[platevoltage]

The Republican strategy has moved away from swaying public opinion for a while now. Now their strategy is to manipulate voting maps, intimidate voters and suppress votes in areas likely to vote against them.

The Iran war is unpopular, but they did it anyway.

[tialaramex]

It doesn't matter anyway. The US is done. The empire's peak was towards the end of last century. That's one reason the nostalgia play works so well. A Trump supporter in 2026 can see that their past looks better than their future, they're just wrong to imagine that they can do anything about that.

I think it's interesting to analyse Xi, who unlike Trump is aware that the US is failing and that most likely China will dominate a future global economy, but who must by now be wondering what an inevitable decline looks like for China. Can he postpone it somehow? Are its seeds ultimately in something he will do, or worse has already done? That's not a happy thought is it?

[saturn8601]

The UK empire is considered by many to have ended in 1947 with the independence of India. Others say it was finally finished in 1997 with Hong Kong. Either way the UK is still around and while things aren't rosy, they still trudge along and will continue to do so.

Meanwhile the US's "supposed upcoming ending" puts them in a better position than the UK was in many different categories. It still has massive resources, amazing talent and a citizenry with an "ambitious" can do attitude vs the "tall poppy syndrome" of the UK. Its difficult to argue that there is an exact end date thats occurring now. To say its all over and that there isn't a second story coming seems premature.

Re China: This is a country that has overexpanded in infrastructure which will come home to roost sooner or later, has a terrible demographic structural collapse looming with no realistic way to correct(unlike the US which has options to correct), has overinvested in so many industries that they are experiencing massive (25%) youth unemployment with deflation occurring. They have serious problems coming in the next few decades.

[tialaramex]

Obviously the UK didn't vanish in a puff of smoke and nor will the US. America doesn't cease to exist it is just gradually ceasing to matter as I said.

[saturn8601]

I guess I didn't explain it clearly enough. For the US to stop mattering some other big guy will have to start mattering. I just don't see any country really taking on that mantle anytime soon. Maybe we are in a global decline and the only goal for the two big gorillas in the world is to outlast the other and only after that worry about what comes next.

[llm_nerd]

> This is a country that has overexpanded in infrastructure which will come home to roost sooner

Man, we've been hearing this same tale for decades. China is always at the edge of some massive collapse any day now. Meanwhile the US goods trade deficit is literally worse than ever, the deficit is $2 trillion dollars and the debt is consuming more and more of federal income just to maintain. The US equities market is a giant inflated balloon and no one even pretends to rationalize it anymore. Leadership in the US is now banana-republic level corrupt, in the open and shamelessly. Yeah, this is not the time to be throwing rocks.

> has a terrible demographic structural collapse looming with no realistic way to correct

I mean...not only is China becoming a pretty desirable country for many of the world's residents, they could...have more children. If China decided to turn the corner and get back to maintenance levels, I 100% believe they could do it almost overnight.

The US? Yeah, the US is a free-for-all hyper-selfish, short-sighted end-game right now.

[saturn8601]

>China is always at the edge of some massive collapse any day now.

Yeah but my comment "This is a country that has overexpanded in infrastructure which will come home to roost sooner" is just common sense. What happened in the developed world will eventually catch up China. Every bit of 'matter' in an empire has a cost: the cost to push back entropy. Their strategy of just rushing to overbuild without thoughtful planning makes everything look wildly impressive today but tomorrow is different and this story has played out in every single country in existence before. Everything has to be maintained and that long tail is something every country deals with. What make you think China is some special animal?

>Meanwhile the US goods trade deficit is literally worse than ever, the deficit is $2 trillion dollars and the debt is consuming more and more of federal income just to maintain. The US equities market is a giant inflated balloon and no one even pretends to rationalize it anymore. Leadership in the US is now banana-republic level corrupt, in the open and shamelessly. Yeah, this is not the time to be throwing rocks.

Now you are conflating two different ideas: infrastructure vs investment. Lets address them separately. Yes the US equities market is overinflated. Meanwhile no one even wants the Chinese currency. Not even the Chinese. Obviously China can live with this because they have the large market and manufacturing prowess to fall back on but long term the fact that no one trusts them enough to invest in their country will hamper the growth. It goes back to my original idea: Maybe the US does not need to shine, it just needs to outlast China to buy time to slowly fix itself over another century. China winning the race is not a foregone conclusion.

>I mean...not only is China becoming a pretty desirable country for many of the world's residents, they could...have more children. If China decided to turn the corner and get back to maintenance levels, I 100% believe they could do it almost overnight.

What are you smoking? China is not welcoming to immigrants. China has very strict scrutiny of applications for Chinese citizenship. Unless you are married to a Chinese citizen, are a senior scientist, or make significant contributions to China, you can at most obtain a Chinese permanent residence permit, not citizenship. Looking at the most recent numbers of permanent resident it is less than 10,000 total people...in a country the size of China it might as well be a rounding error.

The time to have more children was 18 years ago. Not sure if you know but it takes 18 years to go from birth to adult. The point of having people is so they participate in the economy, they become the workers, the consumers, and the defense. A country is nothing but a bunch of people. No people: no actual country.

The crisis is locked in now: look at the population pyramid: https://www.populationpyramid.net/china/ The "peak" of their population was 2021, since then their population has consistently declined: old people dying off and not being replaced by young people or immigrants. By the 2100 unless they figure out how to grow humans in a factory they will have lost ~800 MILLION people!

Now look at the US: https://www.populationpyramid.net/united-states-of-america/2...

As close to perfect growth as possible. No over representation of any group. The US has had this blessing in that they could cheat and attract enough people as immigrants to make up for any decline in native births. It gets even better! Not only do they get people at their prime age they didn't even have to spend the resources to raise the person for the first 18 years of their life, some other sucker country did all the work and the benefit goes to the US. They only let in as much as they need and it forms a perfect pyramid. Stable growth and stable population sizes. You can argue that maybe Trump has started to derail this but again...you cannot compare China to the US at all.

[platevoltage]

Yeah, it does matter. I don't know why you think the USA's world super power status is the only thing that matters. People still live here, and will continue to live here despite the USA's relevance.