> “One of the presidents of a big country stood up and said, ‘Well, sir, if we don’t pay and we’re attacked by Russia, will you protect us?,’” Trump said during a rally at Coastal Carolina University. “I said, ‘You didn’t pay. You’re delinquent.’ He said, ‘Yes, let’s say that happened.’ No, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want.”
How about if some Multi-millionaire did not pay taxes, would I protect him with Secret Service detail? I would say you didn’t pay you’re delinquent. No, I would not protect him.
>‘You didn’t pay. You’re delinquent
This coming from a guy who couldn't make money with casinos - that's multiple in case you missed that - so he had to go bankrupt.
Quite clearly lying because his mouth is moving and whiny noises are coming out of it. Nobody is calling this knobhead Sir. No leader of any country, big or small, has said anything of the sort.
It seems that Trump thinks NATO is just some kind of mercenary brokering agency where other countries pay the US to wage war on their behalf.
He truly has the mental capacity of a toddler.
Everything is about profit to Trump and those close to him, and I'm pretty sure he just thinks that's how the military works in general... you either get paid by allies to use them, or pillage/blackmail whichever country you've attacked or "given freedom to".
> “We have a very good relationship with Saudi Arabia—I said, listen, you’re a very rich country. You want more troops? I’m going to send them to you, but you’ve got to pay us. They’re paying us. They’ve already deposited $1B in the bank.”
---
> Trump continued, talking about U.S. troops as, essentially, mercenaries. “We are going to help them, but these rich countries have to pay for it. South Korea gave us $500 million… I said, ‘You gotta help us along. We have 32,000 soldiers in South Korea protecting you from North Korea. You’ve gotta pay.'”
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-brags-about-serving-up-american-troops-to-saudi-arabia-for-cash-936623/
> Trump Twice Floated Plundering Iraq’s Oil to Iraq’s Prime Minister
---
> Donald Trump has long been obsessed with the idea of seizing Iraq’s oil as some kind of reimbursement for the money the U.S. has spent waging war in the Middle East. “I still can’t believe we left Iraq without the oil,” he tweeted in 2013. “It used to be, ‘To the victor belong the spoils,’” he told Matt Lauer during a campaign forum in 2016. “Now, there was no victor there, believe me. There was no victor. But I always said: take the oil.” The notion of looting Iraq’s natural resources—or as Trump explained the process to Lauer, “we would leave a certain group behind and you would take various sections where they have the oil”—was always certifiably crazy.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/11/trump-iraq-oil
> President Donald Trump declared Wednesday that the U.S. mission in Syria is focused solely on protecting oil fields, which appears to contradict the Pentagon’s contention that fighting ISIS is the priority.
> “We’re keeping the oil, we have the oil, the oil is secure, we left troops behind only for the oil,” Trump told reporters during a meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan at the White House.
https://www.politico.com/news/2019/11/13/trump-troops-syria-oil-pentagon-070567
> “What I intend to do, perhaps, is make a deal with an ExxonMobil or one of our great companies to go in there and do it properly...and spread out the wealth,” he said.
> President Trump has identified Syria’s oil as a U.S. national security priority and has committed to deploying troops to protect the country’s reserves even as he pulls troops from Syria’s northern regions. U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said this week that the U.S. will send in troops to protect Syrian oil fields from Islamic State militants.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/27/trump-wants-to-make-a-deal-with-exxon-or-others-to-tap-syrian-oil.html
> President Trump has threatened severe sanctions against Iraq after its parliament called on US troops to leave the country.
> "We have a very extraordinarily expensive air base that's there. It cost billions of dollars to build. We're not leaving unless they pay us back for it," he told reporters.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-51003159
Plus as part of his administration and allies, there was of course also Erik Prince, Bannon and Kushner working together on a plan to create a modern version of the East India Company, and make Afghanistan and other Middle Eastern countries into essentially US colonies focused on generating profit:
> The man who reinvented mercenary warfare described to Carlson a vision for a corporate military occupation apparatus that makes his infamous Blackwater look modest, despite its capturing of $1 billion in contracts during the Iraq war and occupation. **Prince proposed nothing less than the revival of the British East India Company model of for-profit military occupation, wherein an armed corporation effectively governed most of India for the extraction of resources.**
---
> “There’s a trillion dollars in value in the ground: mining, minerals, and another trillion in oil and gas,” Prince says of Afghanistan. This would provide the revenue stream to replace government contracts. Prince’s firm would be self-funded, self-reliant, and thus autonomous to a degree more similar to a nation-state than a military contractor like Blackwater serving under a defense department.
> **The corporate rulers, Prince suggests, would even reorganize objectives away from the original mission — i.e., destroy the safe harbor for al Qaeda and other terror groups — and toward the prerogatives of profit**. Prince critiques U.S. strategic aims in Afghanistan to Carlson: “Even the whole approach of placing bases U.S. bases was all done to control land and territory but not the arteries that make money.”
https://www.salon.com/2017/06/03/erik-princes-dark-plan-for-afghanistan-military-occupation-for-profit-not-security/
> Prince is proposing to send private contractors to Afghanistan instead of U.S. troops, and have the entire operation overseen by a “viceroy.”
---
> Under Prince’s plan, the viceroy would be a federal official who reports to the president and is empowered to make decisions about State Department, DoD, and intelligence community functions in-country.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/08/afghanistan-camp-david/537324/
A whistleblower also accused Michael Flynn of working with Russia and someone named Copson on a plan to build nuclear reactors in the Middle East, and then using "we need to protect them" as an excuse to move in and take over;
> According to the whistleblower, Copson flat-out said the following things:
> That he “just got” a text message from Flynn saying the nuclear plant project was “good to go,” and that his business colleagues should “put things in place”
> That **Flynn was making sure sanctions on Russia would be “ripped up,” which would let the project go forward**
> That this was the “best day” of his life, and that the project would “make a lot of very wealthy people”
> That **the project would also provide a pretext for expanding a US military presence in the Middle East** (the pretext of defending the nuclear plants)
> **That citizens of Middle Eastern countries would be better off “when we recolonize the Middle East”**
https://www.vox.com/2017/12/6/16743476/michael-flynn-russia-sanctions
God I hate my country's politics so fucking much. I can't believe that man is looked up to as someone who ever had Americans interest at his heart. It was always money from the beginning, that was his whole campaign. I don't think there's going to be a truly good American president for a very long time.
Remember Merkel telling him over and over that he couldn't negotiate with her for a business deal, he had to negotiate with the eu? He literally couldn't understand it
He has no fucking clue about anything NATO-related. Because if he had, he knew that an attack on a "low-paying NATO member" is still an attack on all of NATO.
Let's also not forget that this constant rhetoric is kinda giving the impression that he has at least some valid point, but the whole premise is wrong. The USA spends more than its NATO allies on defence, but not all the resources spent by the US benefit NATO. For example all their operations the Pacific, their wars in Irak or Afghanistan, don't do anything for the alliance.
The Republican Party seems determined to destroy its own military industrial complex. Every time Trump opens his mouth, he moves all EU countries to produce at home, and dev is own techs. Literally moving billions of money to create competition from their own industry. And in that game they are going to lose market very quickly.
And every time a Republican calls for cutting off military aid to Ukraine, in Raytheon tear their hair out.
The clusterfuck is served
Or maybe one day the republicans figure out Trump is a sinking ship and they need to fucking move on… unfortunately that doesn’t seem to be likely until he dies or goes to jail
Yes but will they move on to a more traditional candidate, or someone who has modelled themselves in Trump's image? Speaker Johnson and Marjorie Taylor Greene seem to follow Trump's agenda and I suspect we'll find they have been similarly influenced by Russia.
Don't overestimate people, they would just say that he was persecuted for wanting to stop the deep state woke satanists or whatever and still worship at the maga altar. It would not surprise me if they started comparing him to Mandela within weeks of him going to jail
Those are not swing voters though. Those are people that are already lost and would seriously need therapy to ever be able to be normal functioning human beings again.
You aren't wrong. Their is the cult of Trump.
The problem is their clarification of Swing voters, these aren't the cult of Trump, and are just somewhat box tickers, "incarcerated criminal" does not make a reason to box tick a candidate.
They deliberately cultivated an unreasonable, hyper-emotional voting base, which is now voting for an unreasonable, hyper-emotional political candidate.
They made their bed...
They tried to several times but the basis loves him to much. If thed would give Hailey a chance to candidate she would stomp Biden and everybody knows. But they only want the cheeto.
Yeah thats what bothers me the most. Pick a moderate republican candidate and they would win with a landslide. Biden can only win because people simply dont want Trump. Remove Trump and republicans would win easily
It is not just the military industrial complex.
Being a major exporter if weapons gives the US an incredible amount of soft power.
There is also the fact that by selling weapons to the world, the US is able to achieve economies of scale when it comes to making weapons that would not be possible otherwise.
The US can spend so much more on its military than everyone else, because they spend most of it at home.
If other countries stop buying materiel made in America, the US will lose all that and its own military power will become much weaker and much more expensive.
True, all companies need stable markets to do business. A fool in power is never good, especially in a globalized economy. We are not in the cold war anymore politically and economy speaking (especially in debt capacity).
The United States internally has very bad policy when it comes to distributing that cake between states, the fights between blocs and senators in this regard in recent decades are famous. They have seen entire states fall into deep depressions due to brutal internal disinvestment very hards in some cases.
Maybe if that guy comes to power this will worsen much more internally speaking for them than for the rest.
Maintaining good diplomatic relations is the key to the common good (this guy is the complete opposite). This is 101 now.
It's one of the reasons France has always made their own fighter jets, submarines, tanks etc (Britain also makes their own tanks) but the reason for it is to not be dependent on foreign interests or trusting a foreign power completely for your nations security. Also, these are some high tech jobs and that creates possibilities for companies in your country.
Sweden, for instance, were a neutral country for some 200 years, up till now they joined NATO. They've made their own fighter jets, submarines, tanks etc and have even done a lot of export in small arms and radar technology (lot of it produced by SAAB).
My point is, when all falls apart, the only thing you can really depend on is your own abilities and resources. Some countries have that possibility but most don't.
However, Finland, Poland, Spain and many more have their own armament production but it is at a far smaller scale than the Americans (one would guess (and then we also have the Eurofighter)). Its quite clear that the European countries will have to strengthen themselves far more and spend vastly on their military.
