Might I remind you that Europe and Biden had a lot more to do with the war in Ukraine than Trump ever did.
How did you manage to construct a sentence that repeats Trump talking points on the Ukraine war while not mentioning Putin? Logic like yours would have Great Britain responsible for WWI, WWII, and the Civil War.
How can you strongly criticize Trump ("a train wreck"), making it seem like you understand how much chaos and destruction he's causing, while endorsing everything he says and does?
In all this mess it is important to make clear that Europe understands Ukraine's critical role in European security and that America is abdicating the mantle of leadership it has occupied since the end of WWII. On Friday after the Oval Office mugging the EU foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, said, "The free world needs a new leader." Unfortunately, that is very true.
This is informational. I did watch the entire Oval Office mugging on YouTube, it's nearly an hour but I was captivated. But you shouldn't have to watch the video to get a good idea of what actually happened, and this is the most accurate and brief summary I've found so far. It occurs in the first few paragraphs:
Did the US actually vote for this? Is this what they wanted when they voted? Did they think they'd be losing Europe and Canada as friends and allies? Are they happy with this?
For those of us who did not vote for Trump, I think "pretty bad" sums up our view of the future shortly after the election.
For those who did vote for Trump, it's not a simple answer. I have friends who are Trump supporters, but we carefully avoid politics. Are they okay with the U.S. doffing its mantle of leader of the free world? With a Europe dominated by Russia? With alienating our allies and cozying up to a totalitarian regime that has no respect for human rights? With a recession brought on by high tariffs? With chaotic layoffs of government workers with no apparent plan for how those agencies will continue their important work while seriously undermanned?
It would not be correct to say they are okay with it or not okay with it because they are not looking at the real world but at a fantasy world that Trump has spun for them. They believe Trump is forced to do all these things because the Biden administration made a mess of everything, both nationally and internationally, that never would have happened under Trump. They believe Trump that European leaders were remiss in not playing a greater role in their own security, and that we have to have improved relations with Russia. They believe Trump when he says the government is bloated.
My own view is that a large segment of the American electorate has been beguiled by Trump claims of how effectively he would deal with issues, but that's because some of Trump's claims have some serious legs. The government *is* bloated, but there are right and wrong ways to downsize, and I think all of us Trump skeptics were certain he would choose the wrong way.
Trump also said the economy was bad when it wasn't, but the claim resonated with a great many people who didn't feel they were doing very well. If you look at salary growth instead of economic growth you can understand why they felt that way.
But why would the fact that Trump's claims of a bloated government and of a bad economy resonated cause people to also believe Trump won the 2020 election, or that if Trump had been president Putin would never have dared invade Ukraine?
To more directly answer your question, nearly half the voters do not want this, and the other half have two significant problems: vulnerability to snake oil salesmen, and an inability to connect the dots to see if claims actually match reality.
Best Response to the Oval Office Mugging I've Seen
John Oliver on Sunday night's show responding to Donald Trump saying, "This is gonna be great television, I will say that."
In case it hasn't already been mentioned, Trump has announced a "pause" in the supply of U.S. materiel to Ukraine.
--Percy
AbE: It's been noted that the above video doesn't render in the states. I'm out of the country right now and will attempt to find a working domestic link once I'm back.
AbE-2: I cannot find a free version of the video in the U.S. For those with Max subscriptions it can be found here:
I read several articles recently that stress that an American majority does not favor the war in Ukraine as much as their representatives in Congress. This is the time to mention that that's not the way it works. Representatives and Senators in Congress are not there to poll their constituents and then vote according to their wishes, especially since it will always be the wishes of the most vocal element.
This is not a pure democracy. We're a representative democracy. We elect our representatives to educate themselves on the issue and vote according to their best judgments, then bring their rationale back to the people without exposing any secure information. They are not just a conduit between their constituents and the voting button on their chair.
