To think never again can Americans badge themselves as the good guys

[Decisionsdecisions1]

The millions who voted for Trump will go down in history akin to those who thought Adolf was a great guy.

Those sanctimonious bible belt so called Christians, full of values and morals supposedly, have blood on their hands.
If there is a God, and if there is a Judgement Day, they won't be going anywhere good.

I don't care if they see the error of their ways in decades to come. They didn't just vote for someone who put America First. They voted for someone who put dictators around the world first (and an unelected lunatic in the cabinet).
They have acted to the detriment of the safety and wellbeing of millions. They will not be forgiven.

Countries aren't good guys, in general. They do what they think they need to.

There is a whole new world paradigm and power axis emerging at the moment, and I think it will look ugly from many perspectives. This is both an economic and military realignment. Much of Europe and countries like Canada are becoming less relevant and are starting to see, now, that they have put themselves in a situation where they can't seem to influence what is going on. It's been projected for decades that power is going to move East and the Americans seem determined to situate themselves within that new set of power players, as well as realigning their economy in a really significant way.

Will it work, who knows, but I find the "good guys/bad guys" stuff pretty tedious and naive. It's only our own fault that we are so impotent now, and the fact is that we have relied on American military power and - along with the rest of the world - the power of the American dollar to keep the global economy moving. And the people who control the infrastructure are always the people who have the ability to affect things, and those that don't, don't.

The Democrats and the left more generally, as far as I can see, have been totally complicit in all of this. Outside of the US the left has been the most active in preventing investment in the military, for example. And within the US, it almost seems like they have been trying to make themselves unelectable - many Trump voters were also people who voted for Obama, and backed Sanders. It's hard to know if th Democrats were somehow colluding to get Trump elected, or if they are just that fucking stupid.

Why would you think that Americans care what you think? They think America is the world. Very few Americans ever leave the country, their education on anything outside America is poor. They don't care what you think.

What Gaza was bombed yesterday with 400 people dead and 600 injured. Netanyahu says that he will not stop until Hamas is destroyed which means everyone in Gaza is dead and the 6% of the buildings left standing are destroyed.

overnight Russia attacked power plants and civilians.

How Is this ending the war? How is carving up Ukraine with Russia without any input from Ukraine stopping the war?

history will show that this was the start of the rise of fascism in the US and it’s creep into irrelevance. However in it’s death throes. May cause repercussions around the world. The Europeans can provide a buffer against the excesses of the US but there are so many people trying to spoil this buffer like Le Pen, Farage, Orban and Meloni.

As the west slides into irrelevance the East and Africa will rise and they will do it without the pugilistic aggressive colonial expansionism that characterised the rise of the West.

Indeed. Most of the world hss never thought of America as the good guys. Just the sanctimonious ones.

Yes, they do. They will always be viewed with suspicion. Rightly so, with the swing to the far right in German politics currently.

True. But it's an attitude based on an extremity of ignorance (not necessarily stupidity) because their whole system is designed to keep them brainwashed.

Which countries/people do you consider to be "good guys" OP?

It took a very long time for the apologists to die off. "Hitler was a good leader, it was a shame the war happened" (ignoring that the war was his doing)

They don't.

However I've seen some concern being expressed when they get told numbers. The USA travel sector say for evey 10% of lost candian travel to USA they lose 2 billion - there down 40% already and they think that will rise.

The EU had finally upped defence spending but they've stimulated it has to be spent in Europe - it's started to be pointed out they are encouraging developement of rival industrial complex. Candian is looking at other counties to sell to - China has a plan to increase internal consuption levels.

I think they are going to have a few tough lessons and more will learn - whether that will be the truth they learn or more propaganda who knows.

Do you still consider modern Germans to be Nazis?

If not, I don't think it's possible to argue that Americans can "never" improve their reputation. They have the option to change their government in the future.

What's good and bad is subjective anyway. There are probably people who voted Labour last July who are now worried about losing their essential benefits. There are probably people who didn't vote Labour who are delighted at the prospect.

