I'm going to say something controversial: Trump is right

Apr 4, 2025, 7:05 AM

I'm also going to qualify that with this: it's also possible to do the right thing for the wrong reasons, and to do it the wrong way. And in an ultimately self-defeating way.

One of the terrible secrets to Donald Trump's dark power over his base is, he's not afraid to call out the elephants in the room...and liberals have a bunch of them, far more than they generally credit. And they are particularly guilty of reflex White Man Guilt, which is absolutely enraging for working-class white people who are doing worse and worse each passing year. I came from a highly dysfunctional family that was up and down with money themselves...we had some bad years, and most of my extended family were working-class alcoholics who often didn't have a pot to p!ss in. If somebody had told me about my "white privilege", I would have had some choice and very salty words for them. I mean, my great-grandparents were freaking German potato farmers who ran for their lives in the 1930's because their farming co-op got put on The List, and my dad was the first (and only) member of his family to go to college. Privilege? Sure, friend. Whatever you say.

Donald Trump is 100% right about how America hollowed out its working class, making the rich richer and everyone else - including the middle class that insulates a nation from extremism, when Joe Average is doing okay, he's not out rioting in the streets - poorer. And moreover he's right about something else: we did it on purpose and it is past time for this to end.

Until liberals understand and admit that, they're wide open to faux populism like the kind Donald clubs them over the head with daily.

The short version is - we rolled out globalism by design in 1944 when it became obvious we were going to win WW2, what was formally called the Bretton Woods System. That gave way to the Neoliberal order established by Reagan and Margaret Thatcher in the 1980's (though some still do refer to what we're doing today as Bretton Woods). We did it for one reason - it was a bribe. We'll keep the seaways clear for trade and open our markets to you so you can rebuild your war-shattered economies, we said, and if you're our friends we'll even protect you from invasion. In exchange we get two things - the dollar becomes the world's reserve currency, and you have to be on our side against the Soviets.

Given that the alternative was joining the glorious Marxist Revolution and doing your selfless and joyous part for the inevitable Historical Process whereby capitalism would inevitably be displaced by socialism (even if you had to give inevitable Historical Process a really big push and stand in bread lines your entire life), that seemed like a really good deal to our allies. And the modern world was born...a giant global shopping mall where anyone we liked could trade anything to any of the others. And we were the top dogs and mall cops of it.

It made us very rich. Or at least, it made the rich people in this country far richer. And it also gutted our manufacturing sector, hollowed out our middle class, and created massive trade imbalances, because as the world's reserve currency the dollar got stronger and stronger every year. And every year, the poor in America get that much poorer, and the "middle class" has all but evaporated.

The wealth inequality that the globalist system created is unsustainable, and directly gave rise to MAGA. And for all Russia's bluster, it's obvious they are not the Soviets and never will be again. It is indeed time for Europe to start looking after themselves. Nor is it unreasonable to ask the world to actually start paying for the protection we've gifted them the last 80+ years, because we certainly can't afford to keep doing it. Our budget deficits speak for themselves.

Trump is absolutely right. Where he's absolutely wrong is the way he's doing it. I agree the ultimate goal should be exactly what he wants - devaluing the dollar to make US industry more competitive, building far more stuff at home, rebuilding the middle class, and actually getting paid to be Global Mall Cop.

The problem is, nobody will deal with you if you don't even keep your own deals, and if they don't trust you...and do insane sh!t like threaten to annex Canada and Greenland. The way Donald's going about this makes it self-defeating, and he's been such a d!ck about it the world completely hates us at the moment. You can't act like Putin, and then expect everyone to treat you like Reagan.

This guy does probably the best job I've seen of explaining it, for anyone who's interested.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ts5wJ6OfzA

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No, I agree. I'm just saying, the old trade order wasn't working. And we do need to drastically shorten our supply chains and build a whole lot more stuff at home.

The big difference, to me, is that Mexico and Canada are very much part of the family now, so "at home" also includes them. As in: North America, not just America. When I lived in Detroit I liked going across to the Canadian side just because I like to see stuff and once you get past Windsor - the Canadian side of Detroit - there's a whole lot of nothing until you run into endless miles of greenhouses that grow everything from corn to tomatoes to sunflowers to fruit. Turns out there's an incredible micro-climate there and combined with all the fresh water they'll ever need because they're right on the Great Lakes, they can grow year-round.

Without those greenhouses, there's nowhere within 400-500 miles of Detroit to productively grow what they grow right across the river. So I hope manac is ready for the price of his lettuce to spike because it's about to. Bigly.

We also need to fold Australia in for their resource wealth, Japan and Taiwan in for their technology, and New Zealand because our billionaires need a place to build their fallout survival bunkers. And like it or not, we're going to need more cheap labor...which means Vietnam, most likely.

That's our world, IMHO, and all we need to concern ourselves with. Sure, there's some goodies and luxuries from Europe we'd love to still have...but aside from ASML's lithography machines, there's absolutely nothing we can't and shouldn't make within the sphere of the extended American family I mentioned above.

We also need a Guest Worker program that has a plausible but not-easy path to citizenship. We just do not have the bodies we need, and until the day when robot labor comes around we aren't going to, either. It'd allow us to know who's here and get those people some protection and at least basic benefits, have some rights and recourse against abusive or exploitative bosses, or live in fear they're going to get rounded up and sent back to El Salvador to hang with MS-13 in that godawful megaprison they have going.

I'm going to say something controversial: Trump is right

Hitler, Castro, Mao, Lenin, Stalin, and Kim's grandfather were also right.

Re: Hitler, Castro, Mao, Lenin, Stalin, and Kim's grandfather were also right.

Re: Hitler, Castro, Mao, Lenin, Stalin, and Kim's grandfather were also right.

If that is truly where this administration is going, they are

Re: I'm going to say something controversial: Trump is right

The problem MAGA people have with globalism

Re: I'm going to say something controversial: Trump is right

Re: I'm going to say something controversial: Trump is right

I found NJDEV on Instagram

"Our budget deficits speak for themselves" - no one seems to care about

Re: I'm going to say something controversial: Trump is right

Re: I'm going to say something controversial: Trump is right

I was joking last night and mentiend that if Trump could just selll

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