The current US administration is bound by the constitution. The president does not have unlimited power at all, however it might feel like it to the democrats.
You're funny. The current US Supreme Court, for example, has ruled that the President is immune to criminal prosecution for anything that is an official action - that's undefined but presumably implies that official actions do include things that he might otherwise be liable to criminal prosecution for.
Border control is a republican priority. Trump was popularly elected. That is democracy, whether you like it or not.
Shooting citizens was not part of his manifesto. Also, arresting people who've already been given leave to remain in the country is not border control.
Et cetera.
Just because Trump.was democratically elected doesn't make his government democratic. Trump has already attempted to overturn the results of one election.
China is most definitely not a capitalist economy as we hoped it would be when we let them into the WTO. Heavy subsidies and control by the government. No free market there.
The technical term for the Chinese arrangement is state capitalism. That is, industry is controlled by the people who have capital who happen to be part of a highly corrupt state apparatus.
(Free market and capitalism are not synonymous. A monopoly imposed by a capitalist firm or cartel is just as much a monopoly as one imposed by the state. For that matter, a market is still free even if the state is subsidising industries that would otherwise fail to provide universal or niche service.)
The immunity to criminal prosecution is but a tiny part of the significant checks and balances of the democratic system including impeachment, control of funding through congress ( and declarations of war) senate approvals, the judicial system, etc etc.
Oh and you can vote a president out after 4 years if all of the above doesn't work. In China? No longer the case and it's not an election from the people, it's from the communist party.
If the USA, as a whole, wanted Trump out or significantly stymied, they could do it.
In any case, on present showing, if China moved against the Philippines or Indonesia or Australia, I believe Trump would bluster a lot and then back down as soon as China stood up to him.
Not according to their recent National Security Strategies released publicly.
And you believe the Trump government will stick by anything it has announced publicly? Oh you sweet delicate flower.
SIGNIFICANT economic interests, particularly in the high end semi conductor game (which controls so much of our new technology) makes it a near certainty.
It's all about the economy, stupid ( so someone famous once said).
The EU and US have started producing their own, but I imagine we are nowhere near the capacity we need as we only started recently, because of the threat.
The technical term for the Chinese arrangement is state capitalism. That is, industry is controlled by the people who have capital who happen to be part of a highly corrupt state apparatus.
Wasn't that fascism under Hitler? Fascism under Hitler created a state‑directed, militarized, and coercive economy that preserved private ownership in name but subordinated all economic life to the goals of rearmament, autarky, and war. It was neither free‑market capitalism nor full socialism, but a command economy run through party control, state planning, and terror.
Doesn't seem much different.
The far left (communism) and the far right (facism) are the same. It's all about control.
Which is why we have to stand up to the threat of China and Russia and their economic cohorts in BRICS to protect western liberal democracy before it's too late.
Please don't misunderstand me - I appreciate that you in Oz, and those like @Huia in New Zealand, have very real concerns regarding China.
We Europeans have our own preoccupations at the moment, courtesy of Trump and Putin, but that doesn't mean we're not mindful of what's going on elsewhere in this (probably) doomed world of ours...
I understand. I know it's very stressful and unsettling.
But what I think the western liberal democratic nations are missing is the bigger threat of authoritarianism in Russia, China and their BRICS+
At the very least, Trump's foreign policy on pushing back on this threat in geo politics and trying to start manufacturing their own goods again so they are not dependent on these other nations that do not share their democratic values is a good thing.
Australia has also recently started a campaign to start manufacturing in Australia again. And we're thinking of putting tariffs on Chinese imports of steel to protect our own crumbling industry.
Comments
The immunity to criminal prosecution is but a tiny part of the significant checks and balances of the democratic system including impeachment, control of funding through congress ( and declarations of war) senate approvals, the judicial system, etc etc.
Oh and you can vote a president out after 4 years if all of the above doesn't work. In China? No longer the case and it's not an election from the people, it's from the communist party.
If the USA, as a whole, wanted Trump out or significantly stymied, they could do it.
SIGNIFICANT economic interests, particularly in the high end semi conductor game (which controls so much of our new technology) makes it a near certainty.
It's all about the economy, stupid ( so someone famous once said).
The EU and US have started producing their own, but I imagine we are nowhere near the capacity we need as we only started recently, because of the threat.
The far left (communism) and the far right (facism) are the same. It's all about control.
Which is why we have to stand up to the threat of China and Russia and their economic cohorts in BRICS to protect western liberal democracy before it's too late.
I understand. I know it's very stressful and unsettling.
But what I think the western liberal democratic nations are missing is the bigger threat of authoritarianism in Russia, China and their BRICS+
At the very least, Trump's foreign policy on pushing back on this threat in geo politics and trying to start manufacturing their own goods again so they are not dependent on these other nations that do not share their democratic values is a good thing.
Australia has also recently started a campaign to start manufacturing in Australia again. And we're thinking of putting tariffs on Chinese imports of steel to protect our own crumbling industry.
And we're a very left wing government.