Donald Trump Seems Intent on Sabotaging US Dominance

When is it going to stop being "He's so incompetent, it's like he's doing it on purpose!" and start being "Oh, he's doing this on purpose..."? This has been obvious for so long now.

I'd say it's part incompetence, part intentional sabotage. He truly is a fucking moron, but he also hates the US.
- He's easily manipulated by corrupt people, including those who don't have the best interests of the U.S. at heart.
There hasn't been a doubt about his intentions for a long time. He is, however, likely taking many actions because someone told him to, he heard a sound bite on Faux News, or he perceived some slight from social media.
No, please don’t give him that much credit. If you saw him run a casino, you’d swear he was doing it on purpose, but he isn’t. He really just is that dumb.
I’m not saying he’s not also in Putin’s pocket, but don’t try to convince me that he has the brains necessary to make sabotage look like incompetence. He’s nowhere near that clever.
- I'm not saying he's "brilliantly" obfuscating his intent. For one, it's blatantly obvious. Second, it doesn't take intelligence to do what he's doing. Third, my original point is that everyone from media to government officials are clearly in denial about what's obviously happening, and are constantly downplaying the seriousness of his actions by attributing them solely to incompetence. There's no chance of countering somebody if you can't accept the reality of what they're doing.
  At this point, I assume only future historians will have the wherewithal to actually point out the intent behind it all.
it doesn't take much intelligence to destroy things under you over the course of 4-8 years. He's very obviously incompetent because he's doing this on purpose.
- it doesn't take much intelligence to destroy things
  "A bull in a China shop" is a comparison I often use.
  It's fast and easy to break things. Any idiot can swing a sledge hammer at random stuff they don't understand.
  Fixing and building takes a lot longer. Also takes a lot more knowledge, skill and expense.

That was always Putin's goal. Was known as far back as 2016.

Krasnov
Since 1997, actually, when The Foundations of Geopolitics was published. Brexit is in there, too.
So far, it’s all going pretty swimmingly, though Ukraine is putting up more resistance than anticipated.

Of course. That is the goal.

Especially notable to me that the article made its point without even getting into things like Trump effectively handing leadership in EV technology and alternative energy broadly to China, or giving the Chinese chip-making industry just the boost it needed to potentially be able to supply China's needs on its own, or making the US so hostile to scientific reseach that China will likely end up leading the world in that as well.

Yes - he could hardly do more to more thoroughly destroy the US's standing in the world if he set out to deliberately do exactly that.

Oddly though, that at least provides him with a bit of cover - if he wasn't such a blithering idiot, I'd suspect that that really was his goal. But I don't think he's even capable of maintaining focus on a straightforward strategy, much less a subtle and multilayered one.

making the US so hostile to scientific reseach that China will likely end up leading the world in that as well.
That's already the case
https://theconversation.com/china-now-publishes-more-high-quality-science-than-any-other-nation-should-the-us-be-worried-192080
- I would've guessed that but didn't know it. Thanks for the clarification.

No 'seems' about it. His entire purpose is to put all public on firesale to private interests. Its the same as when he was trying badly to sell New York real estate in the 80s to the Japanese specifically, even though there was a real fear about how much they were purchasing giving them too much control over our land and businesses.

Russian plant.

That’s been the plan since 2016.

since long before that.
- Facts! You can honestly go back to Nixon and watergate and even JFK’s assassination to see how and who the GOP really are and have always have been.

Going through the comments, it's mostly Trump being an agent of China, of the Saudis, the Israelis, and mostly a Russian agent.

I unfortunately don't think there's a way out of this for the US population unless people start to accept that Trump is a very distinctly American character, the culmination of what the right wing in the US has been working towards forever. And that the problem the US has is an internal one. Trump is an inevitable consequence of the US political environment, and he or someone like him would've come to power sooner or later, even if Russia didn't exist as an external factor. Unless people accept that, I don't think there's any coming back from this for the US population. It's just going to get worse. And it unfortunately will also bring chunks of the rest of World down with it in the process.

Well, to be accurate, Putin is intend on sabotaging US dominance. HitlerPig is just his hired muscle.

