The world is simply moving on from dealing with the US. It’s too expensive, too much of a pain in the ass and requires mafia like payments. They will all just trade with each other instead.
Tourism in The US is down to the tune of billions of dollars, soybean exports have tanked, US liquor is basically non-existent across Canada and other countries, etc etc.
I don’t know how long this can go on , when will the average American not be able to take it anymore?
I’ve been waiting to see my countrymen vote in their own best interests for my entire life. I’d be shocked if they started doing it now.
We are astonishingly bad at understanding abstraction. We understand that if Kevin shows up at our house and punches us in the face, we should avoid Kevin. But once you put a layer of abstraction between Kevin and the broken nose, we suddenly become baffled about how this could happen, and then we vote for Kevin.
> I’ve been waiting to see my countrymen vote in their own best interests for my entire life
This is an extremely arrogant statement to think a single individual can know the best interests of an entire country and to know they were wrong in identifying their own. To quantify this, perhaps one close proxy is to see how many people really regretted their vote after the fact, which in the context of US does not appear to be that many (even those unsatisfied with the outcome post hoc would not necessarily have voted for the opponent if given a time machine.)
Perhaps it is not trivial to have visibility into the intricacies of other people's lives and their priorities. Even harder to generalize it to tens of millions of people in a country.
Voter behavior and motivation (and knowledge of the issues, and of basic facts about their own government...) is well-studied and has been for decades. Political scientists studied it really heavily for quite a while because early results were fucking alarming (and proved to be accurate, and also not just a temporary aberration) if you're starting from a firm belief in liberal democracy and a broad franchise.
Voters, to a great extent, aren't motivated by what one might either expect or hope, nor 1/10th as well informed about the operation of their own government or the issues at stake as one might hope. It's a shit-show, so much so that it's practically miraculous that voting produces functioning governments ever, at all, and the whole thing's terribly fragile (after convincing themselves the data weren't wrong, the next step was a few decades of trying to figure out some mechanism by which this whole thing wasn't as worrisome as it seemed, which effort turned out to be based mostly on "copium", to use a modern term, and was eventually regarded as having more-or-less failed)
I understand that. That is not the point though. Although, if you believe in that theory, you should reject democracy and aim for some form of aristocracy or monarchy. I don't believe that many political scientists [sic] today publish and advocate disenfranchisement, perhaps because that's not politically correct, but all that is beside the point.
My point specifically is if people are voting for someone, more often than not (at least in the US, perhaps less so elsewhere where they elect the parliament and the parliament by proxy elects the executive which induces some machinations), want that person for whatever reason and consider that person aligned with their interests even if some second-order effects are not so. They did not get "fooled" and bait-and-switched even if they later feel the performance was not great. Proof for that is you are not going to find that many who say they would have switched their votes even after the fact. Those political scientists and the GP have the arrogance and audacity to project their own interests on every single person and conclude they did not vote appropriately.
> Although, if you believe in that theory, you should reject democracy and aim for some form of aristocracy or monarchy.
Not necessarily! It means that the model of the typical voter's behavior (and of the reasons why elections go the ways they do) isn't what many conceive it to be (or hope it may be), and that democracy's weaknesses, vulnerabilities, strengths, and capabilities may in-fact be at least somewhat different from what one operating from that idealized (and apparently very wrong) model of voter behavior would expect. It could still be the best of a bad lot.
> They did not get "fooled" and bait-and-switched even if they later feel the performance was not great.
They are extremely often operating from incorrect information, either regarding facts about the state of the world, or about probable outcomes of various policies. This can include things that directly affect them (or don't) in ways that one would expect them to notice—one fun form of study that's been run a few times is to ask a population whether a tax increase or decrease that in-fact affected only a tiny sliver of the population but was the subject of substantial propagandizing and/or publicity affected them personally (this is about as direct as it gets!) and the typical result is pretty much exactly what your most-pessimistic guess would be.
Supposing that people very-often hold a bunch of incorrect beliefs about how policies affect them but are also good at voting for their own interests when it comes time to mark the ballot is probably somewhere in the category of wishful thinking—and that's assuming motivations and intentions focused on policies and their outcomes in the first place. There's less-strong but still-quite-strong evidence that, as the kids say, "vibes" are a huge factor in the outcomes of elections, even when those "vibes" come from things that even the extremely politically-ignorant ought to know have nothing much to do with, say, who the President is, like a rash of shark attacks for example. This, of course, doesn't mean that this "vibes-from-irrelevant-stuff" voting makes the difference for anywhere near as many people as incorrect information does (it almost certainly doesn't) but that it has an outsize effect on the true-swing (not self-reported swing, that's mostly bullshit) vote, which tends to consist almost entirely of so-called "low-information voters", with the result that it may not have any effect at all on most voters but elections still turn on it (one of a billion reasons FPTP voting sucks is that it amplifies the power of this effect).
