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On January 05 2026 05:22 SC-Shield wrote:
I don't understand why some people from Europe act like it's the end of the world. Yes, Trump is bad. Yes, he was president from 2016 to 2020 and we survived that. We'll survive his 2nd term as well. No one was complaining as much when Biden was president and I'm hopeful next US president would be a democrat. Bush made the world go 'ehm what?' But it was a once freak occurrences and Obama came after with a global apology tour so we'll forgive you that one.
Then Trump happened and the world went wtf? and didn't really stop going wtf for 4 years. That was bad, and did serious lasting damage to the status of the US in the world.
But he was voted out, great, and then instigated an insurrection, stole tons of top secret information, AND THEN THEY FUCKING ELECTED HIM AGAIN.
Once you can forget, twice is lasting damage, three times is not an aberration, its a pattern.
Even if the next President will be a Democrat and a return to 'normality' there is absolutely no way to tell this is not going to happen again 4 years after, or after that, ect.
1/3 to 1/2 of America is insane for all the world to see and those people vote, and it shows.
No one can rely on America beyond 'well for the next 1-4 years we have a Democrat President, god knows what happens after'.
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On January 05 2026 05:31 dyhb wrote:Show nested quote +On January 05 2026 04:08 Yurie wrote:On January 05 2026 04:04 dyhb wrote:On January 04 2026 22:40 maybenexttime wrote:
We should kick American troops out from Europe, cancel non-essential military equipment deals (and find alternatives to the essential ones ASAP), and decouple from American-based IT services. On January 04 2026 23:18 Simberto wrote:
He already has. NATO (or at least the US part of it) is gone. Does anyone really believe that Trump would honor the alliance? Europe ending NATO, because they don't like the US and don't think the US will honor its NATO commitments, was not something I anticipated here. You're ending NATO while blaming Trump for it, but you might as well accept it. To keep relevant and save, the EU needs to be independent of the US. We need to be able to protect ourselves, using european weapons. And we really need to be independent of US tech, because anything we are dependent on is blackmail material for the US to force us to do things we really don't want to.
The US has already stopped being an ally. They might not be a full opponent yet, but that could easily happen in the next 5 years.
It is sad, it is stupid. It would be much better for everyone if the US had not gone insane. But they have. So that is the reality we now need to deal with. Closing our eyes and pretending the US of today is the US of 10 years ago is not going to work.
We need european weapons, we need european IT infrastructure, and we need europeans nuclear deterrent. Anything from the US must be viewed as a potential weapon that will eventually be used against us. I recall the Vance speech and new National Security Strategy document. They asserted that it was Europe distancing itself from the values it used to share with America. Now I hear that Europe feels the same way about America. So this might be mutually desirable. Europe resumes the burden of defending itself, and has greater capacity to tell the US to fuck off. America has little to complain about when Europe signs new laws imposing fines on American tech platforms, since simply discontinuing services on that continent would be the only recourse. The values highlighted as separating away from US was fair elections and the rights of citizens over companies. Combined with allowing legal immigration and asylum. I think that EU as a whole is moving away from Christianity is probably also included there. EU was not enforcing the citizen protection laws against US companies in a lot of cases. Recently after US relations has kept souring previously frozen cases are slowly being acted on. US companies are welcome in the EU market, as long as they follow EU legislation. There are a few cases when that legislation is setup to favor domestic companies but as far as I know nothing as egregious as the US emission standards for cars. I don't think that's an accurate reading of either the speech or the document. Certainly, you did correctly note the issue with appearing delighted after nullifying an election. But you missed all the infringements on speech rights and overall censorship. Indeed, the criminalization of silent prayer. See Pages 16, 17, 18, 19 and 20 of the speech transcript. All from the perspective of the current administration, mind you. You could have a new one in 3 years that cheers all these measures as combating extremism, protecting certain rights to not be offended by hate speech, and all that. Or at least tolerating Europe's approach without comment. I think those are the major breaks and predate the most recent. The newest one is the DSA fines on X, which is new and thus prominent. The issue is that some segment of Americans get riled up when Europe declares that an American private business must open itself up to European academics & censors in order to operate in Europe under threat of fines. Of course, the offenses are selected by bureaucrats that weren't voted in by ordinary citizens. If they were subject to the democratic vote, people might judge that the nature of the offenses is a pretext to its actual intent. To maybe suppress perspectives that have not been filtered through bureaucrats, academics, or media professionals; views that go against the received wisdom of policymakers; and views that have not been vetted and found to be acceptable by governments. I prefer acknowledging this breach, from a certain perspective, rather than pretend that Americans agree with EU bodies on why they did it and what the consequences are.
X is a fucking cesspool of, well everything. Massive amounts of bots, disinformation and propaganda with absolutely no checks and management who actively promotes it.
You can pay for your little blue checkmark and as long as you pay you can scam as much as you please.
I fully agree with some kinds of checks and it's not an uncontroversial idea.
In fact EU should at least follow Australia and ban social media for kids under the age of 16. In my opinion we could ban or at least heavily restrict social media in general.
I used to be against the push for having to identify yourself to post things on the internet but with the massive amounts of bots and now AI I think it's absolutely necessary.
