Exactly what everyone said when Patriot Act was passed and renewed repeatedly.
America permanently traded away basic freedoms for the bogus promise of safety in the shadow of fear. And the Supreme Court was too scared to stop it despite its obvious constitutional problems. Crying eagle photos in chain-emails were sufficient propaganda to keep it in place.
It wasn’t just the GOTW. It was much of the 20th century from World War I onward. Each step led to further centralization of government, a larger and larger security apparatus, and more and more foreign entanglements. We are more or less retracing the path of Rome as the Republic expanded militarily until it was no longer practical to run it as a republic and it transitioned to empire.
> We are more or less retracing the path of Rome as the Republic expanded militarily until it was no longer practical to run it as a republic and it transitioned to empire.
The current military "excursion" seems to be transitioning the US out of being an empire.
Rome took some unexpected Ls against the barbarians too. Didn’t change the trajectory of the empire.
The failure to integrate the barbarian Goth refugees is generally marked as the beginning of the fall - and absolutely changed the trajectory of the empire.
“Failure to integrate” is one way to describe the Goths sacking Rome. But I agree the barbarians did them in at the end. My point was that the Iran fiasco is more like the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, where Rome backed off after taking a beating. That didn’t mark a transition away from Empire, simply a retreat after a military loss.
And my point, is the current administration is closer to Caligula and Nero, than they are to Varus. You see this as nothing more than another blip in a long history. I see unstable and dangerous individuals getting standing ovations for failure.
"I don't care if they respect me so long as they fear me." - Caligula.
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Either way, I'd just caution that the empire-ness of a country's military or diplomatic reach doesn't necessarily tell us what to expect in terms of its internal hellhole-ness of authoritarianism.
The two things are related because maintenance of the empire imposes demands on the domestic political and economic structure. Look at the domestic politics during Vietnam and the GWOT.
A Pax Romana would be a considerable upgrade
No it wouldn’t. The empire sapped Rome and destroyed its democracy.
> And the Supreme Court was too scared to stop it
Too scared? They may have been on board...
>Exactly what everyone said when Patriot Act was passed
I've been seeing plenty of Americans cheering on temporary safety over essential liberty since then, and I can't even provide examples without getting [flagged].
> I can't even provide examples [of Americans cheering on temporary safety over essential liberty]
I've seen other people critiquing it over the years, perhaps it has something to do with other aspects of the delivery or message?
Probably not. HN likes to flag inconvenient facts.
Yes. History will record that bin Laden won.
There's a pre-9/11 book about bin Laden, "The Man Who Declared War on America".
Bin Laden was interviewed.
Consider the situation at the end of the Clinton administration. The US was at peace. The Soviet Union was gone. The US got along with China and Russia. No major enemies remained. The federal budget was balanced. Bin Laden looked at that, and realized that America had to be weakened before it could be defeated. That was his plan.
Bin Laden’s ultimate objective was to evict US military forces from the Middle East. In response to 9/11, we massively expanded our footprint in the region and formed even deeper relationships with the Saudi government (whom Bin Laden hated for in his view, “[suspending] Islamic laws, and replacing it with statuary laws”). You can read it all in his original, late 90s declaration of jihad against the United States[1] and decide for yourself if you think he ultimately achieved what he wanted, but for my money, he lost basically everything. In the strictest sense, we did stop “occupying” (stationing troops) in Saudi Arabia itself after we kicked off the Iraq war and concentrated our forces in Iraq and at Al Udeid airbase, but I don’t think that was really the spirit of the thing.
Most of the funding for the campaign came via Saudi Arabian citizens [0], and they have absolutely benefited from the change in political power in the Middle East.
Was his goal to provide for his people? I thought his goal was to bring down the Great Satan.
Al-Qaeda is larger and their allies in Afghanistan have further consolidated their rule. I might not call that "better off" but it's certainly in the direction bin Laden wanted things to go.
This seemed obvious to me at the time. It was hard to understand why people in the cultural mainstream let themselves get swept up in it. I felt like I lost my country, back then, as they pretty much all went off into crazyland together.
What do you think distinguishes the post-9/11 craziness from the Cold War/Red Scare craziness?
My reason for asking is because I believe that "that's unconstitutional!" has been a failed protest message for more like 100 years than 25 years (and there's threads of state violence at the local and state levels that go back far longer). And IMO that is even stronger evidence that words on an ~240-year-old-doc—and the way some interpret the second amendment in relation to those words—is a completely powerless measure against state violence. The United States is not exceptional in that regard. We'll only have a better country if we constantly, actively, choose to vote it that way.
Probably the fact that most of the readership of the article and this site were alive for the former but not the latter. One could equally pin the rise of Joe McCarthy as the moment America started its move to "autocracy". Or when Roosevelt interned Japanese Americans. Or the civil war. Or the Mexican-American war. In fact, the struggle is constant (as mentioned downthread).
I am still amazed by the typical internet American's (Yours also I presume) love for voting, despite having long degraded into a two-party charade.
Your sentiment starts out fierce: "constantly, actively..." and is immediately cut short "... choose to (only?) vote it that way."
You point out that voicing one's interpretations of the 2nd amendment is powerless - but voting, reduced to such a miniscule gesture, is also. The choice between a galloping right wing and a stagnant center-right is no choice at all. American elections are a facade for decisions already made on top. You can't vote it out.
How (and if) you vote is really the one and only thing politicians care about.
This is why it is important to vote in primary elections as well.
Voting the way you really want in primary elections might be counterproductive.
Let's say in the main election 45% of the population will vote for whatever candidate represents side X, 45% of the population will vote for whatever candidate represents side Y, and 10% is more-or-less in the middle.
If, during the primaries, side X votes for a far-X candidate, they will definitely lose the middle 10% to a moderate-Y candidate, leading to a strong Y victory. But if side X votes for a moderate-X candidate during the primaries, the main election will be moderate-X vs moderate-Y, and they have a pretty good chance of securing the slightly-more-than-half of the middle they need for an X victory.
Of course you now end up with a lukewarm moderate X victor who isn't going to represent your far-X views, but at least you're not dealing with an even worse Y-side victor.
The real solution is to get rid of the winner-takes-all system inherently resulting in a two-party election, but Good Luck doing that kind of overhaul!
It was obvious to many. It was even a sort of not-funny joke: "The terrorists have already won."
The OK-ing of torture was a clear step into the totalitarian camp and a clear breach with justice, liberalism, and decency.
I'm gonna be that guy and say that the concern about torture is orthogonal to authoritarianism. There were very much "less authoritarian/less centralized" eras in the US when it was general course of action was to do torturous things far worse than many of the things that got labelled 'torture' in the post 1990s era.
How old are you? I think a lot of younger folks don't fully adjust for important factors: plane hijackings used to be much more common, 9/11 was committed by the second group of Islamic terrorists who tried to blow up the World Trade Center, and 9/11 was the third major terrorist attack by Al-Qaeda in a 4 year span. It's easy now to say that it was a crazy worst-case scenario, but that was not at all obvious then; for all we knew, securing cockpits might have been impractical, and we'd just have to prepare the Air Force to shoot down a couple hijacked flights every decade.
There were real excesses, and I ultimately agree with you that many of them were predictable in advance, but there was no feasible version of a response that did not go at least a little into crazyland. It was a crazy time.
> younger folks don't fully adjust for important factors: plane hijackings used to be much more common
(I can not say how comprehensive that wikipedia list is).
There's more in the 70s and 80s than I was expecting (having lived through the 80s), but given how many flights there are, hijackings have been and are exceedingly rare; and most of these are not even US flights. These are "driving is orders of magnitude more dangerous than flying" and "10x a very small number is still a very small number" numbers.
These numbers only serve to re-enforce that the response of giving up liberty for (the feeling of) security due to terrorist action in the US was probably outsized. General population awareness in general was probably more of a deterrent after 9/11 than any of the first order 9/11 response actions, especially considering that the US gave countries in the middle east further reason to hate Americans and US foreign policy after 9/11. Obviously, terrorist attacks get a lot of air time and column inches, which feeds the perception of the risk.
