"He's not actually going to do it" has been the American mindset for literally everything a fascist says he's going to do. Whether it be an American fascist, or a Russian one.
And then when they inevitably do it, well then shit what a shocker all those people are out in force excusing it anyways.
I will note that the Americans were the people who said Putin actually was gonna do it while even the Ukrainians themselves were like “nah, he can’t be that dumb.”
Like I absolutely get what you’re going for, and I agree with you, but that’s very much a thing that happened.
When something is far away from your own home, and the personal impact to you non-existent, it gets easier to look at thr likelihood of terrible things objectively.
I mean I also think it’s very easy to dismiss the risk of terrible things happening to people far away if it might oblige you to do something. I think what happened there is something more like “the US had ridiculous levels of intelligence penetration into the decisionmaking of the Russian state.”
Right. Also, we were all told Putin wasn’t going to do it either.
But of course invading Canada requires a military that thinks doing so is a better idea than overthrowing him. Not sure I’m willing to take that bet if I’m Stephen Miller.
The other problem is other countries can't just totally ignore what Trump says, because the cases where they do ignore it and are wrong have really large consequences.
It is unacceptable for him to make these threats; also know this is a tactic he used for yrs. He aims a firehose of lies/abuse at the public/media to numb & confuse so he can distract from the real damage: project 2025, dangerous cabinet nominations, making his billionaire bros rich. Bait & switch.
He should have been physically assaulted by most of the people in attendance the moment he said he wouldn't rule out using military force against Panama/Denmark to take their land.
Americans stressing the "it's not actually going to happen" thing on territorial imperialism are missing the point. We agreed a long time ago as a humanity that at least in theory anyone who talks about territorial expansion belongs in jail. This is very far from jail.
key point: he has evaded jail for far less, why is this going to be what gets him jailtime?
i agree in principle that it *should* be worthy of fervent condemnation but like why bother when it doesn't matter? He's going to die long before he suffers consequences for anything he has ever done.
It’s consistent with his support of Putin in Ukraine, he wants to end the post-WWII taboo on aggressive territorial expansion. He threatens NATO from the West while Putin does it from the East in a modern-day Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
It sounds a bit, as someone from outside your country, like you're trying to protect your own mental health at the expense of your duty to do a very important thing and that is to rhetorically stress just how unacceptable this language is at every opportunity.
I agree with you in principle but what are you asking me, as an individual, to do? Particularly given the failures of institutions and those running them to carry out that duty? Is there anything you think we should be doing before Things You Don't Write Down that folks aren't doing?
It's not just mental health, its also a practical problem. For the next four years, every single day (or other day) there will be a statement like this from either Trump himself or someone affiliated with him. If we react to each and every one of them with the same level of seriousness...
....other people are going to tune us out. And we ourselves may lose the ability to do more than reactively respond to a neverending stream of provocations (as opposed to proactively investing our energies somewhere).
It is a very pernicious problem. The only practical solution I found to it at the time was to just stop trying to interpret or predict and instead just repeat like a mantra "nothing good will come out of this."
But at the same time, he only has to be wrong about how quick and easy something will be once to do real damage, and he's wrong about things all the time. I have sympathy for what you're saying here, I just think this was and will again be an impossible balance to strike in practice
the other thing, though, is that the most dangerous moments of the Trump presidency are actually quite obscure. I bet most people even here aren't even remotely aware of how close we came to another Korean War in 2017-18
absolutely, I don't think many of them get the damage that the first Trump term did not just to America's reputation but to the whole project of 'the liberal international order' - sure there was always a crap ton of hypocritical BS but it also didn't mean nothing, but chaos will be the result
and the Democrats need to be thinking about this too, 2028 cannot be another establishment Dem who if they win simply declares America to be back, American foreign policy as an enterprise is going to need a complete overhaul on par with the WWII era effort if its going to have any credibility
Chaos has been the result. The wars that just happened in the past five years, many of which were exacerbated by Russian mercs and regional players trying to fill the vacuum of US leadership, are a testament to that.