I do think, separately, there are cases of rational trade-offs, of picking (say) an anti-abortion candidate who holds many other positions one dislikes because one's stake in one's position on abortion is that important. That's not the kind of thing I mean, and I don't think it's the kind of thing most people mean when they say people are making mistakes by "voting against their own interests", though the effect of such a choice may well be that one is also in these cases (consciously!) voting against one's own interests on various issues.
I agree there are incorrect information, incorrect analysis, and incorrect predictions by the electorate. What I am saying is that in aggregate, the political machine on both sides is fully incentivized with enough financial and media backing to counter the other side. It is not even inconceivable to see each individual vote for their "right" candidate for the wrong reasons. I fully acknowledge that.
In aggregate, however, I believe in the US presidential elections end up voting for their own best interests, as they see it, and even if they become unhappy with the state of the world after four years, it appears to be unlikely to find people who say they would have switched votes. If anything, they are becoming more polarized and committed to one side, thus harder to "fool." In that sense, they are not mistaken. The human experience is not a set of entirely quantifiable metrics, and being "happily-fooled" is also a human interest, as long as they don't get buyer's remorse. Lots of buyer's remorse is really the only metric that can prove the counterpoint.
What GP is saying is isomorphic to telling Apple customers "you don't know your interests and Apple is charging you too much while keeping you in the walled garden." Maybe right, maybe wrong, but who are you to judge they would have been better off with a Dell?
> In aggregate, however, I believe in the US presidential elections end up voting for their own best interests, as they see it
This is extremely close to one of the early "OK, but maybe there's a reason what we're observing at the individual level isn't so scary" hypotheses explored by political science in the latter half of the 20th century—that individually poor choices would nonetheless produce good outcomes by being in some way chaotic and the good outcomes often manifesting as attractors in that chaotic space, or something like that, or by some "wisdom of the crowds" effect that emerges in aggregate. These approaches have been found untenable despite much trying, though I think there are some limited efforts at it still under way.
HOWEVER! I think after this post I do see what you're actually getting at, which is that if people believe they voted in their own best interests ("as they see it" being key) then they may believe they did in-fact do that indefinitely, even if entirely incorrect, so long as they... well, continue to believe so.
The prisoner voting to remain a prisoner not because they don't want to be free—not because if you describe completely and in detail, leaving nothing out, the conditions they're in-fact in they tell you they would love to live that way (they claim they would hate it!), and then if you also describe free life they claim that is the outcome they would rather have, and if you carefully probe you find that it's not even for some greater-interest purpose they are voting to remain imprisoned (it's not that they believe they'd be a danger to others if free, for example), but because they believe they aren't in prison despite [gestures at their prison cell]—is voting in their own interest.
By that standard, yes, a lot more voters are voting in their own interest than may be reckoned by other standards.
Yes your penultimate paragraph is my core point. I argue that’s the real standard. Freedom means different things to different people. If you try to define it objectively, you quickly are in the realm of ideology and then wondering why half of the country reject such ideology, while describing their behavior as “against their interest.”
The Mullah regime in Iran also tries to forcefully direct people to heaven, because they think that’s in their best interest long term and they don’t know better. In fact they sometimes even use the same phrases used in your analogy to refer to mortal life: a prison.
It's great that you two were able to come to an understanding & all, but your agreement leads me to wonder if many voters choose to fixate on culture war issues in an attempt to distract from real quality of life problems that seem impossible to fix and thus just better to accept.
It's not arrogant. Trump culture, and the subset of conservative US culture it grew out of, explicitly positions itself to be described in these terms. You don't have to be a mean or arrogant person to acknowledge that reality, unlike with most "normal" political parties.
It's also an opinion that doesn't require omniscience to hold. I don't know why that's the bar you've set. Yeah - of course nobody can really know what's best.
How did Trump come into the picture? Less than a year ago the other party was in charge voted in by the people. The comment was theoretical and applied to both sides equally. Are y'all just venting?
Having grown up in an African country that has been "collapsing" for the last 30 years, and looking at the neighbouring countries that went through or is going through similar issues, I think the US has far to go before things can be regarded as "collapsed". Unfortunately such an implosion is not instant, but it's a gradual frog-boiling decline that gets harder and harder to get out of.
If you are hoping for some limit to be reached where a popular uprising will be triggered, then I would advise to not put your hopes on it.
