Americans and Trump
I hear that American shipmates don't post enough about Trump. It must be time for us to perform grief and drama again, to tear our clothes and repent that we have Trump as our leader. How inconsiderate for a nation to fall apart without producing sufficiently exciting first-hand reports.
I know it is hard to know what real people in the U.S. think. Heck, I wonder whether anyone in the United States has an internet connection. It is possible that there are at least a few people from the US who still have internet access. If those bloody Americans won't post properly, while you curse their names, the best alternative to their revealing their souls nationally may be if you use a search engine and google.
You may well be disgusted about how Trump is affecting the rest of the world or how he will affect your country. Pray consider that maybe we are too. Some of my friends are fleeing for their lives right now because this government is a huge and ever present threat to all trans people. Others of my friends are making wills because they don't expect to live a year once their government medical support is cut. But we aren't posting enough for you about our pain? My deepest pardons. I will try to post more performatively for you, kind fellows.
I know it is hard to know what real people in the U.S. think. Heck, I wonder whether anyone in the United States has an internet connection. It is possible that there are at least a few people from the US who still have internet access. If those bloody Americans won't post properly, while you curse their names, the best alternative to their revealing their souls nationally may be if you use a search engine and google.
You may well be disgusted about how Trump is affecting the rest of the world or how he will affect your country. Pray consider that maybe we are too. Some of my friends are fleeing for their lives right now because this government is a huge and ever present threat to all trans people. Others of my friends are making wills because they don't expect to live a year once their government medical support is cut. But we aren't posting enough for you about our pain? My deepest pardons. I will try to post more performatively for you, kind fellows.
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Comments
Yup!
The American side of me says thank you, @Gwai you're spot on. I'm weary and frightened for us all.
The British side of me says I'm sorry. The tone and content of our communication on matters in the US is often not good.
Just sayin'.
I'm a Canadian who lived fifteen years through Clinton and Bush II in America. I don't have a dog in this fight, but I have watched that wonderful country slide into deterioration, division, acrimony and chaos since the two towers.
I pray for America and my husband's family who adopted America as their homeland and who are directly impacted by the current policies.
AFF
Actually the popular vote was won by a plurality.
OK then. But my comment still stands.
I might add that I consider America's true enemy to be the Patriot Act, which suspended many Constitutional guarantees such as the right of Habeas Corpus, and under the color of law has enabled every administration to perpetuate disastrous foreign and domestic policies and wage unconstitutional wars.
AFF
Props for the OP! The irony and understatement are almost English.
Given this is Hell, I hope I can be excused for making a serious point. The outpouring of disgust from non US citizens recognises the economic and political reality that if the US sneezes, the rest of the world catches cold. As things emerge, and if I continue the analogy, Trump is sneezing without a handkerchief and seems quite indifferent to the rest of us catching economic and political colds; pneumonia even. So we sound off about that, not from the position of self righteous observers but rather involuntary participants.
I’ve never seen our “outbursts” as anti-American. Mine certainly aren’t . Nor do I expect consensus outbursts from US citizens. If the boot were on the other foot about an extremist UK or European leader, I wouldn’t see that as an attack on my nationality. There is a difference of course. If the UK or Europe sneezes, the US is much less likely to catch a cold.
Thank you And for the record, most posts from most shipmates do not strike me as at all anti-American. Obviously there are posts that inspired my OP. I sometimes don't read the threads about such matters for my own mental health. As in, "sorry I care about how that is affecting you but I will focus on people who are in more danger." But I figure most of you would appreciate that behavior from American shipmates and would hope that we are helping out as we can.
There indeed lies the rub. At least our government here in the UK is trying to be pro-active, as are other European governments - but our influence on what goes on within the US is not likely to be massive...
Both points taken. It’s an old analogy and probably breaks down on the issue of severity. And I appreciate you, the Riv and many many US citizens are also involuntary participants in this so called “restoration of a golden age”.
It remains to be seen whether the UK government can ameliorate the impact on the UK of Trump’s “mega-sneezing” (if I may modify the analogy). There is a real concern, also, that populist, anti-woke, neo- nationalism is catching. Or a really nasty Zeitgeist.
Firstly, I agree with the American posters here. That might sound strange coming from someone who has had his ass whipped in the past for starting Pond Wars aboard Ship. But I mean it.
The issue isn't our concern about what Trump is doing or could do to the rest of us, American Shipmates are fully aware of that - the issue is the patronising tone of some of the posts from UK Shipmates.
