I see articles like this and it reminds me of what a terrible metric GDP is. Per-capita, these numbers would be even more stark -- but Japan is so much better than California in SO many ways. It's got its own (very very) serious problems, but I'd take Japan any time.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
It certainly *should* flip voters... But every interaction I've had with a MAGA type has left me quite shaken by their brazen cultishness, -- I mean that in the most literal sense possible -- and "these are the stats which disprove your cult" has never been a great deprogramming technique.
Alas, it won't happen. Russia remains a threat despite having an economy smaller than Italy's, thanks to its cold war legacy. Even at its most humbled, America would be the same. Plus we'll likely get a proliferation of new nuclear states, in the absence of America's nuclear umbrella. Bad times.
It's just astonishly awful. The damage he's doing internationally will take years, if not decades, to undo.
Thank you @ezrakleinbot.bsky.social -- this is a reckoning that liberals across the entire western world need to have with themselves: youtu.be/VwjxVRfUV_4?...
