> Seems to me like they say one thing, do another, and all of us hold the bag at the end of it all.

Yup.

It's the same lie that the GOP cares about deficits and debt… except when they're in power and want to do tax cuts for the rich.

That's because the people who sincerely voted for "America First" were sold a bill of goods. They wanted a nationalist dictatorship but instead they got a bunch of pillagers who are going to take everything of value and leave a steaming heap.

Yeah, election promises and post-election behavior aren't really correlated in general. I think this administration is worse than the average, but still.

Past talking points are not indicative of future behavior.

I don't understand how, given bullshitting the public about Making America Great Again has been the norm since Reagan, Americans are still so surprised to find ...oops it was all lies for votes!

Academics like Zinn and Chomsky, popular music, movies, TV have been calling out the lies for decades.

Americans are that fucking dumb, I guess.

At least in part, they legitimately see Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Israel, and now Syria, as part of the American empire. I would argue this is a bipartisan elite belief as well, you see Dem current and former elected's lobbying and giving talks where policy is dictated in those countries all the time, investing and being invested in by those countries all the time.

What does majority US control of a US company have to do with US government "America First" policy?

And I don't think de-prioritizing foreign investments is part of that policy.

Foreign direct investment is generally considered a good thing for the American economy.

You're right to be confused when you assume good faith on their part, it's utterly predictable when you take every public statement to be the exact opposite of what will happen: "small government", "fiscal responsibility", "tough on crime", "no new wars", "America will be respected again", etc. etc.

The same way the peace president can start a war.

They simply lie.

I'm very familiar with political slogans always being largely bullshit, but the degree to which 'America First' or 'Make America Great Again' seem to be diametrically opposed to the real intentions is breathtaking.

>Seems to me like they say one thing, do another, and all of us hold the bag at the end of it all.

Do you think he means anything he says? Or that anything is about anything more than self-indulgence?

I worked for a company that got bought by a foreign company. It got approval the day Trump gave a maga like speech after meeting the new owner. That day the pink slips went out across the American offices.

It's all talk, it's almost guaranteed to be the opposite of what he says. It seems to be more about deflection than anything else.

I believe that our politicians are just trying to make as much money for themselves as possible and they don't actually care about America or Americans at all, and this has been the case for maybe the past 50 years or so.

I further believe that future historians will look back on the past 300 or so years as being occupied by two very different Americas: a true America, founded in 1776, and some kind of oligarchic scam that still called itself America for the brand recognition but was in reality a completely different entity.

How is this complicated?

US uses dollars to buy oil from UAE.

UAE sends dollars back to Paramount shareholders in the US to "own" a piece Paramount.

Is it "foreign owned"? Do they really own anything? What are they really going to do with it? I don't know. I inhabit a world of nuance, I don't take rhetoric at face value, that's a waste of time.

Simply because the Trump administration is "America First" in name only, and Trump first in actual behavior.

> Seems to me like they say one thing, do another, and all of us hold the bag at the end of it all.

On the other hand they kept their promises of deporting and killing immigrants, and of getting rid of woke ideas like science and education.

They don't align with it. They've never aligned with it. It was always a lie.

They align with the actual motives of the people involved, which is lining their pockets. "America first" is for the rubes.

The same is true of "fiscal responsibility." The GOP runs on this, but when they get into power they spend like drunks and run the deficit up. This has been true since Reagan, though Trump represents a huge escalation.

The same has been true with the whole "we're going to get rid of these DEI hires and be purely meritocratic." Okay, then why does the head of the FBI need to blow in a tube to start his car and why are a bunch of unqualified former pundits and podcasters in positions of high authority? Why is the head of the CDC a crackpot who can barely talk?

"A thing is what it does." Ignore rhetoric, look at results. BTW the same rule applies to rhetoric from the other side.

> I don't understand how decisions like these align with the supposed "America First" rhetoric coming from the same side.

Because that rhetoric has ended, replaced with H1B-love, Israel-first, "immigration needs to rise actually, because a lot of toilets need to be cleaned" and "we don't have enough money to worry about the population, we need to make war" and the administration spends a large amount of time attacking the people who still use it?

Annoying that people don't keep up with this. "Same side" is some really simple thinking for a complex political environment.

Trump is just another neocon accumulating cash. In the 90s-00s, he worshiped Hillary Clinton; now he governs almost indistinguishably from a Clinton, a Blair or a Bush. With the only difference being that there's been a complete end to any restraints on Executive power through a bipartisan effort that still continues (see FISA renewal.) He can sell everything. Democrats were used to selling everything the old way, and pretending to be powerless. Turns out there's no reason to pretend to be powerless anymore.

The ideological MAGA types haven't changed at all. The only part of the electorate still on the Trump train are the same people who would have been Trump University students. With the addition of a bunch of newly silent lib Iran/Israel-first hawks. They also don't care about the foreign ownership of the media, or the media concentration that made it dangerous. They in fact actively support media concentration because it makes it easier to censor political opinions that they object to. The sex pest who is still ideological father of the Democratic Party was literally the person who repealed the laws that made it possible.

I mean, Trump was telling people to take Hydroxocloroquine for Covid 19. The list goes on-and-on. You’re actually surprised? He’s literally the definition of a narcissist.

People voted for him anyway because the manosphere told them too.