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I can understand why pundits or political players would engage in this sort of sophistry, but to see it on a niche anonymous online forum is utterly bizarre.
A retvrn to the state of affairs where the USA was not global hedgemon would not benefit the average US citizen, much less the average Trump voter. It doesn't even benefit Trump himself. Who would benefit is China. That is self-destructive.
I disagree.
I think the US being a world spanning empire is one of the worst things that happened to the American people, and in particular to the sort of American people that votes for DJT.
But I sense that you and I have vastly different notions of the good. Salus populi suprema lex esto.
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Only in a compositional fallacy sense of the term.
Self-destruction is part of the broader category of things considered [bad]. It is not synonymous with the entire category of [bad]. Things can be both [bad], and not self-destructive.
The rest of the dispute comes to the nature of the [bad], which in turn depends on whose standards of 'benefit' apply. This leans into the typical 'they are acting against their own interests' critique that regularly dismisses differences in preferences by supposing one's own preferences are the agreed upon standard.
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Clearly there are people who think it will benefit them. People who feel strongly that things should be manufactured in America. People who think they're in a position to make things in America and would get satisfaction from that even if they had a salary cut. People who find being global hegemon ideologically distasteful or believe it has unwanted secondary effects.
I think that 'I understand why politicians are lying about this, but why are you?' is not a good starting point for understanding this perspective.
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