It's so strange reading all these comments from Americans begging to be punished for collective misdeeds. It reads as unsettlingly masochistic.

From a less masochistic and more self-interested perspective, it's not a good long-term thing for American corporations to thrive purely due to corruption and throwing around political weight.

We as consumers (and for that matter, aspiring businesspeople) all benefit when we have more entrants to the market that are challenging the existing monopolies. And to be honest I don't think the EU has the incentives to pull this off anyway, these are manufactured headlines around what's a minor blip in the vast coffers of American corporations. I'm sure zero alarm bells are going off in Redmond because some EU bureacrats wrote a headline around switching to a Django app built in a hackathon.

It’s in the US’s best interests to be a rule follower. It maintains our status as a global reserve currency. It gives our passports access to almost every country without visas. It attracts foreign investment.

As a US citizen, it is incredibly in my selfish interest for the US to not be a shitty friend. Just as it is in our selfish interest to promote democracy, less corruption, and free markets.

While I agree with those things, morally, they are also in the pure self-interest of the United States.

The only people who hate Americans as much as (or more than) Europeans are Americans.

They are the ones that get to face almost all of the consequences from their government. And they know that if the people that voted on their current government don't get severally punished, things will only escalate.

The selection of Americans commenting generally aren't suffering, and won't be suffering under any circumstances. They're upset that the institutions that they worship and rely on for their own professional legitimacy are now all under a buffoon, game show host, and professional wrestling valet. It calls into question the "meritocracy" that they believe rewards them for all their hard work.

They blame this on the people who lack merit, and didn't study hard enough to get their share of the highest profit margins in history. They want them to be punished. The people who actually do and make things, rather than shuffling things around, marketing things and sending emails.

It's no wonder that they hope for some sort of punishment to force people to flock to them. US Liberals offer working people absolutely nothing but mockery. The only reason they have a chance at getting back into government is because Trump's corruption will keep the people who voted for him from voting at all. MAGA (with fellow-travelers who voted for him while holding their noses, repulsed by the alternative) is falling apart over foreign wars, Epstein, and H1Bs, not any of the middle class lib objections. Democrats also will give you war, Epstein and H1B.

The midterms, and the next election, will be won by the side that has managed to disillusion slightly fewer voters to the entire democratic process. I'm sorry, but that still bodes well for the loudmouth strongman.