Trump 2.0 official thread

[Lethe]

People are cheering the collapse of the US too early. The imperial core might be in trouble, but the fact is, the US still has a lot of power, influence, and control around the world. Trump is just more willing to make use of that power than Biden was - he's the sort of president to abuse it to the limits.

Of course, whether any of this can save the US empire is a different story, but whatever the result, Trump 2.0 is going all out.

For all its crimes and follies, the American empire has been so successful because it internalised the lessons of the European colonial powers and built alternative models of indirect persuasion and coercion that achieved the same ends without generating nearly the same levels of local opposition. The American hegemonic structure was enabled by that nation's unprecedented economic power and leverage emerging from the Second World War, but was not guaranteed by that leverage, which could easily have been frittered away in more reckless hands. The nakedly coercive and transactional approach of Donald Trump, prompted by his anxiety about the gradual decline of American hegemony, will only accelerate the decline of that hegemony.

In the short-term, Trump can arm-twist Panama, Denmark, and other vassalized nations about a great many things and gloat in his success. In the background, the elites in those nations and many others watching on will be making plans to secure their interests against further coercion. Donald Trump's threats towards BRICS countries about an alternative to the US dollar are a case in point. Every threat he utters only further highlights the need for BRICS nations to reduce their exposure to the whims of the United States. One of the great paradoxes of power is that you have to be careful how you use it, because each action has an equal and opposite reaction. Or as renowned philosopher Princess Leia put it: "the more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers." Beijing has had its own experience with this in the largely unsuccessful deployment of so-called "Wolf Warrior" diplomacy that now appears to be in decline -- a learning curve that Trump is almost certainly incapable of emulating.

 

[coolgod]

Beijing has had its own experience with this in the largely unsuccessful deployment of so-called "Wolf Warrior" diplomacy that now appears to be in decline -- a learning curve that Trump is almost certainly incapable of emulating.

WTF? You know wolf warrior diplomacy is a made up propaganda term meant to smear China right? If anything China's diplomacy has only gotten more hawkish than before.

 

[RedBaron]

WTF? You know wolf warrior diplomacy is a made up propaganda term meant to smear China right? If anything China's diplomacy has only gotten more hawkish than before.

Nikki Haley was literally threatening countries at the UN by saying that "US will be “taking names” of the countries that vote in favor of a resolution that condemns the Trump administration’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel", but somehow China is the one conducting so called "wolf warrior diplomacy" ...

 

[W20]

"One of the great paradoxes of power is that you have to be careful how you use it, because each action has an equal and opposite reaction. Or as renowned philosopher Princess Leia put it: "the more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.""

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Yes

Exactly the same thing that is read in the epilogue of this book:

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[BillRamengod]

View attachment 144888
You welcome.

Change little bit for english audience.

 

[W20]

The last version of The West Empire

The Empire, the last version of the West Roman Empire, has gone through four phases

A) the Wall Street wars (1846-) very well summarized in the little book "War is a racket"

It is difficult or impossible to put a closing date because it is entangled with the colossal crisis of the British empire and the last 'end of the world' (1914-1949)

History repeated itself

Roman Empire 1.0: Rome
Big Crisis (250-300)
Roman Empire 2.0: Constantinople

Anglo Empire 1.0: London
Big Crisis (1914-1949)
Anglo Empire 2.0: Washington

B) Adolf 2's wars: the war against the communists (1945-1991)

Adolf threw in the towel in his war against the communist and Washington continued where Adolf left off

C) the Ziocon wars (1991-2021)

D) the final Delirium (2021-2049) (?)

 

[RedBaron]

People are cheering the collapse of the US too early. The imperial core might be in trouble, but the fact is, the US still has a lot of power, influence, and control around the world. Trump is just more willing to make use of that power than Biden was - he's the sort of president to abuse it to the limits.

I am likewise hesitant to fully count US out. Bismarck's quote "God has a special providence for fools, drunkards, and America" is always at the back of my mind.

___________________________________________________________
I forgot Vance existed tbh

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[antwerpery]

The sad thing is that Trump and his cronies will likely achieve many of their goals. Though no competence of their own, but the fact of the matter is that America is just that fucking strong, especially in regard to her allies and the world order that they created. The government could be crewed by 5 years olds and they will still do fine for a while. What Trump is doing will still likely have a long term effects on American soft power, but by then, his 4 years will be up and the democrats will have to deal with the fallout.

