By now, we should all be making the default assumption that any claims made by Trump and anyone in his administration are lies unless backed up by evidence showing that it could be true.
Ali Velshi breaks down the false claims made by Elon Musk and his DOGE that they saved the country a huge amount of money. Not only did they not do that, they caused a vast amount of damage.
Mano and I seem to enjoy the same Youtube algorithm 😃.
But the scope of the damage is deeply depressing. Maybe this kind of stupidity is why life dies out before creating supercivilizations. The irony, the Space X owner is part of “the great filter”!
# 2. The classy president who let Musk et al trash the US government just gave workers at a factory ‘the finger’.
I just thought we should acknowledge that.
But the GOP is the party of moral values, so I am sure they will chastise him…
(crickets)
It’s the pattern of all dying empires. Increasing military aggression abroad, while Musk and fellow American oligarchs are looting the treasury on the way out the door.
@ 2: not only did Trump give the auto worker the finger, but also yelled the F-word at him. Klassy, no? I wonder if his equally-klassy wife (“F Christmas!”) taught him that.
@ ^
Clearly locker room banter.
Y’know. How we will all occasionally boast of committing sexual assault from a position of power.
I mean that’s normal right?
(/snark)
No, it isn’t. The death of the British Empire took the form of successive withdrawals, some in the face of anti-imperialist resistance, some in anticipation of it, some to save money. The death of the Portuguese Empire occurred when the military got fed up of fighting unending wars to defend Portugal’s African colonies. The death of the Spanish Empire took place in two main phases, both occasioned by military defeat at the hands of a stronger power (first phase: France, second phase: USA). The death of the Dutch Empire was a three-phase affair: the first phase saw it caught between two stronger powers (France and Britain), the second saw it defeated by an alliance of two stronger powers (Nazi Germany and Japan). The defeat of these powers by even stronger ones briefly revived it, but it was then entirely extinguished (less a handful of Caribbean islands) by anti-imperialist resistance. The death of the Moghul empire occurred by a process of gradual disintegration, crowned by a takeover by a stronger imperial power (Britain). The death of the Mongol Empire occurred first by internal fragmentation, with each fragment then being defeated by a stronger power. The death of the Arab empire created by Muhammed’s successors occurred by internal fragmentation. The death of the Roman Empire occurred over a period of over a thousand years, with repeated phases of contraction followed by partial revivals. The death of the Macedonian Empire occurred first by fragmentation following the death of its founder, Alexander “the Great”, then by centuries of war between the fragments, finally by absorption into the Roman and Parthian empires. The death of the Achemenid Persian Empire occurred at the hands of that same Alexander. Successive Chinese Empires mostly succumbed to some combination of internal revolt and attack from the Steppes. I don’t think Musk and fellow American oligarchs were involved in any of these cases. If you just mean there was oligarchic corruption involved in the deaths of empires, sure, but also in growing empires and empires at their height; and at or near the death or phases of sharp decline, the empire’s oligarchs often lost out to new, foreign oligarchs -- hence why no-one today can trace their ancestry to the oligarchs of the westen Roman Empire.
Possibly you’re thinking of Paul Kennedy’s The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers. Kennedy notes a pattern by which a hegemonic power devotes increasing resources to the military, and others overtake it economically and technologically -- but that’s largely a matter of having to devote more and more to defending what it holds, rather than continued aggression. Empires also tend to prompt their neighbours and rivals to change themselves in order better to deal with the empire, see for example Peter Heather’s The Fall of the Roman Empire. Heather cites the main factor underlying the fall of the Western half of the Empire as the technological and social transformations that took place among its German neighbours in the first four centuries CE as a result of the Empires’ own strategies in dealing with them (which, after Augustus’ abortive 1st century attempt to conquer Germany, combined punitive expeditions, subsidies, and recruitment of mercenaries in varying proportions).
Moral: if you want to make grand historical generalisations, it’s helpful to know some history first.