I agree that the action is very consequential, the pipeline in particular was an unexpected shock with real tangible effects. I only was saying that the overwhelming majority of anti euro stuff is rhetoric, not that the actions weren’t important.
It was worth saying that most of what is done against Europe is rhetoric because a subsequent American regime could walk those positions back (not that any smart leader of a European state would trust them). Specifically if in the future one of the pressures that could be urging European nations to move to Microsoft alternatives were to disappear, it would be common sense to use the ms alternative program as a bargaining chip to get what the state actually wants: to not change anything and not have to retrain everyone.
That’s precisely why I pointed out that the role of Europe has changed from the American perspective in my original reply. It’s not a question of a specific leader, but the structural change in the material realities of the empire. A future president in the US may be less crass than Trump, but the policy itself isn’t going to change. The US is no longer going to see Europe as being worth the investment. The empire is contracting, and Americans will husband their resources either to dominate their own hemisphere or to try and contain China.
I agree that the action is very consequential, the pipeline in particular was an unexpected shock with real tangible effects. I only was saying that the overwhelming majority of anti euro stuff is rhetoric, not that the actions weren’t important.
It was worth saying that most of what is done against Europe is rhetoric because a subsequent American regime could walk those positions back (not that any smart leader of a European state would trust them). Specifically if in the future one of the pressures that could be urging European nations to move to Microsoft alternatives were to disappear, it would be common sense to use the ms alternative program as a bargaining chip to get what the state actually wants: to not change anything and not have to retrain everyone.
That’s precisely why I pointed out that the role of Europe has changed from the American perspective in my original reply. It’s not a question of a specific leader, but the structural change in the material realities of the empire. A future president in the US may be less crass than Trump, but the policy itself isn’t going to change. The US is no longer going to see Europe as being worth the investment. The empire is contracting, and Americans will husband their resources either to dominate their own hemisphere or to try and contain China.