I mean it’s good that it’s ended, but the way it’s ending is far worse than most ways it could’ve.

I think an end in this way was foreseeable. I think a segment of the left, particularly the authoritarian left, had a naïve notion that the end of the US empire would inevitability result in some form of class awareness instead of just nostalgic fascism and evangelical millenarianism.

We'll need each other more than ever in the death throes.

Foreseeable for sure, but ideal, obviously not

The Heritage Foundation is speedrunning the collapse of the postwar (WWII) global order, with intention. They posted their plans in plain sight. Nobody with the power to stop them lifted a finger.

Also that the Pax Americana was just propaganda. The war in Ukraine is pretty obvious. However the conflicts in the Sahel have also gotten a lot worse since the US has mostly withdrawn itself from that region. Sudan is especially bad(chemical warfare, mass starvation and so forth). The Congo conflict is also flaring up again.

I would not be surprised if things get a lot worse in the near future.

I think a segment of the left, particularly the authoritarian left, had a naïve notion

Interesting idea. Have you ever considered not being a mouthpiece?

I can't believe the person who failed at everything is failing the USA. It's crazy /s

The decline began with Reagan, and accelerated with 9/11.

That's a funny way to spell Nixon

President Trump did not erode U.S. capabilities on his own.

True, he had plenty of help from his cronies and the billionaires. You might think that doesn't make any sense, but billionaires are going for WORLD dominance, they want EVERYONE under their thumb, including the U.S. Especially the U.S.

Yeah… there was a graceful and positive way for this to occur at one point, but definitely not anymore, I think. The last couple years have been less “ripping the bandaid off” and more “stabbing oneself in the neck”.

I know there will be some real benefits in a handful of contexts and regions, but overall, I shudder to imagine the implications of this rapid and violent abrogation and dismantling of Pax Americana.

That’s not to say that I’m expressing “wooooo ‘MURICUH”, or pining for days of Cold War yore when we fucked around with fomenting coups in tons of countries - nothing of the sort, in fact. Simply pointing out that nobody fully comprehends what all the fallout from this tectonic geopolitical shift will ultimately encompass. The American global security/enforcement apparatus has underpinned the vast majority of the geopolitical and global economic context and (relative) stability since the end of WW2, and even moreso since the end of the Cold War, and now that we’re… uh… not doing that anymore… this is completely new territory. We are in the geopolitical Wild West now. It’s arguably too broad of a generalization to say “all bets are off”… but a lot of them actually are, in a meaningful sense.

Just for the sake of argument, if Pedolf was a Russian asset what would he have done differently?

https://archive.li/RbmnE

pretty crappy article, headline feels like clickbait

tldr us military not doing well in iran, not getting along with others

i’ll believe this “end of the american age” when i see it, not because it’s doing a shit job in a war with another country in the middle east (what’s new?)

american people included

Especially American people.

Doesn't that sort of support Pax Americana being a real thing? If conflicts get worse when America withdraws?

Get assassinated by the CIA long before he got anywhere near the presidency.

Even funnier way to spell Wilson

I think that's their point, that a segment of the left thought pax americana was pure propaganda and it wasn't. It wasn't benevolent but for years it did keep global conflict tamped down.

I wouldn't put it that way.

Oh right. I guess I really need to focus on my reading comprehension, its been shit for like two weeks now. This is not the first time in recent times that I have completely misunderstood something.

Or maybe I have finally become as stupid as I always thought I was.

Personally I blame Obama

What are you trying to say here? Who are you accusing Midnight of being a mouthpiece for? What is your sarcasm intended to do? What makes you think such a shitty low-quality snipe is worth your or anyone’s time?

I know you aren’t a bot or professional troll. So why act like one here? Leave reddit behind.

Someone has to be, since the authoritarian left themselves seem manifestly incapable of articulating anything as crass as a goal or a plan.

My local park no longer has kids just homeless. Is that proof?

What intent would that be. I have not read the Proj25 so asking

You lived through Obama. The others that were mentioned blazed the trail, leveled the ground, and built the structure that created Obama

go read it

I disagree. The Nixon government was awful, but so were many governments before. It wasn't a decline per se, it was just part of the constant change (both good and bad) in leadership.

