We've not been a great ally, but maybe a good one, through our history. However,it hasn't taken much to go from good to perfidious (the new Word for the Day). Going forward, who will trust us?
You won't. That ship has sailed my friend. I have no crystal ball on any of this but I would strongly suggest that being american abroad is going to be very uncomfortable for the next fifty years or so. Unless you go to Russia. If it's still autocratic.
I think we can repair the relationship, but Europe and other allies will probably start arming themselves and maybe making deals without the U.S. Europe could pursue their own nuclear deterrent as well.
I don't think it is an aberration. The conservative press (Fox et al) and those in the GOP who made the rounds of talk shows have worked with a set of talking points that in essence groomed many Americans to a set of bad ideas. This on how Obama's attempt to engage with those in the middle east was twisted into being an apology tour. Or think of how cities (always the places with more of the poor and more crime) have been reinterpreted as Democratic hell holes. Since the GOP has no real ideas for policy, it has been easy to stick to talking points.
And now, well the Trump administration simply puts our nonsense about everything. And the base seems still to love it.
In the past, the GOP Senators might have stopped Trump in his tracks. But they are not. Even when it looked like they might pull the plug on Venezuela, they gave in.
The GOP has built up to this moment and crafted nonsense to justify the worst. Even SCOTUS has turned away from confronting Trump, creating a president who has no restraints.
It is a shame. And think of the economy. We did what was thought to be impossible, getting a soft landing after the spike of COVID. But to maybe half of the voters, they think the pre-Trump economy was terrible. Well it wan't but it may soon be,
This autocracy has been years in the making. Trump's not smart enough he will always be a shyster talk show host. But the Thiels, Musk's, and other oligarchs are getting the chance to turn the US into Russia. A backward nation ruled by a handful of billionaires and their lacky, Trump, installed as the king.
Agree entirely. What frustrates me is that the Trump voters of '24 who imposed this airhead upon the rest of us often cite tax rates or immigration or Wokism as the source of their hostility towards any Democratic candidate. These may be genuine reasons to deselect Democrats if one is of a naturally conservative disposition, but if one is seriously conservative does he not register that the alternative to Harris was a ridiculously corrupt and dishonest man--with actual unanimous juries finding him guilty or responsible for massive business fraud, a ponzi scheme university, a dishonest charity, the sexual assault of a woman (and by his own taped admission) scores of other women. Had his friendly justices on the Court not manipulated the law to prevent the seating of juries that would certainly have found him guilty of facilitating an insurrection and of stealing classifies documents even greater felonies would have accompanied his name in '24.
Do Trump voters actually believe that Democrats would be so cruel as to inflict upon them and the nation a person with even a single felony conviction? That vote in '24 was an insult to all decent non-Republicans who would never have dreamed of imposing a known criminal upon the rest of the citizenry.
My thinking has turned toward the idea that other nations need to start forming military alliances against us; especially nations in our own hemisphere. Our behavior is the sort of thing that leads to a proliferation of videos on TikTok declaring, "You know, I think bin Laden kinda had a point." We need a kick to the crotch.
We've threatened Colombia, Mexico, Cuba, gone into Venezuela, punished Brazil with tariffs for holding their own Trump accountable. These places are vulnerable individually, but if an attack on one of them becomes an attack on an alliance of all nations south of the Rio Grande, and those two big oceans aren't such a protective barrier, maybe we'll straighten up. We're looking a lot like the Persia that led to the Delian League, or the Germany that made allies out of the US, Great Britain, and a mass murdering Communist.
These Latin nations need to look past their differences and get each others' backs, because any one of them could be next. And nothing unites enemies like a common enemy.
“We’re talking about acquiring, not leasing” Greenland, he insisted. “And if we don’t do it, Russia or China will.”
Seriously, how delusional is Trump? He thinks China and Russia will take Greenland? Hello? Greenland is part of NATO! We have a military base and our 1951 agreement allows us to build more at will. Not to mention, the Danes and Greenlander’s would allow us to mine their minerals.
If anything tells us just how atrophied Trump’s brain is, it’s this. He clearly has no clue what NATO is, otherwise if it were a threat he cared about, he’s say he would invoke Article 5 and it’s game over. The NATO alliance is the strongest in the world.
Furthermore, I’d posit he has experienced so much cognitive decline that his minions are filling his mind with nonsense; the way Fox and Fiends fills our parents brains with toxic hatred and white nationalist rhetoric and propaganda.
Bottom line, if anyone is using Biden’s autopen to make policy, chances are it’s Trump; because nothing out of his mouth makes a lick of sense! IMHO…:)
"At his meeting with the executives, Trump offered several rationales for this theft. In particular, he said his takeover of the Venezuelan oil industry was necessary because otherwise, our geopolitical rivals would have done the same thing. “If we didn’t do this, China or Russia would have done it,” he argued."
