Like, yeah, they can ‘get away with’ ending soft power. They can ‘get away with’ extrajudicial killings. They’re operating off of pure machismo right now. They’re getting drunk on their vices. They’re stripping masks where masks wouldn’t be advised to be stripped. I feel like I understand now that Fascism is, in part, an expression of weakness. They wouldn’t be doing this unless they were scared. It’s too volatile. It feels both too late on a power-level and too early on a popular-level. Never mind the ticking time bomb that is AI data centers. It feels like, and I’m sure this is cope, there is a timer on their ability to run the circus much longer.
My first instinct here is to doubt myself, intellectual pessimism and all. In that vein, maybe this is just revolutionary optimism, but we’re at the point where it feels like there is a palpable anger brewing in the basement. I don’t know. Maybe Palantir works as an anti-communist panopticon and we just death spiral forever. I don’t want to lose hope.
This is easily the most believable viewpoint for me. Unless we start seeing the empire crumbling like a house of cards, it’s safe to assume that they’ve got the future locked down through brute force and coercion, the only power that actually matters. Precisely why I’ve lost the will to live, and any desire to see what the future holds. I’m good, I’m just gonna go rot and die somewhere.
The reaction to Trump is also part of emboldenment. Listen to the chorus of “we are a 3rd world country!” “She was a CITIZEN!”
We can not afford to be fooled by liberal historonics.
But I write none of this as a commentary on hope. I don’t give a shit about giving people hope any more than I care to take it away. Hope simply isn’t my perogative. I think you are fully valid to feel as if life is over, because there is no reason to think our lives aren’t the price of fixing this. I wouldn’t even blame you for saying that cost is too high.
I grew up in a culture of evangelism. I was part of sects that would have you build your own casket before you were sent into the field. You had to forfeit your life for the mission. I’ve never met a single person on the west coast USA that has a comparable attitude when it comes to their convictions, but when I do I might admit to an iota of “hope.”
For what it’s worth, this hard-power approach is self defeating. Sure, the US can STILL destabilize countries that they’d sanctioned and economically isolated for decades, but it doesn’t mean the US can keep doing it in perpetuity.
What the government is doing is undermining every institution that made it successful in the first place. Coupled with the fact that the US is no longer an industrial powerhouse and maintains its hegemony through the dollar which is losing its reserve status gradually, means that the US is in a death spiral. All that fictitious capital doesn’t mean jack once people start going hungry in droves.
They flame flickers most when it’s about to go out.
Despite the US’ hollywood-esque shenanigans, the material reality says the US’ fate is sealed.
The US is currently stealing the largest oil reserves on the planet, worth 4x the GNP of Japan, while already boasting the world’s largest oil production.
Id say they’re buying themselves more than enough time to do permanent damage.
Nah, the US can’t move without profits. If there isn’t profit to be made, no US organization will make a move.
Besides, the US is stretched thin. It’s lashing out because it can’t maintain its hold over it’s colonies, so it’s trying to get more vassals, except it still doesn’t address the US’ internal contradictions.
The empire is in free fall. Make no mistake
Hope you’re right!