It’s not just a Trump thing. Bush destroyed Iraq, Obama destroyed Libya, Biden destroyed Palestine, Carter destroyed Cambodia, Truman destroyed Korea, etc. Statesian imperialism and genocide is bipartisan.
my dude, statesian imperialism has always been happening. this is coming from a californian who has not liked it and has been voting, demonstrating, and doing what i can politically to influence stuff the other direction. our votes change internal politics a fair amount. international politics, Democrat or Republican it don’t matter one fuck the US is the US, it’s mostly run by the career politicians.
This is where Trump coming in fucks things up in a completely different way than previous presidents and differently than his first term, because he’s gutted the career politicians out of the agencies that make up the US government, for example the folk at the state department who’ve been there since Carter, ones who had no political loyalty just loyalty to US imperialism, and replaced them with folks who only have loyalty to Trump. I’ve been struggling to find the words to describe the enormity and speed of the corruption that’s happened in the last year and a half. To call it mindboggling does it a disservice. Mindboggling only puts you about a quarter, maybe a sixth of the way down the path of befuddlement down to where krasnov is.
My point isn’t that Trump is the exact same. My point is that, ultimately, he serves the same role, only at a different point in the decline of the US Empire. Time is not static, with each day and second that passes, the world changes, and these changes reinforce further changes. Quantity turns into quality.
If you look below, @lookitsjustin@lemmy.ca and I came to a relative understanding. I’m not trying to say there’s nothing unique about Trump, my point is to draw connections to what is actually similar. This mirrors how Marx radically transformed how we understand capitalism, by looking at how it was similar to feudalism and connected to it, not just by looking at the differences.
As for the Krasnov jab, ultimately the narrative that Trump is a Russian puppet is rather baseless. The war in Ukraine would already be over, and Russia would no longer be sanctioned. It seems this narrative is trying to make Russia a scapegoat for Statesian imperialism, and make it seem like it isn’t a core aspect of the way the US works.
What’s largely different is that the US is a moribund empire, with a rising socialist alternative that it definitely cannot attack. We are in 2026, and that’s a fantastic time to get organized. Socialism is rising in popularity across the west among working people, and we will be able to establish socialism. It’s necessary, sensible, and possible.
Sure, and then it will become whoever replaces him that’s the new problem. My point isn’t to dismiss Trump’s complicity in genocide and imperialism, but to instead highlight the actual problem: imperialism as a stage in capitalist development in general, and the US Empire’s present status as the moribund global hegemon in particular. Trump is a symptom of the problem, not the primary problem.
Regarding “whataboutism,” comparistics is a valid form of analysis. My point isn’t to erase Trump, but to put him in his proper context. Pinning the blame squarely on Trump as though he is individually responsible obfuscates what’s actually going on, and leads us to the idea that if we just vote him out, our problems will be gone. They won’t. This is why we need proper analysis of the problem. We cannot end imperialism without ending capitalism, and replacing it with socialism.
This cannot be done at the ballot box either, it must be comprehensive, otherwise it will get reverted just like the social democratic period under FDR (which primarily benefited white workers in the US while leaving black and brown workers to remain as underpaid labor, as well as the expansion of imperialism).
Pump the brakes. I’m not revising American history as you seem to suggest with “pinning everything on Trump.” Good lord, obviously previous US presidents are to blame for their various actions in many different countries.
We’re gonna have to try and find a happy medium here. Because we can’t simply say “all presidents have done this and it’s as simple as America having an imperialist attitude” because we need to hold every single one of these people accountable.
I’m a non-American observer. You’ll notice that Obama’s reputation is intact globally and most consider him to be an excellent president in hindsight despite many transgressions like his popularization of drone strikes.
Bush should be held accountable. Obama should be held accountable. Trump should be held accountable.
I think we’re arguing two sides of the same coin here. I agree we can’t ignore the past but we also can’t ignore the present. And Trump has taken his predecessors’ ideas of imperialism to a whole new level - no denying that.
I’m a Canadian. Threatening to annex Canada? You better believe our attitudes here are going to be far more hostile to Trump than they ever were towards Obama. That’s just the way it is.
We’re in agreement - the United States of America (irrespective of who heads the executive branch) is at odds with most of the world. You guys are stuck in a centuries-old attitude of conquest and I can only hope for the world’s sake that you can eventually break free of this perspective.
I’m not trying to be mean here, just take your point to a higher level, one that gets at the heart of the issue. I disagree that the US Empire is being imperialist because of “an imperialist attitude.” Imperialism is not merely a whim, it’s a material process that evolves from earlier stages of capitalism. As capital consolidates, forming monopoly finance capital, it seeks to endlessly expand beyond its borders. This search for new profits leads to the establishment of military monopoly, IP monopoly, dollar monopoly, and cultural monopoly. This is the origin of institutions like the IMF, NATO, and more, and are how the US actually gains the wealth it has at it’s highest levels.