The real decline began when corporatism started to take over the political/legal system, which was mainly a Reagan phenomenon. Large businesses started pulling everything towards their shareholders, nothing for the workers. Syndicates lost power. The political system started being bought by the corporations. Whole laws started being bought by the corporations.

While corruption has always existed, previously it was something to hide, to be ashamed of. But with the corporate takeover of the USA it gradually began to be normalized, and now it's almost expected from any relevant figure.

If america collapsed, there is a high probability that it would be replaced with a Christian fundamentalist government.

I mean. They can. They do. Over in .ml land, they talk about how NK, USSR, and China should expand their reach globally.

It's just that even the tankies realize that nobody really wants to live in North Korea.

Ba jeeba

...and then shortly after that, the new Christian fundamentalist government will become a global problem.

And then shortly after that, there will no longer be a Christian fundamentalist government. This will likely come with messy consequences for Americans.

In brief, to restructure the federal government to consolidate control to the executive branch under the president and implement a conservative, Christian nationalist agenda.

There were far fewer deaths in western Europe in 1941-1943 than in 1944. Does that make the "Pax Nazi-Germanica" a good thing?

When an empire built on exploitation collapses, it is almost always a good thing to remove that empire's puppets and replace them with representative governments. If those puppets desperately cling to power they no longer have the backing to maintain, then it's usually a good thing to remove them violently to end their exploitative ways.

Thus an increase of violence during the collapse of an oppressive empire is both natural and probably a good thing in the long term.

There is the issue of nuclear weapons. Especially if a bunch of doomsday cultists are in charge of them. The safest would probably be a US civil war, or at least an internal NATO conflict. Like the US invading Canada and getting eaten alive by Canadian and antifascist guerillas.

For a moment i thougt you had shared a link. Thanks but no thanks.

I'm even too scared to even read it knowing it's genuine. This is real oligarch, Saló shit.

yes perfect the Authoritarian left that, checks notes exists solely within your head?

Surely you can give some examples of leftists authoritarianism, if its so ubiquitous that is.

Also, while your at it, please explore the idea of something being 'manifestly incapable'. This term seems like an oxymoron an I'd like to see you flesh it out a bit.

helll no..i don't help blatantly lazy people who can't be bothered to do anything for themselves.

Neither of those scenarios precludes nuclear weapons use, unfortunately.

We're pretty much all relying on the spirit of Stanislav Petrov for the foreseeable future, if we want humanity to survive.

Thanks but no thanks.

Nothing precludes nuclear weapons entirely, but having to nuke "civilized people" (i.e. whites) or "fellow Americans" is a tougher pitch than nuking China or Iran. And even if the US nukes the US, that isn't as likely to escalate into a full world-ending nuclear exchange. I could even see the UK or France take a nuke to the face from the US without sending ones back because they don't want to have their country glassed. Let alone if it's Canada, Germany, or another ally of the UK or France.

Also, the US state has committed to exacerbating climate change to the point of human extinction. I see very few possible futures where the US state is not dismantled in the next 20 years where humanity survives the next 200. Exchanging a reduction of the chance of human extinction through climate change for a smaller increase of the chance of human extinction through nuclear warfare would be a good deal.

As an "authoritarian" leftist, I have been predicting this collapse in US power for years. It was abundantly clear that the US could not maintain so many engagements in so many parts of the world, which is why I have been advocating for years for a peaceful, managed withdrawal to prevent a sudden collapse. Because, also contrary to what you guys always say about us, I don't believe that a collapse or worsening conditions will somehow automatically lead to a victory for the left.

My plan, what I've been saying all this time, is that the US should try to emulate China's approach of staying out of military entanglements while investing in domestic economic development, that we should accept a role as one of several great powers and should work to win countries over peacefully, by offering them better deals. I have been saying this for around 20 years, from back when we were occupying Iraq and Afghanistan. It is literally this position that defines me as an "authoritarian."

Why? Because:

• When I said we should stay out of Afghanistan, I was an authoritarian for "supporting Al Qaida."

• When I said we should stay out of Syria, I was an authoritarian for "supporting Assad."

• When I said we should stay out of Yemen, I was an authoritarian for "supporting the Houthis"

• When I said we should stay out of Venezuela, I was an authoritarian for "supporting Maduro."

• When I said we should stop funding Israel, I was authoritarian for "defending Hamas."

• When I said we should not get involved in Ukraine, I was an authoritarian for "Supporting Putin."

