[xmprt]

It might be a bit nihilistic but at this point I don't think the current US administration has any strategy. In past administrations, it felt like even if there was a strategy, bureaucracy and lack of caring enough to do their job led to nothing happening. In this administration, it feels like there's no care for the rules so in theory a strategy could be pushed through... except there isn't one - literally whoever is the last person to talk to the president is the person who gets to set the direction.

[roadside_picnic]

> I don't think the current US administration has any strategy

I 100% believe the strategy is to enlarge the Trump family's wealth, and it's been a wildly successful strategy (in the past year he's been able to create billions in wealth for his family [0]). At least this vaguely ties Trump's success to the success of the United States in a limited capacity. Completely destroying the US is not ideal for him, but it's clear all policy decisions being made are being done so based on their capacity to improve Trump's situation.

We've been headed this direction long before Trump, from both parties, increasingly American policy is about what's good for American companies and in particular the people who own them. Now that pool has just shrunk a bit.

0. https://www.wsj.com/politics/trump-family-business-visualize...

[tempest_]

> Completely destroying the US is not ideal for him

How can you say? The ultra wealthy are not playing team sports. If the country burned tomorrow they would just sit on their yacht or buy citizenship somewhere else.

Sure the lion share of his investments are currently in the US, but that could easily change.

[roadside_picnic]

Most cynically? I sincerely believe there's more value he can extract from American workers if he can keep the ride going on just a bit longer. For example: it's better to keep the stock market a float a volatile so he can transfer a bit more wealth from the American people before it does eventually break down.

Yes, they'll all be on yachts when the shit hits the fan, but they're still fighting to figure out who get the biggest yacht, and right now it seems like Trump has more to milk from us before he entirely lets this thing fall apart.

[immibis]

He also has dementia so he probably can't plan that far ahead. He's operating on a very short term feedback cycle: this reporter asked me a question that makes me look bad, so I call her piggy. That's the timescale we're operating on. Not even quarterly profits but moment-to-moment.

[defrost]

> Completely destroying the US is not ideal for him,

Exactly, just as taking out structural supports when stripping copper and goods from a three story walkup is sub optimal and potentially fatal.

But make no mistake, from way out here (Australia), having watched the US for decades, it really does look like you've a grifter inside the house taking everything that isn't nailed down with zero concern for anyone else in the US.

It's a bad time for those that cannot afford shiny gold baubles.

[NicoJuicy]

> Completely destroying the US is not ideal for him

Nah.

He wants to be a dictator that extracts wealth from it's citizens.

He has a benefit from following the communist path to extract wealth. Make lives miserable, so they are living off the state ( eg. standing in line for bread), so they can't protest.

Putin is not Trump's friend, but Trump idolises him for extracting enormous wealth from Russia, censoring news ( propaganda) and imprisoning political opponents, ...

Just check the "firehose of falsehoods" ( a Russian propaganda method), it will explain a lot about Trump.

[mrguyorama]

>Completely destroying the US is not ideal for him

People like Trump are perfectly happy to destroy a trillion dollars of GDP as long as they get a billion. Project 2025 and all the techfascist dreams of "Network states" are exactly about destroying the US and ruling over the ashes. Christian fundamentalists for example are perfectly happy to have a shell of a former good country as long as they get to institute sharia law.

> from both parties, increasingly American policy is about what's good for American companies

When democrats lost the election to Reagan by a landslide, it was pretty clear Americans had no idea what good policy was and would not vote for it. That's what the problem was. Bill Clinton did neoliberalism and "It's the economy stupid" and democrats pushed for the Crime Bill because those slogans were what the American voter will respond to, at least until right wing media improved it's propaganda power to turn the entire concept of "democrat" into a slur.

Voters in the 80s decided that hard work and building a better future was for suckers, and they'd rather loot the future and do cocaine now. So here we are. Now the exact same people are pitching a fit and giving everything to Trump because they are angry that the policies they supported the past 40 years did exactly what they should have expected.

People keep voting for republicans because "the debt is bad" despite 25 years of direct and objective evidence showing that to be the worst idea.

