Shameful day for America where the President and VP two on one berate a visiting leader (guest even) who is fighting for his countries freedom against a totalitarian regime.
Absolutely heartbreaking. How many of the people arguing have seen any footage of the atrocities committed by Russia.
It is sobering to see women and children shelled in their homes and hospitals. 20 Days in Mariupol is free to watch on Youtube (Won the Academy Award for Best Documentary last year):
I don't normally comment on politics, but Trump and Vance's behavior was over the line. And your comment is salient. We can look forward to a period of nuclear proliferation among our allies since they cannot depend on the USA anymore. We are already seeing Germany seek out nukes; Canada will soon follow if it values its sovereignity. The fact that anyone with eyes could see this coming if Trump was elected again is of small comfort - they say that those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it, but those who know history are doomed to watch others repeat it. I have never been ashamed to be an American citizen until today. Zelenskyy is a courageous, heroic leader resisting a much more powerful, authoritarian agressor who hungers for the downfall of the West and all democratic societies. Z could have left Ukraine in the early days of the invasion but chose to stay and fight. Meanwhile Trump's "bone spurs" exempted him from service in Vietnam, and he disparages war heroes like McCain before and after his death. Lindsay Graham says "I've never been more proud of the President" and it's like walking out of Star Wars: A New Hope hearing half of the audience excited to see such a compelling new hero, Darth Vader. Insanity.
Not an ally any more. The US is now aligned with Russia against Europe. My brain struggles to truly accept that fact but my eyes see what are in front of them.
Sadly it's the nature of (EDIT: the US system of) democracy, you don't get to pick and choose which parts of a candidate's agenda get enacted. Voted for Trump because of inflation, found the country in an alliance with Putin.
Very broadly I think the US has done a poor job explaining just how beneficial America's position in the world is to America itself. You see it reflected in the USAID stuff too. Soft power pays dividends in ways that aren't immediately apparent so when it's gone people just don't care all that much. It'll be interesting to see where this all lands 20 or so years from now and how the US public feels about it then.
Fair, I've updated my post. I'd argue it's not just FPTP presidential systems, though. Even in proportional representation you still only get one vote so you pick the candidate that's the best fit for you, you still don't get to pick and choose which parts of their agenda get enacted.
Yes, but different people will care more or less about different things and thus vote for different parties which all have to work together to form coalitions, which in theory then have to reflect a negotiated compromise among the different things that different people care about.
It’s not perfectly efficient, and it can suffer from the problem you’re describing, but far less severely than the US system does.
By definition, it is impossible for a single winner contest like the Presidency to be proportionally elected. Proportionality matters for multi-member bodies like legislatures or parliaments. I.e. 20% of the vote nets 20% of the seats. Single winner contests can only represent at best, half or more of the population when working well.
Winner take all (one winner): FPTP, single member district ranked ballots
Proportional (multiple winners): Party lists, MMP, multi-member district ranked ballots (STV)
I don't think the US voting public is ready to see geopolitics from the realpolitik lens instead of the lens of idealism that has been instilled on them from elementary school onwards. Every major US geopolitical intervention has been sold to the voters through ideals like spreading democracy. It'll take a complete rethink of civics education before USians are actually ready to decide the government of the hegemon, both to claim what is theirs by might and to ensure that it's distributed fairly amongst them. I'm also not confident that I want the next generation to become realpolitik bastards before they graduate high school.
He was obviously not going to do anything about inflation despite what he said during his rallies. Actions speak more than words, especially when those words are inconsistent ramblings. We all saw what he did in his first term, and not a single policy decision was made out of concern for ordinary people. It's always about going after people or enriching the super-rich even further.
I've been thinking about this a lot lately, and I wish it was easier to explain this sort of thing to people. Most MAGA people look at any taxpayer money spent abroad, for any purpose, as a waste, when that money could be spent on US citizens locally.
Diplomacy and soft power is a complex, nuanced concept that can't be explained easily.
