predicts’ next weeks’ lottery winning numbers and tells you in advance. You buy winning ticket only to get USD0.5 back as the jackpot is split 300 million ways.
Welcome to Imperial America, where you loose money even when you win lottery jackpot. Hiel MAGA!
Of course they do; Trump has gone out of his way at every step to announce how he is personally choosing to do this. He wants everyone to know that he is the source of all tariffs. Not a formalized bureaucratic process, not some abstract technocratic calculation, just him.
There are plenty of ordinary citizens who might roll their eyes at overblown propaganda blaming the evil US for everything (you know the type), but here and now Beijing doesn't even need to say anything.
China orders halts to Boeing jet deliveries, Bloomberg News reports
April 15 (Reuters) - China has ordered its airlines not to take any further deliveries of Boeing jets in response to the U.S. decision to impose 145% tariffs on Chinese goods, Bloomberg News said on Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter.Beijing has also asked that Chinese carriers halt any purchases of aircraft-related equipment and parts from U.S. companies, the Bloomberg report said.
The Chinese government is also considering ways to provide assistance to airlines that lease Boeing jets and are facing higher costs, the people told Bloomberg News.
As funny as Trump's antics have been, I'm going to sober up a bit.
Lately, there have been an increasing number of renowned historians speaking up about Trump, most of whom have been flying under the radar. This list is sizable, and includes Robert Paxton, perhaps one of the greatest living historians of fascism; it includes Timothy Snyder, a leading historian of Eastern European history and the Holocaust; and Jason Stanley, an expert on fascist propaganda.
The verdict is clear among all of them: the MAGA movement is a fascist movement, not just a populist movement.
In fact, I find it especially telling that, during Trump's first administration, Paxton - ever a cautious academic - refrained from classifying Trump as a fascist and instead argued he was "just" a right-wing populist - one that we should watch out for, sure, but not literally Hitler or Mussolini.
More recently, however, Paxton has walked back on that statement. In his most recent interview in November 2024, he was asked whether he stood by his 2021 statement that MAGA is fascism, to which he replied:
Like Paxton, I think focusing on Trump misses the forest for the trees. To the degree that Trump is a fascist, he is a bad one, because fascism is fundamentally rooted in resentment, anger, and discontent. Trump was born with a silver spoon in his mouth; he's no Hitler or Mussolini, both of whom - importantly - belonged to the lower middle classes and struggled with unemployment and financial failure until they found a way out through military service and political activism.
In short, they were "have nots" or to put it plainly, they were losers, and as losers, they were naturally attracted to narratives that excused their failures on larger forces (liberalism, the Jews, minorities, etc.). Indeed, what made them such effective and fervent fascists was precisely this background, which allowed them to truly understand, empathize with, and rally larger streams of societal resentment and discontent in bad times, and to forge that into a force for revolution.
Today, the conditions for fascism in America are ripe - there is most assuredly a powerful under current of societal resentment, anger, and discontent within the US, which ten years ago manifested itself as "right wing populism" (Tea Party, etc.) but, as nothing has improved in the decade since, is today transforming into full-blown fascism. Concepts that were once taboo - Hitler salutes, white nationalism, deporting citizens, dissolving liberal institutions, crushing dissent, and out right authoritarianism - are now in the public spot light. And as much as liberals and Democrats cry about them, they are not disappearing, not suppressed. Fascism has, in other words, been "normalized."
The role Trump has played in this transformation of the US body politic is, I think, as a fascist sympathizer and enabler. That is to say, I don't ultimately think Trump is a fascist revolutionary in the sense that Hitler or Mussolini was. Despite having a great deal of charisma, he's not the type to go and rally grass roots support on the streets - he's too wealthy, too privileged, too soft to do that. And in that sense, we might even be fortunate, because if it was not Trump that captured the imagination of America, but someone like Stephen Miller or JD Vance - two people who do fit the bill of coming from troubled, social agitator backgrounds - things could be so much worse.