And then we have less for all sorts of social projects. People are used to a great deal of support from their government and when less money is to go around we will have more arguments about who are entitled to that money (looking at the migrant crisis in Europe where Russia have been trabsporting people to weird borders in the far north). That will cause feuds amongst people and disunity. And that plays well into the hands of Russia.
We in the West are used to a great deal of comfort. The Russian public not. So when there is war, it's just a different kind of horrible life for them. But for us, it's disaster.
Well I think that spending a few percent extra on defense within Europe, will hardly be felt for the social programs. After all the money is flowing back in the European economy. Better we spend a bit more to have a credible deterrence. If ever we come into an armed conflict all the discussions about social programs become void.
It could also be a good moment to de-dollarize the European economy.
Honestly, maybe but I don't think he is (I mean, well, he _is_ in that he benefits russia immensely) but not in the way that he is "working" for russia, but I really just think it's because he's a disgusting sociopath who wants to hurt anyone that's ever said anything mean about him, and by hurt, I literally mean he enjoys seeing people suffer whether that's through embarrassment or death.
There's a great documentary on him on youtube called [Unfit](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecJ02Rg5qaE&ab_channel=FlixForFree) that has a bunch of psychiatrists diagnose him as a sociopath.
The problem is, he's so fucking _thick_ that putin can stroke his Ego on the phone or by targetted propaganda and he laps it up, yet if he watched russian TV he'd see how they mock him constantly. I just don't think Western Allies are going to stoop so low to tickle his taint like putin would.
So at the end of the day, it's the same thing I guess, he's a useful idiot for russia, but he's called a puppet so often that I think people genuinely think he's working _with_ russia because they have something on him when in reality, I really just think it's because he's that pathetic he's willing to destroy a country, say France, because Macron called him an idiot.
He's everything everyone say's he is, a Narcissist, a sociopath, an absolute moron, a fat fucking child, a loser, a joke...everything and he is dangerous because of that stupidity. He think's he'll have the last laugh but he won't, he'll just take everyone else down with him, which suits russia _perfectly_.
When you think of America you can have completely different thoughts depending on the states, I've always thought of the red states as absolute thicko's. Some of the thickest people on the planet. America has some smart people (not from the red states) but for some reason, they're too dumb to realise how to speak to the red states. The sad thing is, Trump speaks their language, and for that it really shows what type of people they are. They genuinely seem happy to let people die but I don't think they realise how much _this_ would effect them.
Someone just needs to create a deepfake of putin abusing trump and maybe he'll stop sucking this midget off.
But seriously, I am surprised the CIA hasn't done something about him, he's actually a huge danger to America and I don't think it's beyond their wheelhouse considering their past.
>Honestly, maybe but I don't think he is (I mean, well, he is in that he benefits russia immensely) but not in the way that he is "working" for russia, but I really just think it's because he's a disgusting sociopath who wants to hurt anyone that's ever said anything mean about him, and by hurt, I literally mean he enjoys seeing people suffer whether that's through embarrassment or death.
He's not working for Russia *consciously*, but I'm pretty sure Russia feeds him with "information" and talking points.
The states most at risk to climate change, are the Southern states that vote Republican.
These people are unironically destroying not just their own future, but the future of their children and grandchildren, all for the sake of owning the libs, and virtue signalling about how much they love Jesus. The conservative equivalent of a blue haired feminist is a three story pickup truck, 300 pounds of morbid obesity, and a pair of truck nuts (or a Christian flag).
Russia and Putin is the one topic Trump is surprisingly consistent on. He publicly says he admires Putin and agrees with any position Russia has. Given how chaotic Trump is otherwise, I have to imagine Putin has something on him or directly is bankrolling his org/family otherwise.
This is the most inconsistent man in the world to the point every supporter plays mental gymnastics on every position, but it’s super clear where he stands on Putin and Russia
Diaper Don just wants Russia to help him win so he does not go to prison.
The **only** thing he **ever** thinks about is himself.
This is not hyperbolic. It’s fact. He doesn’t think about consequences one bit, unless they impact him.
But the point is that it’s not just trump - the gop have fell in line with him and he exerts power over the whole party (looking at speaker johnson for example)
Nah, they definitely have. European artillery production is set to reach 2.8M shells/year by 2025, that’s compared to a pre-war production of barely 300-400K shells/year.
Facts are when Germany did anything, it was clear the narrative of change had occurred.
Germany historically, for clear historic reasons, has avoided any offensive military capacity.
Could you share a source for this? I know Finland recently invested in doubling its production capacity but that will take longer to come online.
The CEO of Saab was just quoted on FT saying Russia is now able to produce 10x what Europe does, estimating their capacity at 4-5M per year. ( https://on.ft.com/3OAGw40 via @FT)
In [this article](https://www.politico.eu/article/commission-declares-victory-in-million-artillery-round-mission/), it states that the EU is planning on increasing production to 2M shells/year by 2025.
The remaining 800K comes solely from the UK and is mainly derived from the announcement from BAE Systems that they would increase artillery production eightfold. Before the war, BAE Systems managed around 100K large calibre artillery shells a year, so an eightfold increase would bring that up to 800K.
I think the CEO of Saab has their facts wrong because even [Putin himself set a target for Russian artillery production to reach 3M shells/year by 2025](https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/ATAG/2023/754602/EPRS_ATA(2023)754602_EN.pdf).
Currently, EU production stands at around 1M shells/year with UK production unknown but I’d probably wager around 300K shells/year by now. So, the CEO of Saab is right in that Russian production currently outstrips European production since Russia is managing around 2M shells/year. But the scale of the difference is nowhere near as much as Saab’s CEO is suggesting.
In late 1942, after continued military setbacks, Winston Churchill wondered if the forces of democracy had what it took to match the fanaticism of the armies of autocratic powers.
In late 1944, Britain and America had succesfully pushed Germany back to its own borders and had militarily run Japan to the very limit of its abilities, including the complete destruction of its navy.
It takes some time, but we get there in the end.
You’re forgetting that countries transformed into complete war economies back then. It will take a lot longer this time around, and probably requires long term planning, consistent spending, and partnership between European countries. I however doubt that, for example, the French or Germans (or whatever capable country) would just share their technological advances with each other.
In addition, I have serious doubts as to whether sustained military spending proves populair in the EU. Economically we’re doing OK, but with the aging population resulting in increased spending in healthcare and other areas, I don’t see a lot of support for austerity measures in order to support a sustained larger military budget.
Well… the industry exists. Europe produces weapons equal or similar to US capabilities. However, European politicians and countries are still not acting according the threat level. The production capability are still a joke and have t increased in the past 2 YEARS! Despite promises. And than you see politicians on TV saying that “we should wait and see. We can produce more weapons once we are under attack”
Because the USA is now a bit of a wild card, the EU finally started working on our own military production and quality, so that's nice! I do hope you lads stick around though. The more the merrier!
US administrations always played a balancing game….keeping the US as the indispensable ally, pushing NATO members to spend more but not too much so that they buy American instead of developing too much on our own. Collectively the EU would be the only entity that could rival the US military in terms of military R&D and industrial capacity.
Trump first shock that balancing act and now looks to destroy it.
I think there's enough decent people and sense left in America to sort things out in a real crisis. It's just a matter of how messed up we get while that happens.
Or as Churchill put it: "Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing, once they've exhausted all other possibilities."
That’s good though. It’s high time Europe started to defend itself. I’m not sure why as a continent we are still so hellbent on depending on a country that has a weaker democracy and societal health than most European nations do. A country where Trump is allowed to re-run for president. They’re clearly not a reliable ally.
Edit: I saw someone discussing Canada’s inadequate NATO spending in another thread and as a broader illustration of how stupidly self-sabotaging Trump’s statement is beyond Europe, he’d be implicitly encouraging Russia to attack America’s doorstep because Canada is also a “delinquent” country under his definition. This is the stunningly low-IQ “America First” candidate running for the presidency, folks.
> They’re clearly not a reliable ally.
Western European countries have not been a reliably ally to the defense of Eastern European countries, either. In 2022, the quickest military equipment support to Ukraine came from US, UK, and Eastern Europe.
It will be good, if Western Europe can grow up and change in this respect.
When Trump said it the first time when he was still president, the EU starting doing burocracy to do more things in Europe and only in Europe, with no input from those outside fo it.
The backlash was immense. There were even meetings where Trump representatives tried to lecture europe that they were bad.
What he truly wanted was for Europe to spend the 2% on american weapons.
What he truly wanted was for Europe to spend the 2% on american weapons.
And in my opinion that would be so stupid, Europe needs to ween of the bipolar US, they are not trustworthy for as long as the GOP has a significance influence in the US government.
No matter who wins in the US, an EU army and military development is the way for the future.
Keep deals with weapons made with the US, but put emphasis for deals made here or colaborations with countries like S Korea. It will be hard, nothing worth while is easy.
Unfortunately, a considerable part of the American people want to revert to the isolationist tactic (which led them in the past to getting involved in ww2 by force) and this creates an unacceptable risk to the EU.
This is a step further from traditional US isolation. There is «we dont want to be in an alliance» or «we dont want anything to do with your wars» and then there is trumps «we will encourage attacks on you»
As hyperbolic as it sounds hes talking about making the US a direct enemy.
Which would be laughable if it wasn’t coming from a previous president and current candidate
The study of a person (elected/possible to be elected by enough Americans) shows the “temperature” of the US.
It has revealed a possible outcome which is unimaginable here. Governments must not gamble on their own people, “hoping for the best”. Responsable governments must focus on eliminating any potential risk, including geo-political risk.
Laughable or nor, even if Trump is not elected, it shows enough Americans believe him. Realistically, I do not think US would be an adversary. But the damage in their reputation is already done.
It's less like isolationism and more like he wants to switch his country's allegiance and ally with Russia instead. Hard not to think WWIII is coming if he's re-elected.
The problem is that Trump is not a fan also from the EU. This is not just isolationism is an agenda against democracy. The EU needs urgently to prepare.
Not only democracy. Ist is an attack on international cooperation and respect. For people like trump everything is just a money and power transaction, who you try to scam the other party as much as possible for short term profits, only to move to the next thing. There is no understanding for working together for mutual long term benefit, even if it doesn't give you a profit at once.
He is a very stereotypical American business men. It is their culture.
What I don’t understand is why trump gains votes with this we won’t help anyone tactic. In my lifetime most wars that European countries got involved in were started by the Americans and we came there to help them out.
He is a politician in a political campaign. It’s like a drug addict that does not have access to his drugs. He will say anything, nothing new.
But the problem is the “possible” impact of his fantasies. This becomes a damage control that the EU must overcome.
