And in order for that to not happen, arguing against spread of knee jerk lies is a good thing.
It's in a better shape because unlike the US leaders, European leaders are much better at pandering, being politically correct and saying the right socially acceptable things in public that get universal appraisal on the world stage, without them actually doing anything concrete or solving any of the issues. Basically, they win on optics. At least I'm sure that's what he meant with that virtue signaling attack.
Because if we look objectively at how the EU politics handled the economy, defense, illegal immigration, AI & tech innovation, domestic EV industry, rise of China, Russia's invasion of Crimea, etc. over the years, they're definitely not worth their salt.
Case in point, EU had the same GDP as the US 20 years ago. Now it's only half of that the US. So not only they've left us poorer, but also militarily weak and exposed to influence of China, Russia, and of course the Trump's new US policies.
IMHO, 20 years ago Trump wouldn't have the balls to try to boss the EU around like that but he can today because we're no longer peers but pushovers with no leverage, no military leverage, no economic leverage, no tech leverage, no natural resource leverage, nothing other than calling him names, because our useless politicians were asleep at the wheel and left us vulnerable to such bullies.
I couldn't agree more. What I keep wondering though is whether this is new? Have politicians always focused on saying they fix things instead of actually fixing things? Many historians consider Franklin D. Roosevelt as one of the best presidents since his optimism and New Deal got the United States out of the Great Depression (which is a weird name because nobody thinks it was very great). Are presidents like Roosevelt the exception? Should we expect that most presidents will achieve nothing more than a scandal like Watergate? I don't know.
To my eyes, these things show that in fact, eu is actually doing something about defense and protecting democracy, and to your eyes you see this as more taxes and the death of democracy and an evidence of romania's corruption. What actions would you expect eu to take in regard to ukraine, defense, and protecting democracy?
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43287963#43288810
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43278705#43278894 (not just the first comment, the chain of answers is needed to be read as well)
Sorry, I'm not gonna bite.
If not believing evidences - multiple ones - is not a proof of being influenced by Russian propaganda, a country that has repeatedly interfered in European affairs, I do not know what would be categorized as being influenced by Russian propaganda. Maybe directly going to Moscow and fighting for Russia?
Anyway, I was genuinely curious about your ideas on European defense, since you don't see many shared values in eu i was intrigued to see the views of someone who doesn't see Europe as more than a merely political one, with no common values
We'd have even more GDP growth than America :-)
As well, the Euro would be worthless. US could print the 2008 crisis without massive currency debasement because of its reserve currency status, which in 10 years could not be the case anymore.
This means that the US has this huge deficit problem to fix, where most of it is because of Medicaid and Social Security entitlements (which will also grow faster in the next years).
The US is in a terrible fiscal shape right now, the next 10 years will be a rough ride for the average American.
What makes you say that? A lot of things can happen in 10 years. Should we all just do northing and wait until then?
>The US is in a terrible fiscal shape right now
If being the worlds leading economy and military superpower is what a terrible fiscal shape looks like I think many countries in the world would want to be "terrible" right now.