[kevinsync]

You being an outside observer of my country, what do you think the mid-term (next ~decade) looks like if the US is somehow able to flush the toilet and do a complete 180 from a policy and administration perspective? I imagine even if people we need are welcomed back with open arms, they're not going to want to come. I sure wouldn't want to go back to a bar where the bouncer kicked the shit out of me!

Just curious, it's hard to see things clearly from inside the carnival.

[Insanity]

As an outsider as well, I think the damage done will be hard to reverse in just a decade. You lost trust of your closest allies. Even after the current presidential term, why would we (Europeans, Canadians, ..) invest in ties with the US, when the _next next_ president can be an entire shitshow again?

The American people have shown that they are okay voting for the same nationalistic rhetoric twice. If it was just once, maybe it's a fluke. Now it seems more like a pattern hinting at the mindset of ~50% of Americans.

Also, if I want to be really pessimistic, I'd look at history, at some point Roman turned on Roman (Caesar crossing the Rubicon) after years/decades of political turmoil. The things happening today in Minnesota etc could be preludes a similar Rubicon crossing moment that will shatter the republic..

[esseph]

Closer to 27%

[detritus]

As an outsider not in academia, your system has poisoned your well.

We trusted in you to do the Right Thing, yet a significant sub-system of your culture has entirely successfully undermined your 'Checks and Balances' - a sub-system which has clearly been in action since at least the eighties.

I don't know how you get rid of that. It's You.

.

I get that America/the West is far from perfect.

[GuestFAUniverse]

Are you kidding?

Currently I wouldn't dare to enter the US, while I'm sure I would be relatively safe in China. And: even before Trump the TSA had elements of despotism. All the while I never heard of Europeans being treated like shit in China -- simply the better hosts!

[adev_]

> what do you think the mid-term (next ~decade) looks like if the US is somehow able to flush the toilet and do a complete 180 from a policy and administration perspective?

I honestly do not know.

Academia works with networking between peers and moves where the money is.

In Academia, the relation between researchers and the 'names' in the domain matters a lot. But the money stream matters even more.

When relations are created, I do not see them 'ending' just because US decided to play the good guys again and open the money stream again.

It will help to restore some links yes, but will probably not cut any ties created with other countries.

[bulbar]

Regarding general politics / economics, the damage has been done. The western world has now started to create a western world that's not centered around the US as it was the case before. It is yet to be seen if the US will again be or remain being part of the western world.

It's a bad development but necessary, sadly. We can only hope that Europe rises and comes out as a new strong center eventually, because we need one to counter all those powerful and evil actors in the world.

[theshrike79]

You need a constitutional change.

Something ironclad that can't be changed by an "executive order" in 30 minutes.

It has to make sure nothing like this will ever happen again, there can't be public officials who can just NOT show up to congressional hearings and if they do they can just blatantly, provably, lie - because there is no penalty for lying except a honour system.

Your supreme court has to have term limits with no reelection like the German equivalent and be comprised of different strata of folks, so that all of them aren't politically nominated.

The trust is gone and not easily fixed without something really drastic happening - barring a brutal civil war, I can't see a quick way out of this. Sorry.

[1718627440]

The problem is that separating from the USA as idea has been floating around for some time. Thinking they have jurisprudence over allies, forcing allies into supporting stupid wars and operating global surveillance companies are not things that started with Trump.

[donkeybeer]

Whenever the last maga dies will be the beginning of your country being trusted again. So at least a few decades. Just another administration won't do.

[PennRobotics]

After the 2016 election, my advisor's entire research lab relocated to Europe except for two candidates who were nearly finished with a PhD and got co-advised.

The majority of us who moved became proficient in a foreign language. Some got permanent EU/UK/Swiss residency or even citizenship. This lab continues to attract researchers from the U.S. and then place them mostly into European and Asian universities or businesses. These folks are largely not going back to America short of forceful expulsion via European anti-immigration policy. I know other research group leaders who have done this same thing.

Someone I know in the U.S. has a PhD/grants/awards and wants to stay close to family/home (in a mid-sized city of a Republican-leaning state) yet hasn't been able to find a job or academic position in biological engineering after a few years of actively looking. The longer they work outside of their major, the harder it will be to secure an engineering/academic career later.

For too many in the U.S. (particularly where I grew up; a farm town) politics is a team sport and the hatred of the other team only intensifies as the government invests in higher education and research. They're willfully blind to the fact that cancer treatments, major agricultural advances (crop resilience, production efficiency, genetic modification), smartphones and fast internet access, trucking, and nearly every aspect of their lives which has vastly improved comes from social spending. Instead, it's stickers on gas pumps and chants at NASCAR races. Leftist voters are not as decisive at the voting booth as Republicans, and there's still right-wing momentum in many states across all levels of government, the judicial system, and the leadership of the largest companies.

I firmly disbelieve the U.S. can reverse course even after a decade. In my opinion, it would require immense structural and cultural change: breaking up the two-party system, rejecting money in politics, political/judicial age limits, a major push to disrupt clandestine foreign meddling, shifting the partisan balance of courts in a way that cannot later be weaponized, heavy investment in infrastructure and high-visibility patriotic (ideally non-partisan) programs similar to Eisenhower's, the sort of intense media regulation that would restore local journalism in small towns, paying teachers significantly more plus developing more public trust in the educational system, public research investment, high taxes, strong social programs, a rejection of the propaganda that America is the greatest country in the world; basically a shift toward being more like the countries that actually(*) have a high standard of living.

Who has the power to implement these sweeping changes? Would it be a conflict of their personal interests?