People keep voting for republicans for "anti-war" despite Bush Jr. getting re-elected for running multiple criminal wars against the middle east, not even the right fucking countries, "for doing 9/11"

People keep voting for republicans "because of the economy" even though republicans haven't shown any ability to run the damn economy for decades, and Trump specifically pushing for things that harm the economy outright.

The voters are bad at voting.

[scottyah]

I think it's the same problem as the past administration and most members of congress- they're just too old to care about 50yrs from now. I don't think they're actively against the 50yr+ future, it's just that the world is changing too fast, and they're falling back to what they know- competing with their peers for power, money, and status. They only have some inkling of actual empathy for the communities their grandkids are in at a personal level, and just have the "throw money at it" mentality for the bigger issues like healthcare, since that has been their MO for the last couple decades. Instead of taking leadership positions and driving change, they seem to just want to squabble and create fiefdoms and have others do the work.

[afavour]

I do think the current administration is still a step down from the (not particularly great) last, though. Congress has essentially given up their authority on everything so any movement must come from the top… and the top has an extremely small attention span.

[smallmancontrov]

> same problem as the past administration

Did you miss the Infrastructure act that spent $500B on roads, ports, and water projects? The CHIPS act that spent $50B on decoupling and R&D?! The Climate & Energy act ("IRA") that spent $400B on clean energy subsidies??!!

I can understand the perspective of wanting more, but the forward-looking policies of the last administration were in a different galaxy compared to those of the current administration, where the big plan is to chop USAID, boost deportations, and cut capital gains tax.

This is the difference between corn and the cob and corn in the toilet. No, it is not the same.

[terminalshort]

The problem is that China could have built the same infrastructure for $100B and in 25% of the time. Pumping subsidies into our bloated bureaucratic nightmare of a system is only going to make the lawyers and bureaucrats who are its gatekeepers fatter.

[trollbridge]

I’ve met one person whose job was funded via the CHIPS act - she was a lawyer.

I bet China’s first priority when building semiconductors isn’t hiring lawyers.

[smallmancontrov]

TSMC Arizona Gigafab, Intel's Chandler fabs, Micron's Boise megafab, these are all giant buildings full of equipment cranking out chips or credibly preparing to. I'd hazard a guess that more than lawyers were involved.

Oh, but trollbridge saw a lawyer once! That's it, phone it in, shut it all down, corruption proven, the gigantic buildings must be all be a mirage. Trollbridge saw a lawyer and that disproves everything!

Troll harder lol.

[vkou]

I've never met a corn farmer, but somehow the corn ends up on my plate.

[earlyreturns]

Where are the CHIPs then? Oh but at least our infrastructure was rebuilt. Right?

[smallmancontrov]

In the google results, if you had bothered to google. It turns out $50B was enough to tip the investment calculus on half a dozen large projects and a dozen or so smaller ones.

So tell me: was it learned helplessness or partisan hackery that made you severely underestimate what turned out to be possible?

[csomar]

Current US strategy is to get South America+Canada resources and call it a day. They looked at global geopolitics and it looked too complicated for them.

[reincarnate0x14]

Without getting overly political, it is nihilistic because one of the major US parties got so high on its own supply of lies that the people currently running it FORGOT they were lying. You're looking at a similar situation to many authoritarian or fascist political systems in which they way to get ahead in no way involves doing your job, but making sure Stalin or Mussolini is happy with you. This started in the US in the mid 1990s when GOP leadership bought in on power being its own end and is now on full display.

People have all sorts of mythologized reasons for why the USSR failed, because while it often produced immense amounts of goods and services and well educated people in certain areas (sometimes beating "the west" by a good margin for one or two years at a go), it also made long term advancement contingent on the party and not the real world and became incapable of handling major changes.

We're witnessing that now in the US with perhaps one of the most incompetent governments in history that is also burning down the non-political institutions of expertise that for all their faults and mistakes, at least had educated and motivated people that cared about their purpose.

[terminalshort]

Exactly right. Democrats have the desire to do big things, but not the capability. Republicans have the capability, but no desire.

[immibis]

It's more accurate to say everyone who wants to do the right thing is a Democrat, than to say all Democrats want to do the right thing. Most of them are just the lite version of Republicans.