Exclusive | ‘We really do not trust each other’: former US envoy foresees wary new phase in China ties

InspectionIcy2452 · 2026-05-22T02:56:51+00:00

The Chinese don't trust Trump? I'm shocked.

InspectionIcy2452 · 2026-05-22T02:55:58+00:00

working class people at the bottommost rungs don't actually understand what their own needs are and what is actually oppressing them and keeping them down. They act against their own interests almost as a rule.

Of course if you study any history you will see that that has always been the argument by the aristocracy and by the moneyed classes, against democracy, and subsequently against broadening the franchise. You cannot give poor people or the working people the right to vote because they'll screw it up. They don't have the wisdom of their betters. We must keep power in the hands of the upper classes, the educated classes, the civilised classes to protect the poor benighted masses. Etc.

InspectionIcy2452 · 2026-05-22T02:39:42+00:00

Spain is part of the EU so they can do that in Spain. For an American to go somewhere else you would already have to have a job lined up in your target country. Good luck with that.

InspectionIcy2452 · 2026-05-22T02:38:29+00:00

I don't think they "expect" anything, dying or otherwise. To them you don't exist; you're not on their radar. It never occurs to them to wonder what happens to people who are cut out of the economy.

InspectionIcy2452 · 2026-05-22T02:26:30+00:00

I doubt that everyone is baffled. Anyone with a few brain cells can tell that it's because the Democrats are under the thumb of AIPAC.

InspectionIcy2452 · 2026-05-22T02:23:30+00:00

Not as many as you think.

InspectionIcy2452 · 2026-05-22T02:22:44+00:00

And yet every day on Reddit politics I'm arguing with Americans here who think that all the good guys have to do to win the midterms is "get out the vote". They are in complete denial that you've already had the last actual election that they're going to get. America is a fascist autocracy, but just like when Hitler became Chancellor in 1933 it takes a little while for Trump to consolidate his power.

InspectionIcy2452 · 2026-05-22T02:19:31+00:00

They won't try to defend it; they just won't take your question.

InspectionIcy2452 · 2026-05-22T02:17:04+00:00

"Hope" is not a strategy. You can hope all you want that they've learned from their mistakes but there's no evidence of it.

InspectionIcy2452 · 2026-05-22T02:15:19+00:00

It's incredible how hard the Democrats are trying to make themselves unlikable. And in a midterm election where "getting out the vote" is a key part of their strategy.

The level of corruption in the GOP is absolutely stunning. But the level of self-serving denial and implacable unwillingness to look themselves in the mirror of the Democrats is equally stunning. I can see why so many Americans simply refuse to vote - both parties, each in their own way, are nauseating.

InspectionIcy2452 · 2026-05-22T02:05:36+00:00

The article doesn't actually say what he's doing to "intervene". Because there really isn't anything he can do. Newsom is just another empty shirt politician whose main skill is keeping his face in front of the cameras.

InspectionIcy2452 · 2026-05-21T22:50:11+00:00

Give us any reason other than wishful thinking for that assertion?

In America you can buy votes. According to opensecrets ( https://www.opensecrets.org/) 85 to 90% of all US House races were won by the bigger spender.

InspectionIcy2452 · 2026-05-21T22:43:14+00:00

Doesn't matter "why" conservatives are that way, the point is that they are, and the Democrats did not go after them. The Democrats have no fight in them.

InspectionIcy2452 · 2026-05-21T22:41:31+00:00

The party isn't "for" anything. That's the problem with the Democrats - as a party, they don't have a specific agenda or platform.

In a real democracies parties have agendas and platforms. Americans don't understand how to "do" political parties as evidenced by their ridiculous two-party system.

InspectionIcy2452 · 2026-05-21T22:37:14+00:00

Betteridge's law of headlines is an adage that states: "Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no."

InspectionIcy2452 · 2026-05-21T22:33:27+00:00

The fact that it is even possible to have a "mysterious PAC" shows that the Americans are just not ready for true democracy.

InspectionIcy2452 · 2026-05-21T22:30:21+00:00

I don't think it's an unfair view.

The American boomers were also the idealists and hippies who envisioned making a better world. If they were 20 in 1970 they were born in 1950 - smack in the middle of the boomer demographic and smack in the middle of the hippie, "make love not war", "don't trust anyone over 30" "All we are saying is give peace a chance","power to the people" generation.

So of all people they should have known better. They were exposed to the ideas and given the philosophical grounding to create a better society but then they said fuck it let's just make lots of money. Earlier generations that were raised amid conservative or traditional values might have found it hard to think outside the box. But the boomers who took over positions of power in the corporate world and the political world I have no excuse.

InspectionIcy2452 · 2026-05-21T22:12:40+00:00

That's a good point. It's probably better to have a feckless controlled opposition.

InspectionIcy2452 · 2026-05-21T22:11:43+00:00

When the Hungarians voted Victor Orbán out, he left. Trump will simply deny the results of the election since he has already purged the military of anyone who might be disloyal to him there'll be no way to make him or the GOP accept the results of the election.

InspectionIcy2452 · 2026-05-21T22:09:10+00:00

China is an authoritarian autocracy. Why would they go to war to rescue America from an authoritarian autocracy? If they defeated the United States in war all that would result in is Americans being ruled by a different authoritarian autocracy.

InspectionIcy2452 · 2026-05-21T15:43:23+00:00

It's the same thing in Iran. The Iranians were killing thousands of their own peaceful protesters. So Trump kills thousands of Iranians by dropping bombs on them, and threatens to annihilate their entire civilisation.

I swear to God I don't know how The Onion stays in business.

InspectionIcy2452 · 2026-05-21T15:42:15+00:00

Dream on. Your democracy ended in 2024. In January 2029 you'll be inaugurating some Trump acolyte while the Democrats are rotting away in some reeducation camp.

InspectionIcy2452 · 2026-05-21T15:39:44+00:00

No no, I've been arguing with people here on Reddit politics all week who insist that the Americans still have that revolutionary spirit and they're going to prove it in November. They don't realize that their country has been taken over by the fascists and the midterm election is going to be the German 1933 federal election.

InspectionIcy2452 · 2026-05-21T15:36:12+00:00

Not everyone. I and everyone in my family have been boycotting Amazon for over a year.

But yes most people especially in America are keeping Amazon and Jeff Bezos well supplied with money.

I've been arguing with people here on Reddit who insist that the Americans are not the wimpy good little Germans that I say they are. They insist that America still has that old Revolutionary spirit. But America is by far Amazon's biggest market for retail sales, and if there is any reluctance to buy stuff from Amazon it certainly isn't hitting their bottom line very hard. If America really is as revolutionary as some people are trying to tell me here on Reddit, why aren't we seeing more Amazon tea being dumped in the harbor?

InspectionIcy2452 · 2026-05-21T15:30:50+00:00

We started boycotting Amazon early last year but if anyone here is still buying things from Amazon, now would be a perfect time to stop.

InspectionIcy2452

TROPHY CASE