I'm not sure America were ever "the good guys" it's more that they are/were more aligned to our way of thinking. If you think America were the "good guys" then by extension you think we are too.

If they are no longer "the good guys" then someone else must be. Who? Russia? China? India? South Africa? Argentina? Mexico? All countries with terrible records.

Most countries were.

They've never been the good guys. They've attacked countries and tried to enforce their style of government, they are actively supporting genocide in palestine and they provide nothing to their own citizens yet feed them the line America the great and free when it is neither.
America always saves the day in movies so we're brainwashed into thinking they do but they stood by and let Europeans die in huge numbers in both wars and only entered when they needed our help against Japan. That is not the action of a good guy. What's happening now is just turbo charged but very much the existing MO.

100%

It's weird, but happens so often these days and people never see the irony.

It's just labelling political opponents with a negative slogan which in fact signifies what they themselves are.

Just look at the UK. Freedom of speech is in peril, the though police are knocking on people's doors, we have NCHI's which are a terrible abuse of power. The govt has a backdoor into Apple accounts, etc etc.

This extreme censorship is behaviour akin to the far right. Yet anyone who objects to any of this is labelled far right.

The good thing is a LOT of people are now seeing it for what it is, thankfully including the US. Unlike many of the US's trading partners we do not have a tariff threat based on a trade imbalance with them. However I do believe tariffs could be imposed on the UK based on free speech restrictions.

Or you could have a go at looking at the other sides point of view and actually think about why Americans voted for Trump.

But that would require effort and seeing that your side isn't actually perfect.

Trump got 49.8% of the vote, Harris 48.3%. It wasn’t a landslide victory. 75 million people voted for Harris, 77 million Trump.

I don’t have any data to back this up but I suspect you will get diehard voters who will always vote either Democrat or Republican and a large group of voters who can sway either way - these are the people who decide elections.

Is it really their fault they didn’t like Biden’s corruption (I’m not a Trump supporter but let’s be honest) around his son. Not just the pardon but also his business dealings. Didn’t like the democrats trying to cover up Biden’s declining competency, and didn’t like the candidate they were given. I’m not sure America is ready for a female president, certainly not a woman of colour (depressing as that is).

All this to say I think it’s very similar to the U.K. election, I’m not sure people voted for Trump because they were huge supporters of his but because they couldn’t see an alternative - the other guy had to go.

And Harris was his VP so part of the problem.

If you dismiss people who believe different things from you as 'stupid' then you will never listen to them and recognise their genuine concerns. Try and find out why people support Brexit/Trump/Reform and the like. The majority of people who voted for Trump feel like American values, traditions, and future economic prosperities are under threat. Those don't sound like unreasonable concerns really and clearly Trump addressed those concerns in a way that Kamala Harris failed to do. It's easy for us to laugh at the Gulf of America etc but that doesn't achieve anything. The Democrats need to remember 'It's the Economy, Stupid'. If people are scared they tend to vote for extremists who offer what sounds like easy solutions. And because ofsocial media logarithms and election interference from foreign powers we are all being fed more and more of what we agree with rather than a mix of views.

Trump got 49.8% of the vote, Harris 48.3%. It wasn’t a landslide victory. 75 million people voted for Harris, 77 million Trump.

I think there are problems with their entire poltical system - both parties. I think democrats bar Bernie Sanders need to be doing more now but they seem to be sitting back and thinking they'll just get in next time.

I think Rupblican party is weak becuase they didn't cut of Trump even when he looked down - the democrates are also to blame for feilding two weak candiates against Trump. This is a collective failure - and possible a sign that their poltcial elite are too disconnected from ordinary voters and a increasingly a very closed narrow community they are pulling representatives from.

I agree with most of this.

Despite what people say, I believe America is the most benign superpower we have seen in history. Compared with say the British empire they are pretty well behaved.

Trump appears to be something of an isolationist and has little interest in fighting wars in the rest of the world.

