nitflegal

I think two things, honestly. The first is I think he is banking on Vance coming in after him. Maybe it works, maybe not. I think the second is the belief (and one I share, honestly) that regardless of how he does it the Democrats will reverse everything he has done the instant they take power. If he does it by laws through Congress if the Democrats take the presidency they probably take the house and senate and no pre-existing rule or agreement will be allowed to hold. I would also point out he has entrenched resistance from the Democrats in office and the media, which leads to many Republicans in office to be pretty variable in support. He can either push through aggressively right now by any means available (and both parties have merrily contributed to the Imperial presidency he inherited) or do a fraction of that through the legislature with every indication it will all be reversed if the Republicans lose power. If you're Trump I don't see how there is a more effective choice than the one he is making. For what it's worth, I think this is where the left is misplaying its hand in MN. The fraud that has just started to hit the zeitgeist is a very powerful message and the Democrats overtly coming to the aid and defense of the Somali community is not playing well, even up here in the NE. Pocketbooks still rule and it's starting to ooze into even non-political types on the left. I've heard several left-leaners at work starting to talk bitterly about how much they pay in child care to live within a 2 hour commute from work (4-5 in Cambridge) since both parents have to work while a Somali immigrant community gets theirs paid for and are scamming billions of tax money that those same NE parents are shelling out. A lot of those leftist white women have kids and are paying thousands of dollars every month for child care. Anecdotally, this is the first time I've started to hear those same leftists say it's not fair and are reaching out to their Democrat lawmakers demanding a fix. We will see what it looks like in November I suppose. . .

For what little it may be worth, my read on Trump is that he doesn't care at all about ANY non-US country and has no positive feelings that sway him at all. So every situation and every country is evaluated on what would work best for his plans and goals. For Russia, he wants the war in Ukraine to end and doesn't care in the least how it ends. Which means he is not an antagonist of Russia in the way he could be. Tie that in with him thinking this is the EU's problem to solve so he can spend lives and treasure elsewhere and I think it explains his behavior fairly well. Beyond that, I think he is a person who doesn't care about relationships but results. I am sympathetic to this to be honest but I can objectively recognize that this will do a great deal of damage to our international relationships that will last long past him and the US will suffer because of this down the line. I think this is amplified because it seems he has an almost instinctive loathing for partners not fulfilling their obligations. I genuinely wonder if things would have been different had the EU been hitting their NATO obligations and had they not refused him and mocked him for asking. Would things be different? Maybe, although I'm not sure in the least based on his other behaviors. At the very least, it didn't help in any way. What I can say as a USAian I struggle for sympathy here as both from EU leaders and Democrat leaders my side was relentlessly mocked for almost two decades for raising the alarm about Russia's re-emergence to the point where it became an Obama punchline. Europe disarmed and continued to do even as Putin started reaching out with his grasping hands. How the actual f**k did the left not see who and what Putin was until he invaded Ukraine proper? Yet now it's Trump who gets the blame? I'd argue he had an army of accomplices. . . I think this state of affairs is going to cost the EU and USA quite a bit. For years. In all honesty, I think it may well cost the EU more and I don' think destroying much of alliance of the West is a good thing, even as strained as it is. I liked very much being in a unipolar world but the left (and the right to an extent but I know who I blame the most) destroyed that. I don't think there's any going back so it's time for the EU and USA to make some hard and painful decisions moving forward.

A couple of things. First, I'm in agreement that this will likely turn out badly for the USA because with our political process we have the ability to focus of an ADHD squirrel. We don't have the discipline to run an empire so I am fairly confident we will f**k it up after destroying an alliance that has been a good deal overall. That stated, I'd like to focus on this; " you are perfectly aware you spend them globally. Europe spends them primarily to defend Europe". As allies, the European economy and political sphere has benefitted just as much as the US has by this world wide stability, so the implication that many European pundits and politicians have made that this is irrelevant is disingenuous. If as allies the US is expected to fund over half of the spending on European security while handling the vast majority of defense duties around the rest of the world why is accepted that the US should just cheerfully shoulder the burden? Especially since for years the European nations didn't even cover the minimum obligation to defense? I'd note we weren't asking you all to take a bigger lift of international stability, just cover what you all promised for Europe. We got laughed at for years, told to not be silly, told that the Russian aggressive nature was overblown, and f**k you guys we're not spending our money because we are past that. Trump was mocked by EU politicians for saying Russia was a threat and should better fund their defense AFTER Russia f'ing invaded Crimea. Then when an emboldened Russia invaded Ukraine we were told we had to fix it and not until we didn't cover the check did the EU start to increase their defense spending. Forgive me for not being impressed that the Europeans are spending money on defense when Russia is literally at war close to their borders. I think I have a track record of being pretty appreciative of the European soldiers who joined us in our asinine war on terror. But I'm also going to argue that the UK stepped up and did the lion's share of the fighting and the dying and the soldiers coming home crippled. Which may be why our nation has at least attempted to stay allies with the UK, although the UK governments trying to latch onto the EU has strained that pretty badly from our perspective. Here's the thing though, why did the American public turn against Europe? There are plenty of people on this forum who spent a big chunk of their lives over there to protect your continent. Why are they so frequently on board with what Trump is doing? Trump isn't driving these feelings in the public, he's running with them. What I rarely hear from the European press is what role did they play in so damaging our relationship? I can't speak for anyone else but for me it is supremely irritating when we hear over and over what a giant bag of d**ks we are but rarely any introspection as to why there is such fertile ground over here for these changes. At a minimum, your politicians stupidly attacked Trump in the ego and, through him, us. How unbelievably stupid does a politician have to be to publicly and frequently mock an obvious egoist for four years, then not only mock him but openly work for his opponent to be elected in 2024, and then be surprised when the guy with a lifelong track record of retaliating against slights retaliates? All you all had to do was increase your defense spending and say nice things to Trump. That's pretty much it. I suspect the deterioration in relations will cost everyone, but certainly Europe, a hell of a lot in the end. I hope the headlines were worth it for all of us. It doesn't matter now, you all can't trust us to come back because we're not capable of rebuilding something long term, sheer inertia kept the alliance going for the last decade or two. We're tired of spending money that we don't have elsewhere so the alliance is over. Just agonal gasps from the corpse right now.