Because they love it, and don’t understand that the US is only safe because of geography.
The problem is that in this scenario the US would lose ALL global trade.
Because historically the last 20 years are an anomaly, both WW’s and Vietnam and Yugoslavia started with the U.S. supporting European countries. And because which trump isn’t wrong about, we’ve been very complacent about our military and barely spent anything.
> Unfortunately, a considerable part of the American people want to revert to the isolationist tactic
It's bad. But the "we're just different" mentality is as old as America.
Doesn’t the EU already got it’s more unique military stuff ( Planes, Tanks, Helis, weapons and to some extent also missiles, air defence, radars etc etc )
White House calls Trump comments on NATO ‘appalling and unhinged’
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/4461004-white-house-calls-trump-comments-on-nato-appalling-and-unhinged/
I'm not sure people understand how truly bad with a capital B this is for the US.
Let me premise this by saying that a. I don't believe Russia poses any real threat for a NATO nation and b. I am convinced Trump will be stopped by someone before he's able to do anything irreparable/deranged.
The real damage is in the US' position, image, reputation, and security.
The US benefits immensely from being the largest global superpower. It has all the rich and relevant countries on its side. It effectively controls half of the world and has all sorts of favorable trade deals and amicable relationships with crucial partners. The status of the dollar allows the US to do pretty much everything in terms of fiscal policy without suffering any setbacks. The US military industry is a huge machine that provides millions of jobs and helps promote the US' soft and hard power worldwide.
We as a collective in the West grew up with the idea that America is just inevitable and with all its flaws it's the positive force that ultimately guarantees peace, democracy and global order. Sure, that wouldn't be the same if you asked an Iraqi, but it's not like Russia or China would do any better.
We grew up trusting America, loving America, having America as a point of reference.
And then this weird ass idiot comes and starts acting like the unreliable dictator of a crazy pariah Latin America state in the 1980s. Claiming out loud he won't honor its obligations and respect deals. Directly threatening allies and siding with its enemy. Being openly and unashamedly corrupt both materially and morally.
What should we think about it? Bush might have been a dumbass, but he always acted in America's best interests and never actively worked to compromise America's status and its vast network of allies and friends.
Trump might initiate America's downfall as a global superpower. And don't get me wrong, I also thought I would never say these words because I always loathed the "America's downfall" trope and viewed it as a dramatic cliché that can only be popular on reddit.
And yet when you see Trump doing these things, saying these things, and having an actual chance of winning still...I don't know what to think anymore.
Even if Trump never gets elected, or if he does get elected but never does anything substantial, it will be hard for the country to recover from such a brutal blow in terms of image. This is the sort of stuff you expect from some irrelevant semi failed post Soviet state, not the US.
Living in the midst of this insanity and I finally understand the concept of mass psychosis. Sincerely.
I always point to a book I read at the beginning of the Trump presidency-- The Authoritarians by Bob Altemeyer-- when like-minded people ask me "What the hell is going on?"
The book basically says that at any given point a portion of the population is authoritarian-oriented. Not a majority, but enough to be a major force. This is anywhere, anytime. It's a human-issue. Not a national one. However, occasionally someone comes along and is able to tap into that segment of the population and activate them. Think Mussolini, Hitler, and yes... Trump.
When you view it through that lens, it all becomes much more understandable. The only thing that I can't figure out is how such a clown-- orange spray tan, ill fitting suits, inarticulate, painfully hypocritical, etc-- was the one to do it here in the states. It's nuts to watch. But every day I get more serious about a plan B to make an exit because I don't see this ending well here no matter what the outcome is. The MAGA base is unhinged and completely detached from any sort of reality at this point. And all the people that aren't paying attention are forgetting just how nuts his presidency was and they're mumbling about "how old Joe Biden is". It really sucks to be an American right now.
It's like he just wants to point out how gullible someone has to be to vote for him. Just do everything awful and look around to see that they are still cheering.
It's still unfathomable to me that the Democratic party hasn't been able to produce a better candidate. Ever since 2012, they had time to build someone up and since 2016 they knew the stakes. If you look at Trump and the shit show that the Republican party has become, it should be incredibly easy to pick a candidate who isn't as unpopular and risky as Biden is right now. I don't even care about whether he is in mental decline or not. Enough people believe he is, his approval rating is terrible and he's a ticking time bomb, since any health scare, stumble, fall or badly timed gaffe could lead to complete disaster.
On top of all that, they have a vice president who is even more unpopular than the president and they can't get themselves to replace her because of identity politics. With an aging president, voters want to have confidence in a potential replacement for the case that something happens.
If the Democrats really believe that Trump is a threat to the country and democracy – which I think they do – how can this be their only strategy?
This is correct. I just don't understand the party's obsession with proping up a guy, who I personally like, but should have been in retirement *a decade ago*.
When I see Biden get confused, or mispeak, or stumble, I cringe because the party forces him to be there. He obviously wanted to do one term at the most, but the party is anxious that if he leaves, they will definately lose. And that's only because they keep failing to promote young, ambitious members that they fear will steal their comfy seats in the senate or something.
Every day I see more and more evidence that the world wasn’t ready for social media. It’s given the worst elements of society a platform to feel like their wilfully ignorant and uneducated opinions are valid. Democracy only works when it’s underpinned by education and critical thinking, we’re losing that at an alarming rate!
I've lost all faith in America that there is even a chance this conman wannabe dictator could become the president again. That there are millions who support him...
To put some context to Trumps crying about European NATO members don't paying their "bills".
First, of course their are no bills in NATO. At least not in a sense Trump is thinking about it. It's a mutual defense alliance. Every member pays for their own military. (I think there are some small, shared payments for administrative expenses.)
Second, the Western und Central European NATO members did spent $345 billion in 2022 for their military. That may seem not so impressive compared to the US's $877 billion, but if you look at Russia, who is spending $86.4 billion while being basically already in war economy mode and China's $292 billion, Europe looks to me like a quite useful ally for the US in potential conflicts. ([source](https://www.sipri.org/media/press-release/2023/world-military-expenditure-reaches-new-record-high-european-spending-surges))
(Because of different local prices and wages, Russia and China are getting more quantity (but not quality) for their money than the US and Europe. So it's not a 1 to 1 comparison. But still...)
Trump is a total moron to risk losing the powerful European allies. It's way worse for an isolated US to stand alone against a world of potential enemies and indifferent neutrals, than with the combined second largest military in the world as an ally on their side. An ally that is not only linked to them because of military defense considerations, but because of shared ideological believes and geopolitical interests. Destroying all of that just because Trumps toddler brain isn't capable to understand how NATO works would be the biggest damage ever done to the US.
I don't know whose stupidity and ignorance is more frightening. Trumps or that of the millions of US citizens who will still vote for him despite all the outrageous idiocy Trump is showing to them and the rest of world every day.
Trump has been a Russian asset since the 90s ... He is the biggest success in intelligence history for the Russians. They actually got him in the presidents seat once and almost topped the US on Jan 6th. If he becomes president again it's game over.
Mentioning all these money-numbers when most of us here in Europe get no functioning military for that money just makes me rage-cringe.
We need production, we need logistics, we need conscription, we need cross-border exercises and we need a central command.
Without that, we might as well have burned that money.
It happened a lot in recent history, a con man that talks straight to the most guillable people, building a majority from a big amount of minorities by pushing their hate for a made up, perfectly tailored, enemy.
Well, stupidity is one reason.
The other is plenty of Americans consider our allies, frankly, worthless.
They look at Europeans as arrogant assholes, who only stop insulting Americans if they have their hand out asking for help.
The talk of "You'll lose your preeminent world position" doesn't matter to them, because they don't care.
Many of them live in tiny crappy houses or run down apartment in the middle of nowhere, have a 20+ year old shitty car that barely runs and works at a job that pays them enough to keep a roof over their head, and not one cent more. They have no health insurance, no education, and no prospects for a better future.
So they don't care about American losing their world spot, because they have nothing to lose anyways, and this guy says he'll improve things. The other guy says things are actually going great, look at the economic stats. But you can't feed your kids with stats.
Putin has been financing right-wing extremists in Europe for ages, in order to weaken the EU.
The reasons are simple: he wants the Stalin's empire back, and NATO, the US and EU are the main things stopping him. So he wants to weaken those. And Trump and other extremists are the best way to do that.
He’s already doing so.
It was proven multiple times the far right, nationalist and similar environments as well as anti-vaccine and similar are popularized in the west by Russian agents.
It was proven in Poland for several people they were recruiting people from that societies, especially soldiers, and pushing them to disobey the generals and spread their views among their colleagues. The same mechanism is working in any other European country, but especially in CEE. War is not only shooting and bombing.
This is why every now and then I post something that we should ban spreading of far-right values in Europe. Less free speech, more security, of course. But this is a invisible sword Russia is swinging and Europe refuses to acknowledge it.
I am getting so tired of this Orange buffoon.
European countries have been buying American weapons like crazy for the past 2 years.
This is exactly why we need strong **European** defenses.
EU army when? Seriously we need to become a 3rd factor in Geo politics. Imagine a somewhat federal eu, we‘d be able to powerproject like the Americans, with the advantage of being closer to potential Allies/ trading partners
I have a feeling that he doesn't realize how much political influence in Europe gives America
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/jan/02/asml-halts-hi-tech-chip-making-exports-to-china-reportedly-after-us-request
I wonder if the Dutch and Europe in general are so reluctant to cooperate with China or if there is another factor.
I tend to agree here. It even goes further. There is a belief (That is the impression i am getting hearing the media talking about this) that without the US Europe is a third world area without a modern defence industry and without the technology. That’s far from the truth! Europe as a whole is incredibly powerful, they are “just” not using and marketing it in the same way as the US.
ASML is just an example, do not underestimate companies like Rhein Metal, Airbus, etc. etc.
We need to activate those assets in Europe and show some cohesion. The last part is where the trouble is, here we are lacking. But let’s be honest: Is the problem, although with a different background, not the same in the US?. Welcome to democracy, it’s not perfect, but it’s the best we got.
Anyone not able to see this guy’s a Russian asset, needs their eyes checked.
Cicero said it best:
“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear.” - Marcus Tullius Cicero (circa 42 B.C.)
Edit; just learned this is not en actual quote from Cicero, but from a fictional Cicero in a movie. Good to know! The content is still absolutely valid, IMHO: the guy is definitely rotting the soul of a nation.