I understand the current leadership in the US (not the administration, the owners of large tech) doesn't like this. But it needs to happen and at some point if the US can't accept other countries doing it then we need to switch to alternative solutions.
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On January 05 2026 06:13 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On January 05 2026 05:22 SC-Shield wrote:
I don't understand why some people from Europe act like it's the end of the world. Yes, Trump is bad. Yes, he was president from 2016 to 2020 and we survived that. We'll survive his 2nd term as well. No one was complaining as much when Biden was president and I'm hopeful next US president would be a democrat. + Show Spoiler +Bush made the world go 'ehm what?' But it was a once freak occurrences and Obama came after with a global apology tour so we'll forgive you that one.
Then Trump happened and the world went wtf? and didn't really stop going wtf for 4 years. That was bad, and did serious lasting damage to the status of the US in the world.
But he was voted out, great, and then instigated an insurrection, stole tons of top secret information, AND THEN THEY FUCKING ELECTED HIM AGAIN. Once you can forget, twice is lasting damage, three times is not an aberration, its a pattern. Even if the next President will be a Democrat and a return to 'normality' there is absolutely no way to tell this is not going to happen again 4 years after, or after that, ect. + Show Spoiler +
1/3 to 1/2 of America is insane for all the world to see and those people vote, and it shows.
No one can rely on America beyond 'well for the next 1-4 years we have a Democrat President, god knows what happens after'.
Moreover, by nature of the system, the next Democrat is destined to fail miserably at even coming remotely close to repairing whatever Trump does by the end of his presidency.
I doubt anyone can even imagine who that Democrat would be or how they would do it as a fantasy.
Worse yet, is that no matter how low that Democrat and their supporters set the bar for what they expect out of them, they will fall well short.
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On January 05 2026 06:25 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On January 05 2026 06:13 Gorsameth wrote:On January 05 2026 05:22 SC-Shield wrote:
I don't understand why some people from Europe act like it's the end of the world. Yes, Trump is bad. Yes, he was president from 2016 to 2020 and we survived that. We'll survive his 2nd term as well. No one was complaining as much when Biden was president and I'm hopeful next US president would be a democrat. + Show Spoiler +Bush made the world go 'ehm what?' But it was a once freak occurrences and Obama came after with a global apology tour so we'll forgive you that one.
Then Trump happened and the world went wtf? and didn't really stop going wtf for 4 years. That was bad, and did serious lasting damage to the status of the US in the world.
But he was voted out, great, and then instigated an insurrection, stole tons of top secret information, AND THEN THEY FUCKING ELECTED HIM AGAIN. Once you can forget, twice is lasting damage, three times is not an aberration, its a pattern. Even if the next President will be a Democrat and a return to 'normality' there is absolutely no way to tell this is not going to happen again 4 years after, or after that, ect. + Show Spoiler +
1/3 to 1/2 of America is insane for all the world to see and those people vote, and it shows.
No one can rely on America beyond 'well for the next 1-4 years we have a Democrat President, god knows what happens after'.
Moreover, by nature of the system, the next Democrat is destined to fail miserably at even coming remotely close to repairing whatever Trump does by the end of his presidency. I doubt anyone can even imagine who that Democrat would be or how they would do it as a fantasy. Worse yet, is that no matter how low that Democrat and their supporters set the bar for what they expect out of them, they will fall well short. Its easier to destroy then rebuild.
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On January 05 2026 06:13 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On January 05 2026 05:22 SC-Shield wrote:
I don't understand why some people from Europe act like it's the end of the world. Yes, Trump is bad. Yes, he was president from 2016 to 2020 and we survived that. We'll survive his 2nd term as well. No one was complaining as much when Biden was president and I'm hopeful next US president would be a democrat. Bush made the world go 'ehm what?' But it was a once freak occurrences and Obama came after with a global apology tour so we'll forgive you that one. Then Trump happened and the world went wtf? and didn't really stop going wtf for 4 years. That was bad, and did serious lasting damage to the status of the US in the world. But he was voted out, great, and then instigated an insurrection, stole tons of top secret information, AND THEN THEY FUCKING ELECTED HIM AGAIN. Once you can forget, twice is lasting damage, three times is not an aberration, its a pattern. Even if the next President will be a Democrat and a return to 'normality' there is absolutely no way to tell this is not going to happen again 4 years after, or after that, ect. 1/3 to 1/2 of America is insane for all the world to see and those people vote, and it shows. No one can rely on America beyond 'well for the next 1-4 years we have a Democrat President, god knows what happens after'.
Exactly. It is very obvious that you simply cannot trust the US for longer than 4 years if a democrat is currently president, or about 3 days if Trump is currently president.
Any other country needs to keep that in mind. And must build any deal not for long-term cooperation, but to kinda work until the next election, because afterwards it could be insane world again. And that just means that you can no longer build long-lasting partnerships that involve the US, because the US might just rip them up for utterly insane reasons in two years.
This used to not be the case. You could count on the US to honour its previous commitments no matter who is currently president.