That's great news! I mean, in 2003 we spent 440 Billion while the EU spent 242 billion. In 2023 we spent 916 billion while you all spent 312 billion. But you all may simply be that much more efficient. Which is good for you because it means that you all can apparently defend yourselves without us as I rather suspect you will have to. . . And you all were complaining about our assistance to Ukraine throughout the Biden presidency too, so it's not just a Trump phenomenon. So if under Democratic and Republican presidencies you all have been unhappy about our funding what is the evidence that this will change in 3 years? And you need political capital to spend money not to avoid spending money. Whomever comes after Trump will need to burn political capital to increase support for the EU, do you see any politicians likely to waste their political capital there? Dems want to expand our social safety net and benefits, not help subsidize yours. And I agree on China policy if we weren't frequently having conflict on the scope and speed of confronting China. In the event that China catches up, what is the EU going to do for the USA? Certainly if it goes hot we'll be relying on your carrier battlegroups to be sure. . . I liked the old world in a lot of ways so I can hope that you are right and I am wrong. However, I'd suggest that if the EU's plan is that the US will reverse course in three years rather than aggressively work to become a US and China peer they are gambling their future on a fairly risky bet.

At this point, we may as well just go for broke with Rubio. . .

I don't think you can have an alliance of equals anymore. To me, it seems that 1945-1989 was a period of alliance by external existential threat that could be funded by an economically dominant US. When the Soviet Union fell we tried to leverage this into an economic and political alliance and it has failed. By hollowing out it's militaries and energy production while becoming more politically divided from the US the EU has become less valuable to the US as a partner. The failed WoT has made the US less believing that it can change hearts and minds around the world and became more self-interested, it burned out much of our Wilsonian naivete that we can remake the world in our image. The Ukraine war exposed the hollowness of the EU when it can't protect another European country outside of our treaty obligations on it's own. In effect, when faced what they call an existential threat to their existence they can't commit to funding or arming Ukraine on their own but instead blame us for the failure. Russia isn't at our doorstep, why is it more our problem than yours? If the EU is actually too poor and weak to do it themselves, why are they a valuable ally, never mind a political equal? I'd argue if you can't protect yourselves from a single European nation without us you are functionally much closer to vassals or protectorates than true allies at this point. I think the anomaly of the cold war and following decades is over and we are back to great powers (which the EU seems no longer to be as an aggregate, never mind individually as France/Germany/UK) and spheres of influence (and you all aren't in ours). The EU set itself up as an economic and political rival in the 21st century while funding themselves at the cost of their military, assuming we would always be willing to defend them. If any normal political force was in power we would have limped along for another few decades but Trump, "unburdened by what has come before", has thrown that away for what he considers the new state of affairs. And the American public, after years of being constantly told how stupid, uncouth, ill educated, racist, and so forth we are has lost it's connection with the EU on the right and center right. The center left shrank while the left and far left identify with Iran/Hamas/Venezuela/Communism instead of you all. That's on both of us but I'd argue the EU hasn't had a connection to us for at least a decade or so either. Were I Europe, I'd be looking to be in the competition as a great power ASAP; kick your economies into overdrive and build your militaries up like you were back in 1938-1940. I suspect Trump is making some of his decisions because he doesn't think you all can or will. To your initial point I agree, we are tenuous allies at best and this will continue to weaken because at the core of it we could invade Canada and Greenland and there is very little you all could do about it. That's true geopolitical weakness. Sure, you could respond economically but when we pull all of our forces out of Europe good luck with Russian and China. I hope we don't do any of that; I like Europe, I have friends there, and I think if Europe gets its s**t together it would be a valuable ally and partner. But you all have to get your heads our of your collective third points of contact and get back to being powerful and influential enough to be valuable. In all honesty, I don't think the EU can re-embrace western culture, fund a powerful fleshed out military, unleash it's energy and economic engine, and focus on being a good partner for the US versus the UN and every third word s**thole so I'm not holding my breath. The age of alliances is over guys, be a great power or be a vassal.