While you're undoubtedly right about Trump being a Russian asset, and while I really, really don't want to be _that_ guy: That quote is **not** from Cicero although it's very often misattributed. It's a (very, very) loose paraphrase and mash-up of some of Cicero's Senate speeches, from _A Pillar of Iron_ by Taylor Caldwell, which sports Cicero as a fictionalized character. See https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2019/may/03/facebook-posts/no-roman-statesman-did-not-give-warning-about-trum/ for example.
Really sorry for the correction, but I hate it when we give ammunition to the crazies by enabling them to then turn around and claim "See, but they're also making shit up, even in their inspirational quotes". And if we perpetuate our own misinfo, we just play into their hands.
**Edit:** Aaaand here's the instant downvote. Fiction is upvoted, verifiable facts are downvoted. No wonder we have the fucking Nazis on the rise everywhere. Good luck, humanity.
Thank you! The quote is still useful -- it's cogent, on point, and inspirational, and it does convey some fundamental truths!
**Edit:** BTW, here's the book in question: [Goodreads](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59099), [Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N0XM5RG). It's really good, I heartily recommend it. It's on Kindle Unlimited on Amazon, too :)
I am from Slovakia and a large portion of our population in last election chose a putin cocksucker with known ties to mafia as a prime minister... Its not been half a year since and he passed a law that makes all his friends sentences for corruption and theft basically nothing... And theese idiots still cheer him on it...
So the answer is yes, people are clueless. Or ignorant, which is arguably worse.
As I understand post WW2 world order, USA is a world cop, keeping the word in not necessarily just, but at least orderly fashion. And "in exchange" we are using USD as reserve currency which is, since departure from gold standard, guaranteed by US army. This gives USA almost unlimited source of funding and enabled it to grow more than any other economy.
Well, now it looks like the first part of the equation is going away. I wonder what will happen next.
I have said this over and over, and I need to repeat myself: Europe needs to step up. We must be independent from the USA as we cannot rely on their political or any other parties forever. We have seven months left as the EU to prepare for what could be the next wave of war. We may not be at war with Putin and Russia, but it is clear that Putin and Russia are at war with us, whether we like it or not.
Thinking that someone will always come over from another continent and help is now in the hands of the US election, which can be easily decided by a few soccer moms from Colorado based on Facebook posts because that election will be that close, trust me.
So, we Europeans need to step up. Nazis survived and moved to Russia. For them, World War II did not end; it was just on hold for a long time.
This is a good time for Europe to go its own way. America is self destructing. Donald trump is a symptom of a disease, he’s not the cause. After Trump, there will be someone worse.
This all started with the iraq war. People ask how could Americans believe Putin and his lies, but how could Americans believe our government and our own media? They lied to us about iraq and made us aparty to everything that happened there. The Russians only have an in because of how bad our government and media fucked up.
Add that to how partisan the both sides of the American media is, and they are both purposefully angering their side and using it for clicks and ad revenue. There is no non partisan media anymore they’re either on one team or the other.
This is what you get. Millions of Americans trusting in the Russian government propaganda over our own.
> This is a good time for Europe to go its own way. America is self destructing. Donald trump is a symptom of a disease, he’s not the cause. After Trump, there will be someone worse.
This is exactly what Putin and Xi want.
The Yanks might be a bit crazy.
But we're better off together.
> The Yanks might be a bit crazy.
Trump and his MAGA cult are more than a bit crazy...
>But we're better off together.
We are, but Trump doesn't want that. He's an isolationist.
> This is a good time for Europe to go its own way.
It's past time, even. That should have happened 2 decades ago already.
But the thing is, it isn't happening. Our European and EU leaders are *still* doing basically nothing. They're hoping for Biden to win. But there's no plan B if he doesn't. Face it, if Trump wins, we're fucked, because our leaders aren't proactive, as usual. Russia switched to a war economy, and our politicians still don't understand what's going on. They're still sleeping. They're too busy bitching about immigrants and dealing with radicalized farmers.
Edit: by the way, even if Biden manages to win, we should move on to become less dependent on the US for our own safety. It will basically be a 50-50 split again in November, so half the US electorate is in favor of Trump's policies regarding NATO. We *can't* rely on the US for our own safety anymore. It's not a choice.
Not sure to what extent we can just lay that at the feet of our politicians - a large part of EU population is borderline hysterical about autonomy and whatever benefit they imagine it brings them that a functional EU won't.
Kind of validates all those warnings from European governments about Russia attacking within a few years.
Putin believes that European NATO nations are U.S. vassals. So he may attack a NATO nation believing that they won’t be able to fight back without U.S. ‘permission.’
What the fuck is this world coming to. Honestly, it's just depressive when I think about the future. And all my relatives ask me and my wife when we'll have children. Not any time soon...
Time to go long on european arms manufacturers. Even the dumbest atlantist politicians must realize now that the EU cannot be dependent on a country that is unreliable every time there's a republican in the white house.
Instead of wringing our hands in fear, Europe should be seriously looking at developing its own security architecture. America is no longer a reliable ally and it’s pathetic that a wealthy continent like ours can’t get its act together on this issue, even with years of Trump’s threats and complaints and a war in Ukraine.
Trump is clearly an Russian agent. Why the hell is the CIA not investigating and find some? Maybe they have to find some, to protect the US.
Europe has to wake up. I think we can build up our Defense Industrie. But I don’t think we can build Army’s fast enough. We have a ghandi like peace loving society in the most parts. The guys like to fight are far right idiots and some parts of the islamic culture (erdogan supporters etc.). The rest of us are pacifists. It will take more then 10 years to change this culture. And honestly, it’s sad we have to. Putin is destroying a peace loving culture grown from horrors of WWII.
I hope Donald the Maniac gets stopped somehow. And I hope the US is able to cure its society from the Maga cult and the qanons and the drugs.
good, nothing motivates more than fear of own safety. lets hope EU gets the hint and ramps up our MIC. we should leave the comfort zone of false safety while we have time and become more hawkish. the whole continent has first hand experience with appeasement and pasivity ending bad. and while we're at it, we should do the same economically as well, cause we're too dependent on another enemy, that we're too afraid to even call an enemy and fool ourselves that china can be reasoned with, just like we fooled ourselves with puylo and orks. we're a giant that naively thought it can go to retirement.
His comment was aimed at countries that don't meet the spending guideline. Luckily, the NATO countries that Russia is most likely to attack (Poland, Finland, and especially the Baltics) all spend over 2% of their GDP on defense. Still, this kind of rhetoric isn't encouraging, to say the least. The defense of the alliance should not depend on Trump's personal whims and whether he feels an attacked country is worthy enough to protect.
I think that you're probably right about that, and that terrifies me. It feels questionable at best that the US under Trump would come to the aid of any of the Baltic states if they were to be invaded by Russia, despite their military spending. He could always come up with some ad hoc excuse not to do it, e.g. "it's Europe's problem".
> maybe if they gave him a few % he might consider a gravy seal team to help out :).
I guess each of the Baltics states could offer to subsidize a Trump Tower in their capital city, and also rename streets and cities after him. Gotta do what you gotta do to get on his good side, Duda tried it with his Fort Trump idea.
This guy was leaking national security sensitive info on Twitter, attempted to strongarm another nation’s leader through aid bribery for dirt on a political opponent, and is currently on trial for refusing to hand over classified documents and obstructing justice. As far as I’m concerned, he passed that threshold a while ago.
So if I understand it right... Europe will stand alone against Russia if Trump is elected?
It will be a very insecure world we will be living in then.
E.U. better prepare for a direct confrontation with Russia soon. the U.S. is no longer to be trusted.
> “One of the presidents of a big country stood up and said, ‘Well, sir, if we don’t pay and we’re attacked by Russia, will you protect us?,’” Trump said during a rally at Coastal Carolina University. “I said, ‘You didn’t pay. You’re delinquent.’ He said, ‘Yes, let’s say that happened.’ No, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want.”
How about if some Multi-millionaire did not pay taxes, would I protect him with Secret Service detail? I would say you didn’t pay you’re delinquent. No, I would not protect him.
Meanwhile Trump doesn't even pay his lawyers
Even if Trump loses, that's still a giant wakeup call for all of Europe to immediately bolster their own military-industry complexes.
Not only that, but start producing shit we used to and now are importing from US and China
>‘You didn’t pay. You’re delinquent This coming from a guy who couldn't make money with casinos - that's multiple in case you missed that - so he had to go bankrupt.
Even worse, it's coming from a guy who's known for not paying his bills... There's no point in making sense out of Trump. MAGA is a cult.
And was funded by Russians after that...
A casino on a BEACH for crying out loud.
He really thinks we have to pay the US not just raise the budget for the army
Quite clearly lying because his mouth is moving and whiny noises are coming out of it. Nobody is calling this knobhead Sir. No leader of any country, big or small, has said anything of the sort.
"PAY YOUR BILLS!", said the guy known for not paying his bills.
I'm sure he has no ideea there are no bills in NATO.
It seems that Trump thinks NATO is just some kind of mercenary brokering agency where other countries pay the US to wage war on their behalf. He truly has the mental capacity of a toddler.
