•  lasagna   ( @lasagna@programming.dev ) 
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    10 months ago

    I have thought about it for a while but the US is basically in a cold civil war, with a significant chance of it becoming hot. And it looks very similar to their previous one. Neither side seem to have a charismatic enough leader.

    It’s easy to look over the pond and think it’s none of our problem. But if the US falls to chaos a lot of other countries will follow suit. We can already see this influence in the UK and I’d argue many other EU countries. Russia probably saw this weakness, bet on it worsening much quicker than it did, but lost that bet (so far).

    With that said, addressing the US as a whole no longer makes sense. I’m sure plenty, plenty of Americans see what is happening.

    It’s unfortunate that one of the wealthiest people on this planet has taken the anti-democratic side, but it’s not the first or the last time in history a powerful man, rich beyond measure has done so.

    • Very much so, the Bavarian Conservative Party literally has gone to have talks with republicans to use their election strategies, the German-wide AgD has ramped up their Anti-LGBT campaigning and started to use similar messaging to far-right propaganda networks, e.g. “protect our children”, “pedophiles”, photoshopped images of CSAM at pride events, etc.

    • My country (Australia) has tied itself to you guys so if you go down we definitely go down with you. I’m 100% hoping the US doesn’t fall into chaos. We also birthed Rupert Murdoch and he’s played a huge part in heating up this civil war.

            • They are but things are definitely getting hot with China. There’s also been some issues with trade and diplomacy since our ex PM publicly called for an investigation into the origins of covid. China did not respond well to that and our previous government’s approach to diplomacy didn’t help. At one point China actually wasn’t answering calls from us.

              We are walking a very fine line because we absolutely depend on trade with China but we’ve also entered in an alliance for the explicit purpose of preparing for a potential conflict with China. There’s absolutely no reality where we side with China over America. We would destroy our economy before we back out of our alliance with the US. We have followed them into every war since ww2.

              •  liv   ( @liv@beehaw.org ) 
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                10 months ago

                Oh, yeah I know you wouldn’t. You’re in kind of a tricky situation but I think that spat over covid sort of tested boundaries for you.

                I’m in Aotearoa, obviously we have a similar problem. Culturally we would go where you go, but on the other hand we didn’t follow the US into Iraq. China are by far our biggest trading partner, and also those of us with a long memory were disillusioned by how our allies treated us over the Rainbow Warrior terrorist attack so there’s probably not the same level of confidence.

    • It’s safe to say Russia and China have actually helped contribute to a lot of the issues in the last decade by holding a lot of soft power online. The US government can’t stop an enemy that blends in with their sovereign users, advertisers, and content creators.