But in all seriousness, my bewilderment isn't so much that Reagan's stance against Russia was discarded (parties change over time, as well as the relationship between nations), but that it happened with zero pushback and zero discourse. The party leader said, with no explanation, "Our #1 enemy is now our ally" and the party simply said "But of course, no one should doubt this!"
Ask yourself how many people will die as a result of this show of incompetence.
If you're interested in how a democracy should handle itself in such a situation, take a look at Justin Trudeau's recent speech pledging support for Ukraine.
Pay no attention to him, he's being belligerent in an attempt to atone for his sins of promoting liberal policies 12-16 year ago. His rants really don't represent anyone or matter in any way.
Every day I feel more ashamed of my country. Especially because nothing that's happened since Trump returned to office is a surprise (including this): apparently the median US voter wanted this.
Horrible. I feel so badly for the Ukrainian people.
I think that the median US voter likely did not want this.
With two candidates and a variety of issues, you are very likely going to have to compromise on something. You can support Trump's immigration policy, DOGE efforts, and more; without thinking that the US should help Putin restore the Soviet Union.
Personally, I could not bring myself to vote for either of the presidential candidates. I only voted on the down ballot races.
Trump has no moral compass; and the only thing that matters is his ego.
Harris had domestic policy that I almost universally disagree with.
I did vote in the primary, but it didn't matter at that point because the only other option was Haley. I would have been enthusiastic about any other Republican primary candidate.
> I think that the median US voter likely did not want this.
I can't speak to the level of public support for Ukraine, though it seems most Trump supporters don't really care about Ukraine and want the US to stop spending money on foreign wars. Despite anecdotes about Trump voters being upset by executive branch cuts, polling suggests ~95% of Trump voters are ok with or actively pleased with his gutting of the government.
The median US voter does want this.
> Personally, I could not bring myself to vote for either of the presidential candidates.
Then you voted for Trump, in that case. If you can vote, and don't, then that's tacit approval of what voters choose.
Has he always been like that or is it something repulsive he's picking up from Trump?
He needs serious exposure to mature, cultured, well-mannered gentlemen and to get some pointers from honest, respectable US presidents and vice-presidents like he's getting none of now. Or he'll never reagin his former integrity, if he actually had enough to make a difference, it makes me wonder.
All aspects of Vance's personality expand and contract to fill whatever cause or purpose serves his personal interest. This is evident throughout his career.
I read 2/3 of his book when it came out and nothing pissed me off more than realizing exactly what you just said. His GRANDMOTHER was Appalachian. Not him. He's a fucking carpetbagger
vance may be the most unlikeable person i have ever heard speak. he just has no charisma and is constantly crying crocodile tears about the dumbest thing you've ever heard of.
>> But as Romney surveyed the crop of Republicans running for Senate in 2022, it was clear that more Hawleys were on their way. Perhaps most disconcerting was J. D. Vance, the Republican candidate in Ohio. “I don’t know that I can disrespect someone more than J. D. Vance,” Romney told me. They’d first met years earlier, after he read Vance’s best-selling memoir, Hillbilly Elegy. Romney was so impressed with the book that he hosted the author at his annual Park City summit in 2018. Vance, who grew up in a poor, dysfunctional family in Appalachia and went on to graduate from Yale Law School, had seemed bright and thoughtful, with interesting ideas about how Republicans could court the white working class without indulging in toxic Trumpism. Then, in 2021, Vance decided he wanted to run for Senate, and reinvented his entire persona overnight. Suddenly, he was railing against the “childless left” and denouncing Indigenous Peoples’ Day as a “fake holiday” and accusing Joe Biden of manufacturing the opioid crisis “to punish people who didn’t vote for him.” The speed of the MAGA makeover was jarring.
>> “I do wonder, how do you make that decision?” Romney mused to me as Vance was degrading himself on the campaign trail that summer. “How can you go over a line so stark as that—and for what?” Romney wished he could grab Vance by the shoulders and scream: This is not worth it! “It’s not like you’re going to be famous and powerful because you became a United States senator. It’s like, really? You sell yourself so cheap?” The prospect of having Vance in the caucus made Romney uncomfortable. “How do you sit next to him at lunch?”
