"we" lol, acting as if your government still answers to you, and that your country hasn't left people like you behind.
On the topic of foreign influence: this is not the first time the US has been under the sway of a foreign power. It's not even the worst, you've just never seen it up close before.
At the start of WWII, there were 8 liberal Democracies left in the world. The rest were either Communist, Fascist, or Monarchies.
The Germans thought they had our number. A number of US states had legislatures composed of 100% ethnic Germans. There were Bunds in every major city in the US which were German 'fraternal organizations' pushing for greater integration with German foreign policy. Instead of LeBron James, there was Charles Lindberg, who was very much an advocate of looking at our own problems instead of getting into a confrontation with Germany. We had just been through the Great Depression, a worldwide financial crisis similar to what happened in 2008. There were anarchists in the streets, they would rob banks and blow stuff up similar to what the Rioters in Portland are doing.
There's reasons to be concerned about what's happening (the media, the Universities seem to lack any sense of Patriotism) but it would be naive to say America is finished. The geopolitics don't favor that interpretation, I'd say shit is just getting started.
We're supposed to live in a globalist economy. That means businesses are free to pursue the lowest price for goods and services anywhere on Earth, and Countries are supposed to develop specific specializations that allow them to charge a premium for items that give them an economy advantage. Only that's not what's happening.
This chart gives a very different picture. Compared to 2000, there's not much more cross-border economic activity happening on average. This means a lot of countries are unable to participate in this global economic system, for lots of different reasons: lack of industry, lack of capital, sanctions, etc. The countries that are the winners are the US, the EU and "East Asia" (meaning: China.) This chart shows the percent of GDP coming from exports for these nations, which are doing much better than everywhere else on Earth at the globalization game.
What these charts mean is that, since around 2008 (the time of the global financial crisis), globalized activity has been concentrated in 3 places and everyone else has had to BTFO. In corporate speak, this would be called consolidation. Out of 120+ countries, there's really 3 main players: the US, Germany and China.
If we think of our current politics as an inflection point, all economic strategy since the crisis has lead to consolidation. China would very much like to consolidate the US and EU export market under their umbrella, make them vassal states that contribute to their own economic growth and prosperity.
The George Floyd stuff is just a Communist Performative Art Piece. Most people don't really buy that his death is an indictment of all policing, that we should give up our institutions, or that the US is an entirely racist enterprise designed for the exploitation and oppression of the entire world. That's what Communists do, they take the worst possible interpretation of events and work to subvert any other explanation for why things are the way they are.
The story I hear when listening to the BLM people is really about geopolitics, they are saying the US must lose this game and China must be supreme because, despite the fact they are a 95% Han ethnostate, the world's largest polluter, they constantly lie about their finances, they don't know what human rights means, all of their innovation was stolen from the US, etc, the US is racist and white supremacist or something.
I don't think the average person buys that. They may not be looking at this geopolitically but they sure as shit don't believe the US is the cesspool that's being put out there. We'd have war in the streets all day every day if that was true. There's just this massive concentration of economic activity and the Chinese are fighting an irregular war against us over it right now. There are fundamental problems with the Chinese economy that are primarily a result of the fact Communists always lie about everything and this is probably the last chance they have to "beat" the US for another 20 years. Wages are rising, their 70% male population is getting old and their replacement numbers are horrendous, and the population of Africa will dwarf theirs by 2020.
So they're trying to carry out a Communist insurgency. Let's see where it goes. Optimistic the average person is going to see the body cam footage and ask themselves if that was worth burning buildings all throughout North America. Optimistic Trump's rising approval rating is for real and will be reflected in polls. Optimistic Washington, Oregon and CA will actually keep talking about succession and that will force people to examine their interests instead of doing another TikTok dance video. Optimistic we have enough data on ANTIFA to crush that organization. Optimistic Dems will not elect a dementia patient as President of the United States of America so he can be run by Communist handlers, which is total and complete bullshit.
There's a lot of story left to play out. Try to look at this as a big huge game that we're not supposed to understand, and realize there are still patriotic Americas left who want something good to happen. We will have to adjust some norms and make some concessions to find a peace amongst ourselves. That should lead to something better than where we are. A United America can't be stopped by the Chinese, we've been very soft handed with them for decades and this is what it looks like when we begin to stand up.
Heaven help them if we get both feet on the ground.
www.theroot.com
