The White House and American news media are wringing their hands over China’s economic slowdown, which is construed as posing a threat. The argument that China should focus on consumption instead of investment is fallacious, and serves to bolster a Western sense of superiority.
I think it might actually work though. People in the west are so used to the idea of a “collapse” as this big single event where everyone just collectively goes and starts rioting, thanks to the movies.
So a slow but steady decrease in opportunity and QOL over time won’t be like the movies, so they won’t notice it happening.
This has already been the case since approximately 1980 until now for the US. It took about 40 years or more due to the starting position, but shit really started being noticeably worse circa 2008. A lot of people even saw it then and grasped for the only politician who was saying anything that felt remotely like a plan to do anything. Instead of doing literally anything positive that guy, the one and only, just stuffed a rag in the mouths of anyone being critical of the US and him, completely crushing whatever movements may have come out of that time. The DNC doubled and tripled down on the “nope! Eat your shit sandwich!” by self-nominating the two LESS popular candidates in ‘16 and ‘20. They’ve pretty quickly forced a state of existence for millennials and now zoomers that we all have seen, for our entire adult lives, a system that is rigged in every way and even when it “works” the guy who “said the most vaguely stuff” absolutely REFUSED to get the main vaguely good thing despite having the absolute power to do so. Yes, I’m referring to Obama refusing to get a nationalized healthcare option circa 2008-2010 when he had all the power to do anything.
Well, anyway, it’s already here folks! And it’s probably gonna keep getting worse because people are mindmelted into “vote blue vote blue vote blue.” As if democrats are even “lesser evil” really. They might say “hey, don’t mow down the gay kids” meanwhile they actively destroy the social services to placate the republicans. And also because they just want it. Oh boy, we’re fucked.
I think part of the reason the “vote blue you guys! Come on! No matter who! Other team is always worse! You’ve gotta vote for us!” crowd are getting so shrill in recent years is because it is clear that the tactic isn’t working anymore. People are becoming increasingly disenfranchised in the US, as they can see that both parties operate the exact same way, one is just “more civil” about it.
The only problem is that the republicans have started taking that frustration against the system and pushing it towards scapegoats and conspiracy theories. A certain group of Germans in the 1920s were fond of doing that, and the liberal response at the time was…“just vote them out.”
I’m quite worried for the people of the US tbh. The rest of the west is slowly collapsing, but the US seems to be doing a speedrun into open Fascism.