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On January 05 2026 07:03 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On January 05 2026 06:13 Gorsameth wrote:On January 05 2026 05:22 SC-Shield wrote:
I don't understand why some people from Europe act like it's the end of the world. Yes, Trump is bad. Yes, he was president from 2016 to 2020 and we survived that. We'll survive his 2nd term as well. No one was complaining as much when Biden was president and I'm hopeful next US president would be a democrat. Bush made the world go 'ehm what?' But it was a once freak occurrences and Obama came after with a global apology tour so we'll forgive you that one. Then Trump happened and the world went wtf? and didn't really stop going wtf for 4 years. That was bad, and did serious lasting damage to the status of the US in the world. But he was voted out, great, and then instigated an insurrection, stole tons of top secret information, AND THEN THEY FUCKING ELECTED HIM AGAIN. Once you can forget, twice is lasting damage, three times is not an aberration, its a pattern. Even if the next President will be a Democrat and a return to 'normality' there is absolutely no way to tell this is not going to happen again 4 years after, or after that, ect. 1/3 to 1/2 of America is insane for all the world to see and those people vote, and it shows. No one can rely on America beyond 'well for the next 1-4 years we have a Democrat President, god knows what happens after'. Exactly. It is very obvious that you simply cannot trust the US for longer than 4 years if a democrat is currently president, or about 3 days if Trump is currently president. Any other country needs to keep that in mind. And must build any deal not for long-term cooperation, but to kinda work until the next election, because afterwards it could be insane world again. And that just means that you can no longer build long-lasting partnerships that involve the US, because the US might just rip them up for utterly insane reasons in two years. This used to not be the case. You could count on the US to honour its previous commitments no matter who is currently president.
Which means a Democrat party running on using the status quo system to make reasonable deals/relationships among the world in order to slowly/marginally gain better international standing and more political power within the status quo system is definitively hopeless.
I'd rather find another option than consign ourselves to that imminent hellscape though.
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On January 05 2026 07:38 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On January 05 2026 07:03 Simberto wrote:On January 05 2026 06:13 Gorsameth wrote:On January 05 2026 05:22 SC-Shield wrote:
I don't understand why some people from Europe act like it's the end of the world. Yes, Trump is bad. Yes, he was president from 2016 to 2020 and we survived that. We'll survive his 2nd term as well. No one was complaining as much when Biden was president and I'm hopeful next US president would be a democrat. Bush made the world go 'ehm what?' But it was a once freak occurrences and Obama came after with a global apology tour so we'll forgive you that one. Then Trump happened and the world went wtf? and didn't really stop going wtf for 4 years. That was bad, and did serious lasting damage to the status of the US in the world. But he was voted out, great, and then instigated an insurrection, stole tons of top secret information, AND THEN THEY FUCKING ELECTED HIM AGAIN. Once you can forget, twice is lasting damage, three times is not an aberration, its a pattern. Even if the next President will be a Democrat and a return to 'normality' there is absolutely no way to tell this is not going to happen again 4 years after, or after that, ect. 1/3 to 1/2 of America is insane for all the world to see and those people vote, and it shows. No one can rely on America beyond 'well for the next 1-4 years we have a Democrat President, god knows what happens after'. Exactly. It is very obvious that you simply cannot trust the US for longer than 4 years if a democrat is currently president, or about 3 days if Trump is currently president. Any other country needs to keep that in mind. And must build any deal not for long-term cooperation, but to kinda work until the next election, because afterwards it could be insane world again. And that just means that you can no longer build long-lasting partnerships that involve the US, because the US might just rip them up for utterly insane reasons in two years. This used to not be the case. You could count on the US to honour its previous commitments no matter who is currently president. Which means a Democrat party running on using the status quo system to make reasonable deals/relationships among the world in order to slowly/marginally gain better international standing and more political power within the status quo system is definitively hopeless. I'd rather find another option than consign ourselves to that imminent hellscape though.
I mean, the best solution would be to not elect insane people. Until you can stop giving power to the most corrupt insane grifter you can find for four out of eight years, most other things don't really matter.
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On January 05 2026 07:41 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On January 05 2026 07:38 GreenHorizons wrote:On January 05 2026 07:03 Simberto wrote:On January 05 2026 06:13 Gorsameth wrote:On January 05 2026 05:22 SC-Shield wrote:
I don't understand why some people from Europe act like it's the end of the world. Yes, Trump is bad. Yes, he was president from 2016 to 2020 and we survived that. We'll survive his 2nd term as well. No one was complaining as much when Biden was president and I'm hopeful next US president would be a democrat. Bush made the world go 'ehm what?' But it was a once freak occurrences and Obama came after with a global apology tour so we'll forgive you that one. Then Trump happened and the world went wtf? and didn't really stop going wtf for 4 years. That was bad, and did serious lasting damage to the status of the US in the world. But he was voted out, great, and then instigated an insurrection, stole tons of top secret information, AND THEN THEY FUCKING ELECTED HIM AGAIN. Once you can forget, twice is lasting damage, three times is not an aberration, its a pattern. Even if the next President will be a Democrat and a return to 'normality' there is absolutely no way to tell this is not going to happen again 4 years after, or after that, ect. 1/3 to 1/2 of America is insane for all the world to see and those people vote, and it shows. No one can rely on America beyond 'well for the next 1-4 years we have a Democrat President, god knows what happens after'. Exactly. It is very obvious that you simply cannot trust the US for longer than 4 years if a democrat is currently president, or about 3 days if Trump is currently president. Any other country needs to keep that in mind. And must build any deal not for long-term cooperation, but to kinda work until the next election, because afterwards it could be insane world again. And that just means that you can no longer build long-lasting partnerships that involve the US, because the US might just rip them up for utterly insane reasons in two years. This used to not be the case. You could count on the US to honour its previous commitments no matter who is currently president. Which means a Democrat party running on using the status quo system to make reasonable deals/relationships among the world in order to slowly/marginally gain better international standing and more political power within the status quo system is definitively hopeless. I'd rather find another option than consign ourselves to that imminent hellscape though. I mean, the best solution would be to not elect insane people. + Show Spoiler +Until you can stop giving power to the most corrupt insane grifter you can find for four out of eight years, most other things don't really matter.
