In some ways Trump is perhaps less worse than what will follow him. His disorganised and childish need to 'win' and be 'loved' makes him susceptible to changing his mind a lot. I do think the right of American politics has entered a disordered stage where nothing matters except winning, not even if they violate the sanctity of the ballot box. Reading Caro's second volume of his monumental biography on LBJ, they remind me a bit like him in the early years. Just a relentless focus on power at any cost.
I do think this 'decline' if we want to call it that in the American body politic is only fixable if a significant majority of Americans are willing to stand and fight for values which were embodied in the constitution. If as Fukuyama said on the podcast a few weeks ago, they are 'bored' or unable to sustain political action based on their own values, then I'm not sure where the US goes from here except lurching towards a neo-authoritarian regime which starts to significantly narrow the parameters of who is an American.
Exactly. Americans must be willing to stand up and fight for their values, which is to say American values. If they don't, then in some sense that's a perfectly "democratic" outcome. We get the government — and the policies — we deserve.
Yes, the final sentence of your comment is sadly bang on. I hope the majority of Americans do what is necessary to stand up for their values in the end, despite Trump's victory.
I am not defending what ICE did to the Irish tourist, but I'll say this. When I came to the US on student visa 1n 1994, I was paranoid of being out of status. After finishing graduate studies I worked on F1 (1 year work permit all international students get) visa and transitioned to an H1B visa before the F1 expired. I changed jobs multiple times and each time I ensured I was never out of status, and finally got my Green card in 2002. I feel things got really lax and people have been no longer worrying being out of status, as evidenced by the example of the Irish tourist (though I get it he was sick and that is why he ended up out staying the visa by a mere 3 days).
I think the Trump administration goal is to change the Overton window - that non citizens and permanent residents can no longer have a lackadaisical attitude on being on a valid visa, and more generally visitors to the US need to be more careful on how they engage on political issue on campus or otherwise. What they are doing is extreme but that is what you have to do to change the Overton window. In many ways, it looks like Trump administration is taking us back to 1990s when the country was probably right of center as a whole than left of center since the Obama administration.
I believe (at least hope) we will again return to center in a presidential term or two simply because there will be a huge backlash to the policies of Trump administration.
Well, we had a war that was unjust, we had a protest against it, and we shot some idealistic kids, I think the college protests for Gaza were undignified and unconvincing, (so did Frank if I understood his comments on the pod recently!) But at least we didn't shoot them, and it wasn't our war... which we can debate I know.
When I was young (90's & 00's) I thought postwar American history was a bit dull and too recent to invest in. I missed out on realizing how awful and wonderful this country is at the same time. I think that's the case to this day. But it also means MLK was wrong about justice. Injustice moves around; it doesn't recede for long, if ever.
For example, look at the silver lining on all these ICE arrests of low cost labor. Soon Americans will realize the actual price of a tomato, and they won't be able to ignore the human cost that liberals and conservatives were happy to obscure so long as they could play their political games and give us our bread.
I'm still never Trump, but you got to give it to the guy, he's the first politician to run on controlling immigration who has done any visible work towards it after being elected.
It's true that Trump is being reactionary. But reaction to what? To Biden inviting in over TEN MILLION illegal aliens. That needs reacting against. Apologists will say those "immigrants" are not illegal. Sure, and Al Capone wss never guilty of anything but tax fraud.
When things have been made chaotic, as Biden most surely did, don't expect Trump to come in and make it all make sense in a short period of time. He did not create this mess, quit blaming him for it.
To talk about the decline of the US would seem to require one to address whether or not there is can be a distinction between the US as mega nationstate and the US as a global hegemon — or empire. When discussing US decline are we concerned with the deterioration of our institutions and infrastructure? Or are we worried about the loss of our government’s ability to influence or coerce other states? Are we uneasy about any diminution of our state’s ability to unleash violence on other states or peoples, to support regimes that employ terror, rape, and murder? Do we fear that losing such power might invite others to attempt retribution against us for imagined or actual crimes our state has committed — and which we might have supported, tolerated, ignored, or protested against? Are we unable to unentangle such questions? CAN they be untangled. Or are we queasy about the very prospect of facing up to such questions?
In some ways Trump is perhaps less worse than what will follow him. His disorganised and childish need to 'win' and be 'loved' makes him susceptible to changing his mind a lot. I do think the right of American politics has entered a disordered stage where nothing matters except winning, not even if they violate the sanctity of the ballot box. Reading Caro's second volume of his monumental biography on LBJ, they remind me a bit like him in the early years. Just a relentless focus on power at any cost.