"Real excesses" is a bit of an understatement. There is the security theater instituted by the TSA, the militarization of police, normalized Islamophobia, mass surveillance of U.S. citizens, torture as an official military policy, indefinite detention of "unlawful combatants", a trillion dollars spent destroying Iraq and Afghanistan, a million killed and many more made refugees. The rise of ISIS and the refugee crises in Europe can be traced back to the War on Terror. The Middle East should not be the punching bag for America to take out its "crazy" feelings (where "craziness" appears to be a polite way of saying "bloodlust").
With any luck the latest debacle is so clearly a fail, that future presidents may be reluctant to get involved again (at least for a while).
In the aftermath of Vietnam, the US was reluctant to get involved militarily (at least overtly.) That seemed to last until Kuwait. The success there seemed to embolden US hawks, and there were a couple long-term excursions after that.
The current dude apparently fell for the ever-present hawks, without the savy to ask the right questions. His total capitulation, after demonstrating the ineffectiveness of the military, while at the same time proving the effectiveness of asymmetric warfare, will (perhaps, hopefully) be an educational moment for future presidents.
Certainly it is a valuable educational moment to other defendents. You don't need to fight back. You just need to affect something else the world cares about. And, it turns out, global shipping is especially vulnerable.
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I would point to the TSA as a key example of what I'm talking about. You say "security theater", but which of the things they do are security theater, and which are the ones that drove plane hijackings to near-zero? We can make reasonable guesses, but does another major skyscraper get blown up if we guess wrong? It's not so easy, and it was hard to the point of impossibility in the aftermath of 9/11.
> The Middle East should not be the punching bag for America to take out its "crazy" feelings (where "craziness" appears to be a polite way of saying "bloodlust").
Yes, this I agree with. The Iraq War in particular was clearly not justified.
My guess world be that the TSA had exactly nothing to do with any decline in hijackings. That is most likely due to new security protocols around cockpit access, as hijackings haven’t stopped but are committed mostly by pilots now. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanwings_Flight_9525
> which are the ones that drove plane hijackings to near-zero?
How many plane hijackings have occurred in other countries, which don't have the TSA?
Every country in the world responded to 9/11 with enhanced airport security. After the end of "shoes off" last year, I don't think the US is stricter in any meaningful way than the global norm.
It was a crazy time, not in the danger from hijackings but the enormous amount of fear and cowardice America built up within itself. It was crazy because of the mass hysteria not the violence.
Take this example:
1.2 million Americans died from Covid. 3000 americans died in the twin towers attack. That's 0.25% of the number that died from covid.
However we gave up considerably more liberty to defend against the hijackers than we did the virus. It was a very unusual incident but the response wasn't warranted.
I mean like 1/3 of the people who died in the twin towers, about 1000 people a year, die from being hit by trains, but you don't see anyone demanding we give up constitutional rights, or do literally anything at all to change that.
1.2M Americans died with Covid, maybe.
Christ, I thought we were through with this tin foil hattery...
Even Trump's CDC admits it was 1.2 million deaths FROM covid.
Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
The elevation of the Executive branch the last and this century has led to this primordial autocracy. Say no to the royal perogative, and accept the more limited powers of Execution of Law.
It would help if Congress wasn't sabotaged to enable this; and to have a major political party that effectively wants a king.
We were rightfully warned on the dangers of political parties and it's well demonstrated that that warning was correct in its assessment.
The fact that millions of Americans declare themselves to be loyal to their party first and foremost is terrifying. Evil people have weaponized the tribal stupidity of humans to trick them to vote against their own best interests.
I take no satisfaction in saying this, and would love to be proven wrong.
we're at the stage of the cycle where we know things are wrong but we don't care enough to do anything about them. unfortunately, it might not be until we live through the consequences that we can muster the energy to care enough again.
FTA:
"In 1776 the American colonists rebelled against what they saw as the arbitrary and tyrannical British monarchy."
I like the sly use of "what they saw" - typical British snark.
>in 1776 the American colonists rebelled against what they saw as the arbitrary and tyrannical British monarchy.
although they didn't just do that, the American founders also articulated the point that the article seems to present as some new insight. That permanent foreign military involvements and the state it requires will eventually diminish freedom at home, that was why many of them wanted to avoid emulating the British empire.
Given that papers like the Economist used to regularly be staunch defenders of these interventions until they went wrong, and only ever seemed to disavow them for their practical outcomes rather than in principle they might want to do some reflecting on that.
> the Economist used to regularly be staunch defenders of these interventions until they went wrong, and only ever seemed to disavow them for their practical outcomes rather than in principle they might want to do some reflecting on that
Can you link a couple of examples? Presumably those articles should be easy to find on economist.com
The Economist certainly said it was. We did so most strongly and clearly in a survey (Present at the creation, June 29th 2002) on America's world role; and in leaders on August 3rd that year (The case for war), February 22nd 2003 (Why war would be justified) and March 15th 2003 (Saddam's last victory).”
I seem to recall the Economist wholeheartedly supporting the Iraq War. Am I wrong?
Yes, they ran a leading editorial titled "Why war would be justified", arguing that confronting Saddam Hussein was "the least bad of the limited range of available options".
However, they reversed position in 2007, calling the invasion a debacle.
I just don't buy this narrative. What primed the USA for decline was it's new allergy to manufacturing, addiction to social media, and Trump taking his spot as POTUS twice. If anything, these wars were something for everyone to worry about, which involved actual critical thinking. They were nowhere near the root cause.
Social media addiction didn't come around until about 2008 - and even then it took a few years to become widespread. Trump being elected twice isn't the cause of the decline, it's a symptom of it. The GWOT is one cause among many, but probably the one that pushed things over the edge. It led to both Iraq and Afghanistan wars which cost $Trillions that we borrowed and still haven't paid off. Not to mention the lost lives on all sides and further destabilization of the ME. Our over-reaction to 9/11 was the terrorists' dream. It's hard to imagine an outcome that would've been better from their perspective if their aim was to weaken and destabilize the US.
I think the War on Drugs was the gateway drug to this insanity. It helped to create a more militarized police, and to condition us to surrender our rights because "think of the children!".
After 9/11 is when the country I loved began its descent into this mutated form, a country I don’t recognize today.
In democracy, there is a distinction between peacetime power and wartime power, and in a wartime power state, there is an inherent affinity with authoritarianism. After 9/11, the political language in the United States saw a revival of terms like 'state of emergency' and 'enemy within.' The moment the government is granted the authority to define who the 'enemy' is, the gun inevitably turns toward the citizens. The reason is simple: those in power come to see the state as an extension of themselves, and anyone who speaks against them becomes labeled as the 'enemy.'
On top of this, the limitations of the petrodollar system are becoming increasingly apparent. When it worked well in the past, economic distribution could be used to suppress dissatisfaction — the American middle class generation is a case in point. But as dollar hegemony weakens and resource allocation becomes more difficult, the ruling class typically begins to replace economic rewards with emotional rewards like fear and hostility. They point fingers and say, 'Your enemy is these people.' When the system cannot grow the pie, the most efficient resource allocation for authoritarianism is to forcefully suppress internal divisions through coercion. Perhaps the dollar system itself might be a fundamentally flawed system.
The war on terror was a great example of doublethink. First there's the name, which is redundant (war is already terrible/terrorizing). Then there's the fact that we inspired 9/11 to begin with. We trained and funded Al Qaeda in their fight with the Russians. Then we inserted ourselves into Middle East politics for financial reasons (we invaded Iraq the first time after Saddam threatened to take over the global supply of oil, which we were heavily dependent on with a secret deal with Saudi Arabia propping up the petrodollar). Finally we committed terrorism by razing Iraq and Afghanistan, destabilizing the entire region, illegally renditioning/torturing people and keeping them indefinitely in prison without a trial, growing the world-wide heroin trade, and giving birth to more radical militant groups (we directly caused the creation of ISIS and helped strengthen the Taliban). Our War on Terror birthed more terror in the Middle East at one time than has ever happened in history.
The War on Terror was also an early sign of kleptocracy in the US Executive by conservatives. There was massive waste, fraud and abuse, in the billions of dollars. People working in the executive directly profited by making sure their corporations won bids, and dollars sent overseas just vanished. The people who decided to wage war got rich off it. (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/13/opinion/afghanistan-war-e...)
It arguably polarized the public, paving the way to today's sharp ideological divisions, because political differences suddenly were treated as matters of life and death compared to the laid-back '90s.
