US President Donald Trump has signed an order to strip back the federally-funded news organisation Voice of America, accusing it of being “anti-Trump” and “radical”.
A White House statement said the order would “ensure taxpayers are no longer on the hook for radical propaganda”, and included quotes from politicians and right-wing media railing against the “leftist”, “partisan” VOA.
I don’t understand the naysayers here.
This is hilarious. Trump wants to simultaneously expand the American empire, while he dismantles the tools of it that he’s too stupid to understand the importance of.
No matter their mission statement, or any tangible benefits they might have provided, both USAID and VOA, were tools of empire. These aren’t mutually exclusive concepts.
We’re talking about a guy whose business accumen is so poor he managed to run multiple casinos into the ground. His “successful businessman” schtick has always been propped up by a mountain of debt and crime. If he had so much as two brain cells to rub together, he would have stuck with Ivana because she was the only member of the Trump family to have even a shred of sense.
Not sure he could have kept Ivana anyway given she said at the time he raped her.
Trump’s mission is to weaken the US, NATO, and the EU. Eliminating VoA helps do that. Notice how he isn’t threatening China with invasion, but Canada and Denmark instead.
Because Trump knows that China can and will fight back.
Canada and Denmark are friends of ours that Trump is now throwing salt in their eyes and saying “neener neener” while showing them his ass.
Because of our history, they aren’t fighting back.
If they do, Russia wins.
In what world isn’t Canada fighting back?
Which isn’t to say they shouldn’t, but they are pushing back to all the shit Trump is throwing at them. Just because they’re not launching missiles doesn’t mean they’re not fighting back.
Trump doesn’t want to expand the American empire though. He makes noises about it, but words are cheap. Judging by his actions he wants to create chaos so oligarchs can profit.
The ultrawealthy have no national allegience.
I could see him loving the idea of expansion to manufacture a legacy. Jefferson may have been a philosopher or a slave-romancer but that’s college academic stuff: every middle school student learns he bought Louisiana. McKinley got us as close to an on-paper empire as we got, and they put him on the $500 note for it.
Soft power will never fill the same goal. Being the cultural or moral lighthouse for the West is inherently different from actually raising a flag over their capitals.
Trump may be narcissistic and senile but he still obeys his oligarch masters, probably from the usual motives of greed and fear.
I don’t know what your local children will learn at school but he’s fast earning himself a footnote in the international history books as the epoch that marks the tipping point into waning US power.
I may be wrong but I think the problem with the US cult of presidents/“great man of history” theory is that people like Trump keep the US populace speculating what he “wants” or “thinks” instead of on what his function is and what is actually happening.
Everything Trump does – everything – suddenly makes sense when viewed through the lens of “how does Putin benefit?”
How does Netanyahu benefit as well.
That’s an incredibly myopic take that confuses correlation with causation.
These moves may benefit Putin, but Russia isn’t the only county to benefit. Infact, Russia is in a historically weak position to fill gaps left by a receding American empire.
I’d wager that China is likely to see much more geopolitical gains because they have the resources and capacity to take advantage of the situation.
I’m not saying Putin won’t benefit, just pointing out how limiting it is to view Trump through a singular lens.
Trump has had close business and personal ties with Russia since the 1980s. He very clearly admires dictators in general but Putin in particular, and has praised him on numerous occasions. In Trump’s infamous public call for election interference, it was “Russia, if you’re listening.” Not China, not some other country, Russia.
If you can’t see the obvious signs of causation – not just correlation – you’re the one who needs some coke-bottle specs!
It’s the explanation – and the only one, to boot – that fits all the pieces. It may be a “singular lens,” bit it is singularly useful!
That’s why we call him JDPON Don - this dumbass is going to dismantle the empire and usher in global proletarian revolution.
Accelerationist fascists simping for oligarchs under the belief that THIS time it will work out for them. How surprising.
If we’re lucky, we might avoid the World Wars which made many other revolutions possible.