War with Russia

[C R]

Eh?

 

[Ian H]

Eh?

Garbage in, garbage out.

 

[bobzmyunkle]

Peter Thiel, founder of Palantir, is the real pupet master.

View: https://youtu.be/riX2Ww80Ow0?si=9oCVZ2drxVsQG34e

 

[RecordAceFromNew]

Trump doesn't have the strategic understanding to be formulating a longer plan than whatever makes him "look good" in the next week, but I think there is something dark going on in the MAGA republican elite.

I am getting more to thinking that this is about normalising relationships with Putin, removing sanctions and Ukraine just happens to be in the way. US administration is basically trying everything now to get Ukraine to crumble in order to get it out of the way.

Why any US administration is so keen to do this, and willing to jettison decades of carefully cultivated alliances to do so is beyond me.

Stowie I hope you don’t mind my picking your post for its many likes, and for mirroring many of the current "conventional wisdom” on Trump. The point I want to make, is that in this day and age, if we don’t try to read AND understand what our supposed political ‘opponents’ (be they Trump, Putin, Xi, etc.) are saying, we are going to be blind as a bat.

The proof, is that anyone who has done an ounce of research would have found everything Trump has done has been building up for years in Project 2025, widely disseminated by the Heritage Foundation, and explained e.g. in this book with foreword by Vance. Essentially that was the Republican manifesto in detail.

The pertinent question, is how then can we explain the spectacle of European (incl. UK) political leaders and journalists being in shock now and running around like headless chicken? What else could possibly have been the reason, but that nearly every single one of them have been so far up the displaced Neocons’ backsides for so many decades, that they have actually all gone blind?

FWIW, I think it is unarguable that many of the Foundation’s diagnostics are correct - e.g. re the Swamp, the American empire overreach, the proxy war in Ukraine, the demise of family value, etc. They are certainly right on the money regarding US’ de-industrialisation, government overspending / $ over-printing, and the corresponding rise of China combining as an existential threat to America’s way of life, so much so that drastic changes are imperative urgently. So what but slavishness, hubris and blindness could have caused US’ allies' failure to see and anticipate this?

However, imho unlike the diagnostics, Trump & Co.’s self-prescribed medicines are mostly pants. But even if they were much much better, they would have been too little, too late. But that is an entirely different story.

 

[AndyRM]

Eh. What?

I don't think anyone is in shock or running around like headless chickens, but it's pretty difficult for anyone to know where they stand when a demented f*ckwit is in charge of the US.

 

[stowie]

Stowie I hope you don’t mind my picking your post for its many likes, and for mirroring many of the current "conventional wisdom” on Trump. The point I want to make, is that in this day and age, if we don’t try to read AND understand what our supposed political ‘opponents’ (be they Trump, Putin, Xi, etc.) are saying, we are going to be blind as a bat.

The proof, is that anyone who has done an ounce of research would have found everything Trump has done has been building up for years in Project 2025, widely disseminated by the Heritage Foundation, and explained e.g. in this book with foreword by Vance. Essentially that was the Republican manifesto in detail.

The pertinent question, is how then can we explain the spectacle of European (incl. UK) political leaders and journalists being in shock now and running around like headless chicken? What else could possibly have been the reason, but that nearly every single one of them have been so far up the displaced Neocons’ backsides for so many decades, that they have actually all gone blind?

FWIW, I think it is unarguable that many of the Foundation’s diagnostics are correct - e.g. re the Swamp, the American empire overreach, the proxy war in Ukraine, the demise of family value, etc. They are certainly right on the money regarding US’ de-industrialisation, government overspending / $ over-printing, and the corresponding rise of China combining as an existential threat to America’s way of life, so much so that drastic changes are imperative urgently. So what but slavishness, hubris and blindness could have caused US’ allies' failure to see and anticipate this?

However, imho unlike the diagnostics, Trump & Co.’s self-prescribed medicines are mostly pants. But even if they were much much better, they would have been too little, too late. But that is an entirely different story.

I agree that the effects of globalisation was never mitigated in a way that benefited those negatively affected. Of course, a lot of people in the US (and Europe) benefited from globalisation with cheaper goods (whether this is good or bad is a different matter).

I am largely of the Gary Stevenson theory of what is going wrong. That is, inequality in wealth is having a profound effect. This is not just manifested in "share of pie", but in the profound effect it has on assets (housing, shares) etc. and the discrepancy between reward from passive income and work. Trump is exactly the wrong answer if Stevenson's theory is correct - he will preside over almost unprecedented transfer of funds from the poorest to the richest at a time when US inequality is already very high.

I think my confusion is the foreign policy rather than domestic. Attacking close allies such as Canada and Europe, being so aligned with Russia that propaganda is repeated verbatim. I get why Trump doesn't view Ukraine as existential in the same way as many European countries - Russia isn't on their doorstep. But to be so pro-Putin seems a strange stance. Even the "get tough" rhetoric of recent days after Putin used the reduction in US intelligence to bombard Ukrainian cities was utterly toothless. Increase sanctions? Russia is already the most sanctioned Nation ever. Tariffs? Russia, before the war didn't do much trade with the US, tariffs will be meaningless. It seemed a way to try to be a bit "fairer" in light of Russian attacks in Ukraine without actually hurting Putin. Finally, the Russia stance makes little sense economically (or business wise) either. The US is burning bridges with key huge established markets so that it can engage in a country which produces little of what it needs and has an economy that is smaller than Italy? That also makes no sense.

I think the intention of the Trump government has surprised no-one. The scale and speed that it is dismantling domestic and foreign norms should be a surprise - it shows that the fabled "checks and balances" were a chimera against a determined wrecking ball.

 

[the snail]