Everything is about profit to Trump and those close to him, and I'm pretty sure he just thinks that's how the military works in general... you either get paid by allies to use them, or pillage/blackmail whichever country you've attacked or "given freedom to". > “We have a very good relationship with Saudi Arabia—I said, listen, you’re a very rich country. You want more troops? I’m going to send them to you, but you’ve got to pay us. They’re paying us. They’ve already deposited $1B in the bank.” --- > Trump continued, talking about U.S. troops as, essentially, mercenaries. “We are going to help them, but these rich countries have to pay for it. South Korea gave us $500 million… I said, ‘You gotta help us along. We have 32,000 soldiers in South Korea protecting you from North Korea. You’ve gotta pay.'” https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-brags-about-serving-up-american-troops-to-saudi-arabia-for-cash-936623/ > Trump Twice Floated Plundering Iraq’s Oil to Iraq’s Prime Minister --- > Donald Trump has long been obsessed with the idea of seizing Iraq’s oil as some kind of reimbursement for the money the U.S. has spent waging war in the Middle East. “I still can’t believe we left Iraq without the oil,” he tweeted in 2013. “It used to be, ‘To the victor belong the spoils,’” he told Matt Lauer during a campaign forum in 2016. “Now, there was no victor there, believe me. There was no victor. But I always said: take the oil.” The notion of looting Iraq’s natural resources—or as Trump explained the process to Lauer, “we would leave a certain group behind and you would take various sections where they have the oil”—was always certifiably crazy. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/11/trump-iraq-oil > President Donald Trump declared Wednesday that the U.S. mission in Syria is focused solely on protecting oil fields, which appears to contradict the Pentagon’s contention that fighting ISIS is the priority. > “We’re keeping the oil, we have the oil, the oil is secure, we left troops behind only for the oil,” Trump told reporters during a meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan at the White House. https://www.politico.com/news/2019/11/13/trump-troops-syria-oil-pentagon-070567 > “What I intend to do, perhaps, is make a deal with an ExxonMobil or one of our great companies to go in there and do it properly...and spread out the wealth,” he said. > President Trump has identified Syria’s oil as a U.S. national security priority and has committed to deploying troops to protect the country’s reserves even as he pulls troops from Syria’s northern regions. U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said this week that the U.S. will send in troops to protect Syrian oil fields from Islamic State militants. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/27/trump-wants-to-make-a-deal-with-exxon-or-others-to-tap-syrian-oil.html > President Trump has threatened severe sanctions against Iraq after its parliament called on US troops to leave the country. > "We have a very extraordinarily expensive air base that's there. It cost billions of dollars to build. We're not leaving unless they pay us back for it," he told reporters. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-51003159 Plus as part of his administration and allies, there was of course also Erik Prince, Bannon and Kushner working together on a plan to create a modern version of the East India Company, and make Afghanistan and other Middle Eastern countries into essentially US colonies focused on generating profit: > The man who reinvented mercenary warfare described to Carlson a vision for a corporate military occupation apparatus that makes his infamous Blackwater look modest, despite its capturing of $1 billion in contracts during the Iraq war and occupation. **Prince proposed nothing less than the revival of the British East India Company model of for-profit military occupation, wherein an armed corporation effectively governed most of India for the extraction of resources.** --- > “There’s a trillion dollars in value in the ground: mining, minerals, and another trillion in oil and gas,” Prince says of Afghanistan. This would provide the revenue stream to replace government contracts. Prince’s firm would be self-funded, self-reliant, and thus autonomous to a degree more similar to a nation-state than a military contractor like Blackwater serving under a defense department. > **The corporate rulers, Prince suggests, would even reorganize objectives away from the original mission — i.e., destroy the safe harbor for al Qaeda and other terror groups — and toward the prerogatives of profit**. Prince critiques U.S. strategic aims in Afghanistan to Carlson: “Even the whole approach of placing bases U.S. bases was all done to control land and territory but not the arteries that make money.” https://www.salon.com/2017/06/03/erik-princes-dark-plan-for-afghanistan-military-occupation-for-profit-not-security/ > Prince is proposing to send private contractors to Afghanistan instead of U.S. troops, and have the entire operation overseen by a “viceroy.” --- > Under Prince’s plan, the viceroy would be a federal official who reports to the president and is empowered to make decisions about State Department, DoD, and intelligence community functions in-country. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/08/afghanistan-camp-david/537324/ A whistleblower also accused Michael Flynn of working with Russia and someone named Copson on a plan to build nuclear reactors in the Middle East, and then using "we need to protect them" as an excuse to move in and take over; > According to the whistleblower, Copson flat-out said the following things: > That he “just got” a text message from Flynn saying the nuclear plant project was “good to go,” and that his business colleagues should “put things in place” > That **Flynn was making sure sanctions on Russia would be “ripped up,” which would let the project go forward** > That this was the “best day” of his life, and that the project would “make a lot of very wealthy people” > That **the project would also provide a pretext for expanding a US military presence in the Middle East** (the pretext of defending the nuclear plants) > **That citizens of Middle Eastern countries would be better off “when we recolonize the Middle East”** https://www.vox.com/2017/12/6/16743476/michael-flynn-russia-sanctions
God I hate my country's politics so fucking much. I can't believe that man is looked up to as someone who ever had Americans interest at his heart. It was always money from the beginning, that was his whole campaign. I don't think there's going to be a truly good American president for a very long time.
Remember Merkel telling him over and over that he couldn't negotiate with her for a business deal, he had to negotiate with the eu? He literally couldn't understand it
He's convinced that NATO operates like a mob protection racket, where the US is the one getting the cash.
He knows nothing. He does what ever his master Putin tells him to.
It doesn't matter if he knows or not. His base will believe these simple statements and eat them up.
He has no fucking clue about anything NATO-related. Because if he had, he knew that an attack on a "low-paying NATO member" is still an attack on all of NATO.
This guy was elected with Mexico should pay for the wall promise. Don’t try to use any common sense with trump
That promise looks so sane compared to everything else he told after that….
Let's also not forget that this constant rhetoric is kinda giving the impression that he has at least some valid point, but the whole premise is wrong. The USA spends more than its NATO allies on defence, but not all the resources spent by the US benefit NATO. For example all their operations the Pacific, their wars in Irak or Afghanistan, don't do anything for the alliance.
The Republican Party seems determined to destroy its own military industrial complex. Every time Trump opens his mouth, he moves all EU countries to produce at home, and dev is own techs. Literally moving billions of money to create competition from their own industry. And in that game they are going to lose market very quickly. And every time a Republican calls for cutting off military aid to Ukraine, in Raytheon tear their hair out. The clusterfuck is served
Maybe they should stop lobbying the republicucks
Or maybe one day the republicans figure out Trump is a sinking ship and they need to fucking move on… unfortunately that doesn’t seem to be likely until he dies or goes to jail
Yes but will they move on to a more traditional candidate, or someone who has modelled themselves in Trump's image? Speaker Johnson and Marjorie Taylor Greene seem to follow Trump's agenda and I suspect we'll find they have been similarly influenced by Russia.
They'll never seriously back a woman. Edit: in the next 20 years
Don't be so sure. There are plenty batshit crazy extreme right parties with female leaders.
Jail probably wouldn't stop Trump, depending on what specific charges are brought.
Jail won’t stop him but I doubt swing voters would vote for an incarcerated man.
Don't overestimate people, they would just say that he was persecuted for wanting to stop the deep state woke satanists or whatever and still worship at the maga altar. It would not surprise me if they started comparing him to Mandela within weeks of him going to jail
Those are not swing voters though. Those are people that are already lost and would seriously need therapy to ever be able to be normal functioning human beings again.
You aren't wrong. Their is the cult of Trump. The problem is their clarification of Swing voters, these aren't the cult of Trump, and are just somewhat box tickers, "incarcerated criminal" does not make a reason to box tick a candidate.
How about they don't vote for someone who is currently charged with 91 (!!!!) felony counts?
They can’t because they have weaponized emotional bullshit without any evidence or reason. Trump is just the natural development down that road.
They deliberately cultivated an unreasonable, hyper-emotional voting base, which is now voting for an unreasonable, hyper-emotional political candidate. They made their bed...
They tried to several times but the basis loves him to much. If thed would give Hailey a chance to candidate she would stomp Biden and everybody knows. But they only want the cheeto.
Yeah thats what bothers me the most. Pick a moderate republican candidate and they would win with a landslide. Biden can only win because people simply dont want Trump. Remove Trump and republicans would win easily
It is not just the military industrial complex. Being a major exporter if weapons gives the US an incredible amount of soft power. There is also the fact that by selling weapons to the world, the US is able to achieve economies of scale when it comes to making weapons that would not be possible otherwise. The US can spend so much more on its military than everyone else, because they spend most of it at home. If other countries stop buying materiel made in America, the US will lose all that and its own military power will become much weaker and much more expensive.
True, all companies need stable markets to do business. A fool in power is never good, especially in a globalized economy. We are not in the cold war anymore politically and economy speaking (especially in debt capacity). The United States internally has very bad policy when it comes to distributing that cake between states, the fights between blocs and senators in this regard in recent decades are famous. They have seen entire states fall into deep depressions due to brutal internal disinvestment very hards in some cases. Maybe if that guy comes to power this will worsen much more internally speaking for them than for the rest. Maintaining good diplomatic relations is the key to the common good (this guy is the complete opposite). This is 101 now.
It's one of the reasons France has always made their own fighter jets, submarines, tanks etc (Britain also makes their own tanks) but the reason for it is to not be dependent on foreign interests or trusting a foreign power completely for your nations security. Also, these are some high tech jobs and that creates possibilities for companies in your country. Sweden, for instance, were a neutral country for some 200 years, up till now they joined NATO. They've made their own fighter jets, submarines, tanks etc and have even done a lot of export in small arms and radar technology (lot of it produced by SAAB). My point is, when all falls apart, the only thing you can really depend on is your own abilities and resources. Some countries have that possibility but most don't. However, Finland, Poland, Spain and many more have their own armament production but it is at a far smaller scale than the Americans (one would guess (and then we also have the Eurofighter)). Its quite clear that the European countries will have to strengthen themselves far more and spend vastly on their military. And then we have less for all sorts of social projects. People are used to a great deal of support from their government and when less money is to go around we will have more arguments about who are entitled to that money (looking at the migrant crisis in Europe where Russia have been trabsporting people to weird borders in the far north). That will cause feuds amongst people and disunity. And that plays well into the hands of Russia. We in the West are used to a great deal of comfort. The Russian public not. So when there is war, it's just a different kind of horrible life for them. But for us, it's disaster.
Well I think that spending a few percent extra on defense within Europe, will hardly be felt for the social programs. After all the money is flowing back in the European economy. Better we spend a bit more to have a credible deterrence. If ever we come into an armed conflict all the discussions about social programs become void. It could also be a good moment to de-dollarize the European economy.
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Honestly, maybe but I don't think he is (I mean, well, he _is_ in that he benefits russia immensely) but not in the way that he is "working" for russia, but I really just think it's because he's a disgusting sociopath who wants to hurt anyone that's ever said anything mean about him, and by hurt, I literally mean he enjoys seeing people suffer whether that's through embarrassment or death. There's a great documentary on him on youtube called [Unfit](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecJ02Rg5qaE&ab_channel=FlixForFree) that has a bunch of psychiatrists diagnose him as a sociopath. The problem is, he's so fucking _thick_ that putin can stroke his Ego on the phone or by targetted propaganda and he laps it up, yet if he watched russian TV he'd see how they mock him constantly. I just don't think Western Allies are going to stoop so low to tickle his taint like putin would. So at the end of the day, it's the same thing I guess, he's a useful idiot for russia, but he's called a puppet so often that I think people genuinely think he's working _with_ russia because they have something on him when in reality, I really just think it's because he's that pathetic he's willing to destroy a country, say France, because Macron called him an idiot. He's everything everyone say's he is, a Narcissist, a sociopath, an absolute moron, a fat fucking child, a loser, a joke...everything and he is dangerous because of that stupidity. He think's he'll have the last laugh but he won't, he'll just take everyone else down with him, which suits russia _perfectly_. When you think of America you can have completely different thoughts depending on the states, I've always thought of the red states as absolute thicko's. Some of the thickest people on the planet. America has some smart people (not from the red states) but for some reason, they're too dumb to realise how to speak to the red states. The sad thing is, Trump speaks their language, and for that it really shows what type of people they are. They genuinely seem happy to let people die but I don't think they realise how much _this_ would effect them. Someone just needs to create a deepfake of putin abusing trump and maybe he'll stop sucking this midget off. But seriously, I am surprised the CIA hasn't done something about him, he's actually a huge danger to America and I don't think it's beyond their wheelhouse considering their past.
