Friendly reminder to please not confuse the Trump administration with all U.S. citizens.
About half of us are shocked and revolted by pretty much everything he says and does.
About half of us are shocked and revolted by pretty much everything he says and does.
I'd put that at less than 1/3, actually.
The problem is that there is a good third of the US that seems to be completely oblivious that bad shit is going down until it shows up and kicks them in the balls personally.
This is, sadly, neither new nor limited to the US.
"It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt." John Philpot Curran--1790
But it's not a huge issue in Australia, because Australia has compulsory voting. Whatever you think of the indolent that didn't vote in the USA, if you are right that only 1/3 of the population supported Trump he would not have got in if voting was compulsory.
As an Australia, my gut feeling is that our compulsory voting drags everything towards the centre. If a party strays too far from there, their gone. For example we like the USA do have two major parties, split down similar lines. In one state, Western Australia, the right party got taken over by some right wing religious sect. Very few people want government institutions run as a church, and they now have 7 of the 70 or so seats. They ran the place in 2017, and had 31 seats in 2021.
Nationally, the right decided marching to Trump's tune would be a vote winner in this years federal election. In other words, they veered sharply to the right. The result - they lost 25% of their seats.
It’s FAFO writ large, and the US has been ‘exceptional’ for so long they think they can avoid the FO part.
And never seen news discussions, sanctions, seen immigration policies, etc?
It may not been as bad and direct as discrimination against the Japanese in WW2, but a ton of people absolutely do discriminate that way.
And let’s not talk about Muslims (or anyone with a turban, like Sikhs) post 9/11.
But it’s the inevitable consequence of what is going on, and it’s going to get worse.
American’s have had a positive PR program for so long, they’re just completely ignorant of what it’s like to no longer have that.
The US has switched from exporting the American Dream to exporting the American Nightmare, and that will have long term consequences.
People are only now starting to wake up to that fact/feel them, but even if we stopped right this second it will take decades for this to play out. And we’re not stopping, but flooring it.
This, 100%.
I'm Australian. I grew up playing basketball and watching American TV and movies, even had superbowl parties with friends on multiple occasions, which is pretty rare here in Australia.
Been to the US on holidays. Always got along well with Americans who came here.
Take this free opinion from someone outside the exceptionalist bubble: America is on the decline... and it's going to get worse.
People won't easily forget this grotesque spectacle.
And last time i check, Trump won most of the swing state, so a large part of US believe in Trump.
Nobody is saying he doesn’t officially represent the USA. It’s about not assuming ALL Americans agree with what the administration is doing. A reasonable ask, no?
† https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout_in_United_States...
For example, does it make sense to blame Americans for their failure to protest every weekend?
If so, then why stop at Americans? Why not blame e.g. all Norwegians as well?
Or why not blame the Americans who merely protest, as opposed to organizing a general labor strike or for not attempting an outright assassination?
My only point is that if you're going to blame some people and not others for the current state of affairs, it would be interesting to understand the justification.
Not gp, but: sorry, Americans, for whatever voter turnouts, gerrymandering, secret deals, etc, etc.
He's your president. Twice.
Whatever you say at least Trump has truly passionate base. Or will next Democrat nominee be Harris?
In fact, you could legitimately blame people like me for not going further to stop the madness.
In my particular case, that could cost me my job, which means losing health insurance for my family and myself. That's a choice I'm making, for sure. To that extent I'm culpable for this situation.
So, while it’s true that US citizens are not directly responsible for Trump, there is still a dereliction of ethical duty happening, in my opinion, assuming we agree that Trump is harming other people unnecessarily (which, naturally, many Trump supporters would disagree with.)
Of course, even if I’m right, what does that mean in practice? That random Americans on vacation in Italy can be snatched up and sent to The Hague? No, obviously not. I think the most practical effect is that this should give all Americans pause to think, and to at minimum ensure that they are not contributing to the problem in any way, and better yet, fighting the problem in some way.
Of course, this doesn’t even begin to address the fact that only 1/3 or so of Americans voted for Harris, which was the only choice that actually could have worked to stop Trump. 1/3 voted for him directly, and of course they are responsible, but another 1/3 couldn’t be bothered to vote, so it is actually a supermajority of the American people that are shitty, either because they couldn’t care less about other people, or they actively contributed to the problem.
Like sure, I get that the above is propaganda spread by the machine, but good luck telling that to the Europeans that have dealt with Americans that believe it; furthermore, I think it's telling that a decade ago, Canadians would wear emblems to distinguish themselves from Americans, lest they be confused for the egocentric and rude Americans.
The first paragraph is propaganda, but Americans haven't exactly denied it, nor have they been humble about their place in the world, or the flaws in their nation. Their actions have instead left many of us of the opinion that Americans actually believe it.
To be fair - which country has ever been the most powerful in the world and humble about it. The UK certainly wasn't - and after more than a century still hasn't learned that it is no longer exceptional.
Many Americans do believe it of course, otherwise they wouldn't have voted the way they did.
> If they do, maybe that’s fine, but they can’t be held culpable if they do nothing. The citizens however, must be, as there otherwise is no one else to stop the evil. Now, I include the US in this list too.
On an abstract level how are the citizens more responsible than random countries? Random countries and random citizens are in the same boat: they have to deal with something they had no simple choice over (at least in totalitarian states).
Mind you I agree with the proposition, but the explanation is not satisfactory.