We're on track to be a much-richer Russia. Which is a lot better than being like Russia, and also as poor as Russia. But it's a lot worse than being rich and also not like Russia.
I expect most of the pain will be from lost potential growth rather than an actual decline in real terms, and that it'll take a while for most people to realize how stagnant we've become—because line will continue to Go Up thanks to an inflation-based debt reduction strategy, plus the US is such a giant player in the global economy that our slowing way down will also slow the global economy for quite a while, until it adjusts, so we'll still seem to be doing relatively OK for potentially another decade or more.
Of course we could also derail into something even worse than Russia. Or capital flight might hit us harder and faster than I think it will (anyone who can't see a way to, or can't stomach, getting on the good side of our rulers, will want to get out so they don't lose all their shit, including possibly their lives in extreme cases)
Talking of farming, are there any numbers on if AcreTrader or other similar companies has been buying up farmland, and if so how JD Vance’s investment has been performing?
Double-plus-good upvote for your very good question. Tanking smaller players and putting more assets within the grap of current & future American Oligarchs seems to be the underlying playbook right now. This is 1991 Russia.
Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac going public? An opportunity for billionaires to own the mortgages that will default as the economy [intentionally] continues to tank leading to defaults and transfer of the homes and properties backing the mortgages as collateral to the oligarch class.
Considering how much harm he did to farmers in his first term, and they overwhelmingly voted for him again in 2020 and 2024, I’d say they apparently prefer this over the alternative. I don’t expect this to change anything.
Americans don't vote for policies, they vote for personalities. It literally doesn't matter to them if Trump bankrupts them, as long as they get to support the "tough guy" billionaire.
> literally doesn't matter to them if X bankrupts them
If that were true, you'd not see economy as the top or one of the top issues. Perhaps some marginal short term economical concerns can be offset by personality/perceived cultural improvements, but not to the point of bankruptcy or even close.
"It's the economy, stupid" was Clinton's slogan after all.
> If that were true, you'd not see economy as the top or one of the top issues.
Polls also show that Republicans rate economic conditions as positive when there's a Republican in office, and negative when there's a Democrat in office regardless of the actual state of the economy. (The effect is much weaker among Democrats.)
This means that people care about the economy, but are terrible at knowing whether the economy is actually doing well or not, and certainly not educated enough to understand the impact that particular policies have on the economy.
The conclusion is that when there's a Democrat in office, Republicans are told by the Republican news media that the economy is bad; and when there's a Republican in office, Republicans are told by the Republican news media that the economy is good.
Find a conservative-leaning group on Facebook or reddit and see the resistance you get when you try to explain that Trump's tariffs are an inflationary tax on Americans. Political opinions have no bearing on reality, especially in the context of economic policy.
Doesn’t matter what they think about the economy at large in abstract terms; sure they may be right or wrong about that, but I definitely question all those who say people don’t know how they are supposed to feel about their individual economic condition. This is straight from central planning and social engineering BS. I would not underestimate human instinct.
> Doesn’t matter what they think about the economy at large in abstract terms;
It totally does. If they say what they care most about is the economy, but they interpret the economy through the lens of whether their political party is in power, then their actions will be radically different than a theoretically objective voter.
If voters say that their top concern is X, but they act like they are willing to compromise on X for the sake of Y, then we should interpret that as Y actually being their top priority.
I think you are misinterpreting what the voters mean by "economy." It refers to the incomes and expenses and economic opportunities of themselves and their family and friends. It does not mean macroeconomic metrics. I do not believe an individual no matter how dumb can be that easily fooled on those micro metrics; not in the short to medium term.
If your claim were true, the polls would show that Americans' view of the economy is broadly aligned and non-partisan: when inflation goes up, it goes up for everyone. But that's not what polls show. When people are asked about "the economy," the repeat what they've been told, not what they've experienced. Polls repeatedly show a strong partisan bias in evaluating the economy, inflation, and unemployment (as well as crime and other factors). Are you telling me that Republicans actually experience a different economy than Democrats, or should we just go with the obvious conclusion?
Yes, it might be very well be true that predominantly Republican population experience economy differently than the average Democrat population. They do different jobs, live in different geographic locations with varying density and urbanization and have different employment rates/seasonality. Inflation is not a single number and depending on what your life looks like may impact you differently.
P.S. nothing about your conclusion is obvious. Everything cited seems to be referring to one specific period (COVID/Biden era inflation) with no historical analysis, in which case the parties in charge had every attempt to portray their loss as "economy was good but perceived by idiots who didn't know better" so I'll take the analyses with a grain of salt from clearly partisan hacks.