Soviets and Russians have done so, the difference was we didn't take it seriously because they couldn't take Alaska without us putting up a pretty good fight and beating them. Absent NATO nuclear weapons, what conventional forces would Denmark use to stop the US to give them a decent chance of winning?

The thing is, there are some fairly clear markers in the genome that it was designed to minimize the effects on developing and infant immune systems so it really does keep appearing more and more like it was targeted against elderly while protecting the young in a way you don't generally see in nature. That's what made it spooky for us, there's a lot in the virus that make this more plausible than I would like. Probably a good thing they f'ed up the lethality part so we may actually have gotten lucky it leaked before it was allegedly ready.

As I was thinking about it, my brain locked between Co-Dominium and Imperirum. I have a feeling that the Somalis are going to single-handedly prompt enough xenophobia that I'll end up going with Imperium. Which I guess means we will have to factor in Marco Guilliman. . .

You know, with Venezuela effectively becoming a US protectorate and Trump flexing his muscles militarily on the world stage I am kinda starting to wonder if Trump's solution to our debt crisis is going to be actual empire. It sounds crazy but it could actually work. I mean, as long as we work out an arrangement with China who could actually stop us?

Random conversation running through my head for the last two weeks that I can't shake. Over the holidays met some friends for Thai food and a fair amount of drinking in Cambridge, all of whom work in infectious disease and therapeutics, vaccine development, and a couple who have been CDC pandemic prevention. Got to speculating that Covid was a dry run for something but we started spitballing what it might be. Then one of the group threw out the following. "So China is screwed because of demographics right? Far too much of an elderly population for the productive generations and the ratio is going to keep skewing worse and worse. Same problem for most Western and Asian nations, right? So here is a lab developed pathogen that kills the old and physically weak (hence, less productive and more likely to need care and resources) and unlike most respiratory pathogens effectively ignores infants, kids, teenagers, and adults to 40-50. And we did a global test on the rapid response vaccine platform to find out the flaws and risk to the productive generations on a scale you could never do in clinical trials. Man, if it just had closer to 90+% lethality for the over 50 age set China could solve almost all of it's problems with that virus." We all sat there, talked a little bit and then kind of looked at each other as the happy fun buzz had dissipated and all went home within 15 minutes. I have no idea how accurate this could be but I can't stop kicking it around in my head. . .

I rather think the US left and the elites in Europe and at least partially the US have misread the mood of the US public in this area. I'm talking with even leftist coworkers who have been reliable Biden/Kamala supporters and even though it hurts them to admit it they are also tired of the US being the wealthiest and most powerful country yet constantly bowing to the international community and keeping our heads down. I think there's a real appetite for the US to flex damned near every muscle we have and, if anyone whines, either ignore them or punish them. Especially now that Trump is ripping the idea that the US has to not do that because of reasons. Bombed Iran, just snatched a 3rd world kleptocrat out of his bed, ripping apart disadvantageous deals and the response from the rest of the world has been muted to say the least. Four years of the US doing this and I'm not sure you get that toothpaste back into the tube for a generation at least. I'm reminded of something I heard in a political history talk; peer competitors become allies or adversaries, less capable ones become vassals or conquered. I'm truly beginning t think we're going back to that.

Then we the public/voters need to make the costs of keeping the suck-ups around to be too high. . .

My somewhat snarky but honest answer is: none of them have been fired by Trump yet.

While I agree, the plain fact is that he has not gotten rid of her. That is entirely on him and up to him. And I don't expect Trump to mentor his people. I do expect him to set clear expectations and hold his people accountable. Either he is doing that and he considers Bondi and Patel's performance acceptable or he does not and is letting them get away with it. Pick one and neither of those makes me happy. I voted for Trump, I like much of what Trump is doing and I fully accept that there are structural issues that are limiting him and an entrenched group of federal saboteurs in our government fighting him and his people every step of the way. That stated, I will not be the Trump version of those Obama acolytes who spun his every move as beyond criticism. I voted to hire Trump to do a borderline impossible job and, while I think he is doing pretty well at it, he is failing in some areas. Since I'd argue that illegal immigration reversal and holding the criminals in our government legally accountable are the two most important areas by far I judge him to be failing at the second. I will cheerfully eat those words if it turns out that he was carefully laying the groundwork for the legal tsunami but I would point out that if that's the case then Bondi and Patel will have been the architects of that and the base will need to apologize to them as well. . .