Isn't Voice of America like the USA's equivalent of Deutsche Welle?
Basically a vehicle for internationally transporting news from the US American perspective?
Trump really hates any and all soft power the USA have available.
this post was submitted on 16 Mar 2025
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yeah totally him and not some other dipshit trying to get back to superpower status.
Yes, it's one of the US's propaganda presses
Sooo... Weakening US influence around the world in order for Putin to fill the vacuum? What is Trump's Russian codename again?
Krasnov
Pee tape kovnik
Maybe we'll get lucky and he'll move against the nuclear arsenal and the Army will finally give him the boot.
Is this sarcasm? They fired 350+ workers in charge of overseeing the nuclear stockpile before they even knew who they were firing, and nothing happened. To pretend that there is some line in the sand is, at this point, naive.
America. Its institutions are fairly tales.
I don't understand the naysayers here.
This is hilarious. Trump wants to simultaneously expand the American empire, while he dismantles the tools of it that he's too stupid to understand the importance of.
No matter their mission statement, or any tangible benefits they might have provided, both USAID and VOA, were tools of empire. These aren't mutually exclusive concepts.
This isn't fundamentally changing anything. It's about using different tools for the same goal.
America cannot dominate the world militarily, nor could that even serve the goals of its contemporary brand of neoimperialism.
Soft power i.e. culture, propaganda, and diplomatic/idealogical relationships, are the foundation upon which it's built.
Yes, military hard power plays a critical role, but it cannot replace soft power.
This isn't empire for the sake of raw nationalism, and nothing would accelerate the American collapse faster than dismantling the state's soft power tools. The end result will be attempts to maintain power by spending its military resources on peer, or near peer conflicts.
In Trump's brain, soft power isn't properly deferential to him personally. That's what it amounts to.
It all comes down to his raging narcissism; soft power is done with tact and diplomacy in whispers. For Trump, that's weakness. It's not true power unless people/countries/organizations proclaim his power with effusive thank-yous and obsequious shows of capitulation.
It's not enough to lead the free world; the rest of the world needs to be properly thankful for it in a way that he himself finds acceptable. (namely by making a big show of bending the knee)
It's not really about changing it for cold hard power, but changing how their soft power will be projected. I've seen some theories that the rethoric is going to change from being about freedom of expression and LGBT rights and similar to ideas about traditional family values or something, and I think it's very plausible.
...and how will that be disseminated? That's what organizations like VOA and USAID were for.
Trump has the capacity to destroy organizations, but I find it doubtful he could recreate them out of whole cloth.
That's my point.
We're talking about a guy whose business accumen is so poor he managed to run multiple casinos into the ground. His "successful businessman" schtick has always been propped up by a mountain of debt and crime. If he had so much as two brain cells to rub together, he would have stuck with Ivana because she was the only member of the Trump family to have even a shred of sense.
Trump's mission is to weaken the US, NATO, and the EU. Eliminating VoA helps do that. Notice how he isn't threatening China with invasion, but Canada and Denmark instead.
Because Trump knows that China can and will fight back.
Canada and Denmark are friends of ours that Trump is now throwing salt in their eyes and saying "neener neener" while showing them his ass.
Because of our history, they aren't fighting back.
If they do, Russia wins.
In what world isn't Canada fighting back?
Which isn't to say they shouldn't, but they are pushing back to all the shit Trump is throwing at them. Just because they're not launching missiles doesn't mean they're not fighting back.
