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Americans: "What do WE want? Oh...you don't understand. What are YOU bringing to us as an offering to the god king so that he may bestow his benevolence upon you."
And I'm not even kidding about about that; that's exactly how the Trump administration thinks international relations should be.
Conservative America wants to publicly bitch about petty non-existent grievances while demanding that they be taken seriously.
It's worked on their constituents, but they can't seem to understand why it doesn't work on the rest of the world.
All the GOP wants is to feel like they're in charge, they don't have any real vision for America outside of it being less gay.
The GQP hasn't had an idea other than, give rich tax brakes, since I've been alive
That's an unfair characterization and completely untrue.
They also want to deregulate everything.
Not true. They want to regulate green tech while deregulating fossil fuels.
They want to regulate birth control while deregulating firearms.
Modern Republicans aren't conservative anymore, they are straight up fascists, or fascism-curious.
"we want to win"
Or, alternatively
"Some fat personal bribes please"
That's probably the exact reason, they didn't SAY they wanted bribes on the record, but made a gesture of rubbing their fingers and thumb together and the Japanese delegation ignored or misinterpreted it
They most definitely did not misinterpret it.
They want to perpetually be the victim.
It's straight up psychological abuse. They want others to try and read their souls (aka guess) so that they can have the upper hand of being able to say it's not good enough. Or that it has offended them in some way and oh look tariffs just went up again.
That and personal benefits. Trump is all about the grift. He doesn't care about Americans, never has. If Japan said they'd make a statue of him on the top of mt Fuji he's be touring it on every news station within the hour.
"We're not allowed to just straight out ask for a bribe, so you have to figure that out on your own and give us the money under the table."
"Did you stay at a Trump branded hotel ofr this trip? That'd be a start."
What's really stopping them from openly asking for bribes?
Nothing, now. Didn't they change the laws to say government employees can receive "tips"?
Snyder v. United States from June 2024. The ruling is that money given before an official act is a "bribe", but money given after an official act is a "gratuity".
Yes, our Supreme Court is batfucked in the head, why do you ask?
One of the contributing factors to the rise of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nazi), was the economic state of Germany. Establishing an us-vs-them mindset and placing people into poverty might be the point.
The American administration are not serious people, how can so many people not see this? It's like they're obviously not sees.
What they want is: to reduce the trade deficit. But they don't know how to do that. The most straightforward way is to produce more American products that people in other countries want. But how can Japan do that for them?
Is there really a trade deficit when you factor in services?
That's what Trump conveniently "forgets" when talking about Evil Europe. Once you compare trade and services balance it's quite even
Building a service-based industrial economy would be good for capitalism.
Unfortunately Trump does not serve capitalism. He serves fascism. And fascism requires factories that can be reconverted for a wartime effort once the immigrants and the queer start running out. That's the fundamental lifecycle of fascism.
Americans are sending us all on a path leading straight to WWIII and nuclear Armageddon if they don't fix their shit but everybody's too pussy to spell it out as if this demented ape doesn't have unlimited control of the most powerful army on Earth and enough nukes to end civilization several times over.
The US has a global trade surplus if you account for tech, financial and healthcare services.
There is an argument to be made that being able to produce certain things domestically is important from a national security standpoint (semiconductors for example).
Whether tariffs could actually produce that, no one actually knows.
Literally educate your populace, you dumb fucking sacks of shit.
God. Why are conservatives so insulatedly stubbornly braindead fartingly fucking stupid??
You want to compete on a global scale? Make your population better than the other ones: INVEST IN YOURSELVES.
Republicans are incapable of doing that because they see anything that helps someone as a "Handout"
One of the primary criticisms of Atlas Shrugged is that the villains are so moustache-twistingly farcical in their incompetence and greed that all the workers of the world are morally justified in going on strike, killing most everyone.
The book is full of what I thought were ridiculous strawman stories like what happened to the Japan delegation.
We want nothing and you offer nothing?
Deal!
What they want is fealty.
They were too shy to admit they wanted anime waifus to be real so they could import them.
if the last month has taught us anything, real 4D chess would be "make the Switch 2 here, we'll exempt any tariff that goes to it, and lift the ones on you"
Team Manchild’s take on “we’ve tried nothing and we’re all out of ideas”…
Basically this. Looking forward to South Park mocking how fuck stupid this administration is
South Park lost me with their many, many "both sides" over the years. I have yet to see them properly stab MAGA in the face out of more than temporary shame.
"we can make fun of everyone! so we're going to run a years-long transphobic storyline!"
like, no, that's exactly how priests who diddle kids rationalize it - I do good things so I can't do bad.
South park becomes extremely vapid once you're over 28 years old.
You can't just always pick the middle of two sides of an argument and assume you're always right.
South Park has traditionally supported the GOP by either normalizing things or both-sides'ing.
Don't expect them to suddenly stop now.
Gifts
They want large financial gifts. Preferably tax free
This is one of the best scenes in Bronson actually
Male frontal nudity warning:
Also YouTube warning
On Odysee: https://ody.sh/rOeTUhrYh7