r/neoliberal • u/jobautomator Kitara Ravache • Mar 29 '26

Discussion Thread Discussion Thread

The discussion thread is for casual and off-topic conversation that doesn't merit its own submission. If you've got a good meme, article, or question, please post it outside the DT. Meta discussion is allowed, but if you want to get the attention of the mods, make a post in /r/metaNL

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74

u/erasmus_phillo Paul Krugman Mar 29 '26

While I do think that Philippe's analysis here is mostly right, what I do think he's missing in his analysis is the fact that Americans seem to have a much lower tolerance for economic pain than most countries, even other developed countries. An electorate for whom foreign policy has little salience and would throw out a government for gas prices that are above $4 a gallon isn't going to appreciate any amount of economic pain over the Iran War

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u/erasmus_phillo Paul Krugman Mar 29 '26 edited Mar 29 '26

In general the American electorate doesn't care what the US government does overseas as long as the US government doesn't visit the consequences on Americans. Trump violated that understanding with the Iran War

Yes, the US will experience less damage, relatively speaking, than the vast majority of nations in the world from this war. But the reason why other admins prior to Trump have never done something as dumb as this is because governments tend to like staying in power and the electorate will throw them out on their asses for the economic pain they will endure as a result of this war

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u/erasmus_phillo Paul Krugman Mar 29 '26 edited Mar 29 '26

In contrast Canada stuck with the Liberals for a long time, until the housing crisis became way too painful to ignore. And we still ended up putting the Liberals back in power again when Trump started expressing his desire to annex us lol. I don't think a more 'American' electorate would have re-elected Justin Trudeau (or supported Mark Carney)

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u/The_Crass-Beagle_Act Jane Jacobs Mar 29 '26

In invoking how Americans complained about Iraq but that it was materially kind of a non-issue, he fails to see how he’s making the very point he’s trying to argue against.

Yes, most Americans never felt a significant material impact on their lives as a result of Iraq beyond higher gas prices. And yet, Iraq was a major factor in defining new American political paradigms for a generation that helped give us both Obama and then Trump.

Which goes to show how you shouldn’t discount the impact of such a “non-event” overseas on the American political psyche

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u/formgry Mar 29 '26

is the fact that Americans seem to have a much lower tolerance for economic pain than most countries

Idk man, is this not just cope? As in, if the Americans are uniquely insulated from the stupidity of their foreign policy then the only hope for salvation we have is if Americans are simultaneously uniquely intolerant of the actual consequences of their foreign policy.

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u/The_Crass-Beagle_Act Jane Jacobs Mar 29 '26

We’re talking about a country that thought wearing a mask on an airplane to slow the pandemic of the century was the greatest human rights violation in generations, and that decided we needed to adopt fascism to eliminate the scourges of $4 eggs and “press one for English” 

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u/formgry Mar 29 '26

Well perhaps that's how they are, but perhaps that's not how they are.

I'm just saying that it's convenient to view them as stuck up like that, because if they were not so stuck up what is going to stop them from their reckless and destructive foreign policy?

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u/The_Crass-Beagle_Act Jane Jacobs Mar 29 '26

This isn’t meant to say any of this will save Americans from reckless foreign policy (clearly the damage is already done on that front).

But it is to say that there’s a domestic political price to pay for causing any material inconvenience to Americans, which tends to trump a lot of other, arguably more rational considerations.

With that in mind, I think the real cope is all the war boosters saying Americans are going to be happy to sacrifice a bit of gas money for the “greater good” of Trump’s foreign policy goals. Americans obviously hate sacrificing anything for any reason, even the “greater good” as if we could ever agree on what that may be.