• Political contradictions point to end of US empire

    From ltlee1@21:1/5 to All on Tue Dec 24 19:42:34 2024
    "The Republicans (GOP), traditionally the US’s anti-tax party, now
    promise to use tariffs to wage trade wars, to massively deport
    immigrants and to stop drug trafficking. But tariffs are simply the name
    of one kind of tax (on imported goods and services). So the GOP becomes
    both anti-tax and pro-tax.

    Likewise, the traditional party of minimal government, today’s GOP now
    favors massive subsidies to industries that big government will select
    as well as economic sanctions and bans on enterprises and whole
    countries that big government will select. Beyond the right-wing
    ideology and financial self-serving, Donald Trump reflects deeper contradictions in the GOP’s evolution.

    The GOP, traditionally the laissez-faire party of private enterprise,
    now favors increased government control of what private enterprises can
    and cannot offer in markets for reproductive healthcare, control
    medications and devices and also for vaccines and drugs. The GOP,
    traditionally supporting “freedom,” now insists on blocking the free movement of people across borders and favors protectionist economic
    policy over a commitment to “free trade.”
    ..
    In the moment, those contradictions give Trump some power. Amid the
    confusion, he decides. But soon conflicts among US policies will expose
    the incoherence of Trump’s project and thereby sap his power.

    The Democratic party was, at least since the Great Depression of the
    1930s, the “progressive” party of working people, unions, and oppressed minorities. Yet the rise of the “centrists” across recent decades
    shifted the Democrats rightward.

    As they became grateful recipients of corporate and billionaires’
    donations, the Democrats increasingly supported the donor class by
    fielding “moderate” candidates, moderating their policies and programs,
    and publicly marginalizing the party’s remaining progressive wing.
    ..
    Multiple, intense and persistent contradictions within both parties
    suggest that some underlying, historic shifts may be underway. In my
    view, the first of those shifts is the peaking and subsequent decline in
    recent decades of the US empire and its allies (especially the G7). This
    shift reflects and feeds the concurrent rise of the Global South, China
    and the BRICS."

    https://asiatimes.com/2024/12/political-contradictions-point-to-end-of-us-empire/

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