I mean, the fault lies with everybody - as we’ve expressed, the writing was on the wall the whole time.

I don’t expect the ignorant children to prevent the adults from driving the car off the bridge (that’s a metaphor for most Americans).

Well, I’m glad they spoke out publicly. Maybe they (World Governments) can put in a bit more elbow grease next time to prevent one of the world’s largest militaries from being bought by an authoritarian country at discount prices.

The CIA can destabilize governments across the world.

Russia can take over U.S. “Democracy” right in front of the world.

I guess nobody has inside men anymore. Does Germany, France, Britian not have a CIA of their own?

My point is that these World Governments have kinda gotten soft if this is where we’re at. Hell, the fact that Ukraine is still at war and not being physically backed is proof enough (though stepping in w/ Russia holding U.S. means that ship has sailed).

I feel like, if this were true, wtf are literally all the other countries’ intelligence and agencies doing to prevent such a thing?

I’d like to think China, while mostly on Russia’s side, would not want Putin having control over the U.S.

ofc most of NATO wouldn’t want that either.

Is every other country incompetent, complicit, or is the U.S. just becoming its own oligarchy?

Absolutely batffling…

This is a group of people who feel they’ve been unfairly made fun of for too long finally getting their revenge.

As always, Simpsons did it…

A couple things:

1). I lowkey expect Coachella to have a pretty good % pretentious rich folk (Trust Fund Babies) who this ain’t gonna resonate with from an old white dude.

2). I kinda would have expected AOC instead of Bernie to maybe connect with the younger folk better? But the article says she’s trying to reach Neil Young fans? Why aren’t these roles reversed?

The US has a long history of wartime elections.

The US has a long time history of a lot of things that this administration is just ignoring or overstepping so I’m not sure that matters during this time. This is not a normal time in the U.S.

Zelensky was able to legitimately do what he did because a large portion of his country is occupied by foreign forces and he has a positive rating in the unoccupied area.

Absolutely not arguing that. What Zelensky did / is doing is legitimate, I’m not here to argue against that but what I believe Trump see’s as an opportunity based on his meetings with Zelensky.

I don’t think that matters for what I perceive Trump’s goal to be, just based on his past history. I’m thinking back to Covid when he saw that Chlorox info before a briefing and mentioned maybe injecting (or ingesting?) bleach. I believe that he sees Zelenski extend his power due to wartime and I believe he thinks he will be able to do the same. Now he’s just looking for an enemy to point the U.S. at.

Imagine another 9/11 happening mixed with a media blitz under the DJT administration. While I don’t believe they would be able to pull this off, the thought of the rallying against a specific enemy due to an attack on American soil has a history of rallying the people.

The first step is to remove international dependence on things that we would need for a wartime industry. This is why he’s cutting ties with NAFTA allies. We can’t have them limiting resources we would need for wartime because they certainly won’t agree with what we end up doing. I believe this is why he rallied so hard for Steel workers during his first term too (but failed) to progress this same industry. In the next year or 2 when the factories and industry catches up is when we’re going to start to see the visible sparks of war.

To add onto this one more time - I also think that his interactions with Putin plays a role as well. The people of Russia were not able to stop Putin in his war with Ukraine and I believe that DJT thinks he can pull something similar off. This may as well be possible - he has a cult fanbase and the American people aren’t rallying against a Billionaire buying politicians and running vote lotteries - I’m not sure anything will rally the American people like we’ve seen in the past.

It’s a slow slippery ride into complacency where things progressively get more illegal and illicit and the headlines come and go too quick for the American people to register. It really is going to be a slow, bloodless revolution from The Right. When the time comes and American is at war with a Foreign power (maybe the Mexican Cartel, which would track with Trumps war on drugs and immigration) the American people will mostly accept it, as they have everything else illicit DJT has done so far in his short term in office.

I think people are giving Republicans too much credit. The 3rd term he’s talking about is if the U.S. is in the midst of a war - he’s literally thinking about what Zelenski did in Ukraine to extend his power / term. I don’t see that as a far-fetched idea either. Let’s be real, war is money(YouTube Link), and the U.S. is struggling with debt. They pull back trade agreements with allies to reignite national industries for the coming years. They’re looking to make somebody an enemy to reignite the economy and retain power. I’d like to think that there’s no way to make this work, I’d like to think DJT won’t make it past the first few years, but we won’t know til’ we know.

I hear you - I see plenty of outrage about Republican action though. What can Democrats really do but try to rely on Judges to do their jobs and campaign until midterms. Maybe they can rally enough people to march on Washington, but that may just speed up authoritarian gains.