There is a much bigger play going on, here. There’s the old western powers, who exercised power institutionally. You vote on representatives, who then govern by legislature, which governs institutions, which governs the people. This sort of decentralized power structure worked so effectively, the US and western allies became the major superpower(s) of the world.

More recently, technology has enabled tyrants to effectively control and manipulate institutions with a much higher degree of precision. You don’t need to balance power across institutions when a central authority can manage power delegation all on its own. China is a pinnacle demonstration of this, with their Command Economy.

The western world has to prove that democracy can still standup against a command economy. Can you vote, implement, and protect faster than an enemy state can surveil, exploit, and disrupt? If you can’t, then you will lose the edge in world dominance.

The world which emerges will be one led by whoever can exercise the most control. Western nations are showing, their control is dwindling under advancing technology. It’ll be interesting to see how this develops over the next century.

I’ve heard someone put it this way, before: China started tyrannical and watched the US, later implementing democratic and capitalist reforms on top of their tyranny. It worked. Now, the US may be heading to a similar situation: implement tyranny on top of their existing democratic and capitalist institutions. We’ll see how well it works out.

a tyrannical dictatorship

So they are scooping people off the streets and putting them in concentration camps?

So they have declared war on multiple countries last 12 months?

So they have threatened to invade multiple countries last 12 months?

Y’all might could look up “tyrannical dictatorship” in one of them leftist dictionaries.

Dictatorship is when a president needs approval from congress to do anything. You sure are very smat.

Waterfox with Reading Mode enabled:

"Spare a moment, please, for the lame-duck superpower. It calls itself the leader of the free world, but the free world no longer believes it. When it extends its hand, nobody rushes to accept. When it threatens, nobody trembles.

After President Trump arrived in Beijing this week, Xi Jinping showered him with pomp befitting a summit of great powers. Yet the Chinese leader permitted potshots at his guest to go viral on his country’s internet rather than suppressing them, as some observers expected he would during a state visit. Xi answered Trump’s lavish praise by sternly lecturing him about meddling with Taiwan. In the end, Xi offered nothing of great substance—no solutions to the war in Iran, no sweeping trade deals, no promises of access to rare earth minerals. Xi used the visit to humor the lame-duck president, waiting for his time to pass.

Michael Schuman: A checkers player meets a three-dimensional-chess master

During the first Trump administration, foreign leaders flattered and accommodated the president out of deference to American power. They feared it; they relied on it. During the second administration, and especially since the beginning of the Iran war, their calculus has quietly shifted—not because the strategy of obsequiousness has failed, but because it’s no longer worth the trouble. Like many of his counterparts around the world, Xi has begun to assume that it’s not just Trump who is term-limited; it’s also his nation.

Trump’s war in Iran was meant to showcase American power. It did the opposite. In the course of failing to remove a much weaker regime or eliminate its nuclear threat, the United States blew through its arsenal—so much so that allies in the Pacific reasonably wonder whether enough munitions remain to protect them. According to The Wall Street Journal, the Pentagon is now worried that it lacks the firepower to execute contingency plans for defending Taiwan.

Supporters of the war argued that it would deal China a severe blow by eliminating one of its most potent allies. But the Gulf nations most threatened by Iran have actually turned to China. As first reported by The Washington Post, an intelligence assessment prepared for the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff warned that those countries have begun acquiring from Beijing the systems needed to protect their oil infrastructure and bases. Trump didn’t just fail to weaken China’s position in the Middle East. He strengthened it.

Without exerting itself much, Beijing has profited from America’s self-immolation. China’s petroleum reserves and its investments in renewable energy have allowed it to offer Thailand, the Philippines, and Australia relief from the energy crisis that the United States instigated. Instead of applying diplomatic pressure on Iran to cut a deal, China has let the conflict linger, so that the United States continues to bear the blame for the disruptions to shipping. Meanwhile, China poses as the faithful steward of the rules-based order—the cooler head, the power on which even the U.S. must now rely.

By patiently waiting out this moment, by letting the United States exhaust itself, China has bought time to pursue what Xi calls “national self-reliance”—time to catch up with the West technologically and to fortify itself for the point when competition takes a harsher turn.

That very same strategy is guiding Iran. Trump repeatedly signals his desire for a deal to end the war, by wishfully exaggerating how close he is to reaching one. But Iran keeps responding to his offers with outrageous demands, including for reparations for the destruction the United States wrought.

Robert Kagan: America is now a rogue superpower

In the meantime, Iran has been able to dig out weapons systems buried in the rubble caused by American strikes on bunkers and caves. According to intelligence assessments, The New York Times reports, the Iranians have restored access to 30 out of 33 missile sites along the Strait of Hormuz. Across the whole of the country, Iran has regained roughly 90 percent of its underground missile storage. Without having to purchase a rocket or launcher, it has bounced back.

American history is rife with the perils of lame-duck leaders. As their time in office grinds to a close, presidents grow eager to write a final chapter worthy of their saga. They reach for the grand gesture; they attempt to solve the intractable problem. But in their mad dash to assert their relevance, they manage merely to prove how little they matter to the rest of the world. Trump is now living that fate, and the consequences extend far beyond his presidency. Every failed deal, every summit that yields nothing, every boast that goes unfulfilled, confirms what adversaries already suspect. A lame-duck superpower exhausts itself in full view of the world, and the world moves on."

Spare a moment, please, for the lame-duck superpower. It calls itself the leader of the free world, but the free world no longer believes it. When it extends its hand, nobody rushes to accept. When it threatens, nobody trembles.

After President Trump arrived in Beijing this week, Xi Jinping showered him with pomp befitting a summit of great powers. Yet the Chinese leader permitted potshots at his guest to go viral on his country’s internet rather than suppressing them, as some observers expected he would during a state visit. Xi answered Trump’s lavish praise by sternly lecturing him about meddling with Taiwan. In the end, Xi offered nothing of great substance—no solutions to the war in Iran, no sweeping trade deals, no promises of access to rare earth minerals. Xi used the visit to humor the lame-duck president, waiting for his time to pass.

Michael Schuman: A checkers player meets a three-dimensional-chess master

During the first Trump administration, foreign leaders flattered and accommodated the president out of deference to American power. They feared it; they relied on it. During the second administration, and especially since the beginning of the Iran war, their calculus has quietly shifted—not because the strategy of obsequiousness has failed, but because it’s no longer worth the trouble. Like many of his counterparts around the world, Xi has begun to assume that it’s not just Trump who is term-limited; it’s also his nation.

Well, and the facts they lets photos of trump so old and decrepit to leak… tells you all you need to know