There are 2 things they are trying to do here IMO:

• They are using tariffs to bully weaker countries into worse deals and to interfere in our politics. Here in Colombia the media (all right wing lapdogs) keep talking how president Petro needs to bend the knee and just acept whatever Trump wants to do because it would be so bad for Colombia if we get extra tariffs. And they keep spewing propaganda making it sound like Petro is the one being crazy to kill any remaining support he has (not that he needs any help jajajaja, he has been a really mediocre president on his own and the extreme right is going to get an easy win next election anyway). They are not wrong of course, a trade war between Colombia and USA would hurt Colombia so much more than the USA just because of the relative size of our economies. And Trump and the rest of the republican assholes are using this to bully us and the rest of latin american countries.
• They want to reshape the tax collection in USA to remove taxes from rich people and collect more from poor people. At the end of the day, blanket tariffs on all products is just another regressive sales tax that will fall mostly on poor people. They want to reduce wealth taxes and income taxes which are collected mostly on rich people and instead replace them with regressive taxes like tariffs instead. I mean, his recemt tax changes shifted a huge amount of the tax burden away from the rich and to the poor and middle classes. If you want to put a conspiracy hat, they also think this will create a population boom in the USA. Research shows that people under worse economic conditions have more children, so they want to make life harder to poor people to get more and cheaper workers. At the very least the Musk rat has spoken openly about this, so it’s not crazy to think this is part of their stupid plan.

Long term, the USA is royally fucked because of this. They are killing any good will the USA has with the rest of the world and they are screwing the poor people that actully generate the wealth of their country. But short term rich people will make bank with all this and the rest of us will pay for it.

The issue is how do you “meassure” merit? How do you decide who has earned what they have and who hasn’t?

If you are a conservative it’s very easy, the status quo defines merit. Those who have are those who deserve because the system is working as expected. So rich people ruling is meritocracy for them.

If you are a racist/xenophobe/etc then it’s also very easy, those who are in the “good” (read white in the USA) group are the ones with merit, so they are the ones that should rule.

A few years back, when college degrees where just for rich people with connections, merit was having a college degree because that proved you where educated and hard working jajajaja. Now that a lot more people can get college degrees it no longer means that for some reason jajajaja.

Etc, etc. In general, people use meritocracy to justify their own biases and the decisions they make based on those biases. The USA is of course the current poster child of this, but by no means it’s exclusive to them.

The reality is that when you think about it there is no such thing as merit in the general sense. For example, I get paid well by working as a programmer. And I’m the first one to say that I’m very good at it and deserve my pay. Yet, if my toilet is broken I need to call a plumber and defer to them. So, who says I deserve to earn more than a plumber? I do say so because it greatly benefits me of course jajajaja. But if push come to shove I would absolutely prefer to have a society without programmers than a society without plumbers. So who has more merit?

The simple truth is that we are all valuable in our own context and we should try to build a society where we all can participate and contribute as needed. Ideas like meritocracy are used by right wing people to justify the existence of hierarchies and social classes. If there are better people (with more merit) then of course they should be in charge and everyone else must obey. But the more you dig into the idea, the less it makes sense. Meritocracy is just a very easy trap to fall into because it’s the kind of idea that sounds good to people until you really think about it, but in practice it’s just a useless idea if you want to make rational decisions.

I think my reply to your other comment applies here (https://lemmy.world/comment/14037207). And in fact the situation is not as bad as I thought, so Ibstand corrected.

Yeah. My point was that without US support their resistance radically changes from the stalemate they have now to an occupation and resistance from the Ukranians. And in case of an occupation the resistance groups don’t get a seat at the table so to speak.

But some other commenter has also shown me that the europeans are actually masively ramping up their aid to Ukraine which will more than cover the missing aid from the US. So, assuming they deliver (which I assume they will), the situation is not as bad as I thought. So I stand corrected.

https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-support-tracker/. As of today the split is around 40% US. But the europeans are indeed promising a large increase of aid which can more than cover what the US will stop contributing, I wasn’t aware of that. I really hope they deliver, then Ukraine may maintain the stalemate without US support. So the situation is not as bad as I thought jajajaja, nice.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1303432/total-bilateral-aid-to-ukraine/ my man, US alone is more than 50% of total aid. You are just arguing from vibes lol.

Yeah, I hope they can ramp their support to replace what the US will stop contributing. But I don’t see this happening sadly. They have had years to ramp up their support, and as you said, every incentive to do so. So I assume they are already giving close to what they can/want. But I’m a random dude jajajaja, I hope I’m wrong.

Again, in practice yes. The choice Ukranians will get is accept whatever the US negotiates or continue their resistance without US support. In the second case there is simply no. way they don’t get steam rolled, and then there is just no negotiation, just occupation.