After 50 years American Conservatives have successfully diminished "liberal international order" to nothing more than a delusion. It fucking sucks and generations are potentially about to learn shit their parents and grandparents desperately fought to prevent them from ever experiencing the hard way
Wars of conquest have a domino effect and I think we've been so eager to say that Russia invading Ukraine "doesn't affect us" that we're ignoring that it's re-legitimized imperialism.
If you forget the horrors of WW2 and the Cold War and relegate them to historical curiosities that "turned out for the best" then it's pretty easy to ignore all the lessons about humanity the Greatest Generation learned the hardest way and the reason for all these institutional safeguards.
A lot of people still remember those lessons and believe the danger is real, but this is not an American thing. This impulse to the kind of zero-sum, winner-take-all ideology is sweeping across the whole world.
There should be some test for whether someone’s mentally fit to run for the office of a superpower. Without sigmatising mental health issues (those can be treated or kept under control with medication), it’s someone who’s really way too delusional to be in charge.
yeah i think the media's reaction to all of this is reinforcing the belief that this is really just about territorial expansion when it's just a little more complicated than that.
Right now it looks like war with the UK and entire commonwealth, aim of gaining masses of already English speaking territory including a handy missile silo off the coast of Europe.
I've been told "republicans/trump aren't going to do X" so much in the last 10 years and then they actually do it. He and his party have more power than they ever have before and are actively working on killing off LGBT and immigrants. Take this one seriously. We are all in danger.
Yeah, given that we're the nation with the world's most powerful military, and that Trump will in two weeks be the *Commander-in-Chief* of that military, it's rational for other countries to be nervous, even if it turns out to be just bluster from him.
He's not a private citizen. What you say as president has real world consequences. Being forced to analyze every verbal fart for the next 4 years....and he's not even president yet.
The threat, repeated over and over again, will diminish the impact and lessen the seriousness in the public’s eyes. So when he does actually do it he’ll be met with fawning adoration from the right, and bleak antipathy and minimal resistance. That’s the problem. And it’s scary as hell.
If he's not actually going to do It, he's clearly going to do _something_ bad because he's very interested in doing something bad. If I kept saying "I hate that guy over there and would love to beat him up", that guy won't be mollified by the idea I'm just mouthing off
there's a Wikipedia editor somewhere who can't wait to save their already prepared edit to rename "United States invasion of Panama" article to "United States invasion of Panama (1989)"
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And then when they inevitably do it, well then shit what a shocker all those people are out in force excusing it anyways.
borders on the same kind of people that genuinely believe this is going to cause the apocalypse
Like I absolutely get what you’re going for, and I agree with you, but that’s very much a thing that happened.
the American public laughed at Biden for supposedly spreading fear for weeks before it actually happend
He might do it! Maybe not, but to be honest everything is on the table at the moment.
But of course invading Canada requires a military that thinks doing so is a better idea than overthrowing him. Not sure I’m willing to take that bet if I’m Stephen Miller.
But yes, it’s not great to be looking for an American Stauffenberg right now!
It's "securing freedom of movement for Americans in Point Roberts and the Northwest Angle"
He threatens military action? Revoke the statue of forces agreements with the US for Greenland/Europe
He sanctions? Threaten to put export controls on ASML and watch the tech industry implode
i agree in principle that it *should* be worthy of fervent condemnation but like why bother when it doesn't matter? He's going to die long before he suffers consequences for anything he has ever done.
He is saying exactly what he would say if he was going to do it
Granted, the US is in no place to pull it off, but they may try.
https://crookedtimber.org/2016/11/20/kissing-the-ring/
Exactly, now is the time for bluster because no one is asking you to look up how the Belarusian Cyber Partisans did their thing
Completely immoral and without any justification, the brazen theft of lives and property.