I disagree with the author that this a "brand-new" stereotype. America has always been described as aggressive, militaristic and heavy handed in international affairs, in my anecdotal experience as a European.
Yes, such a personality had its place when it was also well educated and knowledgeable about the world. These days, America is aggressive, militaristic, heavy handed in international affairs as well as being completely brainwashed by social media, online propaganda, and terrible education to a lesser extent.
In these days of turmoil, trying to figure out what is going on and what could cause this, it is appalling to me that no one since to blame the elephant in the room: social media, the social internet and making it the core of our society was in hindsight the stupidest thing humanity has ever made. Don't go blaming the Russian bots or Chinese posters. The whole thing is making us more stupid, more entrenched, more vulnerable to massive manipulation of public opinion. And we go cry whenever they take away our algorithms (see the popularity of BlueSky vs Mastodon for example). Call me dramatic, but social media and Web 2.0 indirectly will cause the end of civilisation much faster and more effectively than mass media of old ever dreamed of. And we are still all here happily engaging with it.
I'm sorry because this is going to be rude, but we're talking stereotypes anyway. I cannot remember a time, ever, when America was considered "well educated". And the "knowledgeable about the world" bit is just ridiculous, that quote about war being God's way of teaching Americans geography dates back to the 19th century.
I am not American. I'm just, like many, influenced by your propaganda.
It is very possible that Americans in the 70s where as dumb as they are today, no way for me to confirm it, apart from the fact that a lot of nonsense that's happening today was not happening then, so that has to count for something.
If it helps, the idiocy is not a purely American phenomenon but widespread and now affecting the younger generations. As someone with a Gen-Z sibling, the illiteracy of that generation, grown on Youtube and Tiktok, is utterly mind-boggling. A large contingent of them voted for conservatives and fascists just "for the memes." Back in my day, young people tended to be idealistic and progressive. Fighting for something. Hoping to be better and more open-minded than their parents. I squarely blame this shift on the social like-and-subscribe upvote-driven Internet.
I agree that social media is one of the big issues, but I think the early versions of it - when you were just talking to your friends - were fine.
The problem started with the "engagement algorithms". Surprisingly, radical and controversial content is more engaging, so people who spend a lot of time on social media tend to be enraged all the time (at their perceived enemy).
Yeah, but there was always hope that they'll restrain themselves about one thing or another to keep up the appearances of a good guy. USA being unabashedly bad is new.
In my experience, that was destroyed under Bush Jr as Reagan-time shenanigans like buildup to Able Archer 83 just weren't widely known. The 1990s still had veneers of legitimate use of force, but the GWOT and especially Iraq quickly eroded that perception in public in my experience.
The new thing to me is the turn from "smiling psycho that will knife you in the back" into a form of unabashed revelry in dumb brute posturing
Surely, most people (regardless of nationality) realize that the "alt reality" is simply an narrative offered to cynically accomplish an objective. You can't instruct your proxies to avoid asking the question "did Russia invade Ukraine" without understanding Russia invaded Ukraine.
Why is it that articles like this one, describing what all non-Americans think (and proposing that they all think alike), seem to always be written by Americans?
In this case, the author is a well-known bad-faith actor who twists and contorts reality in order to sell her political agenda.
Just any anything from this publication nowadays fits that mold. See David's Frum involvement. That's one of the people who sold the Iraq WMD fraud in the Bush administration.
The whole issue is that the President of the Ukraine choose to argue in an event that was just ceremonial to an agreement that he agreed to. It was NOT supposed to be a discussion or negotiations. The POTUS and vice president were pissed because the Ukraine president tired to put them in a difficult situation when the media was involved, particularly when he has came in the guise of already having agreed to sign the agreement.
That is literally what the vice president said he said the Ukraine president was being "deeply disrespectful", and know what, I agree.
> Speaking of being childish, that whole exchange reminded of being bullied in grade school. Zelenskiy handled it much better than I would have.
Oh ya, for sure. Where and when I grew up (in the North-Western USA a good forty years back) the natural reaction to a bully gettin' all up in your face was to haul off and knock 'em the hell out, regardless of how important or untouchable they thought they were... Pretty sure I'd be lounging in a federal prison or Guantanamo right now if I'd have been Zelenskyy in that room that day. He's got far more self-control than I would have had.