It makes more sense when you understand he is an actor reading the script he is given. He cannot act independently and what he says has no relation to his actual opinions, if he even has any of his own. This is true for most of the GOP at this point. Exceptions include Romney.
I too keep thinking of Romney as an exception but his voting record doesn't seem to bear that out. Mitch McConnell has voted against more of Trump's nominees than Romney.
When he went to visit Europe and gave his famous tirade, it was very telling he didn't meet with the German chancellor but met with the leader of AfD, you know, the guys with well proven neo nazi and fascist links. He's not interested in being a gentleman, we're playing a different kind of game now - game where they believe winner takes everything and goals justify the means.
And the mother that didn't check on her baby in the bath didn't mean for them to drown. In real life there's consequences for being negligent and careless.
That becomes harder to believe in light of the most recent electoral result where he won the popular vote. I do want to believe that he doesn't represent most Americans, however.
He won 49% of the votes cast. He did not get a majority, but a plurality. The turnout was ~64%, so he got ~30% of the possible votes. His main opponent got about ~28% of the possible votes.
He doesn't have the mandate he thinks he does, but he's a megalomaniac led by his nose ring by the psycopathic megalomaniacs behind Project 2025, which ~90% (more?) of Americans said that they didn't like when they saw it.
Sorry, but I don't think these percentages, turnouts, and other technicalities matter, at all.
This is how the American people has chosen to represent themselves. The American people created the system, and the Americans knew their own system. The system produced this guy.
Now, why does it matter which percentage did he get? He got enough, did not he? And obviously he does have the mandate, because he is able to do things his way.
It seems clear that non-MAGA people who voted for Trump did so because they believed his BS promises to make the economy better and fast, and secondarily because of the immigration issue. Most of them didn't think Trump would actually do all of the horrible things he and others said he was going to do.
And even then, he only barely won the election. It was the slimmest margin since the 1800s.
Not at all clear. Are voters really that stupid? Seems more likely there are more evil people around us than we expected, and they knowingly voted for evil.
There is precisely one way in which the will of the American people is measured. When we talk about "what America wants", it doesn't include the opinion of people who didn't show up in November. People who choose not to vote throw away their right to be included in the "what America wants" bucket. This shouldn't be a controversial statement.
Trump barely won the popular vote, so even ignoring the rest of the citizenry, it's a real stretch to say that he represents "the will of the people" in any significant way. At best, he represents "the will of half of the people who voted" -- and even that's a stretch, because a lot of the people who voted for him opposed his stance on most things.
I agree, but until you have large crowds doing a general strike, shutting major and minor cities, it's going to continue and observers abroad are going to conclude that the population is OK with it.
Stop. This is our president. This is our face to the world. By democratic vote. We can't weasel out of this. This IS who we are as a nation right now. Don't 'this isn't us' on HN. Do something in real life to change things so that this stops being us. But today, this is us. You and me.
And yet, polling so far shows that 90+% of Trump voters are still fine with what he's been doing to the executive branch, and I expect most of those people don't particularly care about Ukraine or understand the nuances of diplomacy or soft power.
This is a problem because if you stop caring about Ukraine falling, you will start to care when Poland, baltic countries, etc., get overrun next. Zelenskyy wasn't joking when he mentioned American shores.
Egg shortages.
Fatal measles outbreaks.
Airplane crashes.
Crypto scams.
Tariffs.
Betrayal of allies.
Pardons and special favors for insurrectionists, crooked mayors, and online pimps.
The American people voted for change!
• 77,302,580 voted for this administration (49.8%)
• 77,935,722 voted against this administration (50.2%)
With an estimated population of 341M, there were approximately 90M people who were eligible to vote (over 18, and not prevented from voting from a conviction) that did not vote.
The American people DO NOT support Trump. He only won due to voter suppression and a massive amount of ad money.
Of the voters who didn't vote for Trump or Harris, certainly some of them would have voted for Trump (or not voted at all) if their third-party candidate didn't exist. Put another way, if we had universal approval or ranked-choice voting, it's plausible that Trump would have ended up with a popular vote majority (but it could have gone either way, certainly).