What’s important here is it means that an individual president cannot stop it. It also means that the west in general is reliant on these very same institutions, and thus benefits from it. Canada is an interesting point to bring up. Canada, like the US, is both an imperialist state, and a settler-colony. Canada too is reliant on imperialism and the very same institutions the US is. The US, however, is hegemonic, while also rapidly losing its unipolar position thanks to the rise of China and the global south in general. This leads it into conflict with its former allies, secondary imperialist powers, much the same as how Germany began colonizing Europe the same way Europe colonized the rest of the world.
What remains necessary is as I said, ending capitalism to end imperialism, and we can only do so through the establishment of socialism.
Ending capitalism would be lovely. But let me know how we’re supposed to achieve that in the context of US imperialism, tech companies and billionaires hoarding wealth, and the average person gradually losing their voices.
It seems to me that nearly every system in place is there specifically to perpetuate capitalism.
Trump viscerally hates the average American so it seems very clear this movement can’t and won’t begin in the US. He doesn’t want his voters to prosper. And, further to that, Trump has an army of sycophants foaming at the mouth to take over if he dies or god-willing just goes away.
We’re clearly on the same side here in most respects.
Well, the first step is understanding that we need socialism and to end capitalism. We are already there, you and I! The next is understanding how revolutions actually work. Throughout all revolutionary history, one central through line is common: it is the great masses of society that actually make revolution. This means that class consciousness must grip the masses, and that these masses must be organized.
This is where we can and must be proactive. We can and must start with our own education, our own study of our existing conditions. We must also build up a disciplined group of workers that, through constant political work amongst the rest of the workers, gain their support and respect. When crisis hits, and it inevitably does on a regular basis in capitalism, we take the momentum of the working classes and use our own experience and study to help steer it in a positive direction.
This general process has unfolded in Russia, China, Cuba, and many other places. It’s a proven strategy, one that we can rely on. We need to adapt to new surveillance, and the crackdown on speech, but revolutionaries have been in worse positions before. Over time, organizing has won more rights that cannot be as easily taken away. The intense concentration of wealth in the hands of fewer and fewer people only serves to bolster our ranks and further outnumber them.
I like you, as it turns out. You’re espousing much of how I feel in a more coherent manner than I can muster. I appreciate the optimism too. I will say I’m closer to a pessimist but I recognize in no uncertain terms that socialism is how we can fix this. I sure hope we can someday.
We will win. Not only is revolutionary optimism important for our own mental health, but it’s rooted in solid, materialist analysis. As far as Canada is concerned, I don’t personally know the parties that exist there, but I know Red Pen is based in Canada, and generally has good analysis and summaries of Marxist theory and analysis.
It’s not just a Trump thing. Bush destroyed Iraq, Obama destroyed Libya, Biden destroyed Palestine, Carter destroyed Cambodia, Truman destroyed Korea, etc. Statesian imperialism and genocide is bipartisan.
my dude, statesian imperialism has always been happening. this is coming from a californian who has not liked it and has been voting, demonstrating, and doing what i can politically to influence stuff the other direction. our votes change internal politics a fair amount. international politics, Democrat or Republican it don’t matter one fuck the US is the US, it’s mostly run by the career politicians.
This is where Trump coming in fucks things up in a completely different way than previous presidents and differently than his first term, because he’s gutted the career politicians out of the agencies that make up the US government, for example the folk at the state department who’ve been there since Carter, ones who had no political loyalty just loyalty to US imperialism, and replaced them with folks who only have loyalty to Trump. I’ve been struggling to find the words to describe the enormity and speed of the corruption that’s happened in the last year and a half. To call it mindboggling does it a disservice. Mindboggling only puts you about a quarter, maybe a sixth of the way down the path of befuddlement down to where krasnov is.
My point isn’t that Trump is the exact same. My point is that, ultimately, he serves the same role, only at a different point in the decline of the US Empire. Time is not static, with each day and second that passes, the world changes, and these changes reinforce further changes. Quantity turns into quality.
If you look below, @lookitsjustin@lemmy.ca and I came to a relative understanding. I’m not trying to say there’s nothing unique about Trump, my point is to draw connections to what is actually similar. This mirrors how Marx radically transformed how we understand capitalism, by looking at how it was similar to feudalism and connected to it, not just by looking at the differences.
As for the Krasnov jab, ultimately the narrative that Trump is a Russian puppet is rather baseless. The war in Ukraine would already be over, and Russia would no longer be sanctioned. It seems this narrative is trying to make Russia a scapegoat for Statesian imperialism, and make it seem like it isn’t a core aspect of the way the US works.
yeah, sometimes i want to pretend we’re in 1932 instead of 1938
What’s largely different is that the US is a moribund empire, with a rising socialist alternative that it definitely cannot attack. We are in 2026, and that’s a fantastic time to get organized. Socialism is rising in popularity across the west among working people, and we will be able to establish socialism. It’s necessary, sensible, and possible.
That’s whataboutism. Right now, the focus is on Trump.
Sure, and then it will become whoever replaces him that’s the new problem. My point isn’t to dismiss Trump’s complicity in genocide and imperialism, but to instead highlight the actual problem: imperialism as a stage in capitalist development in general, and the US Empire’s present status as the moribund global hegemon in particular. Trump is a symptom of the problem, not the primary problem.