Yeah, well, that ship has sailed.
Now the question is: What do we do knowing that so long as this system remains, it will inevitably continue to give power to the most insane corrupt grifters (and/or maybe even more competent megalomaniacs) in a way that Democrats will definitively never have any hope of fixing faster than it is falling apart?
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On January 05 2026 07:53 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On January 05 2026 07:41 Simberto wrote:On January 05 2026 07:38 GreenHorizons wrote:On January 05 2026 07:03 Simberto wrote:On January 05 2026 06:13 Gorsameth wrote:On January 05 2026 05:22 SC-Shield wrote:
I don't understand why some people from Europe act like it's the end of the world. Yes, Trump is bad. Yes, he was president from 2016 to 2020 and we survived that. We'll survive his 2nd term as well. No one was complaining as much when Biden was president and I'm hopeful next US president would be a democrat. Bush made the world go 'ehm what?' But it was a once freak occurrences and Obama came after with a global apology tour so we'll forgive you that one. Then Trump happened and the world went wtf? and didn't really stop going wtf for 4 years. That was bad, and did serious lasting damage to the status of the US in the world. But he was voted out, great, and then instigated an insurrection, stole tons of top secret information, AND THEN THEY FUCKING ELECTED HIM AGAIN. Once you can forget, twice is lasting damage, three times is not an aberration, its a pattern. Even if the next President will be a Democrat and a return to 'normality' there is absolutely no way to tell this is not going to happen again 4 years after, or after that, ect. 1/3 to 1/2 of America is insane for all the world to see and those people vote, and it shows. No one can rely on America beyond 'well for the next 1-4 years we have a Democrat President, god knows what happens after'. Exactly. It is very obvious that you simply cannot trust the US for longer than 4 years if a democrat is currently president, or about 3 days if Trump is currently president. Any other country needs to keep that in mind. And must build any deal not for long-term cooperation, but to kinda work until the next election, because afterwards it could be insane world again. And that just means that you can no longer build long-lasting partnerships that involve the US, because the US might just rip them up for utterly insane reasons in two years. This used to not be the case. You could count on the US to honour its previous commitments no matter who is currently president. Which means a Democrat party running on using the status quo system to make reasonable deals/relationships among the world in order to slowly/marginally gain better international standing and more political power within the status quo system is definitively hopeless. I'd rather find another option than consign ourselves to that imminent hellscape though. I mean, the best solution would be to not elect insane people. + Show Spoiler +Until you can stop giving power to the most corrupt insane grifter you can find for four out of eight years, most other things don't really matter. Yeah, well, that ship has sailed. Now the question is: What do we do knowing that so long as this system remains, it will inevitably continue to give power to the most insane corrupt grifters (and/or maybe even more competent megalomaniacs) in a way that Democrats will definitively never have any hope of fixing faster than it is falling apart?
I know, socialist revolution blah blah.
But the core problem appears to be that about half of all americans are fucking insane. That is something you need to somehow approach before even thinking about a solution. But to approach that, you would have to have solved it already, or at least mitigated it.
Honestly, i simply don't really see a way for the US out of this. Which is scary.
If i were to point at a culprit, i'd say that social media is one of the core drivers of this kind of insanity. But good luck controlling that in the US.
