↪frank
I think the present moment is a test for how leftist you really are. If you're white-knuckling the volatility we've had so far, shaking your fist at stupid Trump, then you have a very conservative mindset. He's handing us an economic revolution. If you're a leftist, you're like: go Trump! Get those tariffs!
— frank
Are you saying you believe that Trump is producing an economic revolution? And that you believe this revolution he is hatching is a beneficial thing for America? — Joshs
Read Mark Blyth's comments. He agrees with me and the president of the UAW. ChatteringMonkey mentioned some of this earlier in the thread — frank
I think there’s a real danger that what I could be doing, and a lot of other people are doing, are basically looking for designs within disorder. This could simply be sane-washing the way that the Trump administration is essentially just going for a grift, whether it’s on taxes, whether it’s hollowing out the state, we don’t know.
↪Tzeentch Right right, so the "Blob" that has been controlling foreign policy for decades and basically has no interest in changing what it's been doing suddenly has radically changed tactics. You do realise these articles don't support the notion anybody is "controlling" Trump behind the scenes, — Benkei
You see, the interest on the debt is already a higher spending issue on the budget than defense spending. At that, no DOGE or whoever can touch (even if they tried), because not meeting the interest payments is default.
The interest on the debt is on the average now 3,3% which is over 1% higher than five years ago. Just an additional 1% of interest and the whole debt thing is worse. Think if it would be double, 6,6% which is on the long run quite normal. That would basically double the expenses. And let's remember that we have come from literally from the lowest historical interest rates of all time and now the cycle is going up. — ssu
Deleuze — Joshs
If it would be this way, then colonies of European empires would have enjoyed an absolutely great economic time, because they had huge trade surpluses. They exported huge amounts of resources, but usually got far less imports manufactured items from their colonial masters. That some poor country exports a lot to the US compared to the few imports from the US (as the country is poor), doesn't make it so that the poor country is stealing from the US (as Trump thinks).Let’s start with the premise: “free trade is good for economies with excess production and trade surpluses.” That is a misunderstanding of how trade works. Free trade isn’t some rigged game that only benefits surplus countries. — Benkei
Exactly. And this is the part that many Americans do not understand. How important to all of this is the role of the dollar and just why it is so.The US receives massive foreign capital inflows. Foreigners buy US Treasury bonds, stocks, real estate and invest in businesses. Those inflows keep interest rates low, fund domestic investment and support the dollar’s global role. In other words, the trade deficit is not some evidence of decline. It is the accounting counterpart of America’s central role in the global financial system. That is just how the balance of payments works. — Benkei
It worked so well that Nixon could take the US dollar off the gold standard and the credibility of the US dollar didn't collapse. Oil was sold in dollars as Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States had pegged their currencies to the dollar... because of the alliances/security guarantees the US had with them (called Twin Pillars back then).The US didn’t create the global economic order to rack up trade surpluses. It created the order to prevent another world war, contain communism and entrench a rules-based system in which it would remain the institutional and financial center, regardless of whether it was exporting more goods than it imported. That strategy worked. — Benkei
Deleuze would agree with Nick Land regarding accelerationism. Land was a Marxist, and Land became anti-Enlightenment — frank
I think right now you're kind of frozen by the realization that we might be watching the end of democracy in the US.The only thing that could stop it is if some black swan appears out of the Democratic domain and takes the presidency away from Vance. Otherwise, I think through Trump's administration they're going to be filling vacancies with loyalists — frank
Debasing the currency is just one way to default. So is hyperinflation too. And the actual policy that has been talking about is high inflation, not hyper inflation (as that simply means that the belief in the currency has evaporated). Few years with 20% inflation make wonders on the debt!Even before Trump the debt was likely to fall into a death spiral. Studies have shown that, without the Bush and Trump I tax cuts, revenue would have been better than neutral. THEY DO NOT CARE.