> there were approximately 90M people who were eligible to vote that did not vote.*
Whenever an election is decided, I generally move all of those uncast votes over to the tally of whoever won. Staying home and not voting is the same thing as a soft-vote for whoever wins.
> voter suppression
I wish we could really quantify this. Not that it would change MAGA minds about anything, but it could be useful to know.
> a massive amount of ad money
Harris had a similarly massive amount of ad money, too, and it didn't help.
Honestly, I think the failures of the Democratic party machine as a whole are just as responsible for Harris's loss as GOP underhandedness is.
This is just an article where Wikipedia editors cry about the election. There's not even any real allegations of voter suppression in here. If the Republican party is suppressing voters, they are doing a pretty poor job of it in light of record turnout, and probably to their detriment.
Dems basically handed this election to Trump; Biden running when he had memory issues, then handing it to Harris whose numbers were questionable against Trump(with the braindead excuse that only she could get the funds), along with generally not responding to issues voters obviously care about(border), trying to ignore issues like excessive wokeness/DEI instead of admitting it is a problem.
Trump is going to lie and obviously only cares about himself, some % of rubes will vote for that, but you don't have to make it so damn easy for him.
Once Biden waited so long to fact reality and drop out, there was no time for a proper primary. The mistake was not really the handing of it to Harris, it was dropping out so late that there wasn’t really any better option.
Also he was basically AWOL for months beforehand while Trump was campaigning. Trump’s economic plan was absurd but he was out there talking about it without any real pushback, while Biden seemed to be hoping that people would recognize how the IRA had helped them on their own. Harris might not have been the best candidate but I’m not sure anyone other than Obama could’ve gotten a national coalition together in that short a time – it’s like putting off studying for months and trying to pull an all-nighter before the exam.
"Peace for Our Time"/Chamberlain was at least motivated by a genuine (albeit naive) desire for peace. This is much worse insofar as motivations are concerned.
The quality of this version lies in how much more profit Trump and his backers can get from their POV and in not using tax money for weapons that can instead go to tax breaks for his pals, they are only interested in peace in the USA, the rest of the world be damned.
I disagree with you, but you are making a falsifiable prediction. Lets check in two weeks. If it turns out your claim was incorrect, do you plan to update the world that lead to this conclusion?
Trying to follow up with people's absurd claims here is generally considered harassment, so I find it unlikely we'll get something from your parent comment.
Perhaps (hopefully) you are right and its just bread and circuses for us. They really are playing 6D chess and it's really about just being irrational, art of the deal style.
Perhaps related to the discussion:
The Scientific Art of Negotiating with a Possibly Irrational Opponent by William Spaniel
You're right that it's theater, in the sense that the deal is already struck. But Zelensky's anger is real, because Trump's deal is---and always has been, since before the Russian invasion---the surrender of Ukraine to Vladimir Putin. Zelensky understands that he's going to be forced out of office and a Russian puppet will be installed in his place. He is understandably frustrated and angry, and is at least looking for ways to cost Trump as much as he can on the way out the door.
If you doubt any of this, then as you say, watch and learn.
To be fair, we have Japanese internment camps, slavery, the Trail of Tears, and several others. I'm not sure if this one is going to rank all that highly on the leaderboard.
I think many understand what is happening, but what can Americans do about it? Posting online and attended protests are not going to move the needle much. What I fear most is that violence might be the only solution, but I would love nothing more than to be wrong.
A general strike is the only non-violent solution. Of course people aren't likely to do that over Ukraine policy, but there are plenty of other things people are annoyed about domestically.
I do not see a general strike happening. It'd be great, but us cats are too fat right now. What I mean is that people are living too good on average. I think we are still in the 'crabs in a bucket' phase. So, I think if a general strike was organized, then many people would opt out because of selfish, albeit legitimate reasons, like not wanting to lose their source of income.
I am probably somewhat guilty myself, but I think a lot of people want someone or some group of people to take action on their behalf. Sadly, that is unlikely to happen.
Most Americans understand and oppose Trump's surrender deal. Unfortunately a significant number of them weren't paying much attention this past November and were conned into voting for the present predicament.