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On January 05 2026 08:35 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On January 05 2026 07:53 GreenHorizons wrote:On January 05 2026 07:41 Simberto wrote:On January 05 2026 07:38 GreenHorizons wrote:On January 05 2026 07:03 Simberto wrote:On January 05 2026 06:13 Gorsameth wrote:On January 05 2026 05:22 SC-Shield wrote:
I don't understand why some people from Europe act like it's the end of the world. Yes, Trump is bad. Yes, he was president from 2016 to 2020 and we survived that. We'll survive his 2nd term as well. No one was complaining as much when Biden was president and I'm hopeful next US president would be a democrat. Bush made the world go 'ehm what?' But it was a once freak occurrences and Obama came after with a global apology tour so we'll forgive you that one. Then Trump happened and the world went wtf? and didn't really stop going wtf for 4 years. That was bad, and did serious lasting damage to the status of the US in the world. But he was voted out, great, and then instigated an insurrection, stole tons of top secret information, AND THEN THEY FUCKING ELECTED HIM AGAIN. Once you can forget, twice is lasting damage, three times is not an aberration, its a pattern. Even if the next President will be a Democrat and a return to 'normality' there is absolutely no way to tell this is not going to happen again 4 years after, or after that, ect. 1/3 to 1/2 of America is insane for all the world to see and those people vote, and it shows. No one can rely on America beyond 'well for the next 1-4 years we have a Democrat President, god knows what happens after'. Exactly. It is very obvious that you simply cannot trust the US for longer than 4 years if a democrat is currently president, or about 3 days if Trump is currently president. Any other country needs to keep that in mind. And must build any deal not for long-term cooperation, but to kinda work until the next election, because afterwards it could be insane world again. And that just means that you can no longer build long-lasting partnerships that involve the US, because the US might just rip them up for utterly insane reasons in two years. This used to not be the case. You could count on the US to honour its previous commitments no matter who is currently president. Which means a Democrat party running on using the status quo system to make reasonable deals/relationships among the world in order to slowly/marginally gain better international standing and more political power within the status quo system is definitively hopeless. I'd rather find another option than consign ourselves to that imminent hellscape though. I mean, the best solution would be to not elect insane people. + Show Spoiler +Until you can stop giving power to the most corrupt insane grifter you can find for four out of eight years, most other things don't really matter. Yeah, well, that ship has sailed. Now the question is: What do we do knowing that so long as this system remains, it will inevitably continue to give power to the most insane corrupt grifters (and/or maybe even more competent megalomaniacs) in a way that Democrats will definitively never have any hope of fixing faster than it is falling apart? I know, socialist revolution blah blah. But the core problem appears to be that about half of all americans are fucking insane. That is something you need to somehow approach before even thinking about a solution. But to approach that, you would have to have solved it already, or at least mitigated it. Honestly, i simply don't really see a way for the US out of this. Which is scary. If i were to point at a culprit, i'd say that social media is one of the core drivers of this kind of insanity. But good luck controlling that in the US.
The other big ones would be:
Consolidation of news into a few owners hands. Basically making if a monopoly.
Letting companies and individuals fund politicians, making it easy to buy votes legally. Which might also be an issue of monopolies and general company favored politics since there is so much money in a few people's hands.
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Social media is a cause of it but its more of it just being easy to inform everyone about the issues. A lot of people have very real things to be afraid of that are independent of democracy. Humanity has been on a fairly clear route upwards in living standards but now its getting harder and harder to see how things can get any better. Millennials I know are really sad that they couldn't provide for their potential children the standard of living that they were raised with, and we were raised with stories about how things actually got better for everyone generation on generation.
Its very easy to paint MAGA people as fucking insane but America has always had these people, they were the ones that were shoved out of Europe when it became too full of insane people. These people are terrified about the future for good reason and no one has the solutions for them. Scared people are easy to control but the last person to provide anyone hope was Obama, who decided to ditch that shit the moment he got into office. I don't know if we will get another Obama type person and honestly it would take someone like that to turn things around emotionally for the nation.
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I made this post just contemplating things,did not actually meant to post but phone somehow did. Appologies.
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On January 05 2026 08:35 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On January 05 2026 07:53 GreenHorizons wrote:On January 05 2026 07:41 Simberto wrote:On January 05 2026 07:38 GreenHorizons wrote:On January 05 2026 07:03 Simberto wrote:On January 05 2026 06:13 Gorsameth wrote:On January 05 2026 05:22 SC-Shield wrote:
I don't understand why some people from Europe act like it's the end of the world. Yes, Trump is bad. Yes, he was president from 2016 to 2020 and we survived that. We'll survive his 2nd term as well. No one was complaining as much when Biden was president and I'm hopeful next US president would be a democrat. Bush made the world go 'ehm what?' But it was a once freak occurrences and Obama came after with a global apology tour so we'll forgive you that one. Then Trump happened and the world went wtf? and didn't really stop going wtf for 4 years. That was bad, and did serious lasting damage to the status of the US in the world. But he was voted out, great, and then instigated an insurrection, stole tons of top secret information, AND THEN THEY FUCKING ELECTED HIM AGAIN. Once you can forget, twice is lasting damage, three times is not an aberration, its a pattern. Even if the next President will be a Democrat and a return to 'normality' there is absolutely no way to tell this is not going to happen again 4 years after, or after that, ect. 1/3 to 1/2 of America is insane for all the world to see and those people vote, and it shows. No one can rely on America beyond 'well for the next 1-4 years we have a Democrat President, god knows what happens after'. Exactly. It is very obvious that you simply cannot trust the US for longer than 4 years if a democrat is currently president, or about 3 days if Trump is currently president. Any other country needs to keep that in mind. And must build any deal not for long-term cooperation, but to kinda work until the next election, because afterwards it could be insane world again. And that just means that you can no longer build long-lasting partnerships that involve the US, because the US might just rip them up for utterly insane reasons in two years. This used to not be the case. You could count on the US to honour its previous commitments no matter who is currently president. Which means a Democrat party running on using the status quo system to make reasonable deals/relationships among the world in order to slowly/marginally gain better international standing and more political power within the status quo system is definitively hopeless. I'd rather find another option than consign ourselves to that imminent hellscape though. I mean, the best solution would be to not elect insane people. + Show Spoiler +Until you can stop giving power to the most corrupt insane grifter you can find for four out of eight years, most other things don't really matter. Yeah, well, that ship has sailed. Now the question is: What do we do knowing that so long as this system remains, it will inevitably continue to give power to the most insane corrupt grifters (and/or maybe even more competent megalomaniacs) in a way that Democrats will definitively never have any hope of fixing faster than it is falling apart? I know, socialist revolution blah blah. But the core problem appears to be that about half of all americans are fucking insane. That is something you need to somehow approach before even thinking about a solution. But to approach that, you would have to have solved it already, or at least mitigated it. Honestly, i simply don't really see a way for the US out of this. Which is scary. If i were to point at a culprit, i'd say that social media is one of the core drivers of this kind of insanity. But good luck controlling that in the US.