Yet that doesn't mean we should be deluded into thinking that Trump is just another clown of an US president, whose lasting legacy will be no more than to preside over the fall of the American empire. That may all come to pass, but the transition is extremely dangerous. As Paxton warned, where Hitler and Mussolini's rises to power were merely favored by social conditions and they just happened to roll the right dice, Trump's rise to power has a feeling of inevitability about it. The conditions for fascism to emerge as a movement within the US is strong, and if Trump is not exactly the best leader to channel it, some one else will.
I hate to say this, but the impression I get is that Trump is merely the prelude to something much worse. He has enabled the rise of fascism in America (because he deeply sympathizes with it), but it is ultimately not his movement to lead. There will be an American Hitler. But it probably won't be Trump. Someone like JD Vance or Stephen Miller or one of Trump's many other fascist advisors, taking advantage of a political crisis (e.g. a Trump assassination or a depression caused by the trade war against China), is far more likely to bring about the genuine Fourth Reich.
And when that moment comes, the world needs to be ready.
Lately, there have been an increasing number of renowned historians speaking up about Trump, most of whom have been flying under the radar. This list is sizable, and includes Robert Paxton, perhaps one of the greatest living historians of fascism; it includes Timothy Snyder, a leading historian of Eastern European history and the Holocaust; and Jason Stanley, an expert on fascist propaganda.
The verdict is clear among all of them: the MAGA movement is a fascist movement, not just a populist movement.
In fact, I find it especially telling that, during Trump's first administration, Paxton - ever a cautious academic - refrained from classifying Trump as a fascist and instead argued he was "just" a right-wing populist - one that we should watch out for, sure, but not literally Hitler or Mussolini.
More recently, however, Paxton has walked back on that statement. In his most recent interview in November 2024, he was asked whether he stood by his 2021 statement that MAGA is fascism, to which he replied:
Like Paxton, I think focusing on Trump misses the forest for the trees. To the degree that Trump is a fascist, he is a bad one, because fascism is fundamentally rooted in resentment, anger, and discontent. Trump was born with a silver spoon in his mouth; he's no Hitler or Mussolini, both of whom - importantly - belonged to the lower middle classes and struggled with unemployment and financial failure until they found a way out through military service and political activism.
In short, they were "have nots" or to put it plainly, they were losers, and as losers, they were naturally attracted to narratives that excused their failures on larger forces (liberalism, the Jews, minorities, etc.). Indeed, what made them such effective and fervent fascists was precisely this background, which allowed them to truly understand, empathize with, and rally larger streams of societal resentment and discontent in bad times, and to forge that into a force for revolution.
Today, the conditions for fascism in America are ripe - there is most assuredly a powerful under current of societal resentment, anger, and discontent within the US, which ten years ago manifested itself as "right wing populism" (Tea Party, etc.) but, as nothing has improved in the decade since, is today transforming into full-blown fascism. Concepts that were once taboo - Hitler salutes, white nationalism, deporting citizens, dissolving liberal institutions, crushing dissent, and out right authoritarianism - are now in the public spot light. And as much as liberals and Democrats cry about them, they are not disappearing, not suppressed. Fascism has, in other words, been "normalized."
The role Trump has played in this transformation of the US body politic is, I think, as a fascist sympathizer and enabler. That is to say, I don't ultimately think Trump is a fascist revolutionary in the sense that Hitler or Mussolini was. Despite having a great deal of charisma, he's not the type to go and rally grass roots support on the streets - he's too wealthy, too privileged, too soft to do that. And in that sense, we might even be fortunate, because if it was not Trump that captured the imagination of America, but someone like Stephen Miller or JD Vance - two people who do fit the bill of coming from troubled, social agitator backgrounds - things could be so much worse.
Yet that doesn't mean we should be deluded into thinking that Trump is just another clown of an US president, whose lasting legacy will be no more than to preside over the fall of the American empire. That may all come to pass, but the transition is extremely dangerous. As Paxton warned, where Hitler and Mussolini's rises to power were merely favored by social conditions and they just happened to roll the right dice, Trump's rise to power has a feeling of inevitability about it. The conditions for fascism to emerge as a movement within the US is strong, and if Trump is not exactly the best leader to channel it, some one else will.
