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why is this happening in the USA?
2025-Feb-17, Monday 01:56 pmI think there are 3 main reasons why events are unfolding as they are in the USA today. There are some good resources for understanding these points too. If you pick only 1 thing to investigate, then I recommend watching the entire 1-hour video in point #1.
In short, Trump is here to oversee the decline of the USA economy, with our oligarchs running off with as much wealth as they can plunder by any means necessary. They clearly believe there will be zero consequences for their behavior, with them expecting that the collapse is imminent. Let the looting begin.
Click to read the 3 points...
- The geopolitical decline of the USA.
This is the main point. USA experienced unusual global influence for about a century. That time has ended. Other nations are rising instead. Also, I said in 2021 that the USA is an oligarchy instead of a democracy. Everyone sees the oligarchy functioning in real time now, with the richest-person-on-the-planet waltzing through government agencies in an unelected and potentially unaccountable (exempt from FOIA, thanks to DOGE being organized under the Executive Office of the President) position. We also saw other richest-on-the-planet people invited to the small number of viewers allowed indoors for the inauguration ceremony of the new USA President. Any talk of "preventing" the takeover is ludicrous. It was functionally complete years ago already. The talk now needs to be how to build a functioning democratic society from inside an oligarchy. (Hmmm. Whatever happened to national news about... what's his name? Please, won't somebody think of the CEOs?)
Resource: "Global Capitalism: What Trump 2.0 Means" (YouTube, 1 hour, Richard Wolff speaking on 2025 January 18 at a joint conference)
- Neoliberal economics and prosperity gospel.
I've said repeatedly here over the years that "the cruelty is the point" of Republican politics. They get it from Ayn Rand neoliberal economics, which actually argues that hardship is good for creativity, so artificially manufacturing more hardship for others by indulging personal greed is their version of helping humanity. It's hard to know who actually believes it versus who uses it as a plausible lie to excuse their vile behavior. They are aided and abetted by the religious folk who think those with power/money have it because God wanted them to have it, therefore whatever inexcusable things they do are magically excusable by divine right.
Resource: "Consecrating Capitalism: the US Prosperity Gospel and Neoliberalism" (pdf freely downloadable, but it seems to be the same article written in the Cambridge Journal Of Economics with a different title)
Resource: "The Twilight of Neoliberalism" (NewYorker.com, see especially the last paragraph of the article)
- The decline of opposition.
I doubted Democrats when Hillary Clinton first argued on behalf of single payer healthcare (back when Bill was president) then years later said it would never happen. I finally swore off the Democrat party when they argued in court that they are not obligated to democratically select their nominee. I've said I am not a Democrat at least since 2019. They literally will swear off democracy in order to stop a democratic socialist candidate from cheerleading society-focused reforms of our systems in this country. Again, see the full video in item #1 above, since this point is relevant there too. (Bernie would've won.) The time for tinkering is long gone. We need overhaul of USA governance structures now. Personally, I favor realignment, with the USA breaking into separate territories, potentially some of them joining Canada.
Resource: "Democrats Should Have Listened to Bernie Sanders, Historians Say" (Newsweek.com)
These points don't even get into climate change, artificial intelligence, universal basic income and GINI scores, anti-intellectualism, chemical pollutions, and other civilization-changing issues facing humanity and our planet. It's no wonder that everyone is anxious. There's more to be anxious about than usual. Past collapses of civilizations would be dire to those humans in them, yes, but they didn't affect the entire biosphere like our current crises do. It's okay to pause for mental health... which they are also targeting.
