It's absolutely not. It's their very internal policies that force them into destroying themselves. They start believing their own propaganda. For both Rome and Constantinople it was wasting huge amounts of it's power on fighting Persia and trying to extend its borders in ways that outran it's logistics capacity. For the Ottomans it was the rise of nationalism and their ham fisted attempts to combat it. For the modern Western imperialists it was the base fact that direct colonial rule was always a monetary drain for the state and only made businesses money. Making these stupid decisions was because each empire had created a web of political commitments and internal propaganda that was unsustainable.

I don't think the author meant that seriously. You see the quote around "barbarian tribes"? I think he considered this notion sarcastically, as this is "barbarian tribes" is often used by people less knowledgeble abou the topic.

And for the US to implode within a few weeks, there must have been considerable rot inside. I am really not sure where precisely it started, but I consider Bretton Woods (both the system and it's breakdown), Nixon with the final breakdown of honor in politics, Reagan and his "trickle-down economy" lie Reageanomics, and Bush Junior with his Gulf War key milestones in that process. Notice a trend? They were all Republicans. That Trump puts the final nail into the US' coffin is only consequential.

As a European I'm all for it. Fuck up your own country for once and leave the rest alone. Nobody needs the corrupt self-declared policeman of the world

Once, the US was actualy very food at funding innovation. The shit that Bell Labs alone discovered are things that shape the world today. But in the nature of US capatialism, if discovery can't turn I to profit, why bother? It's easier to market 2nd or 3rd place as 1st, then to actually be the 1st, especially if the Chinese are constantly breathing down you neck.

While I absolutely agree that America has and continues to do abhorrent things overseas (and domestically), I fear that there currently exists no significant world power in position to replace them as #1 that isn't considerably more exploitative, sadistic, and cruel. We're currently in hell and have nowhere to go but down...

It's not "falling apart." It's being intentionally dismantled.

Rubio's statement at his conformation hearing was basically "the Post WWII order isn't working for us, so we're ending it."

All due to Ordinal voting. First Past the Post is the simplest Ordinal system, and completely broken if you have more than two candidates.

The only solution is a Cardinal voting system. Cardinal systems can handle two or twenty candidates without issues. Approval or STAR are the best options.

The sad part is, in 1780, First Past the Post was the only system available. It had to be adopted before mathematicians could look at it and say, hey shits broken.

The first was Condorcet. A French Mathematician who noticed the first problem with Plurality in the 1780s. But if you know your history, you'll know that being a French Nobleman in the 1780s was not the healthiest thing to be, regardless of how fucking based you were.

As an aside here, Condorcet was fucking based. He was antislavery, and argued for full suffrage for both women and the slaves that he wanted to free. He argued for universal education for all, and thought it would solve so many problems.

Anyway the next guy who saw the problem with Plurality was another French Mathematician and political scientist named Durverger. He proved that First Past the Post voting will always result in two party dominance. And he proved this in the 1950s. So not much to be done about it.

The next guy to put his name to voting science was Kenneth Arrow, an American who in the 1970s, showed that all Ordinal voting systems were flawed.

But again, the data came in far too late to easily fix things.

So here we are. The saying goes, the best time to plant a tree was 20 year ago, the next best time is now. So call your local representative and ask them to sponsor a switch of voting system to Approval or STAR.

They kept voting for the conservatives for a while after Brexit. They kept voting for Boris fucking Johnson.

Just to give you the perspective from Germany: Reagan is viewed as an idiot, everybody forgot about Bush Senior, people kind of loved Clinton, viewed GWB as an idiot and warmonger, Obama is seen as a great guy and Binden was also not viewed negatively by most people. Trump, however, is seen as the dangerous clown that he is.

Obama is less bad than those on either side of him, but his admin at best still represents stagnation, as he failed to address Bush's crimes

Just a reminder that it's a lot faster, easier and cheaper to break things than it is to build or repair them. A "bull in a China shop" like Trump can do a lot of damage in a few seconds, but it takes years to repair.

Bush had 8 years to cause the damage he caused, it's not reasonable to expect the next administration to fix all that in the same amount of time, no matter how well intentioned and capable that president is.

Same with Trump1-> Biden.

And then you add in obstructionists in congress and senate slowing the process of repair.

You're getting downvoted by the same people who got upset by calling out that Kamala and Biden were not good candidates.

If they were, they would have beat this idiot.

The DNC has no idea, nor does it care, what people really need or want. They don't represent our reality. The only Dems who do are... You guessed it: Progressive.

AOC, Bernie, Ro Khana, Cori Bush, Nina Turner... None of them are supported by the establishment wing of the Democratic Party. All of them have people in mind over reelection.

It's time for a sea change.

I don't understand this take. A lot of us didn't ask for this? A lot of us still want a better country to live in and are actively protesting against the fascist government here. Instead of telling us to rot in hell, why don't you help and support us?

Unfortunately for you, whatever happens in the US will also affect the world.

Wow, another brain dead take.