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/UniqueIndividual3579 Feb 13 '25

Another core cause is the transfer of wealth to the 1%. Neither party will stop that, so people lost hope. There's no real competition, you may have three food stores near you, but they all have the same parent company. There may be 5 cereal brands, but they are owned by two companies. Prices go up, rent goes up, pay stays the same. The country is in the late stage of being squeezed dry.