Is Trump staging a retreat from US empire?

Trying to make sense of the whirlwind of activity that has characterized the last two weeks is not easy. Trying to find any sense or pattern in Trump’s actions that are not due to revenge or self-interest or sheer vindictiveness may be an exercise in futility. But Ryan Grim writes that a French writer Arnaud Bertrand has gained a following by arguing that what we are seeing is a retreat by the US from its global hegemonic ambitions to accepting its status as that of a regional power.

Here is how Bertrand puts it:

Hegemony was going to end sooner or later, and now the U.S. is basically choosing to end it on its own terms. It is the post-American world order – brought to you by America itself. Even the tariffs on allies, viewed under this angle, make sense, as it redefines the concept of ‘allies’: they don’t want—or maybe rather can’t afford—vassals anymore, but rather relationships that evolve based on current interests. You can either view it as decline – because it does unquestionably look like the end of the American empire – or as avoiding further decline: controlled withdrawal from imperial commitments in order to focus resources on core national interests rather than being forced into an even messier retreat at a later stage. In any case it is the end of an era.

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Trump wants all of us to have more lead and TCE in our bodies

As I wrote yesterday, one of the main goals of Trump and his cronies is to cut all the rules and regulations that prevent the wealthy and large corporations from making even more money, even if the moves result in actual harm to people. One of the most disturbing examples of this is the announcement today that they are planning to eliminate the rules that sought to reduce the amount of lead and other toxic elements in water supplies.

Republicans in Congress and the Trump administration are attempting to repeal the Biden administration’s groundbreaking rules that require all the country’s lead pipes to be replaced over the next 13 years and lower the limit on lead in water.

Environmentalists expressed alarm about the moves, which, if successful, would in effect prohibit the government from ever requiring lead line replacement in the future, or lowering lead limits.

The Trump administration is also working to kill a recently implemented ban on TCE, a compound that is among the most toxic and common water pollutants, and particularly a risk on military bases.

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We should not ignore the real Trump agenda

Trump has done many things that have generated a lot of headlines, staging raids on immigrants in a blaze of publicity whose purpose seems to be to cause humiliation and please his xenophobic followers. Then we have his widely publicized actions against any program that promotes diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), the pet target of right-wing ideologues who seek to bring back unquestioned acceptance of the dominance of white heterosexual males in all public life. Anything and everything that goes wrong is being blamed on DEI.

And we have his withdrawal of the US from the WHO and suspension of all aid programs that serve the needs of people in need. He probably would like to also withdraw from the UN (even though that body has often served to provide cover for US aggression around the world and shield it from the atrocities committed) but he may not want to risk them moving the headquarters from the US.

It is my belief that all these moves, extremely harmful as they are to so many people, are largely being used to generate a lot of controversy in order to cover the things that he really wants to do, though there is no question that Trump and his followers enjoy causing suffering to those whom he sees as not sufficiently loyal and subservient to him.
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Dubious diets

Yesterday in the late afternoon, I felt hungry but it was too early for my evening meal and if I eat too early I get hungry in the middle of the night. I decided to have a cup of coffee to keep me going until dinner time. Normally I have just one cup of coffee per day in the morning.

Coffee and cigarettes are known to be appetite suppressants which is why they are commonly used by actors and others who feel the need to be thin. Coffee is socially acceptable but cigarettes are now frowned upon so many of those people smoke in secret.

My having coffee to suppress my hunger reminded me of a fellow physicist that I used to know a long time ago. He told me that he only drank coffee and smoked cigarettes the whole day and ate just once a day, a meal in the evening. In those days, smoking was not banned in offices and public places as they are now in the US so he could always be seen with a cigarette and often with a coffee mug. He and I were both in our mid-thirties then and had the sense that is common among young people that our bodies could withstand anything. But even I, though not hyper-vigilant about healthy living, felt that his habits were not good for his health.

Our paths parted after a couple of years but I sometimes think of him and wonder what happened to him. Given that at that time he had a young child two years of age (the same age as my own daughter then), I wished that he would be a little more sensible about his diet in order that he would be more likely see his child grow up and possibly even see his grandchildren, as I now do. I hope he was able to beat the odds and do so. But I did not feel at the time that it was my place to advise a colleague about how to live and eat.

