People seem to think the US is dying but I just don’t see any mechanism or road map to justify it. A relative decline, sure, maybe even an absolute decline, but death? Empire’s twin pillars (military and propaganda) are still going strong and unless those are weakened in some way, I wouldn’t get my hopes up. How do you see it dying?
The propaganda is dying for sure though. I don’t know how that would impact things materially, but people (all around the world) today are far less likely to think of US as standing for freedom or democracy or anything. Trump broke many brains, true, but now no matter how hard the media tries, they cannot just force people to go to brunch. Some will, for sure, but a lot of people are now seeing the truth.
Look at opinion polls in china through the last 5 years. Progaganda worked depressingly well
You know how people from reddit have this knee-jerk dismissal of any news coming from PRC because they’ll say state media? We need to get them to do the same for western MSM as well. The problem is how, and I don’t know how many people on the left are focused on this aspect of the struggle. Should we be dedicating more focus to it?
Hmm? It’s really difficult to gauge these things. I’ll believe it when the average person knee-jerk dismisses political news from western media sources. PRC has already been successfully demonized, even segments of the left are buying into it. That’s why I don’t share your optimism.
Greater unrest, greater inequality, declining rate of profit for business as well. An incredible amount of fraudulent business practices creating a financial system that’s essentially a house of cards.
Worsening returns on imperialist wars abroad, too. Other nations not backing down to US bullying either. It’s not going to be overnight by any means but it feels like part of the long decline.
I also don’t think the military is as strong as it was. Large and a money pit but full of incompetence and grifts all the way through has left it much weaker than before (besides the nukes that could ihnialiate the world)
But with propaganda as strong as it is, how does any unrest gain traction? They’ll put up some fine new PR and have everyone going back to brunch in no time. Also, the creation of that external enemy in the PRC to distract people.
I don’t think the propaganda is as strong as it was. Even if it is, protests are getting larger and angrier. Unless the ruling class throws a bone in the form of actual improvements in material conditions that’s going to continue.