That's just not looking back far enough. The war on terror was a continuation. I'd say we're seeing the results of not stringing up all the slave owners after the Civil War.
American industrialists going back to the robber baron era and beyond have always loved autocracy, specifically fascism. This was heightened by the fear of communism. When FDR was elected, there was an attempted coup (ie the business plot [1]). Hitler was a fan of Henry Ford and named him in Mein Kampf. The Nazi regime enjoyed a certain amount of popularity in the US. There was a rally by the German American Bund in Madison Square Gardens in 1939. But FDR gave concessions to the working class that we still enjoy today (eg Social Security).
After WW2, we decided to make an enemy of Stalin (again, because communism). Thousands of former Nazis emigrated to the US (and, no, not just Operation Paper Clip; they were also in the CIA and FBI). Former Nazis gained high positions in the West German military and ultimatly NATO (eg Adolf Heuzinger [2]).
The mere existence of the Soviet Union forced the US government to give more concessions to the working class. The 1950s were incredibly prosperous as a result, in an era when the top marginal tax rate was 91% and the ratio of CEO to median wage was a fraction of what it is now.
The Fall of the Soviet Union was about the worst thing that could happen for normal Americans because suddenly there was no counterbalance to US global hegemony. The 1990s saw the Democrats abandon the New Deal in favor of Reagan economics and policies despite ~60 years of almost unbroken control of Congress up until that point. They then sowed the seeds for the destruction of American manufacturing and having an economy completely focused on hoarding land and housing. The 1990s is really where that began to go out of control.
My point is that history didn't begin with the war on terror. 9/11 itself was blowback from American imperialism that had been around since the 19th century.
I'd say if anything primed America for autocracy it was the domino effect from desegregation. This led to the political activation of the evangelical movement (no, it wasn't abortion) and evagelicals are primed to be followers. Add to this that there's no effective opposition because the Democrats decided to be Republican Lite and here we are.
All of this came about because a handful of very wealthy people wanted to be even wealthier at the expense of everyone else.
I’d like to pick on a couple points here that I think are not just nits:
> more concessions to the working class. The 1950s were incredibly prosperous as a result
This is absolutely not a common read of the boom in the 1950s. The common read of the boom in the 1950s is that America leveraged its success in WW2 into a global imperial economy, exporting its goods everywhere in the world. The combination of massive manufacturing expansion at home during WW2, the brain drain into the US and the trade deals, power brokering and treaties that carved out the post war world order made America very wealthy. There is no world in which a “labor value” oriented economic order on its own would have resulted in an ‘incredibly prosperous’ 1950s without WW2.
The fall of the Soviet Union ushered in what I would consider more of a golden age, overseen by Clinton in the US, when we had a balanced budget, low global conflict and massively reduced inflation compared to Carter / Reagan early years. If you went back to 1994 and could have gotten 10% of working Americans to vote to return to 1980’s labor market, I’d be shocked. These were qualitatively different economic times. Post Iraq war, gas was at $0.99/gallon. In the earlier era you’re lionizing, there was rationing throughout the US.
I agree with your perspective on 9/11 being blowback, although I’d characterize it as blowback from our Middle East policy - I haven’t read a lot about Bin Laden, although I did read his manifesto — and I didn’t take away that he cared much about 18th century American imperialism (such as it was; we got much more effective at this in the 20th century in my opinion).
> The common read of the boom in the 1950s is that America leveraged its success in WW2 into a global imperial economy, exporting its goods everywhere in the world.
I absolutely agree that the US massively benefited from WW2. For one, no war was fought on the American mainland (as opposed to, say, Europe and Japan, which were levelled). We benefitted from being the arms dealer. The post-1945 world order was reconstructed or built to our benefit. All of this is true.
But where did this wealth land? Wealth and income inequality actually shrank from 1945 to the 1970s and has exploded since [1][2].
> The combination of massive manufacturing expansion at home during WW2 ...
And why was there manufacturing then but manufacturing has been hollowed out now? Where does the money go now? We had way more capital controls in the post-WW2 era. Now all the money just seems to speculate on real estate. And this is something Adam Smith and Karl Marx agreed on: landlords are parasites on the economy.
> The fall of the Soviet Union ushered in what I would consider more of a golden age, overseen by Clinton in the US
Clinton was a disaster. I suspect you feel this way because you came of age in the 1990s maybe? The 1994 crime bill, financial deregulation (eg repealing Glass-Steagall), welfare "reforms", replacing federal programs with state block grants, effectively ending public housing (ie the Faircloth Amendment), NAFTA, three strikes rules, the list goes on. It was the Clinton administration where the so-called "New Democrats" divorced themselves from the labor movement and decided they wanted that sweet, sweet corporate PAC money.
If you opposed what the current Republican governments are doing and you're scratching your head wondering why there's no real opposition, you can point the finger directly at Bill Clinton as to why. Obama was also a generational missed opportunity here but I digress.
> In the earlier era you’re lionizing, there was rationing throughout the US.
... because of US imperialism, specifically the US support for Israel.
> I’d characterize it as blowback from our Middle East policy
No argument here. But our Middle East policy was US imperialism. Also, it's worth noting that we directly created bin Laden as one of the mujahadeen we used as a foil against the Soviets in Afghanistan as payback for Vietnam (basically).
I'd like to expand on your comment, while the North/South lines drawn by the US Civil War are a common talking point, the influence of the west coast on how America has ended up as it has is not talked often enough, as an example Hebert Hoover was very influential in US policy as the last (living) American president after the death of FDR and a very connected indiviual who opposed New Deal policies, not mentioning his involvement in Japan and Germany, and that is before getting into the Hoover Institution or the Heritage Foundation
This, and all other grand historical narratives, are completely contrived to support whatever bone the author has to pick. X happened before Y != X caused Y.
Your argument/timeline seems a bit confused in a couple of places. Our problem was "not stringing up all the slave owners after the Civil War," yet you then point out American industrialists (going back to the robber baron era) loved fascism. But the industrial parts of the US were the Northern states, not the South. Additionally you complain that the Democrats are no effective opposition but don't appear to consider that the Democratic Party would be even less effective if you had strung up all the slave owners after the Civil War given that it was that party which chose to secede from the Union in order to maintain slavery.
History indeed did not begin with the War on Terror, but I'm not sure you're entirely familiar with it.
Saying the Democrats were the Southern secessionists ignores the revolt against civil rights in the 1950s and 1960s and the Southern Strategy [1]. All the Dixiecrats simply became Republicans.
Also, the slave owners who got strung up should probably have included Andrew Johnson. Without Lincoln's unfortunately untimely demise or without Johnson we may well have avoided Confederate leaders regaining power and the whole Redeemer era of winding back rghts for the former enslaved.
Before conservatives hurled TDS at democrats they called them unpatriotic when they said the war on terror would undermine civil liberties. Its rather annoying to see a title like this.
There are people walking around today who voted Bush twice and regretted it and now voted Trump three times and regretted it.
I wonder what war they'll regret next?
I have regretted everyone that I ever voted for. Every candidate will ultimately be regrettable, because it’s not the candidate that’s bad - it is the system itself that has become irredeemably corrupt.
A friend went to an Obama rally in '08 when he came to town. Later he said, I'm sure I'll regret voting for him, but I'm also pretty sure I'll regret it less than most votes I've taken.
Sadly a lot of vote-conversations have largely boiled down to:
"Well, I picked the one I hated most and put that at the bottom of the list. Then worked up from there."
There's always some kind of monocausal influence claimed, but really that was like the Boer War in the early 1900s. America was certainly at top power in the last twenty years, but its alliance was already fracturing. The Western NATO members were pushing more of their productive capacity into social services and forming strong dependencies on Russian fossil fuels. China's ascendance also meant that the encirclement that US's presence in Europe + Taiwan + Japan (and those governments themselves) kept was going to need to be extra tight.
But Europe couldn't keep herself together, Taiwan was constrained by circumstances to not defence-spend-up and Japan is just moribund despite attempts to rebuild. Realistically, the US kept everyone together for some 40 years after the Berlin Wall fell and that's a pretty good run. Two generations in "Whitey's on the Moon" is a resurgent and wide culture, and China outproduces any other nation while domestically and internationally repudiating that culture.
