# I fear I'm about to lose my country **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [October 22, 2023, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-fear-im-about-to-lose-my-country/991926 "2023-10-22T16:48:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 44
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2025, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-fear-im-about-to-lose-my-country/991926/861 "2025-10-15T22:17:34Z")
Fucking trump is of course hoping to gain leverage over the next election. ---
**Author:** ![Kolak\_of\_Twilo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kolak_of_twilo/32/73_2.png) [@Kolak\_of\_Twilo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kolak_of_Twilo)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2025, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-fear-im-about-to-lose-my-country/991926/862 "2025-10-16T03:01:14Z")
Yeah, I saw that as well. DJT’s dumbassery never seems to stop biting him in the ass. I hope Milei’s party gets crushed if for no other reason than how stupid it will show him to be. Of course the MAGA idiots won’t get it at all. ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2025, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-fear-im-about-to-lose-my-country/991926/863 "2025-10-16T05:32:54Z")
> **[US is working on doubling aid to Argentina to $40 billion by tapping private...](https://apnews.com/article/trump-argentina-financing-economy-milei-billion-peso-fd38553ae03f4c33ce1288999469f7fb)** > > The Trump administration is looking to provide an additional $20 billion in financing for Argentina. [![Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/rZesRpS.jpeg "imgur.com") ](https://imgur.com/rZesRpS) ---
**Author:** ![Frodo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frodo/32/302_2.png) [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2025, 10:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-fear-im-about-to-lose-my-country/991926/864 "2025-10-16T10:35:46Z")
Except it’s not “Bailing out Argentina” it’s “Bailing out Javier Milei”. As I said above, we are not going to see a dime of that money, but we surely will be stick with the debt. ---
**Author:** ![OldOlds](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/a3d4f5/32.png) [@OldOlds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldOlds)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2025, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-fear-im-about-to-lose-my-country/991926/865 "2025-10-16T12:10:13Z")
America First! I mean, Argentina IS in America. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2025, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-fear-im-about-to-lose-my-country/991926/866 "2025-10-16T15:42:08Z")
It’s real obvious. It’s a protection racket. Our criminal regime sets up this swap with Argentina’s criminal regime. Come election time in Argentina, the Americans loudly announce that the Argentinians _must_ re-elect Milei or else the swap will be immediately unraveled with devastating consequences to Argentina’s economy. “Nice country you have there; shame if something happened to it. Just sayin’” And now criminal trump has yet another national leader & national government by the 'nads. ---
**Author:** ![Frodo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frodo/32/302_2.png) [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2025, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-fear-im-about-to-lose-my-country/991926/867 "2025-10-16T17:03:00Z")
Yep, except that Argentinians (at least some of the time) do not respond well to that kind of threat. I hope, hope, hope that this will be one of the times when that kind of thing backfires and Milei’s party loses catastrophically. The most probable outcome is that they will lose but in a way that allows them to muddle through and Trump, as usual, refuses to recognize reality when it goes against him and continues to support them. That will give Milei 2 more years to continue taking a wrecking ball to the country 😟 Things will reach a climax when he (almost inevitably) fails to get reelected, but in the current state of world affairs 2 years may as well be 2 centuries, it’s impossible to predict how things will be at that time, will Trump still be alive? will the U.S. be engulfed in civil strife? will Argentina still exist or will it be replaced by “Trumponia”? ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2025, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-fear-im-about-to-lose-my-country/991926/868 "2025-10-16T17:35:03Z")
God, it pisses me off that Trump isn’t content to just make Americans miserable, he’s gotta fuck with other countries too. But let’s be honest, the United States has a long history of fucking with other countries, especially in South America. I’m really sorry. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2025, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-fear-im-about-to-lose-my-country/991926/869 "2025-10-16T18:15:05Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > especially in South America To be precise: it started in Cuba and the Philippines. And then, first slowly and later faster and faster, went completely off the rails. Here is an account I read recently, but there are many other to be found by your favourite search engine: > **[Why is America’s First Great War of Empire Barely Remembered at Home?](https://lithub.com/why-is-americas-first-great-war-of-empire-barely-remembered-at-home/)** > > At 9:39 PM on February 15, 1898, Clara Harlowe Barton was one minute away from a moment that would change her nation forever. That Tuesday night, she sat at her desk at Havana’s Hotel Inglaterra, p… ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2025, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-fear-im-about-to-lose-my-country/991926/870 "2025-10-16T18:19:36Z")
Thanks for the info! I had a Spanish class in college that covered Pinochet and Operation Condor in Chile which is where I was first introduced to this history, but I’m not surprised to learn it started even before that. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2025, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-fear-im-about-to-lose-my-country/991926/871 "2025-10-16T18:30:55Z")