I think with the rise of China the Americans are starting to feel threatened. If the dollar loses its status as the worlds reserve currency the amount of power and through that the standard of living the US will lose from that is immense. That is maybe a long way off, but not centuries off IMO.

What is doubly concerning for a lot of Americans is that the rise of China has effectively been enabled by them. It may actually be too late now to stop that, if it ever could have been stopped anyway. Certainly US economic actions over the past few decades have acted to speed up the rise of their competitors against them and not surprisingly not everyone sees that as a good thing.

I think if America follows through on its current policies then it will experience some short term economic pain. The benefit will probably be that it will extend its position as the global superpower by a few more decades, maybe up to half a century. Without the efforts Trump is making at the moment I think it will come a lot sooner.

I also think that the new Democrats, whoever they are are likely to adopt similar policies to Trump, if somewhat watered down. Basically the Democrats will shift further to the right to take away Trumps voting base at the next election, in a similar way Tony Blair did to Major/Thatcher. Of course the cheerleaders won't mind this because their mindset is anyone but Trump rather than looking at the actual detail.

It’s all about wealth and any threat to that wealth, just the same as here. A tiny percentage of the US population are in control of a much greater percentage of the wealth, and therefore those in power, the rich people get to control the narrative. Trump, multimillionaire. Musk, richest man in the World. Tack on a few sycophantic wannabees, a pinch of “if I vote for him, I will get richer” types and you sort of get the idea. (Diluted version here whenever the Tories are in power.) Europe, including the UK has sleep walked into yet another period of not doing enough to be in control of its own borders, not being in a position to be robust enough to look after itself should there ever be another threat, and then the UK decides to go it alone. Which will go down in history as shooting one’s own foot, but hey, the late coming as usual Yanks just might bale us out yet again, but make sure we are in huge debt for decades after. USA only has two relatively tiny land borders, one with Canada, who won’t be a problem, the other with Mexico who are too piss poor to do anything. If they had Russia as a neighbour, just roll over the border, they wouldn’t be so effing confident. It only took three planes, two on the Twin Towers, one on the Pentagon, to show America just how vulnerable they are, and they kicked of in revenge that reverberates to this day. Every country has its bad leaders, but Trump has to be one of the worst. Head do a deal with the Devil if he thought it would enhance his already inflated ego.

Lol.

A man, presumably you're a man @Jonny234, coming on to tell all us little ladies how to see the Joe Rogan light.

I've got news for you, the only wardrobe door you've opened is into lining up behind reactionary planks like Marc Andreesen and Musk, both of whom abandoned the dems and threw their lot in with the fat orange dementia clown for one reason and one reason only: they want to implement AI without restriction or regulation in order to enrich and empower themselves further. Those mean nasty Dems (who didn't invite widdle Elon to their EV summit) wanted to impose - gasp - oversight and regulation on those big, smart, woud-be-MMA-fighter-worthy techbros.

If we judge everyone by their government most people are the bad guys in some way or another.

Trump, Hitler, and countless other bad politicians were/are incredibly good at manipulating ordinary people into supporting them... that's what makes them so dangerous.

If you were able at least to tolerate an opposing view by watching the Rogan Andreessen clips you would appreciate Andreessen was not pro Trump, far from it as a lifelong democrat. He had a meeting with Biden's team and their future vision genuinely scared him. He moved to Trump because of the pernicious extremism openly on display with the Biden team.

Gut feeling is you are the type that will never open the wardrobe.

I agree with a lot of comments on this forum that Trump didnt necessarily win by being popular but because people voted for him by defualt because they saw first hand how the Dems were ruining the country on a number of levels.

One particular thing was the genital mutilation of minors, especially in Democratic states like California. How can any sensible adult agree to this?

OP, which country/countries would you like to see take over from the US as the main power/"good guys"?

Have you watched the USA - Britain school swap program on channel 4.
one teenager said something along the lines of there being a lot of hate in their country coming from their version of Christianity

Why does one need to?