this post was submitted on 29 Jan 2026
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i think they haven't been an empire for just as long as it had existed?
they were settlers first, right? with the indigenous genocide and all.
so you're saying going to war against a neighboring nation to expand your territory is not what an empire does?
i forgot they invaded mexico pretty soon in, but that wasn't global domination like they do today just yet.
the "neighboring nation" I was referring to were the indigenous people. North America was not a blank slate before Europeans arrived. "manifest destiny" was imperialism
i'm sorry to overextend this thread just because of semantics, but as i understand that part of history, the us was founded atop indigenous lands, with the intention of genociding them right out of the gate rather than enslaving them, technically making "manifest destiny" a settler ideology instead, right? i mean sort of like israel and zionism.
and my question is why do you think that's not a form of imperialism
it could be. but i have the impression imperialism is a subset of this type of violence, when a nation does it to another.
so, just walking through your own argument as I understand it: situations that are similar to the treatment of indigenous North Americans by the US can be considered imperialism, if it's done by one nation to another nation. but the actual treatment of indigenous peoples by the US doesn't meet that condition. the result of that syllogism must be: between the US and the indigenous peoples, one of them is not a nation. I assume you're not saying that the US is not a nation. so the conclusion must be that the indigenous North American peoples were not a nation, or multiple nations; that there was no political or societal organization in the Americas before Europeans came. is that what you mean, or have I misunderstood?
more like imperialist and settler ideology are subsets (variations?) of a bigger settler-colonial mindset, but different in the sense that one is mostly genocide, and the other is mostly enslavement.
ie. when the us coups bolivia, they don't want to annex the land, but rather enslave it's people through their imperial machine. when israel invades palestine, they don't want to make palestinians their vassals but rather just kill everyone and keep the land underneath their feet. these are mostly similar but different things.
i'm not that well versed about north america before the europeans but it's safe to say there was societal organization before they came, but they decided to settle that land instead of making them european vassals.
edit: to bring this closer to my mentality with this: i'm from a colony and i find what they do to palestinians qualitatively different to what they do to us.
ok I see. my understanding of imperialism is that it encompasses both of those, meaning broadly, expansion of influence, especially (but not necessarily) by claiming areas of land, in order to gain control of resources currently held by others. but I agree, there are two types within that, and the distinction between them is whether the people currently occupying the land (or in particular their labor) are part of the resources that the empire is trying to claim
The US was very unremarkable globally compared to Britain or France for example, people thinking it wasn't dominant enough to be an empire doesn't mean they think it wasn't cruel or expansive
They terrorized and looted plenty of the world in the 19th century already.
Right, the US wasn't a superpower until around WWII, so we're less than 100 years into it really being an empire. But it can also be said that in some ways it became an empire because it inherited the imperial tendrils of the British empire.
Thanks for trying to buy us a little more time.
Yeah, wasn't much of a world power until WW1.