Perhaps we were doomed to this path by the inexorable nature of success. Two generations have been born and enough time has passed that people have forgotten what it is like to fear the "awesome Soviet threat". The modern empire was a loose confederation of US-Europe and the East-Asian satrapies with a capital in DC perhaps but other capitals in London and Paris as well. And just like that Boer War showed the old British Empire could bleed so will Iran have done the same this time.
Doubtless when the need arises we will sweep away environmental law and historical protection law in order to build our factories but already the appetite for war is gone from America. Why Europe couldn't keep herself together and why America couldn't retain the alliance and why the modern Not-Empire fell will probably be written about, but I think it's worth remembering Kipling at the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria who was then queen over an indomitable empire:
Far-called, our navies melt away;
On dune and headland sinks the fire:
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!
Or in the more elementary school warning manner: "This too shall pass". For my part, I certainly hope that "government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth" and that means our mighty opponents should not prevail because that is not their way of life. And certainly I do not think that lashing out at our allies or attempting to take for ourselves land which is nonetheless in this larger Not Empire is the way to ensure that.
At best, I hope that the Iran War teaches us where we are weak and we are wise enough to learn this, and I hope that the Not-Empire heals and order is restored in this world.
Seriously? Are we really trying to debate politics & get in flame wars in comments here on HN? That not what we come here for. That’s not what we’re expecting to see in the #1 position when we log in.
As I've told people before and I'm sure will tell them again, you're complaining to the wrong people. I'd love to get back to a world where politicians and political decisions are less relevant to hackers and their news; if you want to help get there, you'll have to convince said politicians to stop randomly wrecking relevant things.
I subscribed to the economist from ~2008 for 10+ years before I cancelled. I'm mostly a centrist but admit to leaning libertarian these days, I think both sides do not represent "democracy" anymore, I do not trust the Democrats any more than Republicans in this regard. One only has to look at how the Democrats have turned California into a single party state to stop taking serious their tropes about anyone endangering "Democracy" more than they have when they've got a chance. Reading this article reinforces that I've only saved money and had time for other things than reading these thought pieces from biased echo chamber academics.
Are there any sides other than democrats and republicans?
What do people really think about Mearsheimer's book? (John Mearsheimer, co-author of "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy") His analysis and interpretation of the Jewish lobby provide excellent answers to a lot of questions. Perhaps this is a topic that isn't easy to discuss openly?
I don't want to make a sweeping statement that the U.S. is Israel's lapdog, but it is true that regarding many policies—especially those concerning the Middle East—the U.S. is essentially swayed by Israel.
Of course, right now J.D. Vance might represent a kind of domestic counter-force in the U.S. that leans more toward 'America First' rather than prioritizing Israel. Rubio is also a more pragmatic individual, and Trump is not your traditional politician who just blindly follows Israel's orders. Unfortunately, Trump might lose the next election, and the Democratic Party will absolutely revert the country back to its past status as a vassal state to Israel."
It's actually incredible that you can share that bottom paragraph with a straight face after we just went to war with Iran.
Let's discuss it openly, as you prime: how do you contrast what you just shared with the war, and Israel's actions after the agreed to ceasefire and declaration of war's end?
In the last few DAYS the republican party has started putting on an anti-israel face to set up for the midterms, with JD Vance in particular giving a speech about how we need to separate from Israel. The democrat party, in its typical useless fashion, has not. So it looks at this point like the midterms will be another republican landslide.
I'm not sure if you meant to respond to me, but nothing you've said has addressed what I asked, which was very direct.
It explains why republican voters now think they're anti-israel
> Perhaps this is a topic that isn't easy to discuss openly?
Give it a few years.
> J.D. Vance might represent a kind of domestic counter-force in the U.S. that leans more toward 'America First' rather than prioritizing Israel.
Do you mean like he’s going to drain the swamp?
> Do you mean like he’s going to drain the swamp?
I'm not entirely sure either; after all, perhaps only Americans themselves know best. In China, Vance is generally considered to belong to the nativist camp. He doesn't support the U.S. attacking Iran and has been surprisingly quiet on this matter, as it would primarily benefit Israel rather than the United States. Therefore, if he were elected as the next president, we might see the U.S. and Israel gradually drift apart. Of course, powerful lobbying groups might prevent him from getting elected. To be honest, I don't really think Vance can succeed. I'm not entirely sure how much actual power the MAGA movement holds, but it seems they rely far too heavily on Trump's personal appeal.
It's interesting that decades into this we are still calling the massmurder and pillaging of dozens of countries, turning entire geographic regions into war ridden wastelands with slave markets, a "war on terror". Meanwhile the leaders of those so-called terror groups are praised and invited to ALL the western capitals.
That isn’t what happened. You are inter alia combining the loony but causally inevitable ‘war on terror’ with … the Arab Spring (which Assadist - Putinist propaganda has linked in your mind to imaginary Libyan slave markets) Ask you preferred AI how many Kurdish language universities there are in the world and where they are and what their students think of your imaginary Putinist antiyankee brain slurry.
I mean JD Vance is in Pakistan saying he's as close to the military junta there as his own wife, stirring up unnecessary pain at a full on mass unplanned genocide (I'm referring to the partition of India).
People claim Israel has America by the balls and that's probably true.
The other country that has us by the other ball is Pakistan.
It's easy to control a country when all cybersecurity software used in that country reports to you.
The partition of India feels close to when you burn food and instead of washing the pan properly you just throw it in the dishwasher hoping it will sort it out somehow.
It isn't exactly the inability of the dishwasher to dissolve crimes against cuisine where the problem is rooted.
Calling it the “partition of India” makes it seem like it was imposed on India rather than being a product of the 1940 Lahore Resolution where Jinnah led calls for a separate Pakistan.
And in retrospect, it was a huge boon to India and Bangladesh to separate themselves from Pakistan.
Two million dead Hindu; ten million forcible refugees; thousands of ancient villages burned to the ground — it ‘was a huge boon to India’
In 2026, it’s a huge boon to India to not have Pakistan within its body politic. It’s like having broken up with a finance who ended up becoming a self destructive addict. Same for Bangladesh, even with all the people who died in the independence war.
What I meant is that British India didn't exactly spawn out of a handshake between Allah & Mahavishnu.
Yes, India is a rather artificial construct imposed by the British.
It was a boon economically but people died. Millions of people died due to the actions of a few aristocrats and religious zealots. Probably the greatest humanitarian crisis in the last millennium.
And the partition of India is the well accepted term for the event. I'm not going to be drawn into some post colonial syntactic argument in a discussion about the very real deaths if very real people as well as the human tragedy of the subsequent forced displacement from land people had lived in for thousands of years.
Jinnahs argument with the Indian Congress was because someone sang a song once referencing a Hindu goddess from a novel. It's honestly bananas and difficult to understand especially when his own daughter lived in India after partition
[delayed]
It was just a simple spelling mistake. It was always meant to be 'The War on Terra'.
That my every movement is known to Google, Meta, Apple, et al, is much more disturbing than any autocratic effect of the dismal Patriot Act. The idea that ‘the state’ is the thing to fear, or even worth a moments’ thought, is basically childish and premodern. Witness eg the apotheosis of Snowden for revealing nugatory CIA corner cutting … in the same historical period when the above mentioned are completely hoovering up and relentlessly analyzing every datum about every American.
Those corporations are certainly to be feared, but they don't have the power to impose violence or prison on you. The state does. It was the state that forced Snowden into exile. It is the state that is detaining people for the crime of walking out of Home Depot while speaking with an accent. Both must be kept in check.
Google has the power to fire me from my job by deleting my Google account.
I don't know why that would be the case, but let's say it is.
An overzealous cop and prosecutor can, with a little luck, use the power of the state to get you executed or imprisoned for life for a crime you didn't commit.
If you had to choose one of those, which one would you prefer?
The cop and prosecutor. At least three people would have to be stupid to take my life, versus zero people at Google
https://archive.is/CBCZM
Exactly what everyone said when Patriot Act was passed and renewed repeatedly.
America permanently traded away basic freedoms for the bogus promise of safety in the shadow of fear. And the Supreme Court was too scared to stop it despite its obvious constitutional problems. Crying eagle photos in chain-emails were sufficient propaganda to keep it in place.
