The Burgeoning / Continuing American Irrelevancy

[wiffleball 4,631]

Been seeing more and more about this. Basically, the majority of the rest of the world is see America as increasingly irrelevant - or, at least as irrelevant as the world's biggest economy and military can be considered.

 

Consensus - in a usually fractious Europe - is that Merkel / Germany has taken on the role of leader of the Western World. Whether you believe it or not (and more importantly, if you have enough intellect to render a relevant opinion), at a minimum, Europe is seeing that they're needing to go it alone for all intents and purposes.

 

On a domestic level, States are rapidly abandoning the Federalism model. Whether its education, immigration, health care, foreign trade, drug policy, climate change, etc. - They're moving in their own direction - ideally, in their constituent's best interest.

 

First off, I'm not entirely blaming this all on six months of Trump. Though, one can't review the tapes, comments between and about Trump and foreign leaders and not think we're seen as increasingly bafoonish.

 

If there was an event certain where we started falling from the precipice of Int'l leadership, it was that (continuing) disaster of the Iraq War. Then, throw in Obama's aloofness, HRC's shadiness and Trump's incompetence and, well, inevitable.

 

Business-wise, Trump's moronic idea of a huge import tariff was a non-starter - I identified that before the election even - as did any one else with a brain. All that would be is a huge tax on the end-user (Americans).

 

But, for example, if you look at FoxCon - Trump didn't do diick - except take credit. The State? Offered a record breaking $30B or something in subsequent tax breaks. Other states are proceeding with emissions standard, entering into bilateral trade agreements, etc. More than any time in modern

American history, states are re-asserting their power across the board.

 

None of which I think is a bad thing. I'm a strict believer that the Feds should only have those powers that are specifically enumerated. And damn, they've blown way past that.

 

So, accident or dementia or just incompetence, we may very well end up getting far closer to what America and the world truly needs - not because of Washington, but despite it.

[Filthy Fernadez 2,696]

http://imgur.com/gallery/c22GCFY

[Bert 1,087]

This all stems from the dysfunction of the Federal Government. Trump and Obama are bit players. This started with Nixon, gained momentum under Carter and has continued to get worse with each administration.

[wiffleball 4,631]

This all stems from the dysfunction of the Federal Government. Trump and Obama are bit players. This started with Nixon, gained momentum under Carter and has continued to get worse with each administration.

[Frozenbeernuts 1,652]

Yeah until we put a premium on educating citizens to the fullest extent, this will not change. Considering how much debt our country is in and individual states are in, the only future I see is where we continue to cut spending on education.