Chinese leaders see America as “decadent, hollow, and in rapid decline”, and speeches such as Rubio’s “the temper tantrums of the dying throes of a once great power”.
Do you think the people in that room had even a moment of uncomfortable selfawareness, or did they just double down on copium?
While people like Rubio have been saying the quiet part out loud he’s an american right winger, which means he also says a bunch of stupid shit in between. When he complained that sanctions drove countries to look for emergency alternatives to dollar payment systems he also ended his speech about how america is decadent due to not executing all trans people or whatever.
That video is a good example of this. It’s a peptalk about how evil China is, rather than a criticism of how utterly incompetent the american political estabilishment has become. ‘They think America is in rapid decline and they want to crush the heads of capitalists’ - which cycles back to every other speech on why exactly conservatives think america is in decline. Which is just a gay or racial panic of some kind.
Ultimately people like Rubio are only complaining because the current warchief is of the Democrat brand. The liberals are motivated in the exact same way, which is why even though their politics are different they still won’t attack the real material reasons why the USA is choosing to decline right now.
So the copium is self reinforcing. If you’re a lib you’ll look at Rubio and say he’s a chud and in the pocket of Big Global South (Russia). If you’re a right wing maniac you’ll look at AOC, Sanders or whatever and say ‘these people with their death solar panels don’t know how economics work’.