Progressive Politics

A lot of the weaknesses of the everyman American is a sort of America centric myopia. Smaller countries have to have their finger a little more on the pulse of soft power - diplomatic moves, reputation and mutual back scratches that make world politics function. The US international soft power moves have not exactly been front and center news when the domestic news is constantly fought with inter-state domestic conflict with the federal government, gun violence and bombastic over the top cultural gossip. The fact the US has a lot of hard power in the form of post WWII advantages that were built in a decimated landscape it survived mostly unscathed from means that they had the privilege of being the big stick weilder in the room.

Everyone was mostly content to let America be the world power it was because it did so under the guise of being a protector... And then it threatened somebody. An ally. Entirely for it's own interest. Suddenly everyone realized that they were dependent on the US and they'd let their own militaries, food sovereignty and political hard power wither.

And that has happened before. In Greece. It's ancient history now but everybody realized that they had walked onto that same landmine but it hadn't gone off yet. Whether deliberately or not Trump opened his mouth and gave the game away and nobody wants that future. So now America is getting treated like the landmine it is and the world is dumping efforts into rebuilding without America in the room.

And America is powerful enough right now to handle a rainy day but not rain that just keeps on pouring. The trust that was the hidden cornerstone of American power just got cracked in half by a guy whom America voted in not just once but twice the first time might have been an accident. The chaos he caused on the world stage might have been a fluke but everybody knows now it isn't.

Americans have not begun to see the hard times that are on the way and I do not say this with any pleasure. I have a lot of people I care for inside those borders and I am so fucking scared for them all.