I do think this 'decline' if we want to call it that in the American body politic is only fixable if a significant majority of Americans are willing to stand and fight for values which were embodied in the constitution. If as Fukuyama said on the podcast a few weeks ago, they are 'bored' or unable to sustain political action based on their own values, then I'm not sure where the US goes from here except lurching towards a neo-authoritarian regime which starts to significantly narrow the parameters of who is an American.
Exactly. Americans must be willing to stand up and fight for their values, which is to say American values. If they don't, then in some sense that's a perfectly "democratic" outcome. We get the government — and the policies — we deserve.
Yes, the final sentence of your comment is sadly bang on. I hope the majority of Americans do what is necessary to stand up for their values in the end, despite Trump's victory.
I am not defending what ICE did to the Irish tourist, but I'll say this. When I came to the US on student visa 1n 1994, I was paranoid of being out of status. After finishing graduate studies I worked on F1 (1 year work permit all international students get) visa and transitioned to an H1B visa before the F1 expired. I changed jobs multiple times and each time I ensured I was never out of status, and finally got my Green card in 2002. I feel things got really lax and people have been no longer worrying being out of status, as evidenced by the example of the Irish tourist (though I get it he was sick and that is why he ended up out staying the visa by a mere 3 days).
I think the Trump administration goal is to change the Overton window - that non citizens and permanent residents can no longer have a lackadaisical attitude on being on a valid visa, and more generally visitors to the US need to be more careful on how they engage on political issue on campus or otherwise. What they are doing is extreme but that is what you have to do to change the Overton window. In many ways, it looks like Trump administration is taking us back to 1990s when the country was probably right of center as a whole than left of center since the Obama administration.
I believe (at least hope) we will again return to center in a presidential term or two simply because there will be a huge backlash to the policies of Trump administration.
Every time we're "in decline" I think about Kent State.
I'm looking forward to you getting back in the saddle, Shadi.
Thank you! Say more about how Kent State figures into this. I guess you're saying that the 1960s were worse?
Well, we had a war that was unjust, we had a protest against it, and we shot some idealistic kids, I think the college protests for Gaza were undignified and unconvincing, (so did Frank if I understood his comments on the pod recently!) But at least we didn't shoot them, and it wasn't our war... which we can debate I know.
When I was young (90's & 00's) I thought postwar American history was a bit dull and too recent to invest in. I missed out on realizing how awful and wonderful this country is at the same time. I think that's the case to this day. But it also means MLK was wrong about justice. Injustice moves around; it doesn't recede for long, if ever.
For example, look at the silver lining on all these ICE arrests of low cost labor. Soon Americans will realize the actual price of a tomato, and they won't be able to ignore the human cost that liberals and conservatives were happy to obscure so long as they could play their political games and give us our bread.
I'm still never Trump, but you got to give it to the guy, he's the first politician to run on controlling immigration who has done any visible work towards it after being elected.
It's not how I'd do it, but still.
Only you and your tribe of fictive kin of elites are in a declinist mindset.
I would rather be thrown out of the country than stop calling genocide a genocide. Our First Amendment right has to mean something.
Thanks, Shadi.
It's true that Trump is being reactionary. But reaction to what? To Biden inviting in over TEN MILLION illegal aliens. That needs reacting against. Apologists will say those "immigrants" are not illegal. Sure, and Al Capone wss never guilty of anything but tax fraud.
When things have been made chaotic, as Biden most surely did, don't expect Trump to come in and make it all make sense in a short period of time. He did not create this mess, quit blaming him for it.
To talk about the decline of the US would seem to require one to address whether or not there is can be a distinction between the US as mega nationstate and the US as a global hegemon — or empire. When discussing US decline are we concerned with the deterioration of our institutions and infrastructure? Or are we worried about the loss of our government’s ability to influence or coerce other states? Are we uneasy about any diminution of our state’s ability to unleash violence on other states or peoples, to support regimes that employ terror, rape, and murder? Do we fear that losing such power might invite others to attempt retribution against us for imagined or actual crimes our state has committed — and which we might have supported, tolerated, ignored, or protested against? Are we unable to unentangle such questions? CAN they be untangled. Or are we queasy about the very prospect of facing up to such questions?