Pinochet? May I suggest you search for “United Fruit Company” and “Banana republic”, and then dig into the history of the Panama Canal? Then, if you will, William Randolph Hearst and the Maine conspiracy and the Monroe doctrine (yes, search for them all together simultaneously) and you would still have to go further back in time, but you would get a general (no pun intended) idea. There are objective historical reasons for antiamericanism, trump is nothing new in this respect. It’s a pity that history at school sucks everywhere. Just imagine: I was taught in Spain that we were the good ones in Cuba and the Philippines! Just as ridiculous as what you are taught. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2025, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-fear-im-about-to-lose-my-country/991926/872 "2025-10-16T18:49:44Z")
I honestly can’t remember what we were taught about the Spanish American war in high school, though I do remember they taught us about manifest destiny - as a bad thing. Education varies greatly in the states. I was taught a lot about atrocities in high school, particularly slavery and the destruction of Native Americans, but we really didn’t get into the atrocities in other countries that much. Yet some schools in the south downplay the savagery of slavery and other crimes against humanity and tell lies about the true cause of the war. College is a little different. I was a Spanish major. But we would spend an entire class on one narrow subject, so I didn’t necessarily get the broader overview. For example, I had one class that was solely about the diaspora of Caribbean LGBTQ people in the United States. I had one class that was solely about the Spanish Civil War. One class that was solely about South American literature as a response to authoritarianism. These are really just random snapshots and not the whole picture. I find history fascinating, but I have a hard time remembering it. I studied these things decades ago. But I do remember finding Operation Condor a little shocking. That was my first real understanding of US meddling in other people’s governments, along with 9-11 which really drove the point home. 9-11 happened the first week of my freshman year of college. Big wake up call! ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2025, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-fear-im-about-to-lose-my-country/991926/873 "2025-10-16T19:54:30Z")
See? For me the eleventh of september was the date of Pinochet’s coup, 1973. It did not have such a snappy name, but I remembered it nonetheless. Everybody in my generation knew that. The circle seems to close. But it does not really. Just like in Germany the 9th of november used to be the **[Kristallnacht](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kristallnacht)**. Now it is the day the Berlin Wall fell. ---
**Author:** ![Frodo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frodo/32/302_2.png) [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2025, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-fear-im-about-to-lose-my-country/991926/874 "2025-10-16T20:58:37Z")
The U.S. treasury is trying to stabilize the Peso… but the Peso is indomitable, even with Bessent selling Dollars from a firehose the Dollar went from less than 1400 Pesos this morning to more than 1430. The dark humourists in social media are having a field day “These poor yanquis have no idea of the eldritch forces they are messing with” ---
**Author:** ![SunUp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea5d25/32.png) [@SunUp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SunUp)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2025, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-fear-im-about-to-lose-my-country/991926/875 "2025-10-16T21:38:51Z")
> [@Pardel-Lux](#): > > Then, if you will, William Randolph Hearst and the Maine conspiracy and the Monroe doctrine (yes, search for them all together simultaneously) and you would still have to go further back in time, but you would get a general (no pun intended) idea. Don’t forget the Knights of the Golden Circle, William Walker and the filibuster movement, and the Ostend Manifesto, all part of the slave power agitation for “An Empire for Slavery” to cite James McPherson’s chapter heading in _Battle Cry of Freedom_. ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2025, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-fear-im-about-to-lose-my-country/991926/876 "2025-10-16T21:52:03Z")
> [@Frodo](#): > > “These poor yanquis have no idea of the eldritch forces they are messing with” The Old Ones speak lunfardo? ---
**Author:** ![Frodo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frodo/32/302_2.png) [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2025, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-fear-im-about-to-lose-my-country/991926/877 "2025-10-16T22:36:54Z")
The Old Ones are mortally afraid of the Peso, they may be horrors beyond al comprehension from beyond the doors of reality but they have their _limits_ ---
**Author:** ![Frodo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frodo/32/302_2.png) [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2025, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-fear-im-about-to-lose-my-country/991926/878 "2025-10-16T22:46:17Z")
Another one > “The final battle between the infinite dollar-printing machine and the infinite dollar-swallowing machine” ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2025, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-fear-im-about-to-lose-my-country/991926/879 "2025-10-16T22:52:46Z")
Wouldn’t it be ironic if the peso was the final straw that broke the FED’s back? That would give Milei the title of strawman king. And trump would be the camel of the year. ---
**Author:** ![Frodo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frodo/32/302_2.png) [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2025, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-fear-im-about-to-lose-my-country/991926/880 "2025-10-16T23:21:02Z")
I’ve seen several tweets predicting that it will happen and calling it “another coronation of glory” for our country. (A meme usually used for more important things like the world cup) [![](https://preview.redd.it/another-coronaci%C3%B3n-de-gloria-v0-v7oosbn1m2ve1.jpeg?width=320&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=27342c5bfbdd73829a6eefdfcfb074f7dbc5c22d) ](https://preview.redd.it/another-coronaci%C3%B3n-de-gloria-v0-v7oosbn1m2ve1.jpeg?width=320&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=27342c5bfbdd73829a6eefdfcfb074f7dbc5c22d) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-fear-im-about-to-lose-my-country/991926.md?page=43) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-fear-im-about-to-lose-my-country/991926.md?page=45)