Saw this thread, and it really hit a chord with me, as these similar fears tend to constantly weigh on me (for various reasons- being trans, ethnic Chinese, commie, etc).
I think we all (leftists, but also just most minorities) know, shit is bad and will get worse, it’s just a question of how bad it will get. People mention it offhand without usually going further into the details, and similarly in other spaces - non-leftist ones as well, for instance Asian diasporic and LGBT spaces in my experience, these fears come up, but ultimately we keep the bulk of our concerns to ourselves. What are our expectations here, for the west? Not just for the US, but the Anglosphere and Europe?
America couldn’t win a conflict with Vietnam, it still kneecapped the region and set them back decades.
On one hand- yes. On the other hand, this time around honestly- if China and whoever else gets dragged into the war, does not ensure to strike an eye-for-an-eye (MAD) humanity may as well give up on existence altogether. The US cannot meaningfully threaten China without resorting to MAD- hell, they can’t continue squatting on Taiwan if push comes to shove without MAD- and China remains capable of hitting the US back just as hard (without MAD)- just… MAD is really the only option the US has.
Which is to say IMO, if the US wants to try their luck, they should be yeeted out of existence. As someone who (while not AmeriKKKan) would almost certainly go down with the ship ATM, as someone whose immediate family and loved ones would as well- this is how I see it. All the west has left (as an oversimplification but not by much- and their system is absolutely defunct and then some) is terrorism, and the world cannot back down to it no matter what.