• AernaLingus [any]@hexbear.net
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    2 months ago

    Emphasis mine:

    Some readers were skeptical when I pointed out Monday that China’s economy is, in real terms, already substantially larger than ours.

    Libs are seriously living in an alternate reality.

    • carpoftruth [any, any]@hexbear.netM
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      2 months ago

      Furthermore, America had allies — which, as Phillips O’Brien emphasizes, are a vastly underrated source of national power. China may sometimes make alliances of convenience, but no more than that. The U.S. could and did build a powerful alliance system, because America was more than a nation: It was an idea and a set of values, values we shared with the rest of the democratic world. And you should always bear in mind that Europe, in particular, while it sometimes acts weak, is an economic superpower in the same league as China and America.

      OK, you know what’s coming: Since taking office, Trump and his minions have been systematically demolishing each of these pillars of U.S. strength.

      has he been reading the news the last 25 years? look at the difference between allies america brought in to operation desert storm against iraq in the 90s vs the coalition of the willing against iraq in 2003 vs operation amazon prime against yemen/ansarallah in 2024. the idea that trump specifically has eroded these allies is ridiculous.

        • carpoftruth [any, any]@hexbear.netM
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          2 months ago

          totally, and obama continued many wars and started several new ones, and bush was a fucking monster before him, as was clinton. trump is american continuity in material terms, he’s only a break in the system in aesthetic terms

      • marx_ex_machina [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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        2 months ago

        The U.S. could and did build a powerful alliance system, because America was more than a nation: It was an idea and a set of values, values we shared with the rest of the democratic world

        No, the US was able to build a powerful alliance system because after WWII there was no one else standing (even the USSR was extremely bruised) and we were the world’s manufacturer. I mean, I guess there were some shared values with Europe too, namely white supremacy and continued domination of the global south.

        I swear to god, liberals just say shit about “values” and “democracy” without even a moment of further reflection.

    • goferking (he/him)@lemmy.sdf.org
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      2 months ago

      There’s an account that spews almost entirely China bad stuff who keeps saying all of this is just pr by China. Ignoring that it’s major companies freaking out about how behind they are. Gonna be just like when Japanese cars hit the market in the 70s. We’ll even worse since they’re already working to prevent them from getting on the market to show how behind the usa is