The commenters in this thread engaging in transactional tribalism are angry at Trump supporters in the US (and therefore, all Americans because of their tribal "us vs them" lens) for engaging in the same transactional tribalism that they live in. From a game theory perspective, they want the US and northern Europeans to continue to be the good person in the Prisoner's Dilemma game while they reap the rewards.
As I've said elsewhere in this thread, the comments here actually support the beliefs of Trump's base, which is "the world hates us, only pretends to be nice to us when we help make them rich, and power is the only currency that matters."
There are people in this thread complaining about tariffs on imports in the US that are a fraction of what their own nations charge on imports. They don't seem to grasp that "fairness" is an emotional construct that matters for human voting.
> As I've said elsewhere in this thread, the comments here actually support the beliefs of Trump's base, which is "the world hates us, only pretends to be nice to us when we help make them rich, and power is the only currency that matters."
When you are t like Trump does, yes you will loose the affection and respect.
And besides, Trump and his fans both see those who are friendly to them as suckers to take advantage of.
Your wish to be a bully and simultaneously treated like a friend is extremely unrealistic. And not just that, it is a loosing proposition.
His motto may end up being “Oderint Dum Metuant”.
Only 65% voted, so it’s probably safe to say that only 35-40% of the population support him.
https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2025/2024-pre...
So 35% voted the option "I'm fine with whatever comes" so a blanket approval can be assumed to whoever won, i.e. in this case an implicit support for Trump.
Because of how the electoral college works, some people in deeply Republican states could correctly assume that their individual vote simply wouldn't matter.
I don't know if such reasoning swung the election or not. I imagine some political pollsters have a better sense of it.
From what I hear, many people in blue states made the same calculation.
Followed by 32% of the voting population which strongly approves of the result.
The ”not all of us” is a very tempting copout but it is quite evident that the American psyche is in general aligned with Trump.
But hey, you get to pretend it’s some moral high ground, so, yay! Nice job.
You can spin non-voters however you want, but they were objectively OK with this outcome.
None of us do at the personal level. At the international level we are compelled to.
Even in an ordinary administration, internationally a state is indivisible from the government it chose, and any strategy to pretend otherwise is doomed to failure or various kinds of corruption. The larger the amount of money that is staked on ignoring/going around/subverting the national policy of the state in which a business partner is based, the greater the chance of encouraging turning-a-blind-eye grift from elected officials, at the very least. "I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!"
But this isn't an ordinary administration. Trump is fully into "l'état, c'est moi" [0] and he goes there more and more by the day. From the outside, the degradation just in the last seven months is extremely obvious.
Given that international trade policy seems to have been entirely handed to the executive, anyone wishing to trade with a US business must simply assume the USA is Trump.
None of the old sense of continuity can be trusted. It's all new. This is deliberate, it's what his voters wanted, but it's also our reality.
[0] I anticipate some pushback here. I would accept the criticism that if we're talking about the USA as a single entity, it's intellectually dishonest to focus on matters of internal policy to back that up. To people who want to make that criticism I would simply ask: what international policy, separable from Trump's own grievances, explains the tariffs on Brazil?
They have no problem with China destroying their fisheries, and joining with India to buy tons of Russian oil and finance the destruction of Ukraine, while simultaneously emitting vastly more CO2 than the US does.
They just want free defense, one sided "free trade" and the minute they stop getting it, they hate everyone in this country.
I don't agree with this attitude, but the commenter absolutely embodies it. This whole thread embodies it. It's the kind of thing I would send to a bunch of swing voters to persuade them to continue to support these policies.
"vastly" is well out of place here.
Currently, on a per annum basis, China is the number one emitter, the United States is number two. China currently puts out ~ 2.5 the total of the US.
* less than 3x is hardly "vastly more"
* on a per capita basis China emits less per person than the US.
* Much of China's emissions are due the US offshoring manufacture, a large chunk the CO2 rising from China is a result of US consumer demand.
Moreover, the current yearly outputs are merely the bleeding edge of the CO2 problem - it's the cumulative total that is responsible for the increased insulation that is trapping an increasing amount of heat energy.
On that front the US is responsible for more of the total raised by human activity than China.
By country, per year: https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-by...
By country, cumulative total: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cumulative-co-emissions
Per capita means nothing to the planet. The temperature climbs regardless, and China has a choice and it's chosen power plants even if India doesn't. They are building coal plants every single day and you don't say anything because you are a product of a left-wing movement that views state capitalism as an offshoot of communism and therefore positive. That's why your movement never has anything critical to say about China. You only care about Muslims if they are being murdered by capitalists. But the uyghurs can just go pound sand. They are literally having forced birth control and have lower birth rates than any Muslim population on the planet and you sit there and ignore it.
China is on track to reduce its use of fossil fuel for energy production
It is utterly ridiculous to expect India/China to stop buying Russian oil and destroy their domestic economies to satisfy the sanctimonious hypocrisy of the US. Please remember - you have ALREADY oil-sanctioned Venezuela and Iran. Now you oil sanction yet another major oil producing nation ? - so utterly stupid.
Oh btw, the US is financing the Russian War in Ukraine by buying Russian Uranium, Russian Palladium, Russian fertilizer and believe-it-or-not: Russian oil (via processed jet fuel) from India. US imports of Russian minerals and fertilizer were vastly increased in 2025.
Listen to yourself. That is absolutely ridiculous. This is not a serious conversation. I won't be replying to anymore of your comments.