The US never believed this, the politicians told this story so they could get richer off trade deals and cheap labor.

Anyone who was critically thinking saw this coming a long way out.

Ross Perot knew the deal. Bush, Clinton and everyone else mocked him, critically, the media. The fourth estate; yeah, right! They don’t give a lick. They push whatever agenda is on tap. Trade Agreements, Gulf War II, etc.

You might be right, you might be wrong, but it would be nice if you could acknowledge that any argument about what people were thinking (rather than doing) is a shaky one and hard to state with any certainty. Bad outcomes can arise as easily from ill-conceived idealism as bad intent.

This. It's a pernicious temptation to infer motive, or make hostile generalizations about groups we disagree with, but this makes it impossible to cooperate or engage in good faith debate.

It was also a ploy to cement the fragmentation of the Socialist bloc and precipitate the decline of the Soviet Union.

No one with half a brain thought anything else would happen. Even if China was a liberal democracy, this would still happen.

It was just arrogant and short term thinking.

It wasn't even a belief in the first place.

I read a dozen books on post-Nixon US politics.

The amount of allegations from both sides of US politics that the other benefitted in the personal capacity from trade with China is staggering.

At least some of them must be genuine.

It comes to a very simple explanation that communists have indeed been influencing US politics for decades with very crude means, and that they were successful in that.

This is an embarrassing admission US has to do first before any recovery can be started.

I just happened to read a new article on "Moon Of Alabama". Then I realize there must be some debate on HN. I'm not disappointed

Here's what lead me to come back to HN:

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2021/03/is-china-hacking-rando...

It'd be nice to see some supporting citations.

This is pretty insane mental gymnastics to rationalize the free market taking control of the US political apparatus as communism.

Like, actually impressive.

It has nothing to do with infiltration or influence. It's simply the basic structure of the American political system that, since its very founding (who was able to vote?) oriented the government into the facilitation of profit above all else.

That is actually the realization the US has to do, but it seems somehow even more embarrassing than the conclusion that the US government is infiltrated by commies, for some odd reason.

The very simple explanation is that the USA is infiltrated by communists?

In other words, yes. I avoided stating it this bluntly for it being almost a cartoon trope.

But... but one can't believe into any other explanation as any much credible.

Do hundreds of US political insiders lobby for China in one voice just for nothing?

You don't have closet communists, just a lot of very greedy, amoral, and easy to exploit power holders.

American legal system prohibits jailing people for anything but being caught red handed in cases of political corruption.

I have no idea what you can do about that without doing political persecution, but on other hand if you leave it be it will keep being exploited like hell.

> You don't have closet communists, just a lot of very greedy, amoral, and easy to exploit power holders.

Lol you’ve just described capitalists.

Actually, he just described people. Communist regimes have the exact same issues with corruption and greed.

Capitalism vs Communism is a useless debate if the will isn't there to hold the corrupt accountable and ensure that the average citizen is empowered (with said power secured both physically and legally.)

I think acquiring and consuming resources amorally predates capitalism by a few billion years.

Indeed it does, doing it in a system that allows the economic elite to direct the government into geopolitical disaster because they are largely unconcerned with the common good of their nation is really quite unique to capitalism.

Nothing quite so dramatic. The US political system is rife with bribery/bribery-adjacent (ex: lobbying) activity and they are saying both sides have been influenced by this. For examples, see the 1996 Clinton campaign finance investigations and donations to Jeb Bush’s Super PAC. There is likely a lot more out there that we don’t know about hidden through donations funneled through non-profits.

Probably you are answering to a different comment, otherwise it makes absolutely no sense. In no shape, way or form have communists managed the internal or external American policy in the last 40 years, if ever.