You may be right.

Trump-Americans are indeed rejecting the post-WWII world order. It is no longer serving us.

Trump is renegotiating the deal with the rest of the world. It could blow up in our faces or we could end up in a more favorable position.

The post-WWII world order has been slowly falling apart over the last decade or so. America is a bit late to wake up to this reality. We're now in a pre-WWIII world.

Yes! America needs to adjust our spending to reflect this new paradigm

The post-WWII world order fell apart when the Berlin wall fell.

That order was defined by the tension between the east and the west during the cold war, and it can't be overstated what an existential threat communism was perceived as by the west during this period.

Half a century of American politics were based on the premise that if the US did not win against the Soviets, the entire world would live under a world wide oppressive communist regime. Freedom would be a historical footnote.

This meant that the US urgently needed to have its shit together at all points, not just function well, but also look good. The war against communism was fought in the hearts and minds of the world's population.

Since the Soviet union fell, and with nobody to keep the US honest anymore, it's arguably let itself go.

In part it's metaphorically stopped sucking in it's stomach, to hide its flaws and present itself as flawlessly glamorous. Some of the American decline is problems that have existed for a long time that have now been brought to the surface; but I think the lack of competition is also just as big of a factor.

New powers have emerged in the vacuum left behind the Soviet union, yes, but these are all knock-on effects, and I don't think they're perceived as the sort of existential threat as the communists were. Some are trying to paint them that way, but it's not nearly the same.

Excellent analysis, thank you for contributing

i also enjoyed the cold war documentary on netflix.

While prepping for a WWIII after which, ironically (or not), there might remain no point of a pre or a post prep for a very long time.

You mean the first time Trump took office and Brexit? Yeah, all the same nefarious forces.

“I’m worried WW3 is coming… best we destroy our alliance between the wealthiest and most powerful nations on the planet first!”

Brilliant strategy.

You should be more worried about blowing up in your own faces

It won't. 0% worried actually.

Ignorance us bliss, until physical reality sets in.

Aka you probably should he worried about exceedingly damaging deranged behavior on the part of an individual who is bent upon expanding the powers of the already most powerful office in the land.

It will cause lasting damage.

Trump has already managed to unify all of latin America against him. Bullying will have consequences, and creating enemies out of friends is a very foolish path.

If cost savings were the true concern, there are many less harmful ways to effect them, so don't give me a story of necessity. The belligerence and cruelty is intended.

In contrast to 2016, I am seeing an incredibly focused, well-planned Trump machine executing hard on the goals the President set during his campaign and reiterated in his 2nd inaugural address.

The Latin America stuff is not bullying. Look at Colombia, Petro's government collapsed after his stunt because even his own government knew he was stupid and picked a bad fight.

Cost savings is just one of the concerns here. A lot of bad things happen downstream of these US Taxpayer funds, including NGOs who use those funds to enable mass illegal immigration.

Can you explain as you see it the rational for the Trump administration's aggressive stance on Canada?

I'm a Canadian so I'm biased on the topic but it seems what Trump is doing to Canada is completely unreasonable.

Well planned? That they shut down so many critical government functions yesterday with their executive order took the WH by complete surprise. They had no idea what the order did or didn't do. The top headline yesterday about it was the mass confusion it sparked because the language they used in the order was sloppy, inarticulate, and vague. That's not focused or well-planned. This is a throw everything at the wall, fill the zone with shit Steve Bannon strategy.

America wants to run an empire without doing the work that is accustomed to it.

One could claim that this is the current state of the American aristocracy. For all of the wealth inequality, I see very few instances of "Zuckerberg Theater", "Gates Hospital", or even a "Brin college".

What, $40b for a dying social media company that no one will remember in 25 years vs literally anything useful and enduring? My post office is 130 years old!

Those were needed because buying politicians and public favor was hard.

Now you just buy media.

Perhaps I am misunderstanding your comment, but one of the largest hospitals in the Bay Area is quite literally called Zuckerberg Hospital: https://www.zuckerbergsanfranciscogeneral.org/

Gates has given many billions to public health initiatives as well

Yes. ~7.5% of the cost contribution bought them the name on the building.

I think that the Gates foundation has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on malaria initiatives alone. When I lived in SF, Zuckerberg Hospital was pretty close and it was pretty gigantic. Mark Benioff has spent hundreds of millions on Childrens hospitals in Oakland and SF as well.

Maybe we're converting to more of a Roman- or Mongol- or Aztec-style empire.

Not quite so simple. The United States has many different internal interests that disagree on many things between them, but align in spreading American influence globally through programs like this and many, many others.

However, it also has other factions, especially since Trump and his often bizarre, even irrational takes on what's important, basically took over the Republican Party, making a number of Republicans now also shun programs that previously, they wouldn't have so much as blinked at. This is cowardly of these people, but it's also par for the course with ideological shifts in political leadership.

America's standing in the world is maintained through military force, primarily targeted at Europe.

The rest of the world is in competition with China. They are trying to sell, not buy.

Cool story though.

You're both right. You just are talking about completely different things.

No idea why you're being downvoted. You are mostly right.

Because you want people to pay in US dollars, buy US goods and pharmaceuticals.

> Ah yes, the desperately poor are notorious for pulling the strings of global finance. Best to stay on their good side.

You wanted everyone to admire the US and exported the American dream to be the ideal of the world.

> The American dream has nothing to do with giving our money away to foreigners, actually.

Why is it important for America to enforce freedom in every oil rich country - apparently even Canada now!

> focus

You can take a "mission accomplished" stance and be done with it, but if America wants to maintain it's standing in the world, these sorts of programs will need to continue.

> Our standing is derived from our success--from our military, financial and cultural dominance. Your opinions as to our generosity have no bearing whatsoever on our standing.

Without the US footing the bill for this, China will come in with Chinese aid, and teach these countries how to adopt the Chinese ideology.

> These countries don't matter.