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Comment by nozzlegear | Hacker News Reader

Never is a long time. Look at where Germany was after both WWI and WWII, and where it is now; it's demonstrably possible to cause irreparable damage to everyone around you, and then rise back to the top (multiple times!). The only questions are timeline and scale.

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Germany got a new type of government. The 2/3 required in USA for significant change will be insurmountable short of a disaster on order of second Great Depression since plurality of American voters can’t see past next paycheck, no Democrat that can win Presidential primary has any kind of revolutionary vision, it’s all muted, even Bernie got squashed by centrist voters eventually and he was not even that far to the left IMHO - he even stayed away from race or gender issues.

Hillary Clinton was to the left of Bernie Sanders in 2016, because free trade reduces global stratification and being against trade and immigration like Bernie was (and is) to protect American jobs is elitism.

> Hillary Clinton was to the left of Bernie Sanders in 2016

No, this is so factually untrue as to be offensive.

Hillary is a party stooge through and through, it’s why she was essentially installed as the 2016 dem candidate, in spite of voter preferences. They did Bernie dirty

> Hillary is a party stooge through and through, it’s why she was essentially installed as the 2016 dem candidate, in spite of voter preferences. They did Bernie dirty

No, this is so factually untrue as to be offensive. I caucused and volunteered for Bernie in 2016. He lost the primary vote fair and square, but he dragged himself and his supporters to the convention kicking and screaming as if there was some chance he could overcome a mathematical defeat. Superdelegates never even entered the equation. All he did was instill a conspiracy in his diehard supporters.

I think you are only right on gender and race issues. That might have lost Sanders some voters in primaries. Unfortunately neoliberalism was adapted wholeheartedly by Bill Clinton and Blair and kinda inherited by Hillary, is not remotely left leaning belief.

I'm mostly being tongue-in-cheek (I should've added /s but it's too late to edit it in now). As a former Bernie volunteer and caucuser turned neoliberal globalist shill, I just like to poke at DNC conspiracies by pointing out that Bernie was a flawed candidate and that, even today, he isn't very left-leaning at all on some issues like immigration, visas and trade.

Germany changed its constitution, banned its former ruling party, and actively explores and teaches their school kids about their crimes. The US on the other hand has a chunk of its electorate flying Confederate flags and voting for politicians who think US history textbooks should be more "pro-American".

I'm not saying the country is perfect right now. We need a third Reconstruction.

We need a first reconstruction. We voted in Confederate sycophants ASAP to undo the very first, and spent the next 100 years pretending that slavery wasn't still happening.

Yet again we have instead voted in people who for some reason think the literal aristocracy system of the antebellum south was anything worth protecting, despite the southern US being so dysfunctional it could barely support a war of it's own making.

Germany wasn't and isn't the world's hegemon.

I don't think that position is recoverable the same way.

It was the hegemon of Europe though, and it is once again – at least economically. I don't know much about European culture to say how popular German pop culture is there though.

The "hegemon of Europe" was the "Franco-German engine" for the longest time.

The engine has stalled though and the center of gravity is shifting East (Poland) and South (Spain, Italy).

United in diversity, as is our motto.

Look at where Germany is now?

They're a total non-player on the world stage. They completely kowtow to the US. Hardly a good example

> They're a total non-player on the world stage.

It's the biggest economy in Europe and the de facto "head country" of the EU.

You also have to consider the outside intervention forcibly imposed upon Germany, after being defeated in war both times, and how the first round of that contributed directly to WWII. It's not exactly a playbook to copy verbatim.

I'm on the record that America needs a third Reconstruction era.

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