Discussion
We're just sitting here watching Hegseth prepare for the upcoming coup just in case the Democrats accidentally win with people who won't just bend over for Trump.
I'm sure the Democrats will come through for Trump and the coup will turn out to be unnecessary.
I wonder who people think is going to save them?
If it's the Democrats, that belief certainly isn't based on evidence. Sounds like just an excuse to keep doing nothing.
Which is understandable. History isn't driven by the masses; it's driven by a few unreasonable malcontents who said fuck the status quo and didn't believe others had a right to the status quo.
Nations stagnate when the easiest thing for those malcontents to do to make their own lives better is to go someplace else.
There are a lot of countries where that is the case. But by and large the people who leave the US aren't those who would have rocked the boat anyway.
And nothing says the malcontents have to be right. Trump was brought to us by white people who were discontented with non-white people getting rights.
Another way states are able to promote stagnation is by convincing their populations that there is some enemy, internal or external, who wants to make things EVEN WORSE for them, so that malcontents think the way to make their lives better is to fight that enemy. Get people to expend huge amounts of energy just maintaining the status quo.
The thing that makes this unsustainable is external competition: while the state's populace is spinning its wheels fighting made-up enemies, other societies who aren't wasting that energy are able to grow and eventually eat their lunch.
Fortunately for the United States, China has only been able to catch up by copying capitalism while adding in their own flavor of fascism ("fascism with Chinese characteristics"). So rather than China eventually dominating the US, Trump will get his "spheres of influence", with China dominating the eastern hemisphere and the US dominating the western.
One wildcard here is that China's energy policy is largely unencumbered by ideology, while Trump's policy is highly motivated by ideology. But I suspect that won't end up mattering much in the end, because unlike China the US has plenty of oil and gas.
I mean, we're all fucked when it comes to climate change, but China is going to be fucked harder than the US.
Of course, all that goes topsy-turvy once WWIII starts.
Why am I so sure WWIII is coming? Lots of reasons, a big one being that the "Donroe Doctrine" and Trump's invasion of Venezuela have basically given a pass to China and Russia to act in their own neighborhoods. Meanwhile, Japan is becoming more and more militarized and may eventually pursue nuclear weapons, if they're not already.
Old governments that are out of touch with their populations tend to make bad decisions. Which of the likely instigators of WWIII would you not describe that way?
Another thing that convinces me WWIII is coming is a little more indirect: the fact that Ukraine drafts the old rather than the young. While Russia destroys its own future, Ukraine is using the war to kill off the people who are close to retirement.
I've wondered for a while how countries were gonna solve their demograpic crisis. Natalism obviously doesn't work, and it's hard to turn your population into fanatics like Israelis except via war.
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If ten years ago you told an American that the country would just sit by while the Secretary of Defense engaged in "loyalty purges" after its president encouraged a mob to storm the Capitol the last time he was kicked out of office, it's unlikely they would have believed you.
And yet here we are.