More like China, Putin (and his friends) didn’t win a lot since the second Trump election
- Putin's primary objective is to cause enormous chaos in all aspects of American life, according to Foundations in Geopolitics, the Russian playbook:
  Russia should use its special services within the borders of the United States and Canada to fuel instability and separatism against neoliberal globalist Western hegemony, such as, for instance, provoke "Afro-American racists" to create severe backlash against the rotten political state of affairs in the current present-day system of the United States and Canada. Russia should "introduce geopolitical disorder into internal American activity, encouraging all kinds of separatism and ethnic, social, and racial conflicts, actively supporting all dissident movements – extremist, racist, and sectarian groups, thus destabilizing internal political processes in the U.S. It would also make sense simultaneously to support isolationist tendencies in American politics".
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics
  Any "stuff" he gets - land, territory, money, etc.- is all gravy. All he really wants is for America to devolve into such disorder and chaos, that their influence in the world dissolves.

That's why he was put into power.

Ive been scared for over a decade now that the US gov is following a similar pattern Russia did 20 years ago and that when the US loses it's economic and cultural dominance they will start to do exactly what Russia is doing and flex military might, except with the largest military in the world and bases in damn near every country.

If I was the leader of any other country I would have already started/redoubled efforts planning on how to engage with the US as an enemy years ago. Not 'hur durr they're already an enemy cuz Trump dumb', I mean drones at your doorstep your children weap at sunshine enemy.

There is every chance of this happening. We're already seeing the start of it with Trump's remarks on Greenland and Canada. Those aren't just harmless quips. They're intent to (militarily) bully anyone and everyone into compliance.
- Trump's remarks on Greenland and Canada.
  Also Panama and Gaza.
It's be cool if the overseas bases had some balls and just said, "fuck it, we'll just side with our hosting country." I guess it could really happen without a mini civil war on base.
- Because the US isn't at a full on tipping point on that yet, because yes, that's when civil wars start.
  US Civil War #1 started over a military base. If POTUS declares and attack on a major ally, that's probably going to be the starting gun for the second one.
- So far everyone's done what they've been told or simply quit, lets see how the FBI vs Innocent Lawmakers goes down though.
the largest military in the world
A military critically dependent upon components manufactured elsewhere.

Wrong again ....

The powers that be and corporate owners seem intent on allowing Donald Trump to Sabotage US Dominance.

...... dump truck Don is not that powerful or influential and you got to stop pretending he actually has anything to do with power.

Yeah. It's an internal struggle between American oligarchs for who'd control the division of the pie now that it's almost stopped growing. The rest are side effects and distractions, albeit consequential.

as a citizen of Earth I say: good.

Yeah. I'm sure China dominance is going to be so much better /s
- They do bomb far fewer people. That's an upgrade.

Yes. The goal of this administration is and always has been to hurt America at the behest of foreign interests. We have got to stop acting surprised when the people who want to hurt America, in fact, hurt America.

I wonder why? Hey let's ask his boss, Putin. "Why is the obese imbecile being such a cunt..?"

Ok, this just in from Putin:
"Paedophile pisstapes"
Wow, that could mean Putin was watching Grey's Anatomy. Or it could mean that Putin has videos of russian asset tRUMP pissing over the kids that he had just raped.

Donald Trump Seems Intent on Sabotaging US ~~Dominance~~

FTFY

Comrade Krasnov doing a fastastic job for his droogs

All the Putin jokes aside, I don't think he's doing it for geopolitical or treasonous reasons. I think it's mainly just a by-product of his style of interaction and competition, which exists for very logical ("logical") reasons and which he's been able to make work pretty well for himself.

https://snyder.substack.com/p/the-weak-strongman

Snyder says it better than I can, but basically, he is weak and stupid, but he needs to be able to dominate people around him, and so his whole strategy is to attack and weaken, because that's his only way to be able to compete effectively. He can usually dominate the weakened version of whatever he's attacking, in a way he never could if it was at full strength. It's why he shows such innate and passionate violence against anything or anyone that is organized, effective, or popular: Because someday, they might turn against him, and if they did they would definitely win, and so he has to Nancy Kerrigan them before they get a chance.

Again Snyder summarizes it better, but it is also the exact same model that Putin uses, and it's had exactly the same effect on Russia (taking it from at least a regional powerhouse and functioning country that could accomplish significant things, to being a pariah state that barely functions in the first place even internally.) The strategy only works for as long as there is no one "outside the wall" who can come into the sphere of influence in un-weakened form, and if that ever happens, then the strongman crumbles instantly into impotent rubble. To ever let one of these people get control of your country or organization is basically just a nonstop rolling catastrophe that just gets worse and worse the longer they hold on to power.