Now for the Hellish comment. Much as I admire your posts on most issues @Barnabas62, you are acting like a prize prat here.
You've commended @Gwai for the 'almost English' irony of the OP as if the English (what about the rest of the British?) have cornered the market on irony.
You'll be asking the government to impose tariffs on the use of irony anywhere else in the world next.
If that's not patronising, I don't know what is.
'How impressive! An American who can understand irony and can even post ironically ...'
If I were an American I'd be mightily insulted by that.
I'm not an American but I am embarrassed on their behalf by some of the posts I've seen on the threads about Trump or US politics more generally.
@Enoch's in particular.
@Hugal isn't far behind with his crass comment about how we have to put up with US tourists who expect the UK to be like the US. As if all the British tourists who visit Miami are thoroughly conversant with the finer points of the US Constitution or know their Arkansas from their elbow.
Ok. I'm in danger of sounding prissy and an intolerable repentant prig, but the last thing our US Shipmates need at the moment is for us to post ignorantly about their political system or treat them as if they are 5 years old.
Shame on you @Enoch, @Hugal and @Barnabas62. You can do better than this!
To be clear what's happening here is application of a 'shock doctrine'. It's analogous to what was done to Russia in the 90s, minus for the most part the privatisation. There's a huge effort that's destroying the administrative state, coupled with outright looting via 'outsourcing'.,
The real issue is parties of the ostensible centre-left trying to triangulate on this issue:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/feb/21/scottish-labour-would-set-up-musk-style-doge-department-says-sarwar
It was a joke!
Possibly misplaced and prattish, I accept. An error of judgment.
From an ex-co-host to a much respected colleague, my apologies, Gwai.
I obviously missed the irony of the remark. Ironically... 😉
The other thing I don't hear any other British shipmates mentioning is the closeness between the current destruction of government services in the US and the effects of 15 years of austerity. It hasn't taken a sledgehammer or a hurricane here - just the slower erosive effect of cutting funding beyond the bone year after year after year, for more than a decade, supported by complacency and venality, in some combination. Our public services have died with a whimper, and it would be nice to know yours aren't in danger of doing the same thing.
@Gamma Gamaliel - stop trying to speak for Americans. We can speak for ourselves.
@ThunderBunk - you don't have to get your real information from American shipmates. As I said in Purgatory, there are plenty of people in the US publishing their opinions about what's going on. No need to pester us.
I had a look at taxation by country as a percentage of GDP. Here’s the table I found.
USA taxation levels in 2021 looked to be significantly lower than any of the European democracies. But I’m not sure to what extent the figures represent both State and Federal costs.
I agree with you that in the UK at least we don’t pay enough for our public services. Taxation is not popular and the general political message has been to improve efficiencies. Also, like you, I think the presentation of information has been affected by oligarchies.
(Probably a different thread?)
Right. I was bracketing that under outsourcing and thinking of privatisation in terms of large scale asset transfer to private industry for pennies on the dollar in the way in which the voucher-privatisations worked. I suppose the mooted sale of the national parks might count should they go ahead.
I could actually see an attempt to destroy the social security system altogether. It’s not the kind of high margin business that would excite tech entrepreneurs and the likes of Yarvin, Thiel etc have talked about large parts of the US as potential sacrifice zones.
I wouldn't presume to 'speak for' you. I have plenty of faults but I'm not that presumptious.
Of course you are fully capable of speaking for yourselves. I'm listening. Trump's doing enough of the isolationist thing without you joining in.
I think the figure includes both state and federal taxes. According to the Treasury Department federal revenue (taxes coming in) runs about US$1.6 trillion, while your table lists total taxes as about US$3.1 trillion.
When you're thinking about taxation, it is necessary also to think about what services are provided for that taxation. For example, in the US, as a matter of practicality, I have to have health insurance for my family. That costs both me and my employer a significant amount of money. From my point of view, that's effectively a tax, even though it goes to a private insurer.
In the UK, I wouldn't buy health insurance.
Not crass. Showing understanding. May be it didn’t come across that way. I chose the wrong comparison but it wasn’t meant that way. Hope that cleared that up. I have been known to get confused and therefore come across differently to how I intended
I don’t make critical comments about all US voters, only the arseholes who voted for Trump in the same way that I criticise the arseholes in my own country who voted for Brexit
I do agree, to the extent that "it couldn't happen here" is clearly nonsense - it has, in a different flavour. This should increase the empathy, but not entirely remove the critical faculties.
--chrisstiles, Hell Host