No, I get that. And I really wish they make the Russian invaders suffer. The point I’m trying to make is that without the material support they have been receiving from the USA I don’t see a way for Ukraine to keep fighting toe to toe with Russia for long (I hope I’m proven wrong, I really do. But I don’t see how).

Of course this doesn’t mean that Ukranians are going to roll over and accept this without fighting. But if they decide to continue the resistance, the nature of the conflict will change dramatically. I just don’t see how Ukraine can maintain the current stalemate without the huge material support they are receiving today. But if they decide to keep fighting (which I hope they do), this will become an asymetrical conflict like Afghanistan or Vietnam.

Obviously I may be wrong, I hope I’m wrong. But it seems naive to assume nothing is going to change without USA support.

EDIT: Turns out that the Europeans are dramatically ramping their aid to Ukraine (https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-support-tracker/). So the situation is not as bad as I thought, they may be ok without the US. Keeping the original comment below anyway.

Unfortunately yes in practice. Ukraine can’t sutain their defense from Russia without all the external support they are getting, in particular from the USA (and NATO in general). So in practice, the USA can absolutely negotiate with Russia and then force Ukraine to accept whatever they negotiate. And given that the Americans picked Trump as president this has a good chance of happening.

Not saying this is right or anything like that. It sucks for the Ukranians and of course I would like for this to be different, this should be up to the Ukranians. But this is the reality of the situation, turns out that puting a traitor in charge of the biggest super power in the world has world reaching consequences even if americans didn’t think about that when voting.

That was always the point. Rich people get to have abortions and live consequences free lifes, while poor people have to raise kids/workers to keep the machine well oiled. I’m so glad I’m not from the USA hahaha.

Look at this guy posts people. He’s just one of the many Milei shills being paid by his fucking government. Lemmy is getting pretty bad with this kind of shit, there are a lot of these single issue accounts with a few “random” posts and comments to give them legitimacy. Sometimes is very hard to know, but this account is pretty blatant. Like most of his posts and comments are pro Milei bullshit “news”. This is going to break this platform, and it’s worrying seeing this so fast in a platform this small.

And what do you think we should do about that? Because all your points seems to boil down to just do nothing and feel superior, the usual centrist. Funny how that just happens to support Israel’s position and enables them to continue with the genocide. Fuck off, you are a disgusting person.

Come on people. Stop enaging these obvious trolls/propagandists/retards. Look the way they respond, “nope” and that’s it, really? Grow up or fuck off dude, you should be ashamed of yourself. People are trying to have a conversation and people like you just come here to distract people with obvious trolling. If you are a paid propagandist you should be fired for incompetence. And if you are not you should be ashamed of yourself.

Look man. This comment is actually very different to your initial comment, and honestly it sounds very reasonable to me.

But can you explain to me what you were trying to say in the original comment please? Again, to me it reads like you are saying “rich and famous people are not whitening their teeths in the USA” which is factually incorrect. And to top it off, it looks like you are saying “it’s impossible for rich people to get bad healthcare in the US because they have money”, which is non sense as shown by this example of teeth whitening. And the more I read this comment, plus your very rude response (“are you okay?” Seriously dude, that’s no way to have a conversation even if you were right), the more it looks like this is what you are saying. And that’s what I was answering to.

I’m not saying, and I never said, that you think the healthcare system in the US is good. But the more I re read your comments, the less I understand what you were trying to say if it’s not what I “quoted” above.

I’m sorry if you meant something else dude. But read your comment and your reply and see what you actually said dude. You sound like you are saying that rich people are so smart and well protected from their bad decision by your healthcare system, so they are not whitening their teeth? Hell, even if you were right about this you don’t provide any evidence or arguments for anything you said, you were just rude and condescending to everyone.

Again, I’m sorry if you meant something else. But people missinterpreting here is on you man.

Hahahahahaha, nice one. But I suspect people will actually trust you more with your titanium teeth lol.

Sorry, but he is obviously proud of that. Look at his response https://lemm.ee/comment/12363119. He is clearly so much smarter than the rest of us, so he doesn’t realize the dumb shit he is saying hahahaha.

I love how people like you sometimes stumble into weird truths hahaha. Like yeah, the stupid medical system you guys have in the US sucks even for people with money (luckily I’m from a latin american country that’s not yet a pro/anti US dictatorship, but soon …). Like it’s that ridiculous, even people with money in the US end up fucking themselves medically, that’s the freedom you get from that stupid healthcare system hahahaha. And people like you have stockholm syndrom.

Sadly this is infecting my country too, famous and rich people now have pennywise white teeth lol. For now I don’t feel too bad for them, fuck these pricks wasting money in this shit while people go hungry here. But I do feel a bit sad for them.

Thanks! I will check it out.