I hate to say this, but the impression I get is that Trump is merely the prelude to something much worse. He has enabled the rise of fascism in America (because he deeply sympathizes with it), but it is ultimately not his movement to lead. There will be an American Hitler. But it probably won't be Trump. Someone like JD Vance or Stephen Miller or one of Trump's many other fascist advisors, taking advantage of a political crisis (e.g. a Trump assassination or a depression caused by the trade war against China), is far more likely to bring about the genuine Fourth Reich.
And when that moment comes, the world needs to be ready.
To add to the above, here's Paxton's definition of fascism:
Its wealth, its power, its status, has all increased exponentially in the last few decades. Chinese people are, if not entirely happy, at least happier than much of the rest of the world, and in any case they tend to be optimistic about their future and self-critical where they fall short. They don't generally blame others - be it minorities, rich people, other countries, etc. - for their problems and they don't see themselves as victims of "those bad people over there." The CCP, for all its faults, has cultivated strength and confidence in the body politic, and Chinese people don't really see a reason to overthrow the international order because it's been beneficial to them. If not for the West constantly getting on China's ***, Chinese people wouldn't have any issues with the status quo.
On the other hand, the MAGA movement in the US is all of these things, and to the degree that Trump has made the US's economic and geopolitical situation worse, the perception and thus the temptation of fascism will only become stronger as more misery, more discontent, and more resentment emerges that MAGA fascists will blame entirely on others (especially China, liberals, and minorities). That's the scary thing - the worst it gets for Americans, the higher the chance of full-blown fascism. Without a liberal counter attack and economic revival, it is almost certain that the US will transform into a full-blown fascist state in the near future.
The above definition is one reason why arguments that China is fascist has little merit. It's not that China doesn't have any fascist indications (the modern PRC is nationalist, it does practice state capitalism, it does have revanchist tendencies), but that fundamentally, China is rising.
Its wealth, its power, its status, has all increased exponentially in the last few decades. Chinese people are, if not entirely happy, at least happier than much of the rest of the world, and in any case they tend to be optimistic about their future and self-critical where they fall short. They don't generally blame others - be it minorities, rich people, other countries, etc. - for their problems and they don't see themselves as victims of "those bad people over there." The CCP, for all its faults, has cultivated strength and confidence in the body politic, and Chinese people don't really see a reason to overthrow the international order because it's been beneficial to them. If not for the West constantly getting on China's ***, Chinese people wouldn't have any issues with the status quo.
On the other hand, the MAGA movement in the US is all of these things, and to the degree that Trump has made the US's economic and geopolitical situation worse, the perception and thus the temptation of fascism will only become stronger as more misery, more discontent, and more resentment emerges that MAGA fascists will blame entirely on others (especially China, liberals, and minorities). That's the scary thing - the worst it gets for Americans, the higher the chance of full-blown fascism. Without a liberal counter attack and economic revival, it is almost certain that the US will transform into a full-blown fascist state in the near future.
Dam it really does feel like Trump fell into the trap, they gave China the excuse to decouple without being the bad hombres.
Meanwhile you have Team Trump out their extending and pretending tariffs deals are being made.
I was telling people something similar back in 2016-20. People thought Trump was an aberration, I told them he's not, and that he represents something deeply troubling with the American society. Things certainly have not gotten better since then, it's bad enough that people are willing to give him another try. Luckily for the world he's not competent enough to do anything substantial with his 2nd mandate, but unluckily for the world even his base will find out this fact soon enough and they'll try to find someone else. Eventually, someone truly terrifying will be found. A true believer, someone with great conviction and drive, and someone who can rally more of the nation to his misguided cause born out of a feeling of victimhood.
With that said, I would still be cautious about the MAGA = fascism comparisons. History always repeats itself, true, but it's never exactly the same. Bad things will happen with America's decline, sure, as it happens with any great nation's decline, but each nation has unique characteristics shaped by its culture and history. America will chart its own course IMO, and it's not a given at all that there will be an American Hitler. If the Dems didn't push DEI so hard and was able to find a more competent/charismatic candidate than Harris then they could've very well won the election.