It wasn’t just the GOTW. It was much of the 20th century from World War I onward. Each step led to further centralization of government, a larger and larger security apparatus, and more and more foreign entanglements. We are more or less retracing the path of Rome as the Republic expanded militarily until it was no longer practical to run it as a republic and it transitioned to empire.
> We are more or less retracing the path of Rome as the Republic expanded militarily until it was no longer practical to run it as a republic and it transitioned to empire.
The current military "excursion" seems to be transitioning the US out of being an empire.
Rome took some unexpected Ls against the barbarians too. Didn’t change the trajectory of the empire.
The failure to integrate the barbarian Goth refugees is generally marked as the beginning of the fall - and absolutely changed the trajectory of the empire.
“Failure to integrate” is one way to describe the Goths sacking Rome. But I agree the barbarians did them in at the end. My point was that the Iran fiasco is more like the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, where Rome backed off after taking a beating. That didn’t mark a transition away from Empire, simply a retreat after a military loss.
And my point, is the current administration is closer to Caligula and Nero, than they are to Varus. You see this as nothing more than another blip in a long history. I see unstable and dangerous individuals getting standing ovations for failure.
"I don't care if they respect me so long as they fear me." - Caligula.
Either way, I'd just caution that the empire-ness of a country's military or diplomatic reach doesn't necessarily tell us what to expect in terms of its internal hellhole-ness of authoritarianism.
The two things are related because maintenance of the empire imposes demands on the domestic political and economic structure. Look at the domestic politics during Vietnam and the GWOT.
A Pax Romana would be a considerable upgrade
No it wouldn’t. The empire sapped Rome and destroyed its democracy.
> And the Supreme Court was too scared to stop it
Too scared? They may have been on board...
>Exactly what everyone said when Patriot Act was passed
I've been seeing plenty of Americans cheering on temporary safety over essential liberty since then, and I can't even provide examples without getting [flagged].
> I can't even provide examples [of Americans cheering on temporary safety over essential liberty]
I've seen other people critiquing it over the years, perhaps it has something to do with other aspects of the delivery or message?
Probably not. HN likes to flag inconvenient facts.
Yes. History will record that bin Laden won. There's a pre-9/11 book about bin Laden, "The Man Who Declared War on America". Bin Laden was interviewed.
Consider the situation at the end of the Clinton administration. The US was at peace. The Soviet Union was gone. The US got along with China and Russia. No major enemies remained. The federal budget was balanced. Bin Laden looked at that, and realized that America had to be weakened before it could be defeated. That was his plan.
Mission accomplished.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bin_Laden:_The_Man_Who_Declare...
Bin Laden’s ultimate objective was to evict US military forces from the Middle East. In response to 9/11, we massively expanded our footprint in the region and formed even deeper relationships with the Saudi government (whom Bin Laden hated for in his view, “[suspending] Islamic laws, and replacing it with statuary laws”). You can read it all in his original, late 90s declaration of jihad against the United States[1] and decide for yourself if you think he ultimately achieved what he wanted, but for my money, he lost basically everything. In the strictest sense, we did stop “occupying” (stationing troops) in Saudi Arabia itself after we kicked off the Iraq war and concentrated our forces in Iraq and at Al Udeid airbase, but I don’t think that was really the spirit of the thing.
[1] https://ctc.westpoint.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Declara...
> bin Laden won
are his people better off or are they worse off?
Most of the funding for the campaign came via Saudi Arabian citizens [0], and they have absolutely benefited from the change in political power in the Middle East.
[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20060311045338/http://news.bbc.c...
Was his goal to provide for his people? I thought his goal was to bring down the Great Satan.
Al-Qaeda is larger and their allies in Afghanistan have further consolidated their rule. I might not call that "better off" but it's certainly in the direction bin Laden wanted things to go.
This seemed obvious to me at the time. It was hard to understand why people in the cultural mainstream let themselves get swept up in it. I felt like I lost my country, back then, as they pretty much all went off into crazyland together.
What do you think distinguishes the post-9/11 craziness from the Cold War/Red Scare craziness?
My reason for asking is because I believe that "that's unconstitutional!" has been a failed protest message for more like 100 years than 25 years (and there's threads of state violence at the local and state levels that go back far longer). And IMO that is even stronger evidence that words on an ~240-year-old-doc—and the way some interpret the second amendment in relation to those words—is a completely powerless measure against state violence. The United States is not exceptional in that regard. We'll only have a better country if we constantly, actively, choose to vote it that way.
Probably the fact that most of the readership of the article and this site were alive for the former but not the latter. One could equally pin the rise of Joe McCarthy as the moment America started its move to "autocracy". Or when Roosevelt interned Japanese Americans. Or the civil war. Or the Mexican-American war. In fact, the struggle is constant (as mentioned downthread).
I am still amazed by the typical internet American's (Yours also I presume) love for voting, despite having long degraded into a two-party charade.
Your sentiment starts out fierce: "constantly, actively..." and is immediately cut short "... choose to (only?) vote it that way."
You point out that voicing one's interpretations of the 2nd amendment is powerless - but voting, reduced to such a miniscule gesture, is also. The choice between a galloping right wing and a stagnant center-right is no choice at all. American elections are a facade for decisions already made on top. You can't vote it out.
How (and if) you vote is really the one and only thing politicians care about.
This is why it is important to vote in primary elections as well.
Voting the way you really want in primary elections might be counterproductive.
Let's say in the main election 45% of the population will vote for whatever candidate represents side X, 45% of the population will vote for whatever candidate represents side Y, and 10% is more-or-less in the middle.
If, during the primaries, side X votes for a far-X candidate, they will definitely lose the middle 10% to a moderate-Y candidate, leading to a strong Y victory. But if side X votes for a moderate-X candidate during the primaries, the main election will be moderate-X vs moderate-Y, and they have a pretty good chance of securing the slightly-more-than-half of the middle they need for an X victory.
Of course you now end up with a lukewarm moderate X victor who isn't going to represent your far-X views, but at least you're not dealing with an even worse Y-side victor.
The real solution is to get rid of the winner-takes-all system inherently resulting in a two-party election, but Good Luck doing that kind of overhaul!
It was obvious to many. It was even a sort of not-funny joke: "The terrorists have already won."
The OK-ing of torture was a clear step into the totalitarian camp and a clear breach with justice, liberalism, and decency.
I'm gonna be that guy and say that the concern about torture is orthogonal to authoritarianism. There were very much "less authoritarian/less centralized" eras in the US when it was general course of action was to do torturous things far worse than many of the things that got labelled 'torture' in the post 1990s era.
How old are you? I think a lot of younger folks don't fully adjust for important factors: plane hijackings used to be much more common, 9/11 was committed by the second group of Islamic terrorists who tried to blow up the World Trade Center, and 9/11 was the third major terrorist attack by Al-Qaeda in a 4 year span. It's easy now to say that it was a crazy worst-case scenario, but that was not at all obvious then; for all we knew, securing cockpits might have been impractical, and we'd just have to prepare the Air Force to shoot down a couple hijacked flights every decade.
There were real excesses, and I ultimately agree with you that many of them were predictable in advance, but there was no feasible version of a response that did not go at least a little into crazyland. It was a crazy time.
> younger folks don't fully adjust for important factors: plane hijackings used to be much more common
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_hijackings
(I can not say how comprehensive that wikipedia list is).
There's more in the 70s and 80s than I was expecting (having lived through the 80s), but given how many flights there are, hijackings have been and are exceedingly rare; and most of these are not even US flights. These are "driving is orders of magnitude more dangerous than flying" and "10x a very small number is still a very small number" numbers.
https://businesstats.com/global-air-traffic-number-of-flight...
https://easbcn.com/en/how-many-planes-fly-per-day-around-the...
https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/world-air-pas...
These numbers only serve to re-enforce that the response of giving up liberty for (the feeling of) security due to terrorist action in the US was probably outsized. General population awareness in general was probably more of a deterrent after 9/11 than any of the first order 9/11 response actions, especially considering that the US gave countries in the middle east further reason to hate Americans and US foreign policy after 9/11. Obviously, terrorist attacks get a lot of air time and column inches, which feeds the perception of the risk.