Put in more familiar terms: "If I hadn't raped that woman, one of those two guys over there would have done it."
By the way, if you look up some military analysis of a possible Greenland attack, I don't think we'll wind up "winning" in the sense that we successfully annex Greenland long term.
Most of the arctic warfare capability we'd plan to use against Russia or China right now depends on... NATO. Our partners (for now) in Nordic countries, Canada, etc., much better equipped and trained for fighting in arctic conditions. We have arctic stuff and units that train for arctic warfare, but we specifically lose all this edge Trump and Miller et al. would want to think we have. In terms of just what the US could put into the field today for arctic warfare, we are 100% not the top dog.
What I've seen multiple good write ups predicts is something like: US takes ports and airstrips pretty quickly, first few weeks. Then many protracted months or years of US service members dying from snipers and sabotage and booby traps.
NATO makes progress when weather conditions prevent resupply or limit the ability of US forces to operate outside of towns, ports, airstrips, military bases. NATO falls back when the weather is good and the Americans are less hindered by lack of arctic ready kit. They never need to fight us in an open field or when the sun is shining. They just need to send a steady stream of body bags back home until November 2026. US morale collapses as people die for Trump's ego and our service men and women stand around doing a real-life impression of the, "Our we the baddies?," meme.
I want to see European countries sanctioning the US, especially Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg and the other oligarchs backing Trump, similar to what has been done to Russia.
Well, you are basically saying goodbye to the North Atlantic alliance. There are a few years where you can exploit Europe before we turn to China for good, so i guess some people will get very very rich doing that. If we abandon all pretext of law, this is basically a pirate raid.
Well, in a purely military pov, maybe. But there is that lingering fact that CHina is the only rational autocracy when it comes to the climate crisis and all that entail, and for that we are not strong enough. We need a partner with real muscle, and since the US has abdicated, who else?
"All my life I've been greedy. I grab and grab and grab. Now I'm going to be greedy for the United States of America." -- a Trump statement from his first campaign that comes pretty close to encapsulating his worldview and his foreign policy.
The first part of his statement was said in the tone of boast, not confession. He never confesses wrongdoing - though on rare occasion he confesses a "mistake" that did not work to his advantage. It was a startlingly true statement, uttered without the moral awareness that "grab and grab and grab" might be a less than honorable approach to life.
The second part of his statement was somewhat less true, because he continues to be greedy for himself first and foremost. The people who said he was "atoning" for his past sins by becoming president and slapping a "Put America First" slogan everywhere were deeply lacking in discernment.
At the same time, the ethic of "grab and grab and grab" is obviously being applied in foreign policy. Perhaps some Trump apologists are a bit uncomfortable with it, but probably more of them will portray it as a product of deep wisdom and surpassing patriotism - or as a recognition that the unchanging law of the world is power and force, which the feckless liberals fail to understand.
Trumpism, in the end, is anticivilizational, regardless of how strenuously certain MAGA apologists insist that he is standing up for Western civilization or Christian civilization or American culture. When you put a sociopath at the top and systematically remove the guardrails, the consequences will be sociopathic and amoral in every domain.
Will, As usual, you can peek into the mind of Trump and readily identify what's missing, dignity. This is the typical repertoire from the career liar, cheat and grifter, he hides the ball with the ploy strategy and then shoots down the sideline enriching himself along the way. He then rewards his toadies with a pat on the head and a kind word. It's a nice gig if you can get it.
Isn't it amazing how our clairvoyant president just knows what China and Russia will do in Greenland, if we don't steal it first? He's a liar and a greedy thief. Denmark needs to stop meeting with Trump or his emissaries. Tell him there's nothing to negotiate. He's clearly insane with megalomania and malignant narcissism. And yet the GOP Congress continues to let Trump ruin our alliances and our standing in the world. Shameful behavior all around!
I don’t see how we’ll ever persuade the rest of the world that this was just a terrible aberration in our history that will never happen again.
We've not been a great ally, but maybe a good one, through our history. However,it hasn't taken much to go from good to perfidious (the new Word for the Day). Going forward, who will trust us?
Except that we did it TWICE. Meaning a third, fourth and fifth isn’t out of the question.
electing him twice ensured that everyone here and abroad, knows this is no aberration...
You won't. That ship has sailed my friend. I have no crystal ball on any of this but I would strongly suggest that being american abroad is going to be very uncomfortable for the next fifty years or so. Unless you go to Russia. If it's still autocratic.
