[CMay]

The US is not xenophobic. That is ridiculous. Any time you say stuff like that, you discredit the things you say that actually make sense. I'm with you on the privacy aspect, but there are multiple dimensions of that which you're ignoring. I'd much prefer taking my chances in the US than in the EU, where they are constantly trying to push companies to weaken privacy.

[0xbadcafebee]

Europe has way stronger data protection laws than the US. EU has GDPR, strict requirements, large fines. US only has a couple states protecting personal data, with HIPAA for health data, and that's it. We require you to unlock all your devices within 100 miles of a border (inland) so we can look at all your data. Of course our intelligence service also hoovers up the metadata of US citizens in contact with anyone overseas, which is borderline illegal. All our states are now passing "age verification" which is mass surveillance under a different name.

And US absolutely has been xenophobic for years, by official federal policy. I'm really surprised you're not aware of it, but here's a small selection of examples:

- Both our elected and appointed leaders are white nationalists. Our president called all Mexicans murderers and rapists, said African migrants were eating random pets in a rural US town (they weren't, obviously, but it was intended to exacerbate xenophobia)

- Our federal government has a mandate using ICE to try to eject anyone with a Hispanic name from the country (has already deported US citizens based on being hispanic/latino). We even boot people seeing asylum, often exporting them to foreign prisons even if they've never had a criminal record. We have concentration camps now, filled entirely with foreigners, and people who have lived here for decades but were foreigners.

- We stopped accepting new visas from 75 countries. We may even expel you for social media posts we don't like, or for attending a protest that our citizens can attend. We increased travel bans for people from majority Muslim countries. H1-B visas have been rolled back to only the highest paying jobs, and you may need to pay a $15,000 bond. We also now collect and store foreigners' biometric data indefinitely.

- Let's not forget the tariffs on virtually all other nations, to say nothing of "America First" and the new "Greater North America doctrine".

[CMay]

The US accepts immigrants from 200+ countries around the world with the top 5 being Mexico, Cuba, India, Dominican Republic and China. None of that has changed under Trump.

I think you got lost in the rhetoric somewhere.

Tariffs are just the US adjusting to reality which other countries are slow to do. Free trade died all on its own, because the pandemic showed that critical industries were hollowed out by free trade in a way that could be appreciated from a national security perspective. That situation was favoring China too much, so we need to unwind that some.

Tariffs already existed in many countries in practice, so it's not like the US reinvented modern tariffs.

[speff]

Putting some numbers into the discussion census.gov [0] is tracking a sharp decline in net immigration due to both, a decrease in immigration and an increase in emmigration, from the start of 2025 to the present. Trending towards a net negative.

Pew [1] suggests that the changes around the start of 2025 were due increased restrictions on asylum applications under the previous admin and EOs by the current one to restrict new immigration. Given the rough numbers [2] of about 40k asylum grants per year in the early 2020s, I doubt the previous admin's actions are playing much of a role here.

Stating that none of it (immigration acceptance) changed under this administration might technically be true - with respect to the number of countries applying, but misses this point.

[0]: https://www.census.gov/newsroom/blogs/random-samplings/2026/...

[1]: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/08/21/key-findi...

[2]: https://usafacts.org/articles/how-many-people-seek-asylum-in...

[CMay]

No doubt some changes were made by both Biden and Trump, but the argument being made is that this was fundamentally xenophobia, which is not supported.

[0xbadcafebee]

Are you seriously trying to reframe the largest tariff war in 100 years, targeting 180 countries and territories, as a readjustment against China? And in both of Trump's terms he's radically changed immigration more than at any time since the 1960's. Either this is a great troll, or you need help, man.

[CMay]

Free trade isn't only a China issue, no. It's only the most important one partly as a function of China propping up massive state companies while also trying to avoid becoming a consumption led economy.

If you feel like formulating a good argument about immigration, I'll listen, but you haven't provided one.

[watwut]

Europe seems both better capable of sustaining democracy, privacy and rule of law. USA is on verge of being irreversibly done for in all three areas.

It can happen in Europe too, but the full fall is not that close.

[CMay]

Privacy is a concern everywhere, but the center of gravity of the issue moves further up or down the chain depending on the country.

The structure of the US makes it basically the single most secure democracy anywhere right now or in history. No country in Europe or Europe as a whole is even competitive by comparison. The main issue we're facing is that we are by far the primary target for foreign funded activism and systemic attacks, because China and Russia hated NGOs promoting color revolutions.

That is also part of the rule of law issue, but the system is overall managing quite well. It's all moving in slow motion, but many important metrics are going in the right direction, which we need as that's part of deterring China.

[wtp1saac]

From Wikipedia, United States government and policy, citing several democratic institutes:

"The United States was the most prominent liberal democracy for much of the 20th and early 21st centuries, but has undergone significant democratic backsliding and a shift toward a hybrid regime—a political system combining autocratic and democratic features.[185][186][237] There is an ongoing debate among political scientists on whether the country is more appropriately classified as an electoral autocracy or illiberal democracy, with few still considering it a robust liberal democracy.[238]"

[lmm]

> The structure of the US makes it basically the single most secure democracy anywhere right now or in history. No country in Europe or Europe as a whole is even competitive by comparison.

How do you figure? I hear you have roving gangs of masked thugs beating up random citizens with the backing of your government, that doesn't sound very democratically secure, especially with what healthcare costs over there.

[watwut]

> The structure of the US makes it basically the single most secure democracy anywhere right now or in history.

This is just not true. It is failing visibly and loudly fast. It used to fail slowly but the process speeded up.

American administration supports Russia now. It praises Russian, Chinese, Belarus leaders again and again. It praises Orban. It hates last bastion of democracy - Europe.

China is not detered. Its power is growing while American one is going down. Trump openly admires its leader. China is celebrating current state of America.

[einpoklum]

> the single most secure democracy anywhere right now or in history.

So secure, in fact, that it has secured itself even against the influence of its own citizens.

[CMay]

That's not really accurate. The US is structured so that it is self-reinforcing from the bottom up and the top down simultaneously. State laws cannot violate the U.S. constitution and many types of elections cannot be gerrymandered. Even gerrymandered legislatures have limits on what they can do. You can't simply have one party change a state's constitution. Even congress can't be entirely gerrymandered.

Also, we have guns. LOTS of guns. The U.S. military's first and sole responsibility is to the constitution itself. If any state or the federal government tries to get rid of their constitutions, the military can rightfully take it over and re-establish a constitution.

There is no other country that's even remotely close to this secure.