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Comment by llm_nerd | Hacker News Reader

This administration really, truly lives under the delusion that they hold "all the cards". In every engagement they think it is for them to dictate and everyone else to follow. Any graciousness they show is just kind benevolence.

And the "diplomats" of this administration is a rogues gallery of Epstein associates (e.g. pedophile sex-trafficking garbage) and self-dealing criminals. Just a who's-who of garbage.

They are sending their absolute worst.

Americans are just blissfully unaware how much their country is being destroyed. It's staggering stuff. Even if you're a super conservative, there should be utter embarrassment and outrage about how incompetent and clownish this parade of imbeciles is.

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Are you sure it's just 'this administration'? I don't think the memory of America as a bully will go away soon, regardless of who comes into power.

> don't think the memory of America as a bully will go away

It won't. But going digitally sovereign will cost Europe tens of billions of euros. If there is a friendly race on the other side of the Atlantic, that will not mean the memories go away. But the urgency of the initiative is certainly sapped.

It's tens of billions of euros spent domestically, much better than being siphoned away to the USA to fund this shitshow.

At least the money will keep flowing into our own economy, it will hurt but in the longer term it can only be beneficial.

> But going digitally sovereign will cost Europe tens of billions of euros.

That will be spent in Europe, improving the economy of member states.

Certainly much better than just sending that money to the US.

> That will be spent in Europe, improving the economy of member states.

Given EU public spending and IT I'm not so optimistic.

I don't think governments care where money is spent, only how much. Growing the economy by spending more is not really a thing governments aim for.

Stimulus spending is very much a thing. An extremely well known thing. American governments of every lean have pushed "buy American" policies for that reason.

Most other countries didn't just because it eventually evened out in the end. But with the US being an adversarial nation, everyone should redouble efforts to ensure not a penny supports that autocracy.

Oh for sure, this administration is just a symptom that the US has become an idiocracy levered by a plutocracy. A poorly educated, easily manipulated populace.

Trump is just the result of this, and it isn't going to stop when he kicks it. It'll be the next populist nonsense. The world needs to move on from America.

You're speaking as if the image of the US as a bully is anything new. It's only Europeans know that are getting a taste of US strong-arming.

"When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.” - Trump

Just replace Mexico with America. There must be some Freudian issue going on with Trump here.

Every accusation this administration makes is a confession.

The super conservatives share this belief that the US holds all the cards. This is the idea of American exceptionalism. We're special, we're uniquely capable, we can do anything we want because everyone else has no choice but to engage with us. If Europe abandons us, that's a win because they're just a drain on us. International trade is screwing us, so wrecking it will usher in a new golden age.

atleast most senses of this exceptionalism have been fading away in europe thanks to the result of two world wars. (and many, many conflicts before that)

> This administration really, truly lives under the delusion that they hold "all the cards".

I think it's simpler than that: they think the world is a zero-sum game, so why bother being anything but utterly confrontational at every turn?

Of course, that's a childish way to view the world, but we're a childish people.

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