I think we can repair the relationship, but Europe and other allies will probably start arming themselves and maybe making deals without the U.S. Europe could pursue their own nuclear deterrent as well.
They should.
They have it; the UK and France are nuclear.
I don't think it is an aberration. The conservative press (Fox et al) and those in the GOP who made the rounds of talk shows have worked with a set of talking points that in essence groomed many Americans to a set of bad ideas. This on how Obama's attempt to engage with those in the middle east was twisted into being an apology tour. Or think of how cities (always the places with more of the poor and more crime) have been reinterpreted as Democratic hell holes. Since the GOP has no real ideas for policy, it has been easy to stick to talking points.
And now, well the Trump administration simply puts our nonsense about everything. And the base seems still to love it.
In the past, the GOP Senators might have stopped Trump in his tracks. But they are not. Even when it looked like they might pull the plug on Venezuela, they gave in.
The GOP has built up to this moment and crafted nonsense to justify the worst. Even SCOTUS has turned away from confronting Trump, creating a president who has no restraints.
It is a shame. And think of the economy. We did what was thought to be impossible, getting a soft landing after the spike of COVID. But to maybe half of the voters, they think the pre-Trump economy was terrible. Well it wan't but it may soon be,
This autocracy has been years in the making. Trump's not smart enough he will always be a shyster talk show host. But the Thiels, Musk's, and other oligarchs are getting the chance to turn the US into Russia. A backward nation ruled by a handful of billionaires and their lacky, Trump, installed as the king.
Agree entirely. What frustrates me is that the Trump voters of '24 who imposed this airhead upon the rest of us often cite tax rates or immigration or Wokism as the source of their hostility towards any Democratic candidate. These may be genuine reasons to deselect Democrats if one is of a naturally conservative disposition, but if one is seriously conservative does he not register that the alternative to Harris was a ridiculously corrupt and dishonest man--with actual unanimous juries finding him guilty or responsible for massive business fraud, a ponzi scheme university, a dishonest charity, the sexual assault of a woman (and by his own taped admission) scores of other women. Had his friendly justices on the Court not manipulated the law to prevent the seating of juries that would certainly have found him guilty of facilitating an insurrection and of stealing classifies documents even greater felonies would have accompanied his name in '24.
Do Trump voters actually believe that Democrats would be so cruel as to inflict upon them and the nation a person with even a single felony conviction? That vote in '24 was an insult to all decent non-Republicans who would never have dreamed of imposing a known criminal upon the rest of the citizenry.
Not as long as the oligarchs profit. They don't care about our nation anymore. They are above the nation and more important than the nation.
My thinking has turned toward the idea that other nations need to start forming military alliances against us; especially nations in our own hemisphere. Our behavior is the sort of thing that leads to a proliferation of videos on TikTok declaring, "You know, I think bin Laden kinda had a point." We need a kick to the crotch.
We've threatened Colombia, Mexico, Cuba, gone into Venezuela, punished Brazil with tariffs for holding their own Trump accountable. These places are vulnerable individually, but if an attack on one of them becomes an attack on an alliance of all nations south of the Rio Grande, and those two big oceans aren't such a protective barrier, maybe we'll straighten up. We're looking a lot like the Persia that led to the Delian League, or the Germany that made allies out of the US, Great Britain, and a mass murdering Communist.
These Latin nations need to look past their differences and get each others' backs, because any one of them could be next. And nothing unites enemies like a common enemy.
“We’re talking about acquiring, not leasing” Greenland, he insisted. “And if we don’t do it, Russia or China will.”
Seriously, how delusional is Trump? He thinks China and Russia will take Greenland? Hello? Greenland is part of NATO! We have a military base and our 1951 agreement allows us to build more at will. Not to mention, the Danes and Greenlander’s would allow us to mine their minerals.
If anything tells us just how atrophied Trump’s brain is, it’s this. He clearly has no clue what NATO is, otherwise if it were a threat he cared about, he’s say he would invoke Article 5 and it’s game over. The NATO alliance is the strongest in the world.
Furthermore, I’d posit he has experienced so much cognitive decline that his minions are filling his mind with nonsense; the way Fox and Fiends fills our parents brains with toxic hatred and white nationalist rhetoric and propaganda.
Bottom line, if anyone is using Biden’s autopen to make policy, chances are it’s Trump; because nothing out of his mouth makes a lick of sense! IMHO…:)
Murdoch has used Fox News has turned the US into dream world. A wealthy autocracy.
"At his meeting with the executives, Trump offered several rationales for this theft. In particular, he said his takeover of the Venezuelan oil industry was necessary because otherwise, our geopolitical rivals would have done the same thing. “If we didn’t do this, China or Russia would have done it,” he argued."