In my viewing of it, Zelensky was very respectful in the face of extreme, and unwarranted, condescension. The biggest disagreement was started by Zelensky politely correcting Trump on a fact. Trump and Vance escalated from there.
>POTUS and vice president were pissed
I don't care if they were pissed, they need to act like fucking statesmen!
I'm allowed to be a little uncivil here because I'm not the fucking POTUS. Let's hold our nation's best and brightest to a high standard. They're supposed to be figures that we aspire to emulate.
>The biggest disagreement was started by Zelensky politely correcting Trump on a fact.
Which fact was this? That diplomacy will not work? Then why did he choose to come to sign the deal? Don't you think it to be dishonest and disrespectable to have an agreement, and when the other party believes it and provides them an audience, do a U turn and start arguing about stuff in public? I am not saying that they shouldn't argue. But that should have been before making the agreement and coming to the Oval office.
>I don't care if they were pissed, they need to act like fucking statesmen!
Ha! I think a statesman is supposed to have some amount of maturity and wisdom. And if a person have those things in an average quantity, they will know NOT to utter things that wouldn't advance their cause. And they will know what those things are. What this president have shown here is the utter lack of both, because those words spoken out of emotion, not only did not advance their cause, but have put them in a much worse position.
That Russia does not keep agreements and did not kept agreements in the past. Likencomon, this is not opinion difference, but fact. Likewise you spread lies about how war started and how, President have to respond.
Correcting and responding in public is normal in politics, business ... except in Russia, North Korea and China communist party.
And these were NOT relitigations, he came to sign. Just a facts about world
> And if a person have those things in an average quantity, they will know NOT to utter things that wouldn't advance their cause.
After that exchange Zelensky got full, energetic and unified support of the whole Europe and full support of his own people across political spectrum. And he sacrificed nothing because trump was openly signalling for a month that support of USA is already lost. The only cause that was not advanced was USA's.
USA mostly lost defense market in Western countries. What's a Patriot battery good for if US is going to suddenly and surprisingly align with your enemy and stop selling you the rockets for it?
Trump's temper tantrum intentionally triggered by Vance coached by backseat billionaires who put him where he is gave Zelensky everything he could realistically hope for from this meeting.
I hope defending his ego was worth it. It feels a bit like defending your ego against a bully with a 3 year old in tow. Even if you are right, there's no need to expose your dependents to the rage of a psychopath you need something from. This spat is going to cost Ukraine -- it already has.
Also not an American, and naturally more appealed by an Obama than a Trump.
I don't want to contribute any fuel to an online "political discussion", but yet I think it might be useful for some to hear that it's never been more visible to me how much the "left" also has its own issues with alternate reality.
How people reacted to this interview was another symptom of that.
Yep, Zelensky started an argument with Vance about diplomacy, referring to him informally as JD even (this was disrespectful), and that's when it started breaking down. Makes me wonder how he became a successful politician, he completely misread the room.
You can frame it however you want but Zelensky was the one who was looking for support. If you don't follow protocol, the you get what happened, which. is complete loss of support until you come around
He was looking for support, and what he got was an offer to pillage his country.
He would have been his country's disgrace if he just signed that "deal" as it stood, and Trump would have boasted about it for years, of how stupid Zelensky had been, and how he stole 500 billions in return for nothing.
You can see from the beginning of the press conference that something wasn't right, Zelensky was probably expecting a discussion rather than the direct signing that Trump began talking about.
Zelensky, if he didn't want things to break down, for sure exaggerated in how he behaved, he wasn't able to contain his distress.
But just signing that agreement, without trying anything, would have been foolish, and things are likely to end better for Ukraine now.
I'm bewildered that no attempt was made to get a minerals agreement with Europe, by the way; if Ukraine really has to give up some of its resources, it would be a lot wiser to give them to Europe, you can't place any whatsoever trust in the US right now.
A deal with Europe could let them get much more involved with the war, by bolstering the public support for it; and yes, Europe has a lot less military resources than the US, but at least you can rely on its word.
I agree it was a bad deal for Zelensky but he should not have gone to DC in the first place. It gave the impression that he was willing to compromise and since he was not, relations broke down.
Europe will need years to build up a military and until then will have to rely on the US for troops, equipment, intelligence. And so they would need permission from the US to do anything. So Ukraine cannot go directly to Europe.