Socialist revolution is obviously my preference among some pretty scary choices. I'd greatly appreciate anyone that doesn't want to support socialist revolution (pretty much everyone here), work on something besides some variation of "we're just going to focus on making sure we're comfortable enough at the expense of the groups of people ahead of us on the chopping block"
I'm open to things that aren't "there is no way out" like you're saying and "Voting for Democrats to fix this through the status quo is the only plan" (which is what preceded/has accompanied "there's no way out" and is about to come back for election season).
On January 05 2026 09:30 Yurie wrote:Show nested quote +On January 05 2026 08:35 Simberto wrote:On January 05 2026 07:53 GreenHorizons wrote:On January 05 2026 07:41 Simberto wrote:On January 05 2026 07:38 GreenHorizons wrote:On January 05 2026 07:03 Simberto wrote:On January 05 2026 06:13 Gorsameth wrote:On January 05 2026 05:22 SC-Shield wrote:
I don't understand why some people from Europe act like it's the end of the world. Yes, Trump is bad. Yes, he was president from 2016 to 2020 and we survived that. We'll survive his 2nd term as well. No one was complaining as much when Biden was president and I'm hopeful next US president would be a democrat. Bush made the world go 'ehm what?' But it was a once freak occurrences and Obama came after with a global apology tour so we'll forgive you that one. Then Trump happened and the world went wtf? and didn't really stop going wtf for 4 years. That was bad, and did serious lasting damage to the status of the US in the world. But he was voted out, great, and then instigated an insurrection, stole tons of top secret information, AND THEN THEY FUCKING ELECTED HIM AGAIN. Once you can forget, twice is lasting damage, three times is not an aberration, its a pattern. Even if the next President will be a Democrat and a return to 'normality' there is absolutely no way to tell this is not going to happen again 4 years after, or after that, ect. 1/3 to 1/2 of America is insane for all the world to see and those people vote, and it shows. No one can rely on America beyond 'well for the next 1-4 years we have a Democrat President, god knows what happens after'. Exactly. It is very obvious that you simply cannot trust the US for longer than 4 years if a democrat is currently president, or about 3 days if Trump is currently president. Any other country needs to keep that in mind. And must build any deal not for long-term cooperation, but to kinda work until the next election, because afterwards it could be insane world again. And that just means that you can no longer build long-lasting partnerships that involve the US, because the US might just rip them up for utterly insane reasons in two years. This used to not be the case. You could count on the US to honour its previous commitments no matter who is currently president. Which means a Democrat party running on using the status quo system to make reasonable deals/relationships among the world in order to slowly/marginally gain better international standing and more political power within the status quo system is definitively hopeless. I'd rather find another option than consign ourselves to that imminent hellscape though. I mean, the best solution would be to not elect insane people. + Show Spoiler +Until you can stop giving power to the most corrupt insane grifter you can find for four out of eight years, most other things don't really matter. Yeah, well, that ship has sailed. Now the question is: What do we do knowing that so long as this system remains, it will inevitably continue to give power to the most insane corrupt grifters (and/or maybe even more competent megalomaniacs) in a way that Democrats will definitively never have any hope of fixing faster than it is falling apart? I know, socialist revolution blah blah. But the core problem appears to be that about half of all americans are fucking insane. That is something you need to somehow approach before even thinking about a solution. But to approach that, you would have to have solved it already, or at least mitigated it. Honestly, i simply don't really see a way for the US out of this. Which is scary. If i were to point at a culprit, i'd say that social media is one of the core drivers of this kind of insanity. But good luck controlling that in the US. The other big ones would be: Consolidation of news into a few owners hands. Basically making if a monopoly. Letting companies and individuals fund politicians, making it easy to buy votes legally. Which might also be an issue of monopolies and general company favored politics since there is so much money in a few people's hands.
Regulatory capture and monopoly power are features, not bugs, of capitalism.
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On January 05 2026 10:16 GreenHorizons wrote:
Regulatory capture and monopoly power are features, not bugs, of capitalism.
no, they are not. for an in depth look at capitalism check out "Capitalism: The Uknown Ideal" by Ayn Rand.
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On January 05 2026 04:27 KwarK wrote:
But how does that make americans the victim? We must start from a position of victimhood and derive reality from there.
Don't you remember the beginning of Trump's office? Introducing all the tariffs because "America is being ripped off" etc.
