The Republican’s second presidential term heralds a more inward-looking US where resentment has replaced idealism and nobody wins without someone else losing

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/27878542

After one Trump presidency and on the eve of another, it is now clear that a once mighty global superpower is allowing its gaze to turn inward, to feed off resentment more than idealism, to think smaller.

Public sentiment – not just the political class – feels threatened by the flow of migrants once regarded as the country’s lifeblood. Global trade, once an article of faith for free marketeers and architects of the postwar Pax Americana, is now a cancer eating away at US prosperity – its own foreign invasion.

Military alliances and foreign policy no longer command the cross-party consensus of the cold war era, when politics could be relied upon to “stop at the water’s edge”, in the famous formulation of the Truman-era senator Arthur Vandenberg.

Now the politics don’t stop at all, for any reason. And alliances are for chumps.

  • @brucethemoose@lemmy.world
    10•13 days ago

    And the Dems seemingly decided that immigration was not an issue to tackle; instead the topic was treated as a sign of how backwards and hateful the republicans for focusing on it. So instead of actually addressing the concerns of voters as a whole, they focused on the issues that rile up the core voters in the democrat party.

    Thing is, Harris was like the most anti-immigrant Dem candidate in ages, policy wise. She shamelessly adopted some populist economic policy, same as Trump. Popular policy was there, and it was pretty loud in my own news feed.

    Not that I disagree with you about the Dems talking to themselves, speaking to voters instead of listening to them, all that shenanigans with the primary and Biden’s fitness… but how does that even compare to the controversies surrounding and following Trump?

    I say the Dems would have been screwed even if they set Biden aside early, even if they pounded and focused on issues that actually mattered to voters. It doesn’t matter! That’s just drama most persuadable voters don’t hear it. No, Dems lost the information war. Trump delivered is message to his voters, hence he didn’t lose a soul, while the dems campaigned like its 1950 and didn’t have the ‘luxury’ of a pandemic to hammer their message straight into voters’ lives.

    Just to reiterate all this, I don’t understand how everyone is underestimate the massive impact warped social feeds have in the average person’s life now. That’s literally all that affected everyone I know, bar one or two nutcases like me that don’t have a Facebook or Tiktok account.

    • KNova
      4•13 days ago

      Great take, I think this nails it.

      Assuming we still have free and fair elections in 2026 I suspect the Dem base will be fired up again. Question is if it will be too late.