Among the reciprocal tariff levels Trump announced:
China: 34%
European Union: 20%
South Korea: 25%
India: 26%
Vietnam: 46%
Taiwan: 32%
Japan: 24%
Thailand: 36%
Switzerland: 31%
Indonesia: 32%
Malaysia: 24%
Cambodia: 49%
United Kingdom: 10%
Rest of the world: 10%
I’d argue it started with Bush and his No Child Left Behind bullshit. It forced a certain curriculum to leave out common sense and critical thinking skills
Children aren’t the problem. it’s adults who get their constant education off anonymous memes. The year 2007 introduction of the Apple iPhone changed everything about USA society. We had the Fox News Rupert Murdoch problem since 1996, but the shit memes people flock to and “shit postings” addiction are the learning / education / study problem.
Shitpostinh education is very predictable adult education outcome. Cal Sagan predicted in in 1995: “Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding (from 1995) of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time—when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness. The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30-second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance. As I write, the number-one videocassette rental in America is the movie Dumb and Dumber. “Beavis and Butthead” remain popular (and influential) with young TV viewers. The plain lesson is that study and learning—not just of science, but of anything—are avoidable, even undesirable.” ― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, year 1995
It’s like the USA won the Cold War and found themselves with nowhere left to go, exhausted. The state became less relevant by the year as it was intended by their neoliberalism, and greed is always everywhere taking over as many spaces as possible, it’s just its nature. But an ever disappearing government is just a milking cow, why it even exist if it’s been taken by the greedy? In this scenario, instead of being hopeful about its mere existence, because it should be one way for the people to regain power, it is just another way to take more wealth from the people, and an instrument to control them.
My point was that Trump, Trump-Putin, are just a consequence. The USA government showed critical weaknesses and they are being exploited. At the same time, you point it out well, the government found weaknesses of society to exploit. Americans should exploit them too, usually it’s done politically, but both of the American parties are basically the same (I know politically involved individuals do hate this statement, but from outside of the USA it’s very clear); it’s time for the people to regain power, and they will, this tariffs craze is gonna make them have to fight back.