Will the United States survive the 21st century?

[inbetween]

They’re going to have to come to terms with not being the world’s preeminent superpower. They are already losing control over many of the international institutions that they shaped to their benefit. China’s economic growth is relentless. They also have vastly more intelligent people in positions of power. All empires come to an end. I just hope the next Chinese empire doesn’t inflict as much death, damage and misery on the rest of the world as the American one.

China is a geopolitical threat but not an obvious physical one. Their influence is subtly different to the US starting with the fact that China doesn't even need a military to exert it.

We may have rockets but it's a bit pointless when your rival has learnt it can counter that by becoming the sole supplier of rocket fuel. This is what is happening in the American economy and it's something dumbo Trump hates.

Look at the biggest US company in Apple, despite hundreds of billions in the bank they still can't build an iPhone without Chinese manufacturers.

 

[Bill Walker]

China is a geopolitical threat but not an obvious physical one.

Try telling that to Taiwan :)

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/china-taiwan-invasion-military-exercise/2020/10/12/291f5d86-0c58-11eb-b404-8d1e675ec701_story.html%3foutputType=amp

 

[VOOMER]

China is a geopolitical threat but not an obvious physical one. Their influence is subtly different to the US starting with the fact that China doesn't even need a military to exert it.

We may have rockets but it's a bit pointless when your rival has learnt it can counter that by becoming the sole supplier of rocket fuel. This is what is happening in the American economy and it's something dumbo Trump hates.

Look at the biggest US company in Apple, despite hundreds of billions in the bank they still can't build an iPhone without Chinese manufacturers.

Dumbo Trump may hate it, but its those that came before particularly the Democrats, who allowed, or made it happen. Greasers the lot of them.

 

[Javi Garcia's Hairstylist]

I have lived fairly long stretches of time in three widely disparate parts of the country (Industrial Midwest, Texas, Northeast.)

For me, the differences amongst people from place to place are in reality far less than the similarities. People I know in Boston are so similar to people I know in Texas. Some differences as to fringe issues here and there, but we all grew up watching the same shows, listening to the same music, etc etc.

I've always viewed the political nonsense as something of a malign secular religion that makes otherwise like-minded people hate each other for extremely marginal reasons.

The era of Trump has exacerbated this and for me that is the worst thing about the clown. The sooner we see the back of him, the better.

I do not envisage violence on any real scale regardless of the election outcome. For all the rhetoric and nonsense, Trump has governed more or less as a stock Republican (albeit a very weak one). Biden will be a stock Democrat.

Other than a few hundred idiots wanting to role-play the street fighting of Weimar-era Germany, no one is going to war over which version of neoliberalism sits in the chair in DC.

 

[gordondaviesmoustache]

I have lived fairly long stretches of time in three widely disparate parts of the country (Industrial Midwest, Texas, Northeast.)

For me, the differences amongst people from place to place are in reality far less than the similarities. People I know in Boston are so similar to people I know in Texas. Some differences as to fringe issues here and there, but we all grew up watching the same shows, listening to the same music, etc etc.

I've always viewed the political nonsense as something of a malign secular religion that makes otherwise like-minded people hate each other for extremely marginal reasons.

The era of Trump has exacerbated this and for me that is the worst thing about the clown. The sooner we see the back of him, the better.

I do not envisage violence on any real scale regardless of the election outcome. For all the rhetoric and nonsense, Trump has governed more or less as a stock Republican (albeit a very weak one). Biden will be a stock Democrat.

Other than a few hundred idiots wanting to role-play the street fighting of Weimar-era Germany, no one is going to war over which version of neoliberalism sits in the chair in DC.

Where did you live in Texas, mate? - because based on my visits there, there’s a world of difference between the perspective of people in (for example) Austin and San Antonio from those in Amarillo And Waco.

 

[Onholiday(somemightsay)]

Biden is about as socialist as Rees-Mogg.

Now there's a real man of the people..........

 

[Onholiday(somemightsay)]

The 'United' States is already effectively 50 small countries, bound together loosely by the Constitution. Given that Trump has basically spent the last 4 years tearing up Constitutional norms, then I can't see it surviving in its current guise.

I could easily see it become two or three separate countries in the next 20 years if it continues the same way it's been going recently.

A greater mind than my own probably knows the answer to this but I have never really understood why US stays as is when there appears such a difference in thinking between the North and South (to use a lazy and rough cut)...........

 

[gordondaviesmoustache]

A greater mind than my own probably knows the answer to this but I have never really understood why US stays as is when there appears such a difference in thinking between the North and South (to use a lazy and rough cut)...........

Their collective defense [sic] strength must be a big factor, plus it’s a hugely difficult undertaking to secede. I think if things continue along the same path, and further schisms open up over the Second Amendment (which seems inevitable) certain States will eventually say ‘fuck it’. Don’t think it’s remotely imminent, hence the timescale I provided in the OP, but, to me, it has a certain inevitability about it.

Nothing last for ever, I guess.

 

[Onholiday(somemightsay)]

Where did you live in Texas, mate? - because based on my visits there, there’s a world of difference between the perspective of people in (for example) Austin and San Antonio from those in Amarillo And Waco.

Sounds like a new Fever tree flavour.......

 

[Onholiday(somemightsay)]

Their collective defense [sic] strength must be a big factor, plus it’s a hugely difficult undertaking to secede. I think if things continue along the same path, and further schisms open up over the Second Amendment (which seems inevitable) certain States will eventually say ‘fuck it’. Don’t think it’s remotely imminent, hence the timescale I provided in the OP, but, to me, it has a certain inevitability about it.

Nothing last for ever, I guess.

Always just seems too great a landscape in personality's to govern as a democracy - but yeh look how complicated it looked when Scotland thought about leaving the UK and multiply that by 'rogue' states.........