"Real excesses" is a bit of an understatement. There is the security theater instituted by the TSA, the militarization of police, normalized Islamophobia, mass surveillance of U.S. citizens, torture as an official military policy, indefinite detention of "unlawful combatants", a trillion dollars spent destroying Iraq and Afghanistan, a million killed and many more made refugees. The rise of ISIS and the refugee crises in Europe can be traced back to the War on Terror. The Middle East should not be the punching bag for America to take out its "crazy" feelings (where "craziness" appears to be a polite way of saying "bloodlust").
With any luck the latest debacle is so clearly a fail, that future presidents may be reluctant to get involved again (at least for a while).
In the aftermath of Vietnam, the US was reluctant to get involved militarily (at least overtly.) That seemed to last until Kuwait. The success there seemed to embolden US hawks, and there were a couple long-term excursions after that.
The current dude apparently fell for the ever-present hawks, without the savy to ask the right questions. His total capitulation, after demonstrating the ineffectiveness of the military, while at the same time proving the effectiveness of asymmetric warfare, will (perhaps, hopefully) be an educational moment for future presidents.
Certainly it is a valuable educational moment to other defendents. You don't need to fight back. You just need to affect something else the world cares about. And, it turns out, global shipping is especially vulnerable.
I would point to the TSA as a key example of what I'm talking about. You say "security theater", but which of the things they do are security theater, and which are the ones that drove plane hijackings to near-zero? We can make reasonable guesses, but does another major skyscraper get blown up if we guess wrong? It's not so easy, and it was hard to the point of impossibility in the aftermath of 9/11.
> The Middle East should not be the punching bag for America to take out its "crazy" feelings (where "craziness" appears to be a polite way of saying "bloodlust").
Yes, this I agree with. The Iraq War in particular was clearly not justified.
My guess world be that the TSA had exactly nothing to do with any decline in hijackings. That is most likely due to new security protocols around cockpit access, as hijackings haven’t stopped but are committed mostly by pilots now. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanwings_Flight_9525
> which are the ones that drove plane hijackings to near-zero?
How many plane hijackings have occurred in other countries, which don't have the TSA?
Every country in the world responded to 9/11 with enhanced airport security. After the end of "shoes off" last year, I don't think the US is stricter in any meaningful way than the global norm.
It was a crazy time, not in the danger from hijackings but the enormous amount of fear and cowardice America built up within itself. It was crazy because of the mass hysteria not the violence. Take this example: 1.2 million Americans died from Covid. 3000 americans died in the twin towers attack. That's 0.25% of the number that died from covid. However we gave up considerably more liberty to defend against the hijackers than we did the virus. It was a very unusual incident but the response wasn't warranted. I mean like 1/3 of the people who died in the twin towers, about 1000 people a year, die from being hit by trains, but you don't see anyone demanding we give up constitutional rights, or do literally anything at all to change that.
1.2M Americans died with Covid, maybe.
Christ, I thought we were through with this tin foil hattery...
Even Trump's CDC admits it was 1.2 million deaths FROM covid.
Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin#1750s
It's time to reconsider some of what we bought.
The elevation of the Executive branch the last and this century has led to this primordial autocracy. Say no to the royal perogative, and accept the more limited powers of Execution of Law.
https://jach.law.wisc.edu/exec-power-royal-prerogative-found...
It would help if Congress wasn't sabotaged to enable this; and to have a major political party that effectively wants a king.
We were rightfully warned on the dangers of political parties and it's well demonstrated that that warning was correct in its assessment.
The fact that millions of Americans declare themselves to be loyal to their party first and foremost is terrifying. Evil people have weaponized the tribal stupidity of humans to trick them to vote against their own best interests.
I take no satisfaction in saying this, and would love to be proven wrong.
we're at the stage of the cycle where we know things are wrong but we don't care enough to do anything about them. unfortunately, it might not be until we live through the consequences that we can muster the energy to care enough again.
FTA:
"In 1776 the American colonists rebelled against what they saw as the arbitrary and tyrannical British monarchy."
I like the sly use of "what they saw" - typical British snark.
>in 1776 the American colonists rebelled against what they saw as the arbitrary and tyrannical British monarchy.
although they didn't just do that, the American founders also articulated the point that the article seems to present as some new insight. That permanent foreign military involvements and the state it requires will eventually diminish freedom at home, that was why many of them wanted to avoid emulating the British empire.
Given that papers like the Economist used to regularly be staunch defenders of these interventions until they went wrong, and only ever seemed to disavow them for their practical outcomes rather than in principle they might want to do some reflecting on that.
> the Economist used to regularly be staunch defenders of these interventions until they went wrong, and only ever seemed to disavow them for their practical outcomes rather than in principle they might want to do some reflecting on that
Can you link a couple of examples? Presumably those articles should be easy to find on economist.com
The economist was a strong supporter of the Iraq War, and reiterated that in a retrospective 2003 article citing its earlier articles: https://home.uncg.edu/~jwjones/world/readings/economist.html
“The threat posed by Saddam
The Economist certainly said it was. We did so most strongly and clearly in a survey (Present at the creation, June 29th 2002) on America's world role; and in leaders on August 3rd that year (The case for war), February 22nd 2003 (Why war would be justified) and March 15th 2003 (Saddam's last victory).”
I seem to recall the Economist wholeheartedly supporting the Iraq War. Am I wrong?
Yes, they ran a leading editorial titled "Why war would be justified", arguing that confronting Saddam Hussein was "the least bad of the limited range of available options".
However, they reversed position in 2007, calling the invasion a debacle.
I just don't buy this narrative. What primed the USA for decline was it's new allergy to manufacturing, addiction to social media, and Trump taking his spot as POTUS twice. If anything, these wars were something for everyone to worry about, which involved actual critical thinking. They were nowhere near the root cause.
Social media addiction didn't come around until about 2008 - and even then it took a few years to become widespread. Trump being elected twice isn't the cause of the decline, it's a symptom of it. The GWOT is one cause among many, but probably the one that pushed things over the edge. It led to both Iraq and Afghanistan wars which cost $Trillions that we borrowed and still haven't paid off. Not to mention the lost lives on all sides and further destabilization of the ME. Our over-reaction to 9/11 was the terrorists' dream. It's hard to imagine an outcome that would've been better from their perspective if their aim was to weaken and destabilize the US.
I think the War on Drugs was the gateway drug to this insanity. It helped to create a more militarized police, and to condition us to surrender our rights because "think of the children!".
After 9/11 is when the country I loved began its descent into this mutated form, a country I don’t recognize today.
In democracy, there is a distinction between peacetime power and wartime power, and in a wartime power state, there is an inherent affinity with authoritarianism. After 9/11, the political language in the United States saw a revival of terms like 'state of emergency' and 'enemy within.' The moment the government is granted the authority to define who the 'enemy' is, the gun inevitably turns toward the citizens. The reason is simple: those in power come to see the state as an extension of themselves, and anyone who speaks against them becomes labeled as the 'enemy.'
On top of this, the limitations of the petrodollar system are becoming increasingly apparent. When it worked well in the past, economic distribution could be used to suppress dissatisfaction — the American middle class generation is a case in point. But as dollar hegemony weakens and resource allocation becomes more difficult, the ruling class typically begins to replace economic rewards with emotional rewards like fear and hostility. They point fingers and say, 'Your enemy is these people.' When the system cannot grow the pie, the most efficient resource allocation for authoritarianism is to forcefully suppress internal divisions through coercion. Perhaps the dollar system itself might be a fundamentally flawed system.
The war on terror was a great example of doublethink. First there's the name, which is redundant (war is already terrible/terrorizing). Then there's the fact that we inspired 9/11 to begin with. We trained and funded Al Qaeda in their fight with the Russians. Then we inserted ourselves into Middle East politics for financial reasons (we invaded Iraq the first time after Saddam threatened to take over the global supply of oil, which we were heavily dependent on with a secret deal with Saudi Arabia propping up the petrodollar). Finally we committed terrorism by razing Iraq and Afghanistan, destabilizing the entire region, illegally renditioning/torturing people and keeping them indefinitely in prison without a trial, growing the world-wide heroin trade, and giving birth to more radical militant groups (we directly caused the creation of ISIS and helped strengthen the Taliban). Our War on Terror birthed more terror in the Middle East at one time than has ever happened in history.