Even if the Ukraine war is unpopular with a majority of the American people, it is still essential for European security and for upholding the ideals of supporting democracy throughout the world. It is up to our elected representatives to make that clear to the American people and not just mechanically do what the people want at the moment. That's how Brexit happened, for just one recent example.
Trump doesn't care if Ukraine wins or loses. He just wants the war to stop. One easy way to bring the war to an end is to end support for Ukraine, both in terms of materiel and intelligence. He has withdrawn both forms of support from Ukraine, and now Russia is pounding Ukraine even more fiercely, which he says is just what Russia *should* do.
Trump doesn't understand that a victorious Russia means weakened security for Europe, which in turn means weakened security for the United States. When Russian flags are flying from sea to shining sea, when Russian becomes the lingua franca from Vladivostok to Dublin, when the ruble becomes the favored world currency, even then Trump still won't understand the atrocity he has committed on the world.
I can't go along. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. If it's okay for us to call for their assassinations then it's okay them to call for the assassination of us.
But taking the high road, or at least a higher road than the other guy, is a fool's game when you're playing with Trump. He has no shame, no morals, no code beyond doing and taking what he wants. Many who see Trump for what he is seem like the gentle giants of the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant (fantasy series from a half century ago) who in the face of unspeakable evil wouldn't act against their nature even to save their very lives.
I've been trying to say this, but it was better said in this piece by Claude Malhuret that appeared in The Atlantic:
Trump Is Nero While Washington Burns:And above all: make no mistake. The defeat of Ukraine would be the defeat of Europe. The Baltic states, Georgia, and Moldova are already on the list. Putin’s goal is to return to the Yalta Agreement, where half the continent was ceded to Stalin. ... The shock is violent, but it has one virtue. The Europeans are coming out of denial. They understood in a single day in Munich that the survival of Ukraine and the future of Europe are in their hands, and that they have three imperatives.
Accelerate military aid to Ukraine to compensate for the American abandonment, so that Ukraine can hang on, and of course to secure its and Europe’s place at the negotiating table. ... We must convince public opinion in the face of war weariness and fear, and above all in the face of Putin’s collaborators on the far right and far left.
They say they want peace. What neither they nor Trump says is that their peace is capitulation, the peace of defeat, the replacement of a de Gaullian Zelensky by a Ukrainian Pétain under Putin’s thumb.The peace of collaborators who, for three years, have refused to support the Ukrainians in any way.
Trump doesn't seem to understand the threat. He doesn't understand that Europe needs Ukraine and we need Europe. His "America First" approach is actually "America Alone". Going back to the days when the USSR controlled half of Europe makes us less secure, not more, and Trump clearly doesn't understand that. He's very simplistic. He looks at polls, the stock market, the value of the dollar, and pithy stories that make his point and that are usually lies.
3% fall in stocks today, Tesla down 15%. The markets didn't like the Orange Git's statement that he's ok with a recession. Did you vote for that too Phat?
At this point it matters little who voted for what.
I had the same reaction as Tangle: isn't it a little early for this type of evasion?
I wish you'd answer the question because I'm curious, too: Is what we've seen since Trump took office what you wanted to happen when you voted for him?
I wish you'd answer the question because I'm curious, too: Is what we've seen since Trump took office what you wanted to happen when you voted for him?
*We* wanted a broken economy and global dollar system fixed, even if our allies did not like it.
I again have the exact same reaction as Tangle: answer the question.
And PaulK was right on the money in his comment on the answer you did provide.
You're turning into an evasion machine. We should start calling you Candle4.
I just saw a clip of a Fox News anchor talking to the premier of Ontario and saying that Canadians should see it as a 'privilege' to be taken over by the United States.
"Please, sir, beat me again."
How is Trump's desire to take over Canada, Greenland and Panama any different than Putin's desire to take over Ukraine? Maybe Trump will make a deal. Russia gets Ukraine and the U.S. gets Canada, Greenland and Panama.
I'm beginning to believe that Trump's thinking is aligned in certain ways with Hitler's philosophy that war is the natural state
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