https://www.americanprogress.org/article/tax-cuts-are-primarily-responsible-for-the-increasing-debt-ratio/?utm_source=chatgpt.com
And no they will likely never default. Instead, they will debase the currency to meet the debt. In fact they have been floating this idea for years now. — hypericin
Debate over grand strategy is nearly absent in US politics. Relative military power, over time, generated bipartisan support for primacy, a grand strategy that sees global US military dominance as the basis for US security. The elite consensus in favor of primacy saps political demand for critical analysis of it or consideration of alternative grand strategies. — Friedman & Logan
The democratic explanation for primacy’s dominance also lacks support. According to a 2014 Chicago Council on Global Affairs study, the public is far less enthusiastic about taking an “active” role in global affairs and global leadership than elites.That divide holds across partisan lines. There is a substantial gap between elites identifying as Democrat, Republican, or Independent and the public for each group. Similarly, elites are more supportive of using force to defend allies and long-term US military bases and more likely to agree that those garrisons produce stability.Various studies show that the public is historically less hawkish on issues of war and defense spending than elites. — Friedman & Logan
The Blob emerged from World War II, as the United States’ rising power generated a demand for security expertise. U.S. government officials turned to a group of experts who formed into a cohesive, influential class. Their commitment to primacy became an article of faith. As a grand strategy, primacy warrants scrutiny. It demands significant upfront investments, implicates national security in developments far and wide, and makes the United States prone to the frequent use of force. Yet the Blob’s achievement was to erect primacy as the seemingly natural framework of U.S. diplomacy. — Porter
The foreign policy establishment is not monolithic. Its members dispute issues below the grand strategic level, such as human rights, the extent of multilateral cooperation, democracy promotion, and specific interventions. Until the 1960s, it was mostly a patrician, predominantly white, Protestant class that internalized values nurtured “in prep schools, at college clubs, in the boardrooms of Wall Street, and at dinner parties.” It then incorporated nonwhites, women, first-generation immigrants, Jews, and Roman Catholics, to form a more heterogeneous class of coastal internationalists, oriented around the Ivy League. Still, this cross-section of internationalist elites is united by a consensus. They want the United States to remain engaged in upholding world order. They are primacists. They fear U.S. retreat from overseas responsibilities and warn that abandonment would lead to the return of rival power blocs, economic stagnation, and catastrophe. They have established primacy as the only viable, legitimate grand strategy, and as an ingrained set of ideas, while installing themselves as insiders, positioned to steer the state. — Porter
Has anyone considered that all of this is Stephen Miran's plan to devalue the dollar? His Mar-a-Lago accord spells out both increased tariffs and threatening to leave military collaborations, precisely what Trump has done — Christoffer
No one outside of Trump’s inner circle considers Miran’s ideas and plans to be coherent, credible, or realistic.
Even more damning to the narrative that Miran is the strategic genius guiding Trump’s actions is the fact that Trump himself isn’t following Miran’s roadmap. Instead of targeting specific trade imbalances or building pressure toward a coordinated currency adjustment, the administration’s tariff strategy in 2025 has been indiscriminate and poorly sequenced. Allies like Canada and Mexico have been hit just as hard as rivals, undermining any hope of building a coalition for the mythical Mar-a-Lago Accord.
The rollout has been chaotic, with inconsistent exemptions and retaliations flying in every direction. If Miran truly intended for tariffs to be a form of surgical economic leverage, Trump is wielding them like a sledgehammer in a glassware shop. It’s yet another contradiction in a portfolio full of them: Miran provides the blueprint of a modern Taj Mahal, Trump builds a treehouse with a blowtorch, and Republicans and their cheerleaders pretend it’s an architectural masterpiece. (Michael Barnard)
I know it's very popular to chalk all of this up to Trump's incompetent machinations, but I don't subscribe to such a view. I don't think he's all that important or powerful. Washington drives this bus - they aren't dummies - and people like Trump are the perfect lightning rod. — Tzeentch
No one outside of Trump’s inner circle considers Miran’s ideas and plans to be coherent, credible, or realistic.
Trump himself isn’t following Miran’s roadmap. Instead of targeting specific trade imbalances or building pressure toward a coordinated currency adjustment, the administration’s tariff strategy in 2025 has been indiscriminate and poorly sequenced.
