The rise of populism in Europe is a real trend.

Populism isn't automatically a bad thing: it just means that the general public is being represented (or appealed to). Obama was populist, and he was fine, literally the best US president of the century and it's not even close.

Populism combined with the belief that your country can conquer the world is a bad thing (like what Hitler did). But a knee-jerk anti-populist attitude is not nuanced enough.

I will also add that Ian Bremmer seems to see trade deals as an important part of Pax Americana, but it isn't. "Liking America" is also not Pax Americana. Pax Americana isn't a popularity contest.

Pax Americana happens because countries have a moderately reasonable belief that if they invade their neighbor, America will do something to stop them. When that belief is gone, Serbia will immediately invade Kosovo.

Yes, Mexico is.

His goal is to break the relationship between China and Russia, much like Kissinger did in the cold war. That happened right as Trump was at the age of becoming aware of politics.

I don't know why you got modded down, but this is exactly right. Cops should not be able to disable their cameras.

What do you think Europe is going to do? Kick America out of NATO? That's not going to happen.

False. Russia and China are very clear about their goal to create a multi-polar order, and eventually the bigger and eventually the only pole.

Some people in Europe complain about the "rules based order," but they fall in line behind America. They would rather have free healthcare than a big military.

Demonstrably false. You might say it was never the sole point of US policy.

The short distance is an issue. Cuba does seem to have the ability to fight back and inflict pain, even if they can't likely win.

It's hard to measure "better" and 'worse" among dictatorships. But, the US has definitely pressured Saudi Arabia (who has responded by giving women more rights among other things), and China (who has responded with counter-sanctions). But right now, the primary axis of international politics is not the spread of democracy.

If you want to understand international politics right now, it's the US led world in favor of Pax Americana, against the Chinese led world that wants to create a multi-polar word (and eventually a communist world led by China if you read Xi Jinping thought).

Trump has been taking out the vassal states (or allies) of China one by one. For Venezuela, he just took their leader. China tried to give them defensive weapons, but the weapons didn't work. For Cuba, he's blockading them. For Iran, he's killing the leaders until they behave. For Russia, he tried being friends with Putin. It's a risky strategy.

So we are in the hot part of a world war right now, and the stakes are domination of the world, whether it will be Pax Americana or Pax China. it's like 1931 when Japan started expanding its empire out of Manchuria, in the sense that the fighting had started, but hadn't spread to the whole world yet. If China does actually take a move and militarily attack Taiwan or the South China sea, then we will be in full world war 3.

I don't think that can be avoided.

It's actually kind of hard to follow your friends on Facebook these days.

[Citation Needed] for this unlikely claim.

This part is definitely true. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

"A little history for ya, superior being"
my guess is you know "a little history" but not enough.
the Nazis were inspired by American attitudes on eugenics and antisemitism although that's not been in short supply anywhere Europeans have been for a long time.
America's greatest automotive industrialist purchased a newspaper specifically to publish screeds against "the International Jew".
All Ford dealershps were required to sell subscriptions to that newspaper, the Dearborn Independent.
"you stood up for the holocaust by saying Americans would have done the same"
pointing out hypocrisy is not excusing genocide but in recent years too many have had a puzzling difficulty with both concepts.

"many Japanese Citizens were interred in Camps"
those were AMERICAN citizens, ffs.
many proudly white Americans spied for the Japanese government. it's been stated that the leadership had been frustrated by the difficulty of getting any Americans of Japanese descent to act as spies.
"just submerged a bit below the surface, ready to be enacted again when you get the chance"
let's see you get all high & mighty about 1619 & the history of black Americans since.
are you aware that the US Army wasn't officially desegregated until 1948, a full 3 years after Germany's surrender?

 

i'd like to see video of the vehicles passing the same driving test on public roads that would be given to a person.
if they didn't it's not a license it's a permission slip

Just be careful; a few old IBM sites had toxic waste problems. It sounds like they were just turning off the lights and water and walking away from these.

One woild hope everything was remediated but I wouldn't bet my own safety on it.