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kmeisthaxyesterday at 7:01 PM3 repliesview on HN

> 250 years of legal stability

America was never a stable country. That 250 years includes:

* A decade of chaos under the impotent Articles of Confederation.

* The deliberately engineered election of George Washington to create the illusion of political stability, a reign which only ended because George stepped down voluntarily.

* An immediate constitutional crisis the moment a competitive election happened, causing the election of a President and Vice President from opposing political parties (imagine a Harris - Trump presidency). The ensuing chaos resulted in SCOTUS unilaterally declaring itself the final arbiter of the law.

* The Thomas Jefferson presidency, which in many ways is the alpha release of Trump.

* The Civil War, started specifically because the losing faction of slaveholders was angry at losing, and ending with the losing faction losing so hard the counter rolled back into flawless victory. They surrendered, then assassinated the President and got his party to give up on everything he stood for.

* Economy-destroying Smoot-Hawley tariffs, which are basically what Trump is doing now.

* A spectacular near-miss in which the country's business elites attempted to assassinate a Progressive president and only failed because the Marine they selected as their Hitleresque dictator ratted them out.

* Widespread civil unrest deliberately created to force America to reckon with its racist past and undo what the South had managed to convince the North to allow them to do after Reconstruction.

* The Richard Nixon presidency, which in many ways is the beta release of Trump.

* Too many foreign invasions to count.

In the entire history of America I can think of maybe 3 brief moments of political stability that weren't outright engineered fantasies. The two that are relevant to modern times are the 1950s and the 1990s. Both of these were the result of America winning a war of conquest.


Replies

ahmeneeroe-v2yesterday at 9:34 PM

Really love this, seriously great analysis (even though I'd quibble on a few points).

Stability is a relative thing though. It's hard to judge this except in relation to what other countries were doing.

>Various Euro nations

Suicided in 1900s and destroyed everything they built

>China

Collapse, civil war, famine, poverty

*pretty good for ~30 years

pizlonatoryesterday at 8:25 PM

That's not as bad as what a lot of nations have dealt with

Consider the turbulence that China experienced over the same 250 years, for example

tirantyesterday at 9:44 PM

For 250 years that sounds very stable compared to many other countries