The War on Terror was also an early sign of kleptocracy in the US Executive by conservatives. There was massive waste, fraud and abuse, in the billions of dollars. People working in the executive directly profited by making sure their corporations won bids, and dollars sent overseas just vanished. The people who decided to wage war got rich off it. (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/13/opinion/afghanistan-war-e...)
It arguably polarized the public, paving the way to today's sharp ideological divisions, because political differences suddenly were treated as matters of life and death compared to the laid-back '90s.
That's just not looking back far enough. The war on terror was a continuation. I'd say we're seeing the results of not stringing up all the slave owners after the Civil War.
American industrialists going back to the robber baron era and beyond have always loved autocracy, specifically fascism. This was heightened by the fear of communism. When FDR was elected, there was an attempted coup (ie the business plot [1]). Hitler was a fan of Henry Ford and named him in Mein Kampf. The Nazi regime enjoyed a certain amount of popularity in the US. There was a rally by the German American Bund in Madison Square Gardens in 1939. But FDR gave concessions to the working class that we still enjoy today (eg Social Security).
After WW2, we decided to make an enemy of Stalin (again, because communism). Thousands of former Nazis emigrated to the US (and, no, not just Operation Paper Clip; they were also in the CIA and FBI). Former Nazis gained high positions in the West German military and ultimatly NATO (eg Adolf Heuzinger [2]).
The mere existence of the Soviet Union forced the US government to give more concessions to the working class. The 1950s were incredibly prosperous as a result, in an era when the top marginal tax rate was 91% and the ratio of CEO to median wage was a fraction of what it is now.
The Fall of the Soviet Union was about the worst thing that could happen for normal Americans because suddenly there was no counterbalance to US global hegemony. The 1990s saw the Democrats abandon the New Deal in favor of Reagan economics and policies despite ~60 years of almost unbroken control of Congress up until that point. They then sowed the seeds for the destruction of American manufacturing and having an economy completely focused on hoarding land and housing. The 1990s is really where that began to go out of control.
My point is that history didn't begin with the war on terror. 9/11 itself was blowback from American imperialism that had been around since the 19th century.
I'd say if anything primed America for autocracy it was the domino effect from desegregation. This led to the political activation of the evangelical movement (no, it wasn't abortion) and evagelicals are primed to be followers. Add to this that there's no effective opposition because the Democrats decided to be Republican Lite and here we are.
All of this came about because a handful of very wealthy people wanted to be even wealthier at the expense of everyone else.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Heusinger
I’d like to pick on a couple points here that I think are not just nits:
> more concessions to the working class. The 1950s were incredibly prosperous as a result
This is absolutely not a common read of the boom in the 1950s. The common read of the boom in the 1950s is that America leveraged its success in WW2 into a global imperial economy, exporting its goods everywhere in the world. The combination of massive manufacturing expansion at home during WW2, the brain drain into the US and the trade deals, power brokering and treaties that carved out the post war world order made America very wealthy. There is no world in which a “labor value” oriented economic order on its own would have resulted in an ‘incredibly prosperous’ 1950s without WW2.
The fall of the Soviet Union ushered in what I would consider more of a golden age, overseen by Clinton in the US, when we had a balanced budget, low global conflict and massively reduced inflation compared to Carter / Reagan early years. If you went back to 1994 and could have gotten 10% of working Americans to vote to return to 1980’s labor market, I’d be shocked. These were qualitatively different economic times. Post Iraq war, gas was at $0.99/gallon. In the earlier era you’re lionizing, there was rationing throughout the US.
I agree with your perspective on 9/11 being blowback, although I’d characterize it as blowback from our Middle East policy - I haven’t read a lot about Bin Laden, although I did read his manifesto — and I didn’t take away that he cared much about 18th century American imperialism (such as it was; we got much more effective at this in the 20th century in my opinion).
> The common read of the boom in the 1950s is that America leveraged its success in WW2 into a global imperial economy, exporting its goods everywhere in the world.
I absolutely agree that the US massively benefited from WW2. For one, no war was fought on the American mainland (as opposed to, say, Europe and Japan, which were levelled). We benefitted from being the arms dealer. The post-1945 world order was reconstructed or built to our benefit. All of this is true.
But where did this wealth land? Wealth and income inequality actually shrank from 1945 to the 1970s and has exploded since [1][2].
> The combination of massive manufacturing expansion at home during WW2 ...
And why was there manufacturing then but manufacturing has been hollowed out now? Where does the money go now? We had way more capital controls in the post-WW2 era. Now all the money just seems to speculate on real estate. And this is something Adam Smith and Karl Marx agreed on: landlords are parasites on the economy.
> The fall of the Soviet Union ushered in what I would consider more of a golden age, overseen by Clinton in the US
Clinton was a disaster. I suspect you feel this way because you came of age in the 1990s maybe? The 1994 crime bill, financial deregulation (eg repealing Glass-Steagall), welfare "reforms", replacing federal programs with state block grants, effectively ending public housing (ie the Faircloth Amendment), NAFTA, three strikes rules, the list goes on. It was the Clinton administration where the so-called "New Democrats" divorced themselves from the labor movement and decided they wanted that sweet, sweet corporate PAC money.
If you opposed what the current Republican governments are doing and you're scratching your head wondering why there's no real opposition, you can point the finger directly at Bill Clinton as to why. Obama was also a generational missed opportunity here but I digress.
> In the earlier era you’re lionizing, there was rationing throughout the US.
... because of US imperialism, specifically the US support for Israel.
> I’d characterize it as blowback from our Middle East policy
No argument here. But our Middle East policy was US imperialism. Also, it's worth noting that we directly created bin Laden as one of the mujahadeen we used as a foil against the Soviets in Afghanistan as payback for Vietnam (basically).
[1]: https://www.cbpp.org/research/poverty-and-inequality/a-guide...
[2]: https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/exploding-wealth-inequality-u...
I'd like to expand on your comment, while the North/South lines drawn by the US Civil War are a common talking point, the influence of the west coast on how America has ended up as it has is not talked often enough, as an example Hebert Hoover was very influential in US policy as the last (living) American president after the death of FDR and a very connected indiviual who opposed New Deal policies, not mentioning his involvement in Japan and Germany, and that is before getting into the Hoover Institution or the Heritage Foundation
This, and all other grand historical narratives, are completely contrived to support whatever bone the author has to pick. X happened before Y != X caused Y.
Your argument/timeline seems a bit confused in a couple of places. Our problem was "not stringing up all the slave owners after the Civil War," yet you then point out American industrialists (going back to the robber baron era) loved fascism. But the industrial parts of the US were the Northern states, not the South. Additionally you complain that the Democrats are no effective opposition but don't appear to consider that the Democratic Party would be even less effective if you had strung up all the slave owners after the Civil War given that it was that party which chose to secede from the Union in order to maintain slavery.
History indeed did not begin with the War on Terror, but I'm not sure you're entirely familiar with it.
Saying the Democrats were the Southern secessionists ignores the revolt against civil rights in the 1950s and 1960s and the Southern Strategy [1]. All the Dixiecrats simply became Republicans.
Also, the slave owners who got strung up should probably have included Andrew Johnson. Without Lincoln's unfortunately untimely demise or without Johnson we may well have avoided Confederate leaders regaining power and the whole Redeemer era of winding back rghts for the former enslaved.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy
Before conservatives hurled TDS at democrats they called them unpatriotic when they said the war on terror would undermine civil liberties. Its rather annoying to see a title like this.
There are people walking around today who voted Bush twice and regretted it and now voted Trump three times and regretted it.
I wonder what war they'll regret next?
I have regretted everyone that I ever voted for. Every candidate will ultimately be regrettable, because it’s not the candidate that’s bad - it is the system itself that has become irredeemably corrupt.
A friend went to an Obama rally in '08 when he came to town. Later he said, I'm sure I'll regret voting for him, but I'm also pretty sure I'll regret it less than most votes I've taken.
Sadly a lot of vote-conversations have largely boiled down to:
"Well, I picked the one I hated most and put that at the bottom of the list. Then worked up from there."
There's always some kind of monocausal influence claimed, but really that was like the Boer War in the early 1900s. America was certainly at top power in the last twenty years, but its alliance was already fracturing. The Western NATO members were pushing more of their productive capacity into social services and forming strong dependencies on Russian fossil fuels. China's ascendance also meant that the encirclement that US's presence in Europe + Taiwan + Japan (and those governments themselves) kept was going to need to be extra tight.
