Moody’s decision to downgrade the US’s credit rating is a slap on the wrist. In the past, the US might have dismissed it, but investors are signaling they think America is fundamentally untrustworthy — and they may soon put hard limits on Trump's program.

Moody’s decision to downgrade the US’s credit rating is a slap on the wrist. In the past, the US might have dismissed it, but investors are signaling they think America is fundamentally untrustworthy — and they may soon put hard limits on Trump’s program.

  • mrchemman@lemm.ee
    241·
    1 month ago

    I think any perceived American exceptionalism went out the window after we elected the Orange One the first time. The second time has eradicated any lingering shred of this belief worldwide.

    • BrikoX@lemmy.zipOPEnglish
      319·
      1 month ago

      People hoped that Trump and exceptionalism was a blip to survive through and it would be gone after 4 years. The way I see it, the real hit to America’s reputation was Biden who continued a lot of the exceptionalist policies that Trump started. Now Trump 2.0 is continuing the exceptionalist policies, but added pure fascism on top of that. Even if Trump is gone and fascism doesn’t prevail, I don’t expect the exceptionalism to go away.

        • Tinidril@midwest.socialEnglish
          41·
          1 month ago

          Oh please. Biden didn’t just live with the Trump aftermath, in many cases he chose to keep pushing it. He was a mixed bag, doing a lot of great things that Trump never would have, but he did a lot of bad without anybody twisting his arm.

            • Tinidril@midwest.socialEnglish
              2·
              1 month ago

              I don’t think anybody expected Biden to be that good and, no, that’s not the point of the criticisms at all. The point is that the establishment is guaranteed to wheel out another Biden in 3 years and it’s critical that we shut that down.

              You are far from the only person operating on that theory of gradual change, but it’s dead wrong and exactly what brought us to where we are today. In fact, it’s exactly what leads to fascism every single time it ascends. Weak neoliberals fail to take care of people, and the people turn against them.

              Look at how much gradual change the fascists are able to tear down in the span of a few months. What are they afraid to tear down? Social Security and Medicare. It’s the big changes that rapidly gain the popularity needed to survive right wing onslaught. Everything else dies.

                • Tinidril@midwest.socialEnglish
                  12·
                  1 month ago

                  The general principle that building takes more time than destroying is pretty solid - in general. However, applying it to politics is absolutely insane.

                  You ever hear that war is politics by other means? That’s a good principle too, and the reverse is what applies here. Politics is war by other means. Republicans know that. They are fighting a war and Democrats are dutifully putting up villages they can’t defend. The clever villagers are defecting before the tanks roll in.

                  As I already pointed out, what you “think” stands in absolute contrast with everything that’s happened in politics in this country and globally for at least the last 100 years. If you and people like you don’t wake up, we are all fucked. (Assuming we aren’t already).

                  Reasserting what you think, instead of addressing my arguments, puts you at the same level of rationality as MAGA. The country didn’t get the way it is by magic. Democrats hollowed out voters skulls, then Republicans filled them. Remember that when you complain about what the country wants.

        • frezik@midwest.social
          21·
          1 month ago

          Biden kept quite a few of the tariffs Trump did in his first term. Even increased some of them.

        • BrikoX@lemmy.zipOPEnglish
          23·
          1 month ago

          95% of what he did was through executive power, which he had full control over.

          On many other issues, however, Biden retained the essence of Trump’s approach. Key documents issued during Trump’s first term characterized China and Russia as strategic competitors of the United States, a framing Biden embraced. Biden kept the Trump-era tariffs on China and expanded controls on technology transfers that began under Trump. He executed the Afghanistan withdrawal agreement negotiated between Trump’s team and the Taliban, remained outside the Iran nuclear deal, and, like Trump—but unlike President Barack Obama—provided lethal aid to the government in Ukraine. Biden sought to extend the Abraham Accords, a key Trump-era foreign policy success in the Middle East, and over time, he attempted to make Saudi Arabia a U.S. treaty ally. The two administrations could hardly have been more different in style and rhetoric. In the underlying substance of their policies, however, there was more continuity than the casual observer might have appreciated.

          https://www.foreignaffairs.com/trump-biden-trump-foreign-policy

            • BrikoX@lemmy.zipOPEnglish
              22·
              1 month ago

              I’m not sure in which bubble you are living in, but US is notorious for flip flopping on their policies with each new presidency. Each new president that comes in and reverses most of the things the last president did. That’s literally has been the case since the country’s founding exactly because of the separation of power.

              That is why Biden keeping many of the previous Trumop policies was noteworthy and scary for the rest of the world.