[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.