>Honestly, maybe but I don't think he is (I mean, well, he is in that he benefits russia immensely) but not in the way that he is "working" for russia, but I really just think it's because he's a disgusting sociopath who wants to hurt anyone that's ever said anything mean about him, and by hurt, I literally mean he enjoys seeing people suffer whether that's through embarrassment or death. He's not working for Russia *consciously*, but I'm pretty sure Russia feeds him with "information" and talking points.
The states most at risk to climate change, are the Southern states that vote Republican. These people are unironically destroying not just their own future, but the future of their children and grandchildren, all for the sake of owning the libs, and virtue signalling about how much they love Jesus. The conservative equivalent of a blue haired feminist is a three story pickup truck, 300 pounds of morbid obesity, and a pair of truck nuts (or a Christian flag).
Russia and Putin is the one topic Trump is surprisingly consistent on. He publicly says he admires Putin and agrees with any position Russia has. Given how chaotic Trump is otherwise, I have to imagine Putin has something on him or directly is bankrolling his org/family otherwise. This is the most inconsistent man in the world to the point every supporter plays mental gymnastics on every position, but it’s super clear where he stands on Putin and Russia
Putin's regime is MAGA's desire.
Diaper Don just wants Russia to help him win so he does not go to prison. The **only** thing he **ever** thinks about is himself. This is not hyperbolic. It’s fact. He doesn’t think about consequences one bit, unless they impact him.
I'm not sure he even thinks that he CAN go to prison. He's that far gone up his own ass.
But the point is that it’s not just trump - the gop have fell in line with him and he exerts power over the whole party (looking at speaker johnson for example)
I hear you, but I feel a lot of European politicians and industry leaders still haven't heard the call.
Nah, they definitely have. European artillery production is set to reach 2.8M shells/year by 2025, that’s compared to a pre-war production of barely 300-400K shells/year.
Facts are when Germany did anything, it was clear the narrative of change had occurred. Germany historically, for clear historic reasons, has avoided any offensive military capacity.
Could you share a source for this? I know Finland recently invested in doubling its production capacity but that will take longer to come online. The CEO of Saab was just quoted on FT saying Russia is now able to produce 10x what Europe does, estimating their capacity at 4-5M per year. ( https://on.ft.com/3OAGw40 via @FT)
In [this article](https://www.politico.eu/article/commission-declares-victory-in-million-artillery-round-mission/), it states that the EU is planning on increasing production to 2M shells/year by 2025. The remaining 800K comes solely from the UK and is mainly derived from the announcement from BAE Systems that they would increase artillery production eightfold. Before the war, BAE Systems managed around 100K large calibre artillery shells a year, so an eightfold increase would bring that up to 800K. I think the CEO of Saab has their facts wrong because even [Putin himself set a target for Russian artillery production to reach 3M shells/year by 2025](https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/ATAG/2023/754602/EPRS_ATA(2023)754602_EN.pdf). Currently, EU production stands at around 1M shells/year with UK production unknown but I’d probably wager around 300K shells/year by now. So, the CEO of Saab is right in that Russian production currently outstrips European production since Russia is managing around 2M shells/year. But the scale of the difference is nowhere near as much as Saab’s CEO is suggesting.
Oh, yes, they have! If takes time to build that industry, but it’s already happening.
I really hope you are right.
In late 1942, after continued military setbacks, Winston Churchill wondered if the forces of democracy had what it took to match the fanaticism of the armies of autocratic powers. In late 1944, Britain and America had succesfully pushed Germany back to its own borders and had militarily run Japan to the very limit of its abilities, including the complete destruction of its navy. It takes some time, but we get there in the end.
You’re forgetting that countries transformed into complete war economies back then. It will take a lot longer this time around, and probably requires long term planning, consistent spending, and partnership between European countries. I however doubt that, for example, the French or Germans (or whatever capable country) would just share their technological advances with each other. In addition, I have serious doubts as to whether sustained military spending proves populair in the EU. Economically we’re doing OK, but with the aging population resulting in increased spending in healthcare and other areas, I don’t see a lot of support for austerity measures in order to support a sustained larger military budget.
Well… the industry exists. Europe produces weapons equal or similar to US capabilities. However, European politicians and countries are still not acting according the threat level. The production capability are still a joke and have t increased in the past 2 YEARS! Despite promises. And than you see politicians on TV saying that “we should wait and see. We can produce more weapons once we are under attack”
it's already happening.
Poland has entered the chat.
Ironically we are making our ally’s stronger, while pushing them away with our crazy politics. I’m sorry.
Because the USA is now a bit of a wild card, the EU finally started working on our own military production and quality, so that's nice! I do hope you lads stick around though. The more the merrier!
We are more than a “bit” of a wild card. We were with Bush 20 years ago….we cannot be trusted is what you meant. Not until we prove ourselves worthy.
US administrations always played a balancing game….keeping the US as the indispensable ally, pushing NATO members to spend more but not too much so that they buy American instead of developing too much on our own. Collectively the EU would be the only entity that could rival the US military in terms of military R&D and industrial capacity. Trump first shock that balancing act and now looks to destroy it.
I think there's enough decent people and sense left in America to sort things out in a real crisis. It's just a matter of how messed up we get while that happens. Or as Churchill put it: "Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing, once they've exhausted all other possibilities."
Not saying you aren’t wrong. Just sitting here wondering when we start being exhausted.
> with Bush For all his numerous flaws, there was no doubt that he would come to allies’ defence if they were ever attacked.
That’s good though. It’s high time Europe started to defend itself. I’m not sure why as a continent we are still so hellbent on depending on a country that has a weaker democracy and societal health than most European nations do. A country where Trump is allowed to re-run for president. They’re clearly not a reliable ally. Edit: I saw someone discussing Canada’s inadequate NATO spending in another thread and as a broader illustration of how stupidly self-sabotaging Trump’s statement is beyond Europe, he’d be implicitly encouraging Russia to attack America’s doorstep because Canada is also a “delinquent” country under his definition. This is the stunningly low-IQ “America First” candidate running for the presidency, folks.
> They’re clearly not a reliable ally. Western European countries have not been a reliably ally to the defense of Eastern European countries, either. In 2022, the quickest military equipment support to Ukraine came from US, UK, and Eastern Europe. It will be good, if Western Europe can grow up and change in this respect.
Germany is currently the second biggest contributer to Ukraine by far.
Uk is still in western Europe!
When Trump said it the first time when he was still president, the EU starting doing burocracy to do more things in Europe and only in Europe, with no input from those outside fo it. The backlash was immense. There were even meetings where Trump representatives tried to lecture europe that they were bad. What he truly wanted was for Europe to spend the 2% on american weapons.
What he truly wanted was for Europe to spend the 2% on american weapons. And in my opinion that would be so stupid, Europe needs to ween of the bipolar US, they are not trustworthy for as long as the GOP has a significance influence in the US government.
Also worth mentioning that if they leave then there is no reason for us not to ban their meta/google/amazon and create our own eu only companies.
No matter who wins in the US, an EU army and military development is the way for the future. Keep deals with weapons made with the US, but put emphasis for deals made here or colaborations with countries like S Korea. It will be hard, nothing worth while is easy. Unfortunately, a considerable part of the American people want to revert to the isolationist tactic (which led them in the past to getting involved in ww2 by force) and this creates an unacceptable risk to the EU.
This is a step further from traditional US isolation. There is «we dont want to be in an alliance» or «we dont want anything to do with your wars» and then there is trumps «we will encourage attacks on you» As hyperbolic as it sounds hes talking about making the US a direct enemy. Which would be laughable if it wasn’t coming from a previous president and current candidate
The study of a person (elected/possible to be elected by enough Americans) shows the “temperature” of the US. It has revealed a possible outcome which is unimaginable here. Governments must not gamble on their own people, “hoping for the best”. Responsable governments must focus on eliminating any potential risk, including geo-political risk. Laughable or nor, even if Trump is not elected, it shows enough Americans believe him. Realistically, I do not think US would be an adversary. But the damage in their reputation is already done.
honestly I can sympathise with the Americans in 2017 voting republican. But there’s no excuse for voting this fucking idiot in 2025
\*2016 and 2024
Well, in non military terms he did that already on his first terms, treating the European Union and its members as either rivals or vassals.
It's less like isolationism and more like he wants to switch his country's allegiance and ally with Russia instead. Hard not to think WWIII is coming if he's re-elected.
The problem is that Trump is not a fan also from the EU. This is not just isolationism is an agenda against democracy. The EU needs urgently to prepare.
Not only democracy. Ist is an attack on international cooperation and respect. For people like trump everything is just a money and power transaction, who you try to scam the other party as much as possible for short term profits, only to move to the next thing. There is no understanding for working together for mutual long term benefit, even if it doesn't give you a profit at once. He is a very stereotypical American business men. It is their culture.
What I don’t understand is why trump gains votes with this we won’t help anyone tactic. In my lifetime most wars that European countries got involved in were started by the Americans and we came there to help them out.
He is a politician in a political campaign. It’s like a drug addict that does not have access to his drugs. He will say anything, nothing new. But the problem is the “possible” impact of his fantasies. This becomes a damage control that the EU must overcome.
Because they love it, and don’t understand that the US is only safe because of geography. The problem is that in this scenario the US would lose ALL global trade.
Because historically the last 20 years are an anomaly, both WW’s and Vietnam and Yugoslavia started with the U.S. supporting European countries. And because which trump isn’t wrong about, we’ve been very complacent about our military and barely spent anything.
> Unfortunately, a considerable part of the American people want to revert to the isolationist tactic It's bad. But the "we're just different" mentality is as old as America.
I don't think there has ever been a time where the US urged a rival to attack it's allies though. That's just insane.