But Europe couldn't keep herself together, Taiwan was constrained by circumstances to not defence-spend-up and Japan is just moribund despite attempts to rebuild. Realistically, the US kept everyone together for some 40 years after the Berlin Wall fell and that's a pretty good run. Two generations in "Whitey's on the Moon" is a resurgent and wide culture, and China outproduces any other nation while domestically and internationally repudiating that culture.
Perhaps we were doomed to this path by the inexorable nature of success. Two generations have been born and enough time has passed that people have forgotten what it is like to fear the "awesome Soviet threat". The modern empire was a loose confederation of US-Europe and the East-Asian satrapies with a capital in DC perhaps but other capitals in London and Paris as well. And just like that Boer War showed the old British Empire could bleed so will Iran have done the same this time.
Doubtless when the need arises we will sweep away environmental law and historical protection law in order to build our factories but already the appetite for war is gone from America. Why Europe couldn't keep herself together and why America couldn't retain the alliance and why the modern Not-Empire fell will probably be written about, but I think it's worth remembering Kipling at the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria who was then queen over an indomitable empire:
Or in the more elementary school warning manner: "This too shall pass". For my part, I certainly hope that "government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth" and that means our mighty opponents should not prevail because that is not their way of life. And certainly I do not think that lashing out at our allies or attempting to take for ourselves land which is nonetheless in this larger Not Empire is the way to ensure that.At best, I hope that the Iran War teaches us where we are weak and we are wise enough to learn this, and I hope that the Not-Empire heals and order is restored in this world.
Seriously? Are we really trying to debate politics & get in flame wars in comments here on HN? That not what we come here for. That’s not what we’re expecting to see in the #1 position when we log in.
As I've told people before and I'm sure will tell them again, you're complaining to the wrong people. I'd love to get back to a world where politicians and political decisions are less relevant to hackers and their news; if you want to help get there, you'll have to convince said politicians to stop randomly wrecking relevant things.
I subscribed to the economist from ~2008 for 10+ years before I cancelled. I'm mostly a centrist but admit to leaning libertarian these days, I think both sides do not represent "democracy" anymore, I do not trust the Democrats any more than Republicans in this regard. One only has to look at how the Democrats have turned California into a single party state to stop taking serious their tropes about anyone endangering "Democracy" more than they have when they've got a chance. Reading this article reinforces that I've only saved money and had time for other things than reading these thought pieces from biased echo chamber academics.
Are there any sides other than democrats and republicans?
What do people really think about Mearsheimer's book? (John Mearsheimer, co-author of "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy") His analysis and interpretation of the Jewish lobby provide excellent answers to a lot of questions. Perhaps this is a topic that isn't easy to discuss openly?
I don't want to make a sweeping statement that the U.S. is Israel's lapdog, but it is true that regarding many policies—especially those concerning the Middle East—the U.S. is essentially swayed by Israel.
Of course, right now J.D. Vance might represent a kind of domestic counter-force in the U.S. that leans more toward 'America First' rather than prioritizing Israel. Rubio is also a more pragmatic individual, and Trump is not your traditional politician who just blindly follows Israel's orders. Unfortunately, Trump might lose the next election, and the Democratic Party will absolutely revert the country back to its past status as a vassal state to Israel."
It's actually incredible that you can share that bottom paragraph with a straight face after we just went to war with Iran.
Let's discuss it openly, as you prime: how do you contrast what you just shared with the war, and Israel's actions after the agreed to ceasefire and declaration of war's end?
In the last few DAYS the republican party has started putting on an anti-israel face to set up for the midterms, with JD Vance in particular giving a speech about how we need to separate from Israel. The democrat party, in its typical useless fashion, has not. So it looks at this point like the midterms will be another republican landslide.
I'm not sure if you meant to respond to me, but nothing you've said has addressed what I asked, which was very direct.
It explains why republican voters now think they're anti-israel
> Perhaps this is a topic that isn't easy to discuss openly?
Give it a few years.
> J.D. Vance might represent a kind of domestic counter-force in the U.S. that leans more toward 'America First' rather than prioritizing Israel.
Do you mean like he’s going to drain the swamp?
> Do you mean like he’s going to drain the swamp?
I'm not entirely sure either; after all, perhaps only Americans themselves know best. In China, Vance is generally considered to belong to the nativist camp. He doesn't support the U.S. attacking Iran and has been surprisingly quiet on this matter, as it would primarily benefit Israel rather than the United States. Therefore, if he were elected as the next president, we might see the U.S. and Israel gradually drift apart. Of course, powerful lobbying groups might prevent him from getting elected. To be honest, I don't really think Vance can succeed. I'm not entirely sure how much actual power the MAGA movement holds, but it seems they rely far too heavily on Trump's personal appeal.
It's interesting that decades into this we are still calling the massmurder and pillaging of dozens of countries, turning entire geographic regions into war ridden wastelands with slave markets, a "war on terror". Meanwhile the leaders of those so-called terror groups are praised and invited to ALL the western capitals.
That isn’t what happened. You are inter alia combining the loony but causally inevitable ‘war on terror’ with … the Arab Spring (which Assadist - Putinist propaganda has linked in your mind to imaginary Libyan slave markets) Ask you preferred AI how many Kurdish language universities there are in the world and where they are and what their students think of your imaginary Putinist antiyankee brain slurry.
I mean JD Vance is in Pakistan saying he's as close to the military junta there as his own wife, stirring up unnecessary pain at a full on mass unplanned genocide (I'm referring to the partition of India).
People claim Israel has America by the balls and that's probably true.
The other country that has us by the other ball is Pakistan.
It's easy to control a country when all cybersecurity software used in that country reports to you.
The partition of India feels close to when you burn food and instead of washing the pan properly you just throw it in the dishwasher hoping it will sort it out somehow.
It isn't exactly the inability of the dishwasher to dissolve crimes against cuisine where the problem is rooted.
Calling it the “partition of India” makes it seem like it was imposed on India rather than being a product of the 1940 Lahore Resolution where Jinnah led calls for a separate Pakistan.
And in retrospect, it was a huge boon to India and Bangladesh to separate themselves from Pakistan.
Two million dead Hindu; ten million forcible refugees; thousands of ancient villages burned to the ground — it ‘was a huge boon to India’
In 2026, it’s a huge boon to India to not have Pakistan within its body politic. It’s like having broken up with a finance who ended up becoming a self destructive addict. Same for Bangladesh, even with all the people who died in the independence war.
What I meant is that British India didn't exactly spawn out of a handshake between Allah & Mahavishnu.
Yes, India is a rather artificial construct imposed by the British.
It was a boon economically but people died. Millions of people died due to the actions of a few aristocrats and religious zealots. Probably the greatest humanitarian crisis in the last millennium.
And the partition of India is the well accepted term for the event. I'm not going to be drawn into some post colonial syntactic argument in a discussion about the very real deaths if very real people as well as the human tragedy of the subsequent forced displacement from land people had lived in for thousands of years.
Jinnahs argument with the Indian Congress was because someone sang a song once referencing a Hindu goddess from a novel. It's honestly bananas and difficult to understand especially when his own daughter lived in India after partition
[delayed]
It was just a simple spelling mistake. It was always meant to be 'The War on Terra'.
That my every movement is known to Google, Meta, Apple, et al, is much more disturbing than any autocratic effect of the dismal Patriot Act. The idea that ‘the state’ is the thing to fear, or even worth a moments’ thought, is basically childish and premodern. Witness eg the apotheosis of Snowden for revealing nugatory CIA corner cutting … in the same historical period when the above mentioned are completely hoovering up and relentlessly analyzing every datum about every American.
Those corporations are certainly to be feared, but they don't have the power to impose violence or prison on you. The state does. It was the state that forced Snowden into exile. It is the state that is detaining people for the crime of walking out of Home Depot while speaking with an accent. Both must be kept in check.
Google has the power to fire me from my job by deleting my Google account.
I don't know why that would be the case, but let's say it is.
An overzealous cop and prosecutor can, with a little luck, use the power of the state to get you executed or imprisoned for life for a crime you didn't commit.
If you had to choose one of those, which one would you prefer?
The cop and prosecutor. At least three people would have to be stupid to take my life, versus zero people at Google