(taking it from at least a regional powerhouse and functioning country that could accomplish significant things, to being a pariah state that barely functions in the first place even internally.)
Say what you want about Putin but he has been pretty successful in getting Russia back into the global game after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Now he's mostly doing this by dragging everyone else down so your average Russian is gaining exactly zilch from any of this, but when you look at the state of democracy all over the West you can't say he reduced Russia's international influence.
- Back into the global game?
  They collapsed from being a global superpower, to selling off their natural resources to enrich a couple of hundred of the worst people on the planet, and beating up their neighbors for oil money and mostly being ignored by most of the rest of the world unless there's an Olympics or something. Putin didn't cause all of that of course, but he had a huge amount to do with entrenching the systems of corruption that doomed any chance they would have had of recovering their superpower status as China or Europe did after major catastrophes happened to them.
  And now, as of the last few years, they can't even beat up their neighbors anymore. Sure, they still have a huge impact on the world stage in the form of destabilizing foreign democracies. You're not wrong about that part. But that's another example of my point: The whole shtick is just weakening everyone else. It won't do anything at all to increase their military power, increase standards of living for either oligarchs or common people. It won't help them win any of those regional wars. And it definitely won't help them against any threat that comes from "outside the sphere" (bird flu or climate change or whatever). It's just more Tanya Harding shit.

But no one in the us seems willing to do anything about it, aside from making the occasional mildly caustic statements online and in govt.

A couple of guys tried. One missed, one got caught hiding in the shrubbery.

Trump is the symptom, not the disease.

One of the very few good things he's doing.

He has done more to destroy the U.S. empire in 7 months than anyone else in it's entire history. Good riddance, the world will be better off.

make america hate again break american greatness again

As long as it makes him richer...

And if he makes everyone else dirt poor, more power to him.

Oh no! But the other option was so much worse... Right? ... Right‽

Those people never believed that and they have been trolling for over a year while they gleefully watch the world burn. They come into a thread like this and giggle like the edgy teenagers and lonely 20-somethings they are because they've gotten a rise out of you.
They will never feel guilt or shame. The best thing everyone can do is ignore them, forget they exist, and move on.
- Right there with you friend.

The public got so tired of being no. one they voted the absolute worst possible candidate in history to the highest office in the land for shits and giggles. I mean, how bad could it get? Fafo.

About time

If even half of the 49 countries with US military bases coordinated an attack on said bases, we might be able to actually start the dissolving of the American empire.

That Sun Tzu quote “don’t interrupt your enemy when he’s making a mistake” comes to mind.
The least effort and greatest impact will come from those countries staying quiet and letting Trump keep doing what he’s doing.
- Sun Tzu and Trump are both artists I guess, but in different areas.
- “In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity” -Sun Tzu
  I'm definitely no military strategist, so I'll concede that I don't know what it would really mean to "attack" those bases, especially when I would always rather see that action taken by the people of the countries rather than their governments without their consent. But is there no value to the assault on many fronts? If there was a coordinated endeavor from 25 different countries to weaken and/or remove US military bases from their land all at the same time, couldn't that split focus enough to actually weaken the US imperial grip?
Instead you could just like... cancel the leases? I see this "rise up" sentiment repeated a ton and while a romantic image, it just screams that people don't understand how foreign military bases actually work. Like, rise up to get your government to just ask the US to leave. For that too, most US military bases aren't forts or anything, you could effectively neutralize them just by blocking the beer truck from making it's deliveries. There's very little the troops stationed there can do to stop that besides call in the host country to deal with the problem (which is invariably what happens).
The real threats are the five-eyes intelligence gathering facilities - but there's no government in the world that's going to ask those to be removed, I can't imagine what would be persuading them not to...
- Yeah I would always rather see the people rising up, and a worldwide revolution would be the most effective way to make real lasting change. But yeah that's pretty solidly a romantic fantasy at this point. That's all it keeps boiling down to. No war but class war.

Because he likes Russian dick. We've already established this.

Obligatory leopards and faces comment

I mean, same

Blyat!