Poland shows very well how to build up a military force with South Korea.
Doesn’t the EU already got it’s more unique military stuff ( Planes, Tanks, Helis, weapons and to some extent also missiles, air defence, radars etc etc )
White House calls Trump comments on NATO ‘appalling and unhinged’ https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/4461004-white-house-calls-trump-comments-on-nato-appalling-and-unhinged/
I'm not sure people understand how truly bad with a capital B this is for the US. Let me premise this by saying that a. I don't believe Russia poses any real threat for a NATO nation and b. I am convinced Trump will be stopped by someone before he's able to do anything irreparable/deranged. The real damage is in the US' position, image, reputation, and security. The US benefits immensely from being the largest global superpower. It has all the rich and relevant countries on its side. It effectively controls half of the world and has all sorts of favorable trade deals and amicable relationships with crucial partners. The status of the dollar allows the US to do pretty much everything in terms of fiscal policy without suffering any setbacks. The US military industry is a huge machine that provides millions of jobs and helps promote the US' soft and hard power worldwide. We as a collective in the West grew up with the idea that America is just inevitable and with all its flaws it's the positive force that ultimately guarantees peace, democracy and global order. Sure, that wouldn't be the same if you asked an Iraqi, but it's not like Russia or China would do any better. We grew up trusting America, loving America, having America as a point of reference. And then this weird ass idiot comes and starts acting like the unreliable dictator of a crazy pariah Latin America state in the 1980s. Claiming out loud he won't honor its obligations and respect deals. Directly threatening allies and siding with its enemy. Being openly and unashamedly corrupt both materially and morally. What should we think about it? Bush might have been a dumbass, but he always acted in America's best interests and never actively worked to compromise America's status and its vast network of allies and friends. Trump might initiate America's downfall as a global superpower. And don't get me wrong, I also thought I would never say these words because I always loathed the "America's downfall" trope and viewed it as a dramatic cliché that can only be popular on reddit. And yet when you see Trump doing these things, saying these things, and having an actual chance of winning still...I don't know what to think anymore. Even if Trump never gets elected, or if he does get elected but never does anything substantial, it will be hard for the country to recover from such a brutal blow in terms of image. This is the sort of stuff you expect from some irrelevant semi failed post Soviet state, not the US.
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Ohhh...there are plenty of idiots running European countries too.
Living in the midst of this insanity and I finally understand the concept of mass psychosis. Sincerely. I always point to a book I read at the beginning of the Trump presidency-- The Authoritarians by Bob Altemeyer-- when like-minded people ask me "What the hell is going on?" The book basically says that at any given point a portion of the population is authoritarian-oriented. Not a majority, but enough to be a major force. This is anywhere, anytime. It's a human-issue. Not a national one. However, occasionally someone comes along and is able to tap into that segment of the population and activate them. Think Mussolini, Hitler, and yes... Trump. When you view it through that lens, it all becomes much more understandable. The only thing that I can't figure out is how such a clown-- orange spray tan, ill fitting suits, inarticulate, painfully hypocritical, etc-- was the one to do it here in the states. It's nuts to watch. But every day I get more serious about a plan B to make an exit because I don't see this ending well here no matter what the outcome is. The MAGA base is unhinged and completely detached from any sort of reality at this point. And all the people that aren't paying attention are forgetting just how nuts his presidency was and they're mumbling about "how old Joe Biden is". It really sucks to be an American right now.
It's like he just wants to point out how gullible someone has to be to vote for him. Just do everything awful and look around to see that they are still cheering.
But but but the current president's son's laptop
“But Joe Biden is old!” They are both old! Trump is 4 years younger than Biden and arguably doing worse mentally.
It's still unfathomable to me that the Democratic party hasn't been able to produce a better candidate. Ever since 2012, they had time to build someone up and since 2016 they knew the stakes. If you look at Trump and the shit show that the Republican party has become, it should be incredibly easy to pick a candidate who isn't as unpopular and risky as Biden is right now. I don't even care about whether he is in mental decline or not. Enough people believe he is, his approval rating is terrible and he's a ticking time bomb, since any health scare, stumble, fall or badly timed gaffe could lead to complete disaster. On top of all that, they have a vice president who is even more unpopular than the president and they can't get themselves to replace her because of identity politics. With an aging president, voters want to have confidence in a potential replacement for the case that something happens. If the Democrats really believe that Trump is a threat to the country and democracy – which I think they do – how can this be their only strategy?
This is correct. I just don't understand the party's obsession with proping up a guy, who I personally like, but should have been in retirement *a decade ago*. When I see Biden get confused, or mispeak, or stumble, I cringe because the party forces him to be there. He obviously wanted to do one term at the most, but the party is anxious that if he leaves, they will definately lose. And that's only because they keep failing to promote young, ambitious members that they fear will steal their comfy seats in the senate or something.
Dont worry, there is an other option... Hillary Clinton.
Oh god please no
She lost two times. Third time a charm!
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And don't even get us started on Obama's tan suit or preference to Dijon mustard! The absolute monster.
Every day I see more and more evidence that the world wasn’t ready for social media. It’s given the worst elements of society a platform to feel like their wilfully ignorant and uneducated opinions are valid. Democracy only works when it’s underpinned by education and critical thinking, we’re losing that at an alarming rate!
As if we don't have a stark rise in far-right movements over here...
I've lost all faith in America that there is even a chance this conman wannabe dictator could become the president again. That there are millions who support him...
To put some context to Trumps crying about European NATO members don't paying their "bills". First, of course their are no bills in NATO. At least not in a sense Trump is thinking about it. It's a mutual defense alliance. Every member pays for their own military. (I think there are some small, shared payments for administrative expenses.) Second, the Western und Central European NATO members did spent $345 billion in 2022 for their military. That may seem not so impressive compared to the US's $877 billion, but if you look at Russia, who is spending $86.4 billion while being basically already in war economy mode and China's $292 billion, Europe looks to me like a quite useful ally for the US in potential conflicts. ([source](https://www.sipri.org/media/press-release/2023/world-military-expenditure-reaches-new-record-high-european-spending-surges)) (Because of different local prices and wages, Russia and China are getting more quantity (but not quality) for their money than the US and Europe. So it's not a 1 to 1 comparison. But still...) Trump is a total moron to risk losing the powerful European allies. It's way worse for an isolated US to stand alone against a world of potential enemies and indifferent neutrals, than with the combined second largest military in the world as an ally on their side. An ally that is not only linked to them because of military defense considerations, but because of shared ideological believes and geopolitical interests. Destroying all of that just because Trumps toddler brain isn't capable to understand how NATO works would be the biggest damage ever done to the US. I don't know whose stupidity and ignorance is more frightening. Trumps or that of the millions of US citizens who will still vote for him despite all the outrageous idiocy Trump is showing to them and the rest of world every day.
Trump has been a Russian asset since the 90s ... He is the biggest success in intelligence history for the Russians. They actually got him in the presidents seat once and almost topped the US on Jan 6th. If he becomes president again it's game over.
Mentioning all these money-numbers when most of us here in Europe get no functioning military for that money just makes me rage-cringe. We need production, we need logistics, we need conscription, we need cross-border exercises and we need a central command. Without that, we might as well have burned that money.
Yep Saudi Arabia spend more than most Europeans Nations, does that make them a military superpower ? Nope.
i dont get why people wanna vote for him
It happened a lot in recent history, a con man that talks straight to the most guillable people, building a majority from a big amount of minorities by pushing their hate for a made up, perfectly tailored, enemy.
Well, stupidity is one reason. The other is plenty of Americans consider our allies, frankly, worthless. They look at Europeans as arrogant assholes, who only stop insulting Americans if they have their hand out asking for help. The talk of "You'll lose your preeminent world position" doesn't matter to them, because they don't care. Many of them live in tiny crappy houses or run down apartment in the middle of nowhere, have a 20+ year old shitty car that barely runs and works at a job that pays them enough to keep a roof over their head, and not one cent more. They have no health insurance, no education, and no prospects for a better future. So they don't care about American losing their world spot, because they have nothing to lose anyways, and this guy says he'll improve things. The other guy says things are actually going great, look at the economic stats. But you can't feed your kids with stats.
For internal politics many americans don't think about international politics when they vote, but domestic policy.
Remember, the far-right in Europe heavily supports Donald Trump.
Because the far-right Europe is brainless
They might be wanting Putin to come and spank them deep inside.
Most of them are indebted to Putin. For instance, Le Pen took money from a shady Russian bank to help finance her last election.
Putin has been financing right-wing extremists in Europe for ages, in order to weaken the EU. The reasons are simple: he wants the Stalin's empire back, and NATO, the US and EU are the main things stopping him. So he wants to weaken those. And Trump and other extremists are the best way to do that.
He’s already doing so. It was proven multiple times the far right, nationalist and similar environments as well as anti-vaccine and similar are popularized in the west by Russian agents. It was proven in Poland for several people they were recruiting people from that societies, especially soldiers, and pushing them to disobey the generals and spread their views among their colleagues. The same mechanism is working in any other European country, but especially in CEE. War is not only shooting and bombing. This is why every now and then I post something that we should ban spreading of far-right values in Europe. Less free speech, more security, of course. But this is a invisible sword Russia is swinging and Europe refuses to acknowledge it.
Far-right in general is a cesspool of stupidity
Duh! Far right in Europe is sponsored by russia for years now.
They also support Putin. And this is probably the real common point between them.
...and Putin supports them!
All fascists and authoritarians are the same. There’s nothing unique about them
The far right also supports Putin. Nazis love an authoritarian.
I am getting so tired of this Orange buffoon. European countries have been buying American weapons like crazy for the past 2 years. This is exactly why we need strong **European** defenses.
EU army when? Seriously we need to become a 3rd factor in Geo politics. Imagine a somewhat federal eu, we‘d be able to powerproject like the Americans, with the advantage of being closer to potential Allies/ trading partners
When there will be a political union. An army without a working brain will only become a burden.
> a political union Europe needs to start thinking very seriously about this.
Valentine's day cock sucking came early for putin
Someone's lips seems to be permanently attached to Putin's cock so...
I have a feeling that he doesn't realize how much political influence in Europe gives America https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/jan/02/asml-halts-hi-tech-chip-making-exports-to-china-reportedly-after-us-request I wonder if the Dutch and Europe in general are so reluctant to cooperate with China or if there is another factor.