Put in more familiar terms: "If I hadn't raped that woman, one of those two guys over there would have done it."
He also sold 1/2 a billion dollars worth of Venezuelan oil and deposited into a bank in Qatar.
This needs to be made more widely known. Some have suggested this is an exit strategy a la Ferdinand marcos...
You know, if it would get rid of him for good, I'd be happy.
By the way, if you look up some military analysis of a possible Greenland attack, I don't think we'll wind up "winning" in the sense that we successfully annex Greenland long term.
Most of the arctic warfare capability we'd plan to use against Russia or China right now depends on... NATO. Our partners (for now) in Nordic countries, Canada, etc., much better equipped and trained for fighting in arctic conditions. We have arctic stuff and units that train for arctic warfare, but we specifically lose all this edge Trump and Miller et al. would want to think we have. In terms of just what the US could put into the field today for arctic warfare, we are 100% not the top dog.
What I've seen multiple good write ups predicts is something like: US takes ports and airstrips pretty quickly, first few weeks. Then many protracted months or years of US service members dying from snipers and sabotage and booby traps.
NATO makes progress when weather conditions prevent resupply or limit the ability of US forces to operate outside of towns, ports, airstrips, military bases. NATO falls back when the weather is good and the Americans are less hindered by lack of arctic ready kit. They never need to fight us in an open field or when the sun is shining. They just need to send a steady stream of body bags back home until November 2026. US morale collapses as people die for Trump's ego and our service men and women stand around doing a real-life impression of the, "Our we the baddies?," meme.
I want to see European countries sanctioning the US, especially Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg and the other oligarchs backing Trump, similar to what has been done to Russia.
Well, you are basically saying goodbye to the North Atlantic alliance. There are a few years where you can exploit Europe before we turn to China for good, so i guess some people will get very very rich doing that. If we abandon all pretext of law, this is basically a pirate raid.
Europe doesn't need to turn to China. The EU is strong enough to stand on its own! And I hope it chooses to do so.
Well, in a purely military pov, maybe. But there is that lingering fact that CHina is the only rational autocracy when it comes to the climate crisis and all that entail, and for that we are not strong enough. We need a partner with real muscle, and since the US has abdicated, who else?
Reversal back to where my American family came from in late 1700’s Spain, France, Wales, Ireland. The ebb and flow of history.
"All my life I've been greedy. I grab and grab and grab. Now I'm going to be greedy for the United States of America." -- a Trump statement from his first campaign that comes pretty close to encapsulating his worldview and his foreign policy.
The first part of his statement was said in the tone of boast, not confession. He never confesses wrongdoing - though on rare occasion he confesses a "mistake" that did not work to his advantage. It was a startlingly true statement, uttered without the moral awareness that "grab and grab and grab" might be a less than honorable approach to life.
The second part of his statement was somewhat less true, because he continues to be greedy for himself first and foremost. The people who said he was "atoning" for his past sins by becoming president and slapping a "Put America First" slogan everywhere were deeply lacking in discernment.
At the same time, the ethic of "grab and grab and grab" is obviously being applied in foreign policy. Perhaps some Trump apologists are a bit uncomfortable with it, but probably more of them will portray it as a product of deep wisdom and surpassing patriotism - or as a recognition that the unchanging law of the world is power and force, which the feckless liberals fail to understand.
Trumpism, in the end, is anticivilizational, regardless of how strenuously certain MAGA apologists insist that he is standing up for Western civilization or Christian civilization or American culture. When you put a sociopath at the top and systematically remove the guardrails, the consequences will be sociopathic and amoral in every domain.
Opposed to the Trump administration's aggression against Greenland? Do something about it. Sign and pass along this petition now!
https://c.org/knvwm47JnG
Will, As usual, you can peek into the mind of Trump and readily identify what's missing, dignity. This is the typical repertoire from the career liar, cheat and grifter, he hides the ball with the ploy strategy and then shoots down the sideline enriching himself along the way. He then rewards his toadies with a pat on the head and a kind word. It's a nice gig if you can get it.
The next President will have a lot of splainin’ to do. We’re going to be Pariahs.
Based on JVLs post today it looks like the Trump team want to emulate Russia and China's birth rates as well.
Not a great plan hombre.
Becoming the bad guy!? Trump has always been a bad guy.
Yes, we are now the bad guys.
Isn't it amazing how our clairvoyant president just knows what China and Russia will do in Greenland, if we don't steal it first? He's a liar and a greedy thief. Denmark needs to stop meeting with Trump or his emissaries. Tell him there's nothing to negotiate. He's clearly insane with megalomania and malignant narcissism. And yet the GOP Congress continues to let Trump ruin our alliances and our standing in the world. Shameful behavior all around!