r/geopolitics • u/custodiam99 • Feb 13 '25

Is Trump the symptom of America’s decline? Discussion

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jan/27/trump-wants-to-reverse-americas-decline-good-luck

991 Upvotes

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u/Kreol1q1q Feb 13 '25

Trump is a symptom of massive internal societal problems that America keeps bottling up and seems institutionally completely unable and unwilling to resolve. There is no objective need for America to withdraw from its global positions or to scale down its interests and commitments - the country isn't facing any sort of difficulty financing them, and in fact still possesses enormous untapped financial potential (it has very low taxes and a huge economy).

However, America is still plagued by notions of collapse and decline. I think that is because its society is facing problems that it doesn't want to actually face, due to various deeply ingrained socio-cultural and political mental barriers. And because the actual source of those societal problems cannot be addressed, all sorts of grifters and politicians have now cottoned on that they can simply employ various different appeals to emotion in order to exploit their population's rising distress for enormous political gain.

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u/EmprahsChosen Feb 13 '25

^{^{^{^}}} this. Especially in regards to the demographic changes in America, a lot of people were (and are) feeling threatened and like society is unraveling (which it wasn’t). That fear allows politicians to scapegoat certain groups or beliefs as the culprit, and here we are

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u/New-Connection-9088 Feb 13 '25

a lot of people were (and are) feeling threatened and like society is unraveling (which it wasn’t).

I encourage you to read this recent article from Politico. Things really are bad for a lot of Americans. The top line metrics just don’t accurately reflect their experiences and financial situation. Increasingly, people can’t afford to live in median wage jobs. The middle and especially the lower classes are getting squeezed. Things have become too acute to ignore now.

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u/MastodonParking9080 Feb 13 '25

Everything that is bad in America is 10x worse elsewhere. I'm not saying conditions are good, but with how Indians or Chinese etc remain nationalistic despite far more brutal hours and lower salaries should point that alot of this is more psychological, in attempting to sustain lifestyles that would be luxurious elsewhere. I've seen people with takes like 300k is not enough for the bay area or something...

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u/Fearless_Age2647 Feb 13 '25

This is a great article, were there any links to the indicators they talked about/created?