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On January 05 2026 06:13 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On January 05 2026 05:22 SC-Shield wrote:
I don't understand why some people from Europe act like it's the end of the world. Yes, Trump is bad. Yes, he was president from 2016 to 2020 and we survived that. We'll survive his 2nd term as well. No one was complaining as much when Biden was president and I'm hopeful next US president would be a democrat. Bush made the world go 'ehm what?' But it was a once freak occurrences and Obama came after with a global apology tour so we'll forgive you that one. Then Trump happened and the world went wtf? and didn't really stop going wtf for 4 years. That was bad, and did serious lasting damage to the status of the US in the world. But he was voted out, great, and then instigated an insurrection, stole tons of top secret information, AND THEN THEY FUCKING ELECTED HIM AGAIN. Once you can forget, twice is lasting damage, three times is not an aberration, its a pattern. Even if the next President will be a Democrat and a return to 'normality' there is absolutely no way to tell this is not going to happen again 4 years after, or after that, ect. 1/3 to 1/2 of America is insane for all the world to see and those people vote, and it shows. No one can rely on America beyond 'well for the next 1-4 years we have a Democrat President, god knows what happens after'.
I wonder how the US would look like now if Bernie got elected instead of Trump... (I know it'll never happen but I think he's the last real politician in the US).
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On January 04 2026 22:56 Sermokala wrote:Show nested quote +On January 04 2026 15:27 ETisME wrote:On January 03 2026 22:49 Sermokala wrote:
Crazy part is that there was just no need for this. Biden had done enough with the other nations in the carribiean to create a more profiable and more efficent oil industry with its neighbors. All Trump had to do was to present this evidence to Maduros backers and show how being friendly with the US was more profitable than being enemies.
But yeah lets just continue the cold war and make everyone hate us in the region again. I'm sure there will be no blowback for kidnapping a head of state within their own nation by military force and killing a bunch of people in the process. that will never happen, and honestly a very naive take to the whole situation. Madurors wasn't in it for the money itself, but that Russia and China etc are giving him plenty of staying power. Power comes before money/wealth. There's a tiny fraction of venezuela population who would be against this, the nation had been suffering a F ton. 2025 nobel peace prize winner herself wanted US arms intervention to force the transition. The whole thing is controversial move, but not only was it a power move against Russia and china, Russia asked US to stop targetting tanker a day before https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/russia-asks-us-to-stop-pursuit-of-fleeing-oil-tanker-claims-authority/ar-AA1TpN1F?ocid=BingNewsSerpChina top diplomat literally met with Maduro hours before the strike https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/china-condemns-us-strike-in-venezuela-hours-after-top-diplomat-met-with-maduro/ar-AA1Tw96J?ocid=BingNewsSerpIt also ensures national interest of the US there in the region. Also those who are talking like the US wants the Oil and therefore they intervene, what do you think Russia and China are there for? welcome to politics in the real world. Some of you want checks and balances against the US, it's a good reminder the past couple of decades of relative peace wasn't because Russia/China was a strong check and balance against the west. It's because they had arms superiority and geopolitical power. I don't think you understand the scale of this. Money isn't power, until we're talking about oil industry money. The man himself may value the notion of being in control more than being uber wealthy but his backers would definitly be interested in being a billion dollars richer. Chevron itself makes more in revenue than the nation of Venesuela. The people would love to have a nation that is now rich in dollars and can take advantage of their natural wealth. You can afford a lot of bread and circus for the people when you've got the worlds largest reserve status. I don't know why you'd think the people would be more against america becoming friends with venesuela and offering the nation vast riches over supporting the nth coup in south america the the united states has been responsible for. I can't imagine it would be easy to find a south american who would be supportive of the banana republics.
Chevron is ALLOWED to be stayed in power supported by China and Russia, it isn't money that allowed him to stay in power.
Either way, Europeans and lefties will cry about this happening.
That's why no one in oppressed status like Taiwan/Phillipiness/HongKong bother looking for European's support, no one expects anything meaningful from them, other than a few nice gestures and statements.
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On January 05 2026 17:35 ETisME wrote:Show nested quote +On January 04 2026 22:56 Sermokala wrote:On January 04 2026 15:27 ETisME wrote:On January 03 2026 22:49 Sermokala wrote:
Crazy part is that there was just no need for this. Biden had done enough with the other nations in the carribiean to create a more profiable and more efficent oil industry with its neighbors. All Trump had to do was to present this evidence to Maduros backers and show how being friendly with the US was more profitable than being enemies.