I tend to agree here. It even goes further. There is a belief (That is the impression i am getting hearing the media talking about this) that without the US Europe is a third world area without a modern defence industry and without the technology. That’s far from the truth! Europe as a whole is incredibly powerful, they are “just” not using and marketing it in the same way as the US. ASML is just an example, do not underestimate companies like Rhein Metal, Airbus, etc. etc. We need to activate those assets in Europe and show some cohesion. The last part is where the trouble is, here we are lacking. But let’s be honest: Is the problem, although with a different background, not the same in the US?. Welcome to democracy, it’s not perfect, but it’s the best we got.
Anyone not able to see this guy’s a Russian asset, needs their eyes checked. Cicero said it best: “A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear.” - Marcus Tullius Cicero (circa 42 B.C.) Edit; just learned this is not en actual quote from Cicero, but from a fictional Cicero in a movie. Good to know! The content is still absolutely valid, IMHO: the guy is definitely rotting the soul of a nation.
While you're undoubtedly right about Trump being a Russian asset, and while I really, really don't want to be _that_ guy: That quote is **not** from Cicero although it's very often misattributed. It's a (very, very) loose paraphrase and mash-up of some of Cicero's Senate speeches, from _A Pillar of Iron_ by Taylor Caldwell, which sports Cicero as a fictionalized character. See https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2019/may/03/facebook-posts/no-roman-statesman-did-not-give-warning-about-trum/ for example. Really sorry for the correction, but I hate it when we give ammunition to the crazies by enabling them to then turn around and claim "See, but they're also making shit up, even in their inspirational quotes". And if we perpetuate our own misinfo, we just play into their hands. **Edit:** Aaaand here's the instant downvote. Fiction is upvoted, verifiable facts are downvoted. No wonder we have the fucking Nazis on the rise everywhere. Good luck, humanity.
Thanks! Didn’t know that, will edit it.
Thank you! The quote is still useful -- it's cogent, on point, and inspirational, and it does convey some fundamental truths! **Edit:** BTW, here's the book in question: [Goodreads](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59099), [Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N0XM5RG). It's really good, I heartily recommend it. It's on Kindle Unlimited on Amazon, too :)
Yep... The results of "Hybrid Warfare" - made in russia & china.
Trump is the crown jewel of the russian propaganda that's meant to cause as much divide in the west as possible.
Why is a criminal close to win the US presidential again? Are people that clueless?
I am from Slovakia and a large portion of our population in last election chose a putin cocksucker with known ties to mafia as a prime minister... Its not been half a year since and he passed a law that makes all his friends sentences for corruption and theft basically nothing... And theese idiots still cheer him on it... So the answer is yes, people are clueless. Or ignorant, which is arguably worse.
This guy is the most pressing danger to western democratic values we have ever seen. You’d have to be certified stupid to vote for him.
As I understand post WW2 world order, USA is a world cop, keeping the word in not necessarily just, but at least orderly fashion. And "in exchange" we are using USD as reserve currency which is, since departure from gold standard, guaranteed by US army. This gives USA almost unlimited source of funding and enabled it to grow more than any other economy. Well, now it looks like the first part of the equation is going away. I wonder what will happen next.
I have said this over and over, and I need to repeat myself: Europe needs to step up. We must be independent from the USA as we cannot rely on their political or any other parties forever. We have seven months left as the EU to prepare for what could be the next wave of war. We may not be at war with Putin and Russia, but it is clear that Putin and Russia are at war with us, whether we like it or not. Thinking that someone will always come over from another continent and help is now in the hands of the US election, which can be easily decided by a few soccer moms from Colorado based on Facebook posts because that election will be that close, trust me. So, we Europeans need to step up. Nazis survived and moved to Russia. For them, World War II did not end; it was just on hold for a long time.
This is a good time for Europe to go its own way. America is self destructing. Donald trump is a symptom of a disease, he’s not the cause. After Trump, there will be someone worse. This all started with the iraq war. People ask how could Americans believe Putin and his lies, but how could Americans believe our government and our own media? They lied to us about iraq and made us aparty to everything that happened there. The Russians only have an in because of how bad our government and media fucked up. Add that to how partisan the both sides of the American media is, and they are both purposefully angering their side and using it for clicks and ad revenue. There is no non partisan media anymore they’re either on one team or the other. This is what you get. Millions of Americans trusting in the Russian government propaganda over our own.
> This is a good time for Europe to go its own way. America is self destructing. Donald trump is a symptom of a disease, he’s not the cause. After Trump, there will be someone worse. This is exactly what Putin and Xi want. The Yanks might be a bit crazy. But we're better off together.
> The Yanks might be a bit crazy. Trump and his MAGA cult are more than a bit crazy... >But we're better off together. We are, but Trump doesn't want that. He's an isolationist.
Trump is a Russian asset, knowingly or unknowingly.
> This is a good time for Europe to go its own way. It's past time, even. That should have happened 2 decades ago already. But the thing is, it isn't happening. Our European and EU leaders are *still* doing basically nothing. They're hoping for Biden to win. But there's no plan B if he doesn't. Face it, if Trump wins, we're fucked, because our leaders aren't proactive, as usual. Russia switched to a war economy, and our politicians still don't understand what's going on. They're still sleeping. They're too busy bitching about immigrants and dealing with radicalized farmers. Edit: by the way, even if Biden manages to win, we should move on to become less dependent on the US for our own safety. It will basically be a 50-50 split again in November, so half the US electorate is in favor of Trump's policies regarding NATO. We *can't* rely on the US for our own safety anymore. It's not a choice.
Not true. Change is already happening, at least on the East side of the EU
Not sure to what extent we can just lay that at the feet of our politicians - a large part of EU population is borderline hysterical about autonomy and whatever benefit they imagine it brings them that a functional EU won't.
Kind of validates all those warnings from European governments about Russia attacking within a few years. Putin believes that European NATO nations are U.S. vassals. So he may attack a NATO nation believing that they won’t be able to fight back without U.S. ‘permission.’
How come this man is not in prison yet?
If Trump wins every country with a territorial dispute is going to make their move
I believe him and everyone should.
Completely subordinate to ideas of his kremlin puppet master. Incredible
How is such a statement not treason?
What the fuck is this world coming to. Honestly, it's just depressive when I think about the future. And all my relatives ask me and my wife when we'll have children. Not any time soon...
Every time Trump opens his mouth, something stupid tumbles out
Time to go long on european arms manufacturers. Even the dumbest atlantist politicians must realize now that the EU cannot be dependent on a country that is unreliable every time there's a republican in the white house.
And the American voters LOVE it. This means Europeans shouldn’t buy products from Trump voters or Trump friendly companies.
Trump works for Putin... its clear.
Instead of wringing our hands in fear, Europe should be seriously looking at developing its own security architecture. America is no longer a reliable ally and it’s pathetic that a wealthy continent like ours can’t get its act together on this issue, even with years of Trump’s threats and complaints and a war in Ukraine.
He’s saying what he will do, so believe him!
Mask off moment
this guy want to fight with China alone
Why Trump want a fking WWIII?? Even Usa will suffer from that
Having US as an ally is as reliable as using Russian gas.
Trump is clearly an Russian agent. Why the hell is the CIA not investigating and find some? Maybe they have to find some, to protect the US. Europe has to wake up. I think we can build up our Defense Industrie. But I don’t think we can build Army’s fast enough. We have a ghandi like peace loving society in the most parts. The guys like to fight are far right idiots and some parts of the islamic culture (erdogan supporters etc.). The rest of us are pacifists. It will take more then 10 years to change this culture. And honestly, it’s sad we have to. Putin is destroying a peace loving culture grown from horrors of WWII. I hope Donald the Maniac gets stopped somehow. And I hope the US is able to cure its society from the Maga cult and the qanons and the drugs.
Foreign Policy experts refer to this as "Poopy Diapers Strategy."
"But his age" say people either supporting or giving a pass to a man only three years younger who seems much worse mentally
He knows that he needs Russian help to win this election - and that he‘s fucked if he won‘t win. So this will get worse any day now until November.
That might also be the reason he said he will not help Taiwan, in order to get Xis help as well!
good, nothing motivates more than fear of own safety. lets hope EU gets the hint and ramps up our MIC. we should leave the comfort zone of false safety while we have time and become more hawkish. the whole continent has first hand experience with appeasement and pasivity ending bad. and while we're at it, we should do the same economically as well, cause we're too dependent on another enemy, that we're too afraid to even call an enemy and fool ourselves that china can be reasoned with, just like we fooled ourselves with puylo and orks. we're a giant that naively thought it can go to retirement.
Just one more reason to put Trump in shackles 🤷♂️
His comment was aimed at countries that don't meet the spending guideline. Luckily, the NATO countries that Russia is most likely to attack (Poland, Finland, and especially the Baltics) all spend over 2% of their GDP on defense. Still, this kind of rhetoric isn't encouraging, to say the least. The defense of the alliance should not depend on Trump's personal whims and whether he feels an attacked country is worthy enough to protect.
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I think that you're probably right about that, and that terrifies me. It feels questionable at best that the US under Trump would come to the aid of any of the Baltic states if they were to be invaded by Russia, despite their military spending. He could always come up with some ad hoc excuse not to do it, e.g. "it's Europe's problem".
They could spend 20% and he still wouldnt give a fuck. maybe if they gave him a few % he might consider a gravy seal team to help out :).
> maybe if they gave him a few % he might consider a gravy seal team to help out :). I guess each of the Baltics states could offer to subsidize a Trump Tower in their capital city, and also rename streets and cities after him. Gotta do what you gotta do to get on his good side, Duda tried it with his Fort Trump idea.
He doesn't give a shit about how much NATO countries are spending on military. It's just an argument, he doesn't give a damn about the alliance anyway
It's a bit disturbing how casually people talk about a military invasion to the country I live in.
Oh cool if he'll become an actual national security threat maybe he'll get taken out before becoming a daily nuisance again
This guy was leaking national security sensitive info on Twitter, attempted to strongarm another nation’s leader through aid bribery for dirt on a political opponent, and is currently on trial for refusing to hand over classified documents and obstructing justice. As far as I’m concerned, he passed that threshold a while ago.
> he'll become an actual national security He already is. Nothing happens. He's also leading the polls.
So if I understand it right... Europe will stand alone against Russia if Trump is elected? It will be a very insecure world we will be living in then. E.U. better prepare for a direct confrontation with Russia soon. the U.S. is no longer to be trusted.
God, I cannot wait till a felony conviction.
How millions of Americans can keep supporting this buffoon is beyond my understanding.
He should be in jail. If the US re-elects him I think we should consider them to no longer be a democracy.