America first

I came here to write "Elise Stefanik is a moron", but then I noticed Chen already called her an idiot. What an embarrassment to NY-21 congressional district (thankfully not mine). I love going up to the Adirondacks, but man is it MAGA country now.
Last summer, I noticed the print on demand t-shirt shop in Old Forge that has been there since at least the 80s is now run by magats. They had a row of anti-LGBTQ shirts and the usual Joe Biden hatred crap on display and I just walked out. I'm so tired of people making everything political and wearing it on their sleeves, sometimes literally.
- I'm so tired of people making everything political and wearing it on their sleeves, sometimes literally.
  I prefer my Nazis out in the open. Uniformed combatants are fair game

I may not like the CCP, but you have to give credit to where it is due. The government is run by pragmatic technocrats with long term vision. These are the characteristics that America has lost long ago. It is so ironic and funny that it is China who is the promoter now of international free trade.
- Holy shit no.
  The CCP is mostly controlled by Xi Jinping, and he’s happy to purge anyone who gets in his way, since 2012 and continuing today. He’s also forcing compliance at every level — from disappearing Jack Ma for the mildest of CCP criticism to enforcing a blackout of tianamen square in their ai models. He is much closer to Putin than Trump.
  This same control-freak policy applies to their trade. Want to do business in china? Be prepared to set up a 50/50 joint stock company. Want to move money out of the country? Good luck, 50k/year max. This is why so many Chinese buy foreign property, they are trying to move assets outside the reach of the CCP. It’s also why China turns a blind eye to the fent trade — it weakens the US and provides a valuable source of hard (ie cash) currency for China.
  Don’t get it twisted, the CCP is run by authoritarians with little tolerance for dissent, not wise technocrats building a better China.
  Chinese belt and road initivate can nearly be called free trade.
  
  Yes, CCP is authoritarian, but the party has long term vision for the country. Because they don't want to revert back to the so-called century of humiliation when China became technologically behind and had been carrion feeds for outside powers. The country had been isolationist which made Imperial China weak, but the CCP decided to open up and use international free trade to assert their own influence, instead of being controlled by it like before. Much of CCP's decision making is influenced by historical trauma, as well as from Confucian idea of mandate of heaven-- that the ruling government is only legitimate so long as they can deliver for the people.
  So even though Xi cracks down on dissent, he is open to ideas when it comes to technological advancements and pushes his subordinates to keep up. And as we can see, Deep Seek had beaten Western AI development at a fraction of the cost, and China is leading in manufacturing electric vehicles and battery and other renewable technologies. Millions of Chinese had been lifted out of poverty, and the older generations still remember the hardship and the war so many Chinese feel grateful. Xi wants the CCP to prove to the population that only they can deliver progress. But as you pointed out, there is a cost to all of this.
  
  Just being pedantic regarding the AI models; they're only censored on the publicly hosted versions. Like any other model if you run it locally you're only restricted by the model's training
  https://ollama.com/
  
  Just because you will be purged for making Winnie the Pooh references, doesn't mean you are not allowed to make suggestions to improve China, or that Xi is Idi Amin taking all wealth of the country for himself. There exists an intellectual party that is capable of removing him if they thought he was acting inappropriately. Sure, capital controls is a restriction on the rich in China, but that doesn't make it a shithole country pillaged by oligarchs, like some.
- FWIW, I HATE the CCP. Though they do keep China from being all it could be which could be bad for other countries.
- Dont forget them avoiding war for however many decades, while america fabricates them for profit.
  
  I guess taking over Tibet and the ongoing Uyghur genocide just don't matter.
  
  Compared to the West, China has very little appetite for expansionism. Except for South China Sea, China only wants to conquer areas they deemed to be historically theirs. For the most part, China's current foreign policy is to recreate the tributary system for the modern era to make foreign nations beholden to them.

After "gun violence", he should've added "gun violence against children".

First in Oligarch pillaging that boosts stock market. Only metric that matters for US success. First in genocide support, comming closer to home that you expect!

Why are repubs so freakin divisive? Like, why not we lift one another up? Dumbasses

It’s also a bit rich that the Chinese dude gets labeled by X as ‘state affiliated media’ (which it probably is) but X itself apparently not? Which it definitely is.
- This whole screenshot is basically one state's propaganda machine vs. another.
  Just because the Chinese propaganda machine is acting the straight man in this particular interaction, doesn't mean they don't have skeletons in their own closet
  
  A broken clock something something.
  
  Yeah, while I agree with some of his jabs - it is immensely ironic that China is #1 in two of mentioned anti-US criticisms.
  Go figure two assholes in a room and no one smells good
  
  Yo very unrelated, but thank you for mentioning that phrase "skeletons in their own closet"! I've been listening to a song for a few months which uses that metaphor and I couldn't exactly figure out what it meant (it's in Greek and didnt expect that phrase to exist in english too). (This is the song if you care, lol.)
  
  And now you're here!

The truth is that the U.S. contributes the most to foreign aid funds, and still gets zero to little political good will.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_development_aid_sovereign_state_donors
- Any reason you can think of why that might be the case?
  
  Ok guessing 50-70 million psycho racist MAGA rednecks might have a factor in that
  
  Because we have far too many hate blinded citizens who are ready and willing to drop to their knees and open wide for the bukkake of anti-America propaganda?
  You guys are celebrating the "comeback" from a person who works for the Chinese government and is LITERALLY labeled as "China state-affiliated media".......
  
