China draws mainly on the talents of the best of its billion+ population. But America has had its pick of the best of the world's 8 billion people. We are taking a break now, but starting 2029 America will resume having its pick of the best.
The American people did this twice in fairly quick succession.
Unless there's a serious reckoning afterwards, the rest of the world is gonna operate on the assumption that it can and probably will happen again soon.
I wouldn't count these chickens before they hatch.
I keep wondering where the line in the sand is for the wider GOP base. We keep crossing what I think "this is the line … right?" and nope, that wasn't it, either.
I really hope so but honestly, what lessons have Democrats learned so far that will allow them to take the votes of those who are not right-wing radicals? Because there was a lot of unnecessary stuff that was going on that pissed off those who don't lean too far either side. Trump exploits this by, say, "Keeping Men Out of Women's Sports" and scores high not just on the right. This theme will be very difficult to deal with by the Democrats.
And on the foreign front, well, the trust has been broken and I don't think it can be repaired easily. The remaining NATO allies are very stable, they understand mutual respect and collaboration is the foundation of their survival, whereas attacking each other breaks trust completely. Even if a new fantastic president is chosen that understands his huge responsibility both for Americans and the world, other countries learned their lesson hard and understand there is no guarantee in a few years the USA become their enemy again.
Yes, Democrats have to move towards the center. But that's not enough. You can't have one good party and one evil party. Both parties have to be basically good, even if they disagree on policy. You can't have the country decline each time Republicans gain power.
And in 2032 everyone just crosses their fingers this doesn't happen again? Unless 2029 includes a structural overhaul of the entire government I really don't see how the US regains it's status as the capital of the world. We are doing everything in our power to permenantly isolate ourselves from the rest of the world at the moment. Attacking a nato state, even threatening to attack a nato state really, is not something everyone will overlook in a years time. The wheels are turning now to divest from the us.
My optimistic take is that we will learn from the mistakes we are making now to make sure it does not get repeated ever again. Trump will be gone and will be too old to have any influence. But Elon Musk and people like Marc Andreessen will continue to be a problem we need to find a solution for.
And what do you expect the rest of the world to do? Pretend it never happened? They were willing to give another chance after Trump I, I highly doubt that it will be the same this time around.
> We are taking a break now, but starting 2029 America will resume having its pick of the best.
Don't count on it.
Some people may be willing to uproot their lives and move continent in the hope that 4 years later you won't re-elect another one like Trump, but it won't be as many as before. Heck, there was a brief window where I had the opportunity to migrate to the USA, but just the US electing Trump the first time ruled it out for me.
Not that I'd call myself "the best", but I was good enough if I'd wanted to. But I do also know some really good Cambridge graduates who were expressly asked by their American employer to relocate to the US, declined.
I think people generally vastly underestimate the negative effect of "nativism"/anti-immigration rethoric on desirable foreign workers. Even if those desirable foreigners are completely unaffected by actual policy.
I personally know at least two highly qualified STEM workers that went back to Europe after Brexit/Trump2 and from what I can tell this was at least 70% pure "spite" (instead of being affected by actual anti-foreign regulation or somesuch).
I used to live in Cambridge. Only one person I knew there was pro-Brexit, call him C. In the run-up to the referendum, I'd already told C I was looking to move out of the UK due to the entirely native political choices of the UK. The domestic political nonsense was necessarily only going to get less constrained by a policy decision (Brexit) specifically about getting less constrained.
One of my last memories of C was that a group of us were in a local pub discussing it, one said they were worried Brexit would make Cambridge smaller. C shouted "Good!".
Given my plans, obviously when C shouted "Good!" at the idea of Cambridge shrinking, I was shocked, took it somewhat personally. Then the referendum came, and I was both angry with him and far too busy, so I stopped talking to C entirely.
Other people report that C was very confused by this, did not understand at all.
