Thank you for a useful "stocktake". You speak as an American, I take it. I'm not.
"Are we ... the "bad guys" in this emerging global narrative? ... I think this is the wrong question to ask." The world has done a closet clean-out over the past five or so years. What we found in there is another visit to things we thought we knew. Who killed JFK? Vietnam. The A-bomb. Indonesia and Suhato, United Fruit, Allende, Pinochet, neoliberalism (a word barely heard before the pandemic), greenwashing, Gaza ... You don't actually formulate what the question should be, so I'll do it for you: Is America only now waking up to the fact that its exceptionalism for 80 years truly is a charade that the rest of us have been okay about playing along with, as long as there was payback in the form of you watching our six o'clock?"
The answer to both questions is "Yes".
A nation voting for "America First" (unless the suspicions are right that they didn't, actually) but who don't really know who the NATO allies are, or couldn't even point to them on a map if they did, and who, for that matter, probably couldn't tell you much about the Monroe Doctrine, how Hawaii "achieved" statehood or where Washington is, unless you clarified with "State", will not be swift to tumble to that answer, however. It's not the "MAGA' crowd that never cease to astonish me - from them, you get what you expect; it is the unconsidered responses by their opponents that cause me to lose all and any hope.
I feel like I've settled with my popcorn and nacho chips into the comfort of my cinema seat, ready to relish a four-hour extravaganza of the silver screen, and I hate the film after 5 minutes. I wish Columbus had stayed at home.
But your article's really very good (watch the its/it's).
Marcus: you can’t compare yourself to yourself when speaking about improvement.
Example: a wife beater beats his wife every single day for a number of years. Then he stops beating her on the weekends, at the same time, he is hauled in front of a judge and pleads that there shouldn’t be any intervention because he is improving.
The US has always done bad things, improvement wasn't so much my argument as adherence to post WW2 norm has collapsed. The US says one thing and does another. And this it has degraded a great deal under Trump.
Nothing has degraded under President Trump however I fully agree that the United States, militarily and with covert operations, has more than let down our friends and that applies to all Presidents.
Thank you for a useful "stocktake". You speak as an American, I take it. I'm not.
"Are we ... the "bad guys" in this emerging global narrative? ... I think this is the wrong question to ask." The world has done a closet clean-out over the past five or so years. What we found in there is another visit to things we thought we knew. Who killed JFK? Vietnam. The A-bomb. Indonesia and Suhato, United Fruit, Allende, Pinochet, neoliberalism (a word barely heard before the pandemic), greenwashing, Gaza ... You don't actually formulate what the question should be, so I'll do it for you: Is America only now waking up to the fact that its exceptionalism for 80 years truly is a charade that the rest of us have been okay about playing along with, as long as there was payback in the form of you watching our six o'clock?"
The answer to both questions is "Yes".
A nation voting for "America First" (unless the suspicions are right that they didn't, actually) but who don't really know who the NATO allies are, or couldn't even point to them on a map if they did, and who, for that matter, probably couldn't tell you much about the Monroe Doctrine, how Hawaii "achieved" statehood or where Washington is, unless you clarified with "State", will not be swift to tumble to that answer, however. It's not the "MAGA' crowd that never cease to astonish me - from them, you get what you expect; it is the unconsidered responses by their opponents that cause me to lose all and any hope.
I feel like I've settled with my popcorn and nacho chips into the comfort of my cinema seat, ready to relish a four-hour extravaganza of the silver screen, and I hate the film after 5 minutes. I wish Columbus had stayed at home.
But your article's really very good (watch the its/it's).
Stinging, but fair points made. Outside perspective is never a bad thing.
The criticism is directed at US policy, not your writing. That's perhaps the nub: does the US conduct "policy" any more?
Marcus: you can’t compare yourself to yourself when speaking about improvement.
Example: a wife beater beats his wife every single day for a number of years. Then he stops beating her on the weekends, at the same time, he is hauled in front of a judge and pleads that there shouldn’t be any intervention because he is improving.
What would you do?
The US has always done bad things, improvement wasn't so much my argument as adherence to post WW2 norm has collapsed. The US says one thing and does another. And this it has degraded a great deal under Trump.
Nothing has degraded under President Trump however I fully agree that the United States, militarily and with covert operations, has more than let down our friends and that applies to all Presidents.
Powerful words! I hear ya!