China has nukes, a gargantuan military with no other purpose than to fight back, and the internal cohesion to resist the pressure. Canada has a much smaller military spread out much further, a much higher dependence on US specific trade simply by nature of physical infrastructure, and an unfortunately not insignificant percent of the population in the central provinces who would probably side with the US. It’s not anbout fighting back, it’s all about who is easier to bully, where friends mean nothing because everyone’s worth is determined by how much he can exploit them and the leverage the us has over them.
an unfortunately not insignificant percent of the population in the central provinces who would probably side with the US
As someone from the prairies (Saskatchewan), I can assure you that while, yes, we do have our fair share of pretty hard-right leaning individuals, most of even THEM are anti-trump because of the sovereignty issue. Even the ones who agree with what he is doing and would like to see Poppinfresh in power to do similar up here, would never side them militarily in an annexation attempt for the same reason that American MAGA flies the US flag...sovereignty is their identity; CANADIAN sovereignty.
There is a TINY number (some dipshits in Alberta) who actually want Alberta to join the US. But they are fractionally insignificant.
Trump doesn't want to expand the American empire though. He makes noises about it, but words are cheap. Judging by his actions he wants to create chaos so oligarchs can profit.
The ultrawealthy have no national allegience.
I could see him loving the idea of expansion to manufacture a legacy. Jefferson may have been a philosopher or a slave-romancer but that's college academic stuff: every middle school student learns he bought Louisiana. McKinley got us as close to an on-paper empire as we got, and they put him on the $500 note for it.
Soft power will never fill the same goal. Being the cultural or moral lighthouse for the West is inherently different from actually raising a flag over their capitals.
Trump may be narcissistic and senile but he still obeys his oligarch masters, probably from the usual motives of greed and fear.
I don't know what your local children will learn at school but he's fast earning himself a footnote in the international history books as the epoch that marks the tipping point into waning US power.
I may be wrong but I think the problem with the US cult of presidents/"great man of history" theory is that people like Trump keep the US populace speculating what he "wants" or "thinks" instead of on what his function is and what is actually happening.
The kleptocrats run every nation, afaict. There may be a few small exceptions, we will see, and see if they can keep it that way.
Everything Trump does -- everything -- suddenly makes sense when viewed through the lens of "how does Putin benefit?"
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It must also be weird for the sycophants who he just nominated to staff it too.
The equivalent of "Daddy got you a pink convertible and you get three minutes to drive it before the repo guy comes"
Oh no, his people will keep their jobs. He isn't getting rid of it, he's just firing anyone who does anything, and his people will come in and get paid to do nothing. It's very likely that he can't just do away with it, but he can just fire the people working there.
How is everything that is "anti-Trump" radical? You fucking dictator.
"If you smell shit everywhere you go it's probably because you're covered in it" Anon
Under $300 million a year to spread US propaganda to over 300 million people. That's a fucking bargain man.
This is going to give up so, SO much soft power because of a snowflake's ego. This is a bad deal.
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As an American, I would like to apologize that the idiots of this country re-elected Mango Mussolini. And I'm sorry that the rest of the world has to suffer because of this idiot and his cronies.
Waiting for you guys to actually use your second amendment.
Well, there was an attempt but unfortunately he wasn't a very good shot.
I'm not American but from what I understand about the country, that guy may not have been the only one with a gun.
He was wearing a gun youtuber’s tee shirt. The channel is worth a gawk if you enjoy rubbernecking at America’s crumpled wreckage.
When they send their time travelers, they aren't sending their best.
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It was mostly a propaganda machine against socialist movements. I’m glad it is gone, but it should have been gone way before Trump. Because he doesn’t deserve credit for shit.
What socialist movements?
"Socialist" movements like:
checks notes
People's Republic of China with its draconian:
- One Child Policy that almost got me killed because they were trying for force my mother to have an abortion against her will (since I was the second child)
- Rich people and high-ranking party members get away with crimes (as long as they do not go against the paramount leader)
- If you want treatment, you have to wait a long time, and you have to pre-pay, even if its an Emergency Room life and death situation
- 户口 (Hukou, Household Registration) System that confines you to where you're born, and you cant even to move to other parts of your own country, and if you tried you are treated as a second-class citizen, essentially Casteism
Such "Socialism" aka: State-Capitalism
The communist party of China.
The least communist communist party on the planet.
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