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I don't understand the naysayers here.
This is hilarious. Trump wants to simultaneously expand the American empire, while he dismantles the tools of it that he's too stupid to understand the importance of.
No matter their mission statement, or any tangible benefits they might have provided, both USAID and VOA, were tools of empire. These aren't mutually exclusive concepts.
Trump's mission is to weaken the US, NATO, and the EU. Eliminating VoA helps do that. Notice how he isn't threatening China with invasion, but Canada and Denmark instead.
Because Trump knows that China can and will fight back.
Canada and Denmark are friends of ours that Trump is now throwing salt in their eyes and saying "neener neener" while showing them his ass.
Because of our history, they aren't fighting back.
If they do, Russia wins.
In what world isn't Canada fighting back?
Which isn't to say they shouldn't, but they are pushing back to all the shit Trump is throwing at them. Just because they're not launching missiles doesn't mean they're not fighting back.
Trump doesn't want to expand the American empire though. He makes noises about it, but words are cheap. Judging by his actions he wants to create chaos so oligarchs can profit.
The ultrawealthy have no national allegience.
I could see him loving the idea of expansion to manufacture a legacy. Jefferson may have been a philosopher or a slave-romancer but that's college academic stuff: every middle school student learns he bought Louisiana. McKinley got us as close to an on-paper empire as we got, and they put him on the $500 note for it.
Soft power will never fill the same goal. Being the cultural or moral lighthouse for the West is inherently different from actually raising a flag over their capitals.
Trump may be narcissistic and senile but he still obeys his oligarch masters, probably from the usual motives of greed and fear.
I don't know what your local children will learn at school but he's fast earning himself a footnote in the international history books as the epoch that marks the tipping point into waning US power.
I may be wrong but I think the problem with the US cult of presidents/"great man of history" theory is that people like Trump keep the US populace speculating what he "wants" or "thinks" instead of on what his function is and what is actually happening.
Everything Trump does -- everything -- suddenly makes sense when viewed through the lens of "how does Putin benefit?"
How does Netanyahu benefit as well.
We're talking about a guy whose business accumen is so poor he managed to run multiple casinos into the ground. His "successful businessman" schtick has always been propped up by a mountain of debt and crime. If he had so much as two brain cells to rub together, he would have stuck with Ivana because she was the only member of the Trump family to have even a shred of sense.
How is everything that is "anti-Trump" radical? You fucking dictator.
"If you smell shit everywhere you go it's probably because you're covered in it" Anon
Isn't Voice of America like the USA's equivalent of Deutsche Welle?
Basically a vehicle for internationally transporting news from the US American perspective?
Trump really hates any and all soft power the USA have available.
Soft is a no-no word around Trump. He wants rock hard power, gay porn hard power.
Sooo... Weakening US influence around the world in order for Putin to fill the vacuum? What is Trump's Russian codename again?
Krasnov
Pee tape kovnik
As an American, I would like to apologize that the idiots of this country re-elected Mango Mussolini. And I'm sorry that the rest of the world has to suffer because of this idiot and his cronies.
Waiting for you guys to actually use your second amendment.
Well, there was an attempt but unfortunately he wasn't a very good shot.
When they send their time travelers, they aren't sending their best.
It's a pretty scary idea when the odds are very high that we would just get murdered by police or secret service. And in this hypothetical, if we were to fail, Trump would just bring them hammer down even harder on everyone else, making future attempts much more difficult if not impossible. Until the people are organized on a large scale and collectively convinced this is the only option we have left, we have too much to lose with very little chance of success.
Under $300 million a year to spread US propaganda to over 300 million people. That's a fucking bargain man.
This is going to give up so, SO much soft power because of a snowflake's ego. This is a bad deal.
I guess this is better than making VoA voice of trump.
I'm wondering if it's going to be "rebuilt", personally.
It must also be weird for the sycophants who he just nominated to staff it too.
The equivalent of "Daddy got you a pink convertible and you get three minutes to drive it before the repo guy comes"
Oh no, his people will keep their jobs. He isn't getting rid of it, he's just firing anyone who does anything, and his people will come in and get paid to do nothing. It's very likely that he can't just do away with it, but he can just fire the people working there.
Maybe we'll get lucky and he'll move against the nuclear arsenal and the Army will finally give him the boot.
Is this sarcasm? They fired 350+ workers in charge of overseeing the nuclear stockpile before they even knew who they were firing, and nothing happened. To pretend that there is some line in the sand is, at this point, naive.
America. Its institutions are fairly tales.
As someone who used to listen to a lot of shortwave radio, this just bums me out.
I know foreign people who listened to VoA, and now it won't be there anymore for them.
Makes me wonder who they'll listen to, who will fill the void, with the VoA being gone.
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I know foreign people who listened to VoA, and now it won't be there anymore for them.
Stuff like this is a perfect example of how little Trump understands soft power. That was an outlet for American ideals (ok, propaganda) and American culture to diffuse across the world. Seeing how power abhors a vacuum, I won’t be surprised when China increasingly fills this void.
Remember, Trump isn’t dancing by his own tune. Who stands to benefit the most from the US undoing their relationships, contracts, defense agreements, and soft power agendas?
Then also remember that at the rate we’re moving, the 1st amendment is or will be dead very soon. Even this comment could end up with me being blacked bagged after not too long.
Right wingers are generally too stupid to think that abstractly.
usagm is an independent agency. it and its predecessors, and voa, were created by congress. only congress can eliminate them
Yeah, those checks and balances will kick in any day now!
Yeap, any day now.
Yeah, the managers were told to limit programming to the minimum required by law
It was mostly a propaganda machine against socialist movements. I’m glad it is gone, but it should have been gone way before Trump. Because he doesn’t deserve credit for shit.
What socialist movements?
"Socialist" movements like:
checks notes
People's Republic of China with its draconian:
Such "Socialism" aka: State-Capitalism