And it didn't have to be this way. The right wing narrative would have you believe this had already occured or was inevitable. A bunch of lies that they turnrd into a reality with their horrific world view and terrible policy. Just 5 months ago the economist declared the US economy the envy of the world. Growth was comparatively strong, at the top of the industralized world. Economic production was the highest in world history for a nation, wealth had never been greater, productivity was strong and also in the top tier on the world stage. Production, wealth and high productivity expand the solution set to handle problems, both domestic and international. And it was all thrown away based on lies, disinformation, and the cult of one deranged, psycopathic, narcissistic rapist.
In your wordview, how does the US project strength when our military can not even source drones with parts not made in China?
These particular parts do not compromise national security directly (they aren't something that would allow China to spy or sabatoge the drone itself) and it wouldn't be that difficult to either work with our allies to develop alternative sources for these parts or pass a law subsidizing our own production or strategically tariffing those particular parts if they are critical to national security. This really is a minor issue that isn't too hard to solve in a few years time.
In your worldview how does the exceptional US project power and leadership when it can not source antibiotics or masks for its own population during a pandemic?
You mean a once in a 100 year pandemic, whose planning teams Trump completely destroyed and was underinvested in by previous administrations? How about we learn from our mistakes and make investments in better planning and preparedness in the future and also take into account how to handle public resistence, disinformation, failures of communication by the government and medical community, and find a more equitable balance between personal freedom vs public safety. The invesment would be fractions of pennies on the dollar for a 30 trillion economy.
I will also note as an aside that each state handled the pandemic differently. Some states stayed shut down for longer periods of time, kept schools closed longer, while others opened up much more quickly, and there was much public debate about the right approach. There were not edicts coming from the federal government forcing states to do one thing or another. That is how our federalist system works and I think that is the right approach. Each state needs to also have it's own investment in planning for future pandemics as well.
Your view of the US looks like some beautiful well appointed house but the reality is there are some huge flaws in the foundation and the living room is starting to list sideways now. And everyone except you knows this.
The flaws aren't nearly as foundational as you make it seem. What we need is much stronger reforms to address the problems in our economy and institutions than had been done in the past, along with rational policies to address them.
The biggest problems as I see it are as follows:
-Unsustainable federal debt that needs a long-term solution. A federal deficit in the 2%-3% range of annual GDP is fine, 5%+ during peacetime is not. Tax increases are absolutely required here but they do not need to be overly dramatic as some on the progressive left would like them to be in my view. How the hell people believing the party of tax cuts for the rich was the right direction to go here, I have no idea. That will make it so much worse. And yes, cuts to federal spending seem wise as well. Maybe means test social security to some extent. Negotiate better prices for Medicare. Cut back on the federal bureauocracy in careful ways, and dial back defense spending (plenty of actual waste, fraud and abuse there. A 10% cut here cutting that does not seem unreasonable).
-Income and wealth inequality: GOP obviously doesn't give a shit about that. Tax cuts for billionaires, cuts to Medicaid, SNAP, etc. If you care about this then Democrats are the only choice that make sense.
-Better job opportunities for those in areas disrupted by globalism and technology. There are no magic bullets here. Capitalism is going to leave some people behind. But once again, Democrats were able to pass bipartisan bills to try to address this such as the CHIPS act and the infrastructure bill. In what way has Trump or MAGA or GOP done anything in this regard other than Trump's insane tariffs, which he is doing in a _completely_ unserious way. If your goal is to bring economic opportunity to these areas hit hardest by globalism and technology, tariffs could be part of that plan (although I think there are much better options than tariffs to do this), but it would need to be done in a very careful, precise well planned way targeting very specific industries.
-Reducing money in politics. Once again, Democrats have been the ones taking this far more seriously than the GOP.
-Tackling corporate abuse. Once again, can you with a straight face claim MAGA/GOP is better than Democrats on taking this issue seriously? Democrats are always better here with things such as negotiating drug prices, consumer protections, etc. Still more to do of course.
There has been fustration with the Democrats but, let's be honest, they have faced constant political oppositon on these issues. If these issues are important to the public then what needs to happen is that we need the current right wing to have little political influence by losing control of government for a sustained period of time, which would then, ideally, get us to a situation where we have two political parties: a progressive leftist party (filled with bernie sanders, Tim Walz and AOC types) and a right of center party (filled with your more centrist democrats like Jared Polis, Amy Klobuchar, Tim Kaine, Josh Shapiro, and your more centrist/principled Republicians like Susan Collins, Chris Christie, Michael Bloomberg, John McCain).
Imagine what kind of country we would be if that was our political landscape. But to get a country like that would take a different voting public that is not captured by right wing extremism. Unfortunately that is not the world we live in.
Doing nothing at all is simply not an option at this point. It would be nicer not to lose what little honor we have left but pretending there are no problems does not make them disappear.
What foundational problems are you seeing that I didn't address above, and wouldn't my vision for a better political landscape take those problems more seriously?
