Mr president I'm so tired of winning
When Corey Doctorow spoke about the post American internet, it was enlightening. No empire lasts forever. I'm sure the Mongols, Ottomans, Romans and Greeks thought they would be around forever too.
I wonder what America is as a culture/community without empire building and pride in violent takeovers. Is there anything to it, as a whole? Who are they without this? Their biggest victories are the genocide of the OG Americans and then turning the country into work camps for enslaved and kidnapped people, can the American psyche tolerate a world in which they can't just bomb and rape and steal with no consequence? What will they do once they realize the world doesn't have to bend over for these brutes (still a thing but God willing not for longer)?
I assure you, america will be quite happy being left alone to be our weird selves without having to throw treasure all over the world in an attempt to keep Europe,.Asia, Arabia, and India from each individually starting WW3.
We hate empire building (which is why we're so famously bad at it), are more thoroughly embarrassed by our sins than any country except maybe Germany (which is why you hear so much about it), and as a nation really desire nothing more than to be left alone to pursue our own happiness (which is why we get made fun of for only speaking world's most-spoken language and rarely travelling from one of the largest and most diverse countries on the planet.)
I don't mean to talk down on the rest of the world, or defend the 20th century shitstorm we led. It's just that if there was literally anybody else to "lead the free world" we'd have done what we did after WW1 and gone home to make movies, dumb gadgets, and argue about our social order. Except we did that already, which was (part of) why WW2 happened.
Alexis de Toquville clocked the country very well centuries back, and once we are either persuaded that the rest of y'all won't nuke and genocide each other or Trump'd out of power we'll be quite happy on our own. Honest. (Especially if the world's most assholish billionaires move to your country and leave us alone.)
On paper, businesses paid the tariffs.
Because the literally did. While forwarding the impact to consumers. Which was never the point. Which was never really the point, the outcome you see was expected. WH and Corpo are in cahoots to fleece you of your precious little capital. Go fucking figure.
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