Regarding “whataboutism,” comparistics is a valid form of analysis. My point isn’t to erase Trump, but to put him in his proper context. Pinning the blame squarely on Trump as though he is individually responsible obfuscates what’s actually going on, and leads us to the idea that if we just vote him out, our problems will be gone. They won’t. This is why we need proper analysis of the problem. We cannot end imperialism without ending capitalism, and replacing it with socialism.
This cannot be done at the ballot box either, it must be comprehensive, otherwise it will get reverted just like the social democratic period under FDR (which primarily benefited white workers in the US while leaving black and brown workers to remain as underpaid labor, as well as the expansion of imperialism).
Pump the brakes. I’m not revising American history as you seem to suggest with “pinning everything on Trump.” Good lord, obviously previous US presidents are to blame for their various actions in many different countries.
We’re gonna have to try and find a happy medium here. Because we can’t simply say “all presidents have done this and it’s as simple as America having an imperialist attitude” because we need to hold every single one of these people accountable.
I’m a non-American observer. You’ll notice that Obama’s reputation is intact globally and most consider him to be an excellent president in hindsight despite many transgressions like his popularization of drone strikes.
Bush should be held accountable. Obama should be held accountable. Trump should be held accountable.
I think we’re arguing two sides of the same coin here. I agree we can’t ignore the past but we also can’t ignore the present. And Trump has taken his predecessors’ ideas of imperialism to a whole new level - no denying that.
I’m a Canadian. Threatening to annex Canada? You better believe our attitudes here are going to be far more hostile to Trump than they ever were towards Obama. That’s just the way it is.
We’re in agreement - the United States of America (irrespective of who heads the executive branch) is at odds with most of the world. You guys are stuck in a centuries-old attitude of conquest and I can only hope for the world’s sake that you can eventually break free of this perspective.
I’m not trying to be mean here, just take your point to a higher level, one that gets at the heart of the issue. I disagree that the US Empire is being imperialist because of “an imperialist attitude.” Imperialism is not merely a whim, it’s a material process that evolves from earlier stages of capitalism. As capital consolidates, forming monopoly finance capital, it seeks to endlessly expand beyond its borders. This search for new profits leads to the establishment of military monopoly, IP monopoly, dollar monopoly, and cultural monopoly. This is the origin of institutions like the IMF, NATO, and more, and are how the US actually gains the wealth it has at it’s highest levels.
What’s important here is it means that an individual president cannot stop it. It also means that the west in general is reliant on these very same institutions, and thus benefits from it. Canada is an interesting point to bring up. Canada, like the US, is both an imperialist state, and a settler-colony. Canada too is reliant on imperialism and the very same institutions the US is. The US, however, is hegemonic, while also rapidly losing its unipolar position thanks to the rise of China and the global south in general. This leads it into conflict with its former allies, secondary imperialist powers, much the same as how Germany began colonizing Europe the same way Europe colonized the rest of the world.
What remains necessary is as I said, ending capitalism to end imperialism, and we can only do so through the establishment of socialism.
Ending capitalism would be lovely. But let me know how we’re supposed to achieve that in the context of US imperialism, tech companies and billionaires hoarding wealth, and the average person gradually losing their voices.
It seems to me that nearly every system in place is there specifically to perpetuate capitalism.
Trump viscerally hates the average American so it seems very clear this movement can’t and won’t begin in the US. He doesn’t want his voters to prosper. And, further to that, Trump has an army of sycophants foaming at the mouth to take over if he dies or god-willing just goes away.
We’re clearly on the same side here in most respects.
Well, the first step is understanding that we need socialism and to end capitalism. We are already there, you and I! The next is understanding how revolutions actually work. Throughout all revolutionary history, one central through line is common: it is the great masses of society that actually make revolution. This means that class consciousness must grip the masses, and that these masses must be organized.
This is where we can and must be proactive. We can and must start with our own education, our own study of our existing conditions. We must also build up a disciplined group of workers that, through constant political work amongst the rest of the workers, gain their support and respect. When crisis hits, and it inevitably does on a regular basis in capitalism, we take the momentum of the working classes and use our own experience and study to help steer it in a positive direction.
This general process has unfolded in Russia, China, Cuba, and many other places. It’s a proven strategy, one that we can rely on. We need to adapt to new surveillance, and the crackdown on speech, but revolutionaries have been in worse positions before. Over time, organizing has won more rights that cannot be as easily taken away. The intense concentration of wealth in the hands of fewer and fewer people only serves to bolster our ranks and further outnumber them.
In essense, it’s the age-old adage:
EDUCATE!
AGITATE!
ORGANIZE!
I like you, as it turns out. You’re espousing much of how I feel in a more coherent manner than I can muster. I appreciate the optimism too. I will say I’m closer to a pessimist but I recognize in no uncertain terms that socialism is how we can fix this. I sure hope we can someday.
Thanks for chatting.
We will win. Not only is revolutionary optimism important for our own mental health, but it’s rooted in solid, materialist analysis. As far as Canada is concerned, I don’t personally know the parties that exist there, but I know Red Pen is based in Canada, and generally has good analysis and summaries of Marxist theory and analysis.