Russia invading was really the best thing for hawks. It’s only gonna get harder to argue for anti-imperialism now, even smarter people I know see the USA as the lesser of two evils. It doesn’t help that a lot of the people opposed to the US right now are legit ghouls who there isn’t much nice to say about besides that they oppose to the US. No amount of nuance or intelligent arguing is gonna convince anyone now, the US were the good guys against the big evil Putin.
The US is getting more and more regressive on LGBT issues but on classic American style they’re doing it slowly and regionally enough that it doesn’t seem like a sudden regressive take over, so most LGBT people I know still see the USA as a generally progressive state with some regressive enclaves, unlike the “backwards” nations in the developing world.
The hope pilling about China is seeming more and more like cope to me. Even if they are really building socialism I think they maybe too late. Besides it seems to only be socialism for China, they’re not planning on exporting anything.
Anti-communist propaganda as worked. Failures of past socialist movements along with the almost scientific methods of modern propagandists means really only an aesthetic meme version of the idea is gaining any meaningful popularity.
Frankly I’m just fed up. I don’t think anyone else in the west can be talked into socialism at this point, the propagandists won. People say that we shouldn’t be doomer even if we are doomed, but NGL having hope just seems exhausting and obnoxious right now. It being over seems like the best fate because at least then we don’t have to deal with people telling us how wrong we were.
War always results in people thinking in the short term at the expense of everything else. The general mid-long term outlook isn't significantly different today than it was 1 week ago.
-The US economy and population will have to deal with millions of people suffering with long COVID.
-COVID is far from over and new variants will continue to cause issue. Of course the US will never lockdown again but that also means more deaths, more long COVID and potential eventual healthcare collapse. The only way out of this is hoping there wont be any more variants which is pure copium.
-China will soon become the #1 economy, a symbolic event but with great significance. The Russian war is in part because of this fact, the BRI will create a separate trading block that will serve the basis of future geopolitics. Even though the individual members of this Chinese led block are not all particularly good on their own, this is necessary and will define 21st century politics and beyond just like the bipolar USSR/US world of the 1950-90s defined by the USSR vs US. This time the US is in a much worse position in all aspects.
-US politics is still very much a circus, there is no competent leader in sight and neither party will ever get a mandate from the entire population. There is no incentive to fix the crumbling infrastructure. The US will remain economically dependent on China, and defined by worsening inequality and quality of life. This is still massive potential for radicalization.
-Climate change will continue to get worse and more disasters are on the way, major disruption to the flow of treats is not something Americans can deal with in the long term.
-The short term boost in pro NATO/nationalist feelings is just that is not going to be enough to change the outlook at home. At the end of the day there wont be WW3 and people will stop caring about foreign affairs. War is not enough to stop people from caring about being homeless, being fired, being rejected from job interviews etc. Antiwork is just a glimpse at the underlying sentiment and issues that are waiting like a bubble to burst imo.
Exactly right. In fact, many revolutions in history were caused by the poor conditions of war: the October Revolution being a prime example.