Okay, so you're going to go with the classic "I will disregard all evidence that I don't like by making unsubstantiated claims of bias".
It's not hard to find research that supports conclusions based on polling from different time periods. [1]
Fact is most people don't have enough data points in their personal lives to make any kind of conclusion about the state of the economy. They haven't gotten a raise in two years and their cousin Dale got laid off last week, but no one would extrapolate that to mean the economy is bad.
> They do different jobs, live in different geographic locations with varying density and urbanization
Yes, but they don't typically all swap locations with each other when a new administration takes power. Nevertheless their opinions do swap.
> economy was good but perceived by idiots who didn't know better
> Dude, I literally linked to FEC contributions. "Unsubstantiated" my ass.
That's not evidence of bias, unless, you think that anyone who makes a political contribution is unable to perform accurate research or do their job. Would you casually dismiss the work of a cop or a professor just because they made a donation? If you find a flaw in the research method, let me know.
You're literally looking for any reason to justify your a priori decision to ignore research you don't like. That makes you the partisan hack, not the researcher.
Before Trump, a lot fewer. There is a well known phenomenon of GOP governors in deep blue states (e.g. Christie in NJ, Schwarzenegger in CA, Baker in MA, Scott in VT). This is a lot rarer in deep red states. There are a lot more red states than blue ones, but it's still harder (not impossible) to find recent democratic governors of those states. Senators are a bit more proportional, mind you.
Trump has sort of killed this phenomenon - partly because his brand has rubbed off on other Republicans, and partly because they have been running more extreme candidates even in blue states. Before Trump, though, it was not even close.
I don't know any Democrats who avoid voting Republican because they consider it a "sin." The Democrats I know avoid voting Republican because they think that Republican policies are bad for the country.
I also see Democrats perfectly happy to see Democrats justly convicted of crimes. The Republican approach is to defend members of your "team" at all costs, no matter how guilty they are. The cult of personality is much strong on the Republican side.
All Ds I know pre-Hamas invasion were pretty much the same and would never vote out of party lines, but they wouldn’t say it that way. Rs say it more explicitly. All Ds pretend to be “independent” but they will find a way to rationalize their D. Both bases are quite sticky. There are events like Hamas that suddenly make a change in specific subgroups.
Easier said than done. Most of Canada lives along the US border. Without the USA, Canada is as remote as New Zealand - we just don't have a lot of other neighbours close by.
Yeah, but the hubris of American MAGA nationalists doesn’t allow them to see it that way. They’re convinced the world can’t function without them, that everyone needs them.
Anyone with a shred of sense can see where this is heading: the inevitable collapse of the American empire and the end of its unparalleled global dominance. At this point, it’s unavoidable. The U.S. has alienated nearly every ally it once had. Ironically, Trump might be the one who saves Europe in the long run.
> Tourism in The US is down to the tune of billions of dollars, soybean exports have tanked, US liquor is basically non-existent across Canada and other countries, etc etc.
> The world is simply moving on from dealing with the US.
This seems to be an emotional reaction by the observer, not a quantified study, so citation needed. The US market is so big and relatively unified in language and regulations and that make you willing to bite a lot of bullets. Have you ever listed an app on the App Store and dealt with French BS, for example, for a relatively tiny market?
> They will all just trade with each other instead.
Many of the US products and services are not as commoditized.
> This seems to be an emotional reaction by the observer, not a quantified study, so citation needed.
A citation would be good, yes.
I've not seen overall import/export stats this year.
But stats from a few years back, say that the number 1 and 2 imports and exports are food and oil? EVs significantly reduce demand for oil, but it's not got much to do with Trump. I saw the same stories as everyone else abouy soy bean exports to China going to zero, but that's just one export to just one country, not an overall trade update.
> The US market is so big and relatively unified in language and regulations and that make you willing to bite a lot of bullets. Have you ever listed an app on the App Store and dealt with French BS, for example, for a relatively tiny market?
Solving this is the primary purpose of the EU: unified single market.
> Solving this is the primary purpose of the EU: unified single market.
> China also big, unified.
Correct. It is a goal of the EU, but practically speaking, it isn't as nicely unified, and some reasons being inherent like the variety of languages.
China is much more protectionist and you can't sell into it from the outside easily. US tariffs don't even come close to their tariff and non-tariff barriers.
If you think of <20% tariff as Groupon discounts for US consumers buying a bunch of products together, it is likely a more than acceptable trade for many businesses.
Tourism in The US is down to the tune of billions of dollars, soybean exports have tanked, US liquor is basically non-existent across Canada and other countries, etc etc.
I don’t know how long this can go on , when will the average American not be able to take it anymore?