Opinion | The Strange Decline of the Pax Americana
www.nytimes.com
The problem isn’t weakness at the top. It’s the enemy within.

…Yet it seems safe to say that the world no longer trusts U.S. promises, and perhaps no longer fears U.S. threats, the way it used to. The problem, however, isn’t Biden; it’s the party that reflexively attacks him for anything that goes wrong.

Right now America is a superpower without a fully functioning government. Specifically, the House of Representatives has no speaker, so it can’t pass legislation, including bills funding the government and providing aid to U.S. allies. The House is paralyzed because Republican extremists, who have refused to acknowledge Biden’s legitimacy and promoted chaos rather than participating in governance, have turned these tactics on their own party. At this point it’s hard to see how anyone can become speaker without Democratic votes — but even less extreme Republicans refuse to reach across the aisle.

And even if Republicans do somehow manage to elect a speaker, it seems all too likely that whoever gets the job will have to promise the hard right that he will betray Ukraine.

Given this political reality, how much can any nation trust U.S. assurances of support? How can we expect foreign enemies of democracy to fear America when they know that there are powerful forces here that share their disdain?

  • Jeremy [Iowa]English
    11·
    9 months ago

    Okay, you’re not understanding the simple fact that third parties are actually harmful under First Past the Post.

    What utter nonsense.

    I believe you aren’t understanding that third parties are necessary to bring about significant change in a duopolistic system.

    The concept talked about is Duverger’s Law

    Ahhh… the “law” that theorizes not that “third parties are actually harmful”, but rather that “plurality would act to delay the emergence of new political forces and would accelerate the elimination of weakening ones, whereas proportional representation would have the opposite effect”.

    Here’s a scholarly article about it.

    An attempt to provide evidence for a “law” after-the-fact? Interesting order of operations, there.

    Did you have any citation from that article, or was this just an attempt to drop a pay-walled article and move on?

    Want to make a real difference? Advocate for voting reform.

    No form of voting reform will be allowed by either establishment party; the only way this will come about is through introduction of a third party - any third party - which can be used to force the establishment parties away from simply maintaining power.