• When I said we should not attack Iran, I was an authoritarian for "Supporting Khomeini."

Maybe if we had been more selective about what conflicts we got involved in, if we had picked our battles, then we might have been able to focus on one or two of those conflicts. Instead, we've had this absolutely unhinged foreign policy where we do things like fund multiple sides in Syria that kill each other with our weapons, or beg China to sanction Russia while at the same time starting a trade war with them. And burning out after getting involved in every conflict everywhere was the most predictable outcome ever.

What is your plan? To keep burning ourselves out, to keep pouring more and more blood and treasure into maintaining and expanding the empire, while domestic conditions become worse and worse, and the fascists at home become more and more powerful? You just want to play Superman, acting like we're invincible, acting like petty material concerns and limitations are beneath us. It's pure hubris.

And now that the exact thing we've been trying to warn you of has come to pass, you complain that we "can't articulate a goal or plan?"
Every time that we've pushed for a more cautious and reserved approach that would preserve our resources and stamina, y'all have just accused us of being secret agents of whatever your current enemy-of-the-week is.

I would have hoped that seeing the exact thing we've been warning you about come to pass would make you stop and consider if maybe we actually have a point, but of course, I know better than to expect it. None of you know anything about what we believe because you'd rather make up beliefs and assign them to us than listen to anything we actually say.

What we talk about is more how the US should reduce it's reach globally. It is exactly that reach which has caused the overextension that we're now seeing, which is going to mean a much less controlled drawing back than if it had been done intentionally.

It's y'all who can't get over the fact that a more cautious and reserved US foreign policy could allow its rivals to gain influence. That's the whole reason that you label us as "tankies." Because you literally cannot conceive of the idea that the US has been overextended and that there might be people wanting to correct that overextension before it blows up in our faces, entirely predictably. To try to address US overextension is something you see as inherently treasonous, and it is precisely because of that perspective that we're in this mess.

Once an empire has subjugated it's territory by force, there is often a time of "peace," enforced through domination and the elimination of any threats to the empire's authority. Of course, empires rise and fall, so it is inevitable that that peace will end, as the empire retracts to deal with internal problems. This generally leaves the subjugated territories in a position of chaos and instability, as the existing power structures no longer have foreign backing to prop them up.

This is why, even the most moral and well-intended empire (if such a thing could exist) is still problematic on a fundamental, systemic level. I actually made a post about this concept a few years ago. Countries and governments need to be able to stand on their own two feet, backed more by domestic popular support than foreign powers. Of course, there are sometimes pragmatic compromises that have to be made, and no country can be fully isolated from "The Great Game." But I would hardly consider chaos and conflict coming from the retraction of the US empire as a reason to think that empire was a good thing. To me, it just shows that the geopolitical order has been dependent a single point of failure.

i think the 'authleft' (at this point the political compass as a phenomenon should be a gen-ed 3 credit-hour class btw) was mostly gen x and millennial doomers with a lapsed DSA membership who thought if America didn't decline we'd start a nuclear war. you experienced the optimistic slice of the terminally online slice who were fans of pretending to have read theory and then arguing with anarchists, please keep in mind that every group of terminally online people you are tempted to generalize should be treated as about 1% of their representative population, assuming posting on social media is their only hobby.

no matter what set of ideological clothes you put on, the fall of America and rise of China was clear to anyone with open eyes as early as Obama and to schizos as early as Tienanmen square

You mean a Christian fundamentalist government besides the one already running the US?

That's such a harebrained campist take 🙄

The reason people get called "tankies" has nothing to do with the US and all to do with the kind of horrible dictatorships they support. It is possible to be for example against US influence in Syria and against Assad the same time, you know?

https://aeon.co/essays/why-western-democracy-is-ailing-and-how-to-fix-it

We entered this era of an unjust social order, political malaise and destabilisation almost half a century ago when the US president Ronald Reagan and the UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher introduced libertarian reforms that were embraced globally.

At his first cabinet meeting as president in 1981, Reagan distributed copies of Mandate for Leadership, whose 3,000 pages came out of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative research group in Washington, DC. This became the ideology of neoliberalism, which advocated a smaller state, industry deregulation, tax cuts, strengthened defence, and roll-back of social engineering. A year later, 60 per cent of the Mandate’s proposals had been adopted by the Reagan administration,