@anemone @UncleIroh I get webb's point but she's missing obvious things. like 1. a lot of the shit in usaid isn't a CIA op it's promoting "american values" that he and his supporters hate, so he's killing them. how is that not a win

@anemone @UncleIroh it's not even clear to me how this is "centralizing" american imperialism. I just don't understand a large part of her point

@[email protected] @[email protected] a smaller group of oligarchs are consolidating power. Not sure how true this is. I think if this was really happening there would be more pushback from the democrats since their source of funding would actually be at risk

@[email protected] @[email protected] Seems like her argument is that it wont result in any material changes since USAIDs functions will simply be picked up by other agencies.

To be clear, I don't necessarily agree since it seems to me that the current regime doesn't see any value in soft power and is bent on destroying what remains to score political points with their hog base.

@anemone @sun

Webb's idea works if you believe Trump wants to retain the same system but just own all the levers.

If instead his goal is to reorient the entire geopoltical chessboard away from Neolib Globalism and under a more Nationalist political philosophy then he has to gut it and build something new.

There will still be a deep state with all the trimmings at the end, just different.

@UncleIroh @anemone I think that Trump will reserve the right to nation build when he deems it appropriate but it will look different than it does now.

@sun @anemone

It would have to. There's no chance at nation building otherwise.

@UncleIroh @anemone @sun trumps job is to seem like hes making changes but to change little enough to not matter

@[email protected] @[email protected]

If instead his goal is to reorient the entire geopoltical chessboard away from Neolib Globalism and under a more Nationalist political philosophy then he has to gut it and build something new.

I think if Trump actually wanted to do this he wouldn't be cozying up to people like Musk

@anemone @UncleIroh they agree on some things but not others. this was really obvious during the h1b dustup

@anemone @sun

As I've already said, Musk is 100% globalist. That doesn't mean he can't be a useful travel companion for some part of the journey.

Trump's team/backers are several factions made into an alliance, not a single-minded entity.

@[email protected] @[email protected] most of trump's coalition are globalists. everyone in the tech and finance industries supporting him are globalists, all his neocon supporters are globalists. The only members of his team who aren't are a few of the christian nationalists who dont fall into either of the above

@anemone @sun

Who is the Third Faction Behind Donald Trump?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncq5aDW8LAE

@[email protected] @[email protected] ah yeah i forgot about the transparent grifter faction. not really a faction though, just loosely associated opportunists