  Yes, but let’s stop pretending that all other countries are angelic heavens with leaders who have nothing but the best intentions for all people, everywhere. Every country has its issues, and it’s really easy to blame them on “imperialists”.
- A better statistic with which to make comparisons between nations is the % of GDP or budget of said nations devoted to aid. The US is first in the actual amount given, but our budgetary % is pretty low compared to other nations. Not to mention the aid figures given include military aid and similar that ends up coming back to US companies.
- It's the American way to destabilize a country than pay for aid.
  No wonder it doesn't end up with net positive political good will.
  
  In fairness, all countries play the destabilization games against each other. That’s the core of realpolitiks.

To be fair, we have no idea how many COVID infections or deaths China had or how many prisoners they have. It isn't like they are the most transparent with either matter.
Everything else he said checks out. 🇺🇲
- We have 2 million prisoners for 330 million people.
  They claim 1.6 million prisoners for their 1.4 billion people.
  Even if it were double what China claims, per capita we keep far more of our people in bondage, because we found and disgustingly prioritize the private profit in it. More prisoners for private for profit prisons, and more slave labor leased out to for profit corporations.
  We put people in cages using any excuse to increase quarterly earnings expectations for our sociopath class. "Land of the free," Lo fucking L.
  
  It's "Land of the fee"
  We've been saying it wrong the whole time.
  
  It would be flatly unsurprising if china had well over double what they claim.
  
  The number of imprisoned is the point he made, not the per capita.
- They had robots spraying disinfectant on streets. They would test and barricade people in homes who were positive. They would also feed them though. Whole city quarantines. They did not fuck around on Covid. It's reasonable that not fucking around achieved a low death rate. It shows how much richer they really are compared to west in being able to afford such measures.
- Who told you that the US government?

Neither country really has a leg to stand on here. China sucks too.
Taiwan #1!
- I think China will.take the Taiwan #1 and use it as an argument that they, in fact, are #1

I think it's perfectly fair to prioritize yourself first. Politicians should do that.
But why does she want China last? That's just hatred.
I remember when political news were pictures of people shaking hands and making trade agreements. These days it's all screenshots of social media posts made from someone hiding in a basement or gated community. Trump refusing to answer a telephone call from Canada while using his phone to tweet out more bullshit is a new low.
American politics might be two sided team game, but international politics are not. Unfortunately for the republicans, they desperately need an opponent to make themselves relevant. They simply don't have anything else to offer.
- Casual racism is very American.

The circus is in town! Two clowns duking it out in the digital colosseum: one's waving a flag, the other's throwing shit. Meanwhile, we're all fucked sideways by the system they represent. But sure, keep tweeting your little hearts out while Rome burns. At least the engagement's good, right? Christ, we're so far down the rabbit hole, Alice would need a fucking space shuttle to find us.. Pass the soma, I'm checking out.
- China's system is better than the US's
  
  Nowhere close lol
  
  No, both are bad, you don't want a social credit system

Populism FIRST. FFY

Joke's on this guy, US is first at all of those!

Burned.

Taiwan #1!
- Aka; the rightful government of the entirety of China. May Taipei occupy Beijing once more
  
  Occupy or liberate? I would say liberate, right?

as a canadian, i think it’s pretty safe to say the US is not first in much these days.
things have changed. a lot.
- What are you talking about? He literally listed a bunch of things we're first at!
- Have you seen our defense budget?

Stefanik is so dumb - it’s America Second.
Israel is first.
- *Third after number one, Elon's self-esteem.
- Prison population tho?
  Not sure if dead people (that israel genocided) count as "prisoner"
  
  Haha well to Chen’s point, I’m sure America has a far greater percentage of its own population incarcerated than most other nations…looks like it isn’t quite number 1 there but close enough to be disgusted with this stat.
  My point is that due to the open bribery system of American politics through “campaign finance donations,” America’s politicians are completely bought by Israel. They get everything before us, and we pay for it.
  Nationalized healthcare, paid family leave, subsidized or free college, significant investment in infrastructure like roads and bridges - Israel enjoys all of these amenities, while Americans are left out to dry and die by our own government. It’s incredibly sad what this level of corruption has done to the US, and it only seems to be accelerating from here.

Pot, kettle ... a pox on both their houses?

I do not like this meme much. I grew tired of stock photos for "r/clevercomebacks".

Legally murdering it's own citizens in droves in capitalist confidence schemes like the Healthcare Insurance scam industry to increase private stockholder profit?
🇺🇸 We're number one! 🇺🇸

Ok I'm not defending her here but this is a stupid reply because she's obvuously referring to prioritizing the interests of America, not that America is #1.
He's not wrong in what he said, it's just the wrong tweet to dunk on.
- When has the US been anything but USA first, everyone else last in the last 70 years?
- When someone doesn't speak in complete sentences it is likely harder to translate with proper understanding.
  Put America's priorities first and America comes in first can be shortened to the same two words. What we know for sure is we don't put education first.

Wow! What a smackdown.

She’s talking about the population density of fascists. America is first and China is last
- Wtf are you talking about? China is also fascist, although in different ways.
  
  No they aren’t and you should go read some of Robert Paxton’s books on fascism if you think they are.

Be like China. Make up your own statistics.
- This is something I see frequently, but have been unable to substantiate.
  How do we know they're making up statistics? Can you verify that claim with evidence? That would be very useful for me. If anyone can, i'd appreciate it.
- You’re always best if you put your finger on the scale.

The "wolf warriors" used to come in hot a.f.

My response would be to ask what brand of brainwashing soap they use on their people.