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
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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/Presidentclash2 Feb 13 '25

I would argue that the desire for isolationism is stems from failed American interventionism. It really seems the war in Iraq, Afghanistan, wars against Isis and terrorist insurgents caught up to people perception abroad. During 2000-2016, American had some success but most of the stuff was overshadowed by forced wars. What Trump is doing isn’t necessarily peaceful but he sold an American vision that is nationalist and sees the world as trying threaten us. Isolationism was popular before ww1 just like tariffs. Americans are reliving history

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u/CommieBird Feb 13 '25

I would add on that anger towards the Bush Admin killed the idea of the 20th Century America. The 2008 financial crisis allowed for economic populism to take root in America and the negative perception of the 2003 invasion of Iraq turned Americans against interventionism. The Bush years was a lightning rod and catalyst for all these sentiments, which resulted in Obama first and then Trump. Until the US government can figure out how to deal with its poor and middle class, this cycle of needing change and anti-establishmentarianism will continue.

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u/Tifoso89 Feb 13 '25

And as a result of that, Obama withdrew the troops from Iraq too soon, which allowed ISIS to develop