Blog comments policy

At the beginning of every month, I will repost my comments policy for those who started visiting this site the previous month.

As long time readers know, I used to moderate the comments with a very light hand, assuming that mature adults would know how to behave in a public space. It took outright hate speech targeting marginalized groups to cause me to ban people, and that happened very rarely. But I got increasingly irritated by the tedious and hostile exchanges among a few commenters that tended to fill up the comment thread with repeated posts about petty or off-topic issues. An email sent to me privately by a long-time lurker brought home to me how people might be hesitant to join in the conversation here, even if they have something to say, out of fear that something that they write, however well-intentioned, will be seized upon and responded to in a hostile manner by some of the most egregious offenders.

So here is a rule: No one will be able to make more than three comments in response to any blog post. Violation of that rule will result in banning.

But I also want to address a couple of deeper concerns for which a solution cannot be quantified but will require me to exercise my judgment.

It is well known that the comments sections on the internet can be a cesspool. I had hoped that the people who come to this site would be different, leading to more mature exchanges. But I was clearly too sanguine. We sometimes had absurdly repetitive exchanges seemingly based on the childish belief that having the last word means that you have won the argument or with increasingly angry posts sprinkled with puerile justifications like “They started it!”

The other issue is the hostility that is often expressed, often triggered by the most trivial of things. People should remember that this is a blog, not a journal or magazine. There are no copy editors, proof readers, and fact checkers. In such a casual atmosphere, people (and that includes me) will often inadvertently be less than precise or accurate in what they say. If the error is trivial but the meaning is clear, the error should be ignored. If the meaning is not clear, clarification can be politely asked for. If it is a genuine error, a correction can be politely made. If I think people are being rude or condescending or insulting (and I do not mean just abusive language but also the tone), I will ban the person.

For me, and I suspect for the other bloggers on this network, the rewards of blogging lie in creating space for a community of people to exchange ideas and views on a variety of topics. But that is pleasurable only if people post comments that are polite and respectful towards others, even while disagreeing. Some time ago, I wrote a post that a good philosophy of life is “Don’t be a jerk”. That would be a good rule to keep in mind when posting comments as well. There is absolutely no call for anyone to be rude or sneering or condescending towards others.

Almost all the commenters on this blog contribute positively and it is a pleasure to read their contributions and interact with them. It is a very few who think that a sneering, condescending, or abrasively argumentative tone is appropriate. My patience has been worn thin by some of their comments in the past. If I think, for any reason whatsoever, that someone is behaving like a jerk, I will ban them. I am in no mood to argue about this. I will not make any public announcement about who is banned. They will simply find that they can no longer post comments.

So I would suggest that in future commenters think carefully before they post anything, taking into account what they say and how often they say something. They should try to put themselves in the shoes of the person they are arguing with and think about how they might feel if their comment had been directed at them. They should also think about how their comments might look to others. It surprises me that people do not realize how badly this kind of behavior reflects on themselves.

Readers may have noticed that there are no ads on any of the blogs on this network. Nobody is making any money at all. In fact, it is a money sink and PZ Myers pays for the costs of the servers out of his Patreon account that you can contribute to if you would like to support the network. The bloggers here blog because they want to create spaces for conversations on issues that they care about. ‘Clicks’ have no monetary value. That means that I do not care how many people come to the site.

I realize that these guidelines are somewhat vague. So a good rule of thumb would be: If in doubt as to whether to post something because it might violate these boundaries, that is a good sign to not post it. I will be the sole judge of whether the boundary has been crossed.

I want to make it perfectly clear that I have zero tolerance for people who try to find ways to skirt the guidelines such as, for example, skirting the three comment limit by continuing it on another thread. I also reserve the right to make exceptions to the rules at any time, if I feel it is warranted. These decisions will be solely mine and will be final. There will be no discussion, debate, or appeal. If anyone objects because they think that I am being arbitrary, they are of course free to leave and never return.