But yeah lets just continue the cold war and make everyone hate us in the region again. I'm sure there will be no blowback for kidnapping a head of state within their own nation by military force and killing a bunch of people in the process. that will never happen, and honestly a very naive take to the whole situation. Madurors wasn't in it for the money itself, but that Russia and China etc are giving him plenty of staying power. Power comes before money/wealth. There's a tiny fraction of venezuela population who would be against this, the nation had been suffering a F ton. 2025 nobel peace prize winner herself wanted US arms intervention to force the transition. The whole thing is controversial move, but not only was it a power move against Russia and china, Russia asked US to stop targetting tanker a day before https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/russia-asks-us-to-stop-pursuit-of-fleeing-oil-tanker-claims-authority/ar-AA1TpN1F?ocid=BingNewsSerpChina top diplomat literally met with Maduro hours before the strike https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/china-condemns-us-strike-in-venezuela-hours-after-top-diplomat-met-with-maduro/ar-AA1Tw96J?ocid=BingNewsSerpIt also ensures national interest of the US there in the region. Also those who are talking like the US wants the Oil and therefore they intervene, what do you think Russia and China are there for? welcome to politics in the real world. Some of you want checks and balances against the US, it's a good reminder the past couple of decades of relative peace wasn't because Russia/China was a strong check and balance against the west. It's because they had arms superiority and geopolitical power. I don't think you understand the scale of this. Money isn't power, until we're talking about oil industry money. The man himself may value the notion of being in control more than being uber wealthy but his backers would definitly be interested in being a billion dollars richer. Chevron itself makes more in revenue than the nation of Venesuela. The people would love to have a nation that is now rich in dollars and can take advantage of their natural wealth. You can afford a lot of bread and circus for the people when you've got the worlds largest reserve status. I don't know why you'd think the people would be more against america becoming friends with venesuela and offering the nation vast riches over supporting the nth coup in south america the the united states has been responsible for. I can't imagine it would be easy to find a south american who would be supportive of the banana republics. Chevron is ALLOWED to be stayed in power supported by China and Russia, it isn't money that allowed him to stay in power. Either way, Europeans and lefties will cry about this happening. That's why no one in oppressed status like Taiwan/Phillipiness/HongKong bother looking for European's support, no one expects anything meaningful from them, other than a few nice gestures and statements.
Funny. Last time I checked european countries sent a shit tone of arms to Ukraine, with my own country sending 1/3rd of our tanks and opening borders for whoever wanted free passage, and progressively embargoed Russia for anything they could, what almost put eastern european countries on the brink of war with Russia and Belarus. For now it was mostly european countries who provided cannon fodder to America for their vendetas against the whatever middle east ever spawned. But hey, lets call them inept because they don't threat anyone with annexation or nuclear annihilation.
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On January 05 2026 14:34 Manit0u wrote:Show nested quote +On January 05 2026 06:13 Gorsameth wrote:On January 05 2026 05:22 SC-Shield wrote:
I don't understand why some people from Europe act like it's the end of the world. Yes, Trump is bad. Yes, he was president from 2016 to 2020 and we survived that. We'll survive his 2nd term as well. No one was complaining as much when Biden was president and I'm hopeful next US president would be a democrat. Bush made the world go 'ehm what?' But it was a once freak occurrences and Obama came after with a global apology tour so we'll forgive you that one. Then Trump happened and the world went wtf? and didn't really stop going wtf for 4 years. That was bad, and did serious lasting damage to the status of the US in the world. But he was voted out, great, and then instigated an insurrection, stole tons of top secret information, AND THEN THEY FUCKING ELECTED HIM AGAIN. Once you can forget, twice is lasting damage, three times is not an aberration, its a pattern. Even if the next President will be a Democrat and a return to 'normality' there is absolutely no way to tell this is not going to happen again 4 years after, or after that, ect. 1/3 to 1/2 of America is insane for all the world to see and those people vote, and it shows. No one can rely on America beyond 'well for the next 1-4 years we have a Democrat President, god knows what happens after'. I wonder how the US would look like now if Bernie got elected instead of Trump... (I know it'll never happen but I think he's the last real politician in the US).
Go even further back, to 2000. There almost was a president Al Gore instead of Bush in office during 9/11. It came down to very few votes and is disputed to this day.
Imagine how different the world could have been. Almost certainly no Iraq war. Basically impossible to predict what follows from that.
If you got a time machine, that should probably be the first point to change. And it would be very easy.
Bernie sadly never really got close, but Bernie instead of Trump would also have been interesting.
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On January 05 2026 18:45 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On January 05 2026 14:34 Manit0u wrote:On January 05 2026 06:13 Gorsameth wrote:On January 05 2026 05:22 SC-Shield wrote:
I don't understand why some people from Europe act like it's the end of the world. Yes, Trump is bad. Yes, he was president from 2016 to 2020 and we survived that. We'll survive his 2nd term as well. No one was complaining as much when Biden was president and I'm hopeful next US president would be a democrat. Bush made the world go 'ehm what?' But it was a once freak occurrences and Obama came after with a global apology tour so we'll forgive you that one. Then Trump happened and the world went wtf? and didn't really stop going wtf for 4 years. That was bad, and did serious lasting damage to the status of the US in the world. But he was voted out, great, and then instigated an insurrection, stole tons of top secret information, AND THEN THEY FUCKING ELECTED HIM AGAIN. Once you can forget, twice is lasting damage, three times is not an aberration, its a pattern. Even if the next President will be a Democrat and a return to 'normality' there is absolutely no way to tell this is not going to happen again 4 years after, or after that, ect. 1/3 to 1/2 of America is insane for all the world to see and those people vote, and it shows. No one can rely on America beyond 'well for the next 1-4 years we have a Democrat President, god knows what happens after'. I wonder how the US would look like now if Bernie got elected instead of Trump... (I know it'll never happen but I think he's the last real politician in the US). Go even further back, to 2000. There almost was a president Al Gore instead of Bush in office during 9/11. It came down to very few votes and is disputed to this day. Imagine how different the world could have been. Almost certainly no Iraq war. Basically impossible to predict what follows from that. If you got a time machine, that should probably be the first point to change. And it would be very easy. Bernie sadly never really got close, but Bernie instead of Trump would also have been interesting.
Plus an actual advocate for addressing climate change!
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EPT
