r/politics • u/PoliticsModeratorBot 🤖 Bot • 1d ago

Discussion Discussion Thread: US Senate Debates and Considers the Republican Budget Resolution on April 4th, 2025

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u/mmlauren35 1d ago

How permanent and detrimental is everything he’s doing? Say we have a democratic president in 4 years. When can I expect to feel normal again? 😖

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u/GaimeGuy Minnesota 1d ago edited 1d ago

it's going to take a protracted 30-50 year run of democratic control and stable leadership on the national and international stage - think new deal coalition - to fix america's image.

As for our standing in terms of power? It's gone, permanently. We aren't going to see a world where the United States has the soft power it used to have. After Bush, the world forgave us for sending their people to die based on lies about afghanistan and iraq. After Trump 1, the world held its breath and prayed it was a fluke, a moment of stupidity. After Trump 2, the world is angry with us and with themselves for being stupid enough to trust us, and to give us preferential treatment.

For instance, Canada sold oil to the US at a discount. That's going to be gone. Some produce from Mexico was sold to the US at a discount because of the size of the US market. That's probably going to be gone, too. We spent that goodwill.

You'll see US bases all over the world shut down, so the US will have fewer ports to distribute supplies for military and even humanitarian purposes from. This will limit the reach of our influence, geographically speaking, and we'll have diminished presence and visibility.

China will increase its diplomatic ties with Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, and Australia. US will lose preferential treatment for international consumer tech (You know how a lot of the times, the US would get t tech and video games before Europe? That was because of trade deals).

And so on.

You might see nuclear proliferation spread to dozens of countries. Iran, Iraq, Brazil, Argentina, Italy, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Ukraine, and some other nations, have had nuclear weapons or nuclear weapons programs/plans previouusly, but were largely discouraged from armanent through american soft power on the international stage.

Canada is having very real talks to build nuclear weapons, and i'm sure, behind the scenes, they're talking about holding france and UK nukes in the mean time, to deter against the American threat.

The damage being done is ginormous and will have profound ramifications for decades to come

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u/bh97213 1d ago

While I agree with many of your points above, I doubt the US will shut down bases since there is a lot of corporate profits to be had in keeping those bases, as well as keeping the war machine going.

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u/GaimeGuy Minnesota 1d ago

It doesn't matter what we want. what matters is if other countries will tolerate having a foreign military that could turn hostile because the president changes every 4 years with a foothold in their territory. They have the right to kick us out if they want. And they should. And they will.

“We cannot leave the security of Europe in the hands of voters in Wisconsin every 4 years,” - Emmanuel Macron.

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u/belisario262 1d ago

fully agreed. the US will be treated more and more like a foreign menace. and yeah, they will be kicked out of many places. we're so used to think about the US as this privileged country that can do anything they want, that is hard to see it as a "regular" country with normal boundaries and limitations.