The worse case scenario is that the democrats will likely go on a mega charm offensive after Trump and go "Oh Trump is just an aberration, we fucking hate him too, it will never happen again" and Canada and Europe being the ultimate cucks, will actually believe it and normalize their relations again, only for Trump 2.0 to pop up again.

 

[Africablack]

If by leverage, you're talking about the ability to ruin or kill him at a moment's notice, sure.

During the Cold War, the US

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They have a sophisticated system of intelligence, influence, and control in the region, such that any opposition to the US is better thought of as "controlled" or "managed" opposition, than actual opposition.

Besides which, China can hardly defend any South American leader from the US. It doesn't have the intelligence chain and it doesn't have the blue water navy necessary to be a viable protector. This is why, push comes to shove, South American leaders will always bend the knee. It's just a matter of how much tolerance for risk they have - and in this case, we found a leader whose tolerance for risk is rather low.

People are cheering the collapse of the US too early. The imperial core might be in trouble, but the fact is, the US still has a lot of power, influence, and control around the world. Trump is just more willing to make use of that power than Biden was - he's the sort of president to abuse it to the limits.

Of course, whether any of this can save the US empire is a different story, but whatever the result, Trump 2.0 is going all out.

Have you thought about how long this strategy will last? This might go on for a while longer but eventually two things will happen: the US will bankrupt itself sustaining whatever is left of its empire, CIA ops and controlling opposition has costs. Secondly, I'm not so sure people are going to tolerate excessive US influence in its affairs like they did during the Cold War. The world was split in two ideologically back then, right now there's no driving ideology behind what the US is doing. Colonialism for the sake of maintaining hegemony isn't going to sit well with people without giving them any real tangible benefits. If using 20th century tactics in the 21st century is how the US plans on sustaining its hegemony then it might as well just give it up now, it's a losing strategy.

My honest opinion is that the US will predictably freak out because they are realizing their grip on the world is slowing leaving them and all this is their last effort at maintaining whatever is left of their empire. Trump and co basically are trying to build a leaner and meaner version of American hegemony with all the benefits that comes with it but trying to escape from the responsibilities, the inevitable result will be chaos and distrust and eventually the world morphing into a multilateral (not multipolar) order where countries will have overlapping alignments and transactional relationships based on mutually beneficial trading operations.

 

[Serb]

The sad thing is that Trump and his cronies will likely achieve many of their goals. Though no competence of their own, but the fact of the matter is that America is just that fucking strong, especially in regard to her allies and the world order that they created. The government could be crewed by 5 years olds and they will still do fine for a while. What Trump is doing will still likely have a long term effects on American soft power, but by then, his 4 years will be up and the democrats will have to deal with the fallout.

The worse case scenario is that the democrats will likely go on a mega charm offensive after Trump and go "Oh Trump is just an aberration, we fucking hate him too, it will never happen again" and Canada and Europe being the ultimate cucks, will actually believe it and normalize their relations again, only for Trump 2.0 to pop up again.

This isn’t about soft power anymore, it’s about hard power. China’s true economy is already at least twice the size of the U.S., with industrial capacity that dwarfs America’s by dozens of times, far more patents, and a shipbuilding industry 200 times larger. In this kind of world, the only way the U.S. can compete is by rallying all its allies.

Now, imagine the U.S. decides to attack China over Taiwan and starts getting its ass kicked, an outcome we could easily expect. Desperate for support, it turns to the rest of the world, but thanks to Trump’s actions, even natural resources from allies like Canada and manufacturing from Europe could be withheld either directly or indirectly for example.

Picture telling those nations that they need to give away their resources for free to prop up a losing America, with now its increasingly worthless dollars, after Trump spent years trampling their dignity with tariffs, economic coercion, and even territorial overreach, losing all the ideological goodwill previously there.

A hegemon that relies purely on coercion will find itself in a dire position once that coercion is stripped away, especially after being humiliated by China. With Trump having burned bridges even across the Collective West, even the most blindly loyal politicians there would struggle to justify supporting America anymore.