Miran provides the blueprint of a modern Taj Mahal, Trump builds a treehouse with a blowtorch, and Republicans and their cheerleaders pretend it’s an architectural masterpiece. (Michael Barnard)
This idea has been discussed. Most conclude
that Trump isn’t following the plan. — Joshs
You’d have to talk to the individuals in the unions, but in general I’d say that blue-collar unions will be dominated by social conservatives. Probably a bit different for teachers’ unions. — Joshs
Christopher Krebs, the former head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), is a significant bad-faith actor who weaponized and abused his Government authority. Krebs’ misconduct involved the censorship of disfavored speech implicating the 2020 election and COVID-19 pandemic. CISA, under Krebs’ leadership, suppressed conservative viewpoints under the guise of combatting supposed disinformation, and recruited and coerced major social media platforms to further its partisan mission. CISA covertly worked to blind the American public to the controversy surrounding Hunter Biden’s laptop. Krebs, through CISA, promoted the censorship of election information, including known risks associated with certain voting practices. Similarly, Krebs, through CISA, falsely and baselessly denied that the 2020 election was rigged and stolen including by inappropriately and categorically dismissing widespread election malfeasance and serious vulnerabilities with voting machines.
Of all the many outrages that Trump is visiting on the nation, this must be among the worst. — Wayfarer
↪ssu
I remember you predicting that of all the wars that Trump is lusting to have, a war with Panama was the second likeliest one. Given that the US and Panama recently partnered to secure the canal and deter China, with a special nod to Panama’s sovereignty, I’m curious if your fears abated or if they still remain — NOS4A2
The highest form of freedom in a democracy isn’t just the right to vote or protest—it’s the right to speak truth to power. To call out corruption. To challenge lies. To stand firm when the powerful demand silence. This is the freedom that sustains all others.
And it’s the one Donald Trump tried to crush Wednesday with the stroke of a pen.
When he signed an Executive Order (EO) directing the Justice Department to investigate Chris Krebs and Miles Taylor—two public servants whose only crime was telling the truth—Trump didn’t just abuse his office. He weaponized the government against honesty itself.
This wasn’t law enforcement: It was political vengeance. This wasn’t democracy: It was a warning shot from the edge of autocracy. And if we let this slide—if we treat it as just another Trump headline—we are inviting the next strongman to do the same, only worse.
The freedom to speak truth to power is either sacred, or it’s gone.
Thus, Donald Trump just moved America miles down the road toward our becoming a police state. There’s no other way to describe it.
His EO demanding criminal investigations into Chris Krebs and Miles Taylor—and his public statement that Taylor is a “traitor” guilty of “treason”—are nothing short of a blatant assault on the rule of law and a perilous step toward turning America into a dictatorship.
This isn’t just about settling personal scores; it’s a calculated move to instill fear, silence dissent, and dismantle the very foundations of our democratic institutions.
Can you imagine yourself being called a traitor by the president of the United States and thus potentially facing prison? Having to hire expensive attorneys that may well force you to sell your home to pay for defending yourself? Not to mention having to protect yourself and your family from the rightwing enforcers who are probably at this moment doxxing and threatening Krebs and Taylor?
This echoes tactics used by autocrats throughout history: Stalin’s purges, Nixon’s enemies list (though less successfully executed), and more recently, Orbán in Hungary, Duterte in the Philippines, or Putin in Russia. If normalized, it risks further turning the U.S. into an illiberal democracy or autocracy, where elections occur but power is retained through fear, manipulation, and coercion. Or worse, a violent kleptocracy like Russia.
To me, it's about a response to the way that people end up being nothing more than machines in a liberal world. There's something deathly about liberalism. The Left is about finding a way back from that, while hopefully keeping some of the awesomeness that liberalism created.
As for conservatism, did you see the people carrying signs saying "Hands Off"? That is the very essence of conservatism: to maintain the status quo, to hold on to what we know works. Our species is alive and well in this moment because of our conservative side, that preserves traditions and hands them on to the next generation. — frank
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