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The Strange Decline of the Pax Americana (www.nytimes.com)

submitted 1 year ago by spaceghoti@lemmy.one to c/politics@lemmy.world

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...Yet it seems safe to say that the world no longer trusts U.S. promises, and perhaps no longer fears U.S. threats, the way it used to. The problem, however, isn’t Biden; it’s the party that reflexively attacks him for anything that goes wrong.

Right now America is a superpower without a fully functioning government. Specifically, the House of Representatives has no speaker, so it can’t pass legislation, including bills funding the government and providing aid to U.S. allies. The House is paralyzed because Republican extremists, who have refused to acknowledge Biden’s legitimacy and promoted chaos rather than participating in governance, have turned these tactics on their own party. At this point it’s hard to see how anyone can become speaker without Democratic votes — but even less extreme Republicans refuse to reach across the aisle.

And even if Republicans do somehow manage to elect a speaker, it seems all too likely that whoever gets the job will have to promise the hard right that he will betray Ukraine.

Given this political reality, how much can any nation trust U.S. assurances of support? How can we expect foreign enemies of democracy to fear America when they know that there are powerful forces here that share their disdain?

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[-] BeautifulMind@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

expecting party insiders to change the way things are done is foolish

Fair enough, but there's no law saying it has to be done from within the parties. Alaska now uses RCV in its elections- a thing the Alaska GOP does not like- largely because Alaskans voted for an initiative to do so and it stuck.

The result of its implementation? After 2 eliminations rounds of ranked-choice voting, the running was down to Mary Peltola (D) and Sarah Palin (MAGA), but enough first-and-second-round supporters of Chris Bye and Nick Begich (R) preferred Peltola to Palin. With their first-pick candidates eliminated from the running, Peltola had a majority and that ended the process.

In the same election, they re-elected Lisa Murkowski (R) to the Senate and Dunleavy (R) to the Governor's mansion. The result: it looks a lot like RCV reduces the leverage of MAGA money within the GOP, and it will be fascinating to see what effect it might have on the Dems.

expecting party insiders to change the way things are done is foolish

Eventually, things will have to change in a party that's still mostly being run by people that came of age in the Watergate era. Your Pelosis and Clintons and Bidens and Feinsteins won't hang on forever, and eventually the guard is going to change. But again, this doesn't have to be initiated from within the parties.

[-] centof@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago

Yeah, I'm quite familiar with the implementation. Some states are somewhat supportive of RCV and similar voting systems and I applaud them for being open to change.

Fair enough, but there’s no law saying it has to be done from within the parties.

Uhh, there kinda is when it is basically either democrats or republicans who make each local states elections laws. It is true that sometimes that can be worked around via the voter initiatives. However, the state legislatures can usually amend or repeal those ballot measures if they have a majority of the legislature.

Eventually, things will have to change in a party that’s still mostly being run by people that came of age in the Watergate era. Your Pelosis and Clintons and Bidens and Feinsteins won’t hang on forever, and eventually the guard is going to change. But again, this doesn’t have to be initiated from within the parties.

True, they will change but I'm not convinced that those who replace the leader will be any better than the current leaders. I think the only people allowed power within a party are the ones most beholden to their funders.

this post was submitted on 18 Oct 2023

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