The EU has a substantially larger population than the USA, and for now at least, is adamantly opposed to the outcome you describe.
That might be what Trump and Putin want, but they are not the only interested parties here, and Trump is certainly succeeding at waking whatever beast-like qualities the EU/NATO may have left somewhat hidden in the recent past.
Unless the EU can substantially step up its military aid, that's the outcome they're going to get. There is one card that Zelensky and Europe could play, and that's European peacekeepers guaranteeing security. But that's boots-on-the-ground, and I'm not sure Europe has the stomach for that.
The body languages of Zelensky and Trump are fascinating to look at. You can clearly see that Zelensky is not playing. Also Marco Rubio, drowning more and more on his chair.
Getting everything they want? Go do some research on what this has cost Russia - its the biggest catastrophe for Russia, possibly ever. They will never recover due to demographic & energy realignment pressure. Try to think ahead.
Their demographic collapse was happening anyway. This made it worse, but they may have already just been resigned to that. I think that's also what made them desperate.
The cost to Russia has been steep, but I think Russia is walking away from this feeling good. Russia's borders are vast and undefendable so they view it as existentially important to control their bordering states as buffers. When one of them flirts with joining NATO they view it with almost the seriousness with which the USA would view, I don't know, California flirting with becoming a part of China.
Its only a catastrophe if they didn't get Ukraine. If they have compromised the sitting US president and get Ukraine they will write history books forever in Russia about how they defeated a super power, expanded the county, with a shit army and Internet trolls.
Ah trump and vance playing the 4D chess no one else knows about.
Why does Russia care if US are being tough on Ukraine? POTUS can issue an EO saying all fundings are cut and not be an asshole about it. If the US wants to be isolated from the war, they can do it without insulting Zelenskyy or trying to get a mineral deal done.
Ah... A student of the clown school of negotiating where bluster, threats, and tantrums take the place of compromise.
Here's the real deal: Trump is a Russian asset, and it is already a foregone conclusion that Ukraine is getting fucked. This is just theatre so he can pin the whole thing on Zelensky.
I don't know if it's 6D chess but it probably was more of a chaos monkey/bury the lead strategy that doesn't take much brain power (i.e. flood the zone).
My hot take is Matt Gaetz, the Greenland purchase and the Canada as the 51st state were all distraction techniques to get the other nominees through.
Alas the person who got the AG slot after Gaetz dropped is just as willing to be a corrupt official personally loyal to Trump. Just without Gaetz' baggage.
I find the idea of Trump playing "3D/4D/5D/6D chess" frankly hilarious. Hell, the man probably can't even play 2D chess. I honestly doubt he even has the patience to learn the rules. He's the kind of person who would get checkmated in 4 moves, flip the opponent's king over, claim victory, and walk away bragging about his genius victory.
What am I supposed to learn from this exchange? You imply that you understand how to negotiate, so maybe you can enlighten the rest of us as to how Trump and Vance are achieving a victory on behalf of US interests.
fsckboy, when answering mrtesthah’s question please remember that the best interests of Donald Trump do not align with the best interests of the United States.
> The deal is already made. After this show, they sign it...
You mean the deal Zelenskyy didn't sign prior to leaving? That one?
It's an awfully poor look trying to come off so confidently snarky when you don't even have your facts straight.
Edit:
>(somebody says something unique, from a different perspective in the middle of a circle jerk, and all the tossers lose their shit)
"Unique"? There are multiple responses highlighting that your facts are wrong. You're choosing to ignore those points and instead gripe about having a "unique" take?
I don't know what that is supposed to mean, as far as I know he hasn't been asked to beg or been berated like this by any other nation but the United States.
Your suggestion is that European leaders don’t believe him, which would be counter to every public statement they’ve made.
He’s getting support from European nations. The US is capable of more support, hence asking for it. This isn’t complicated, I have to suspect you know all of this and are being disingenuous anyway, and I cannot fathom why.
"European countries have provided €132 billion in aid (military, financial and humanitarian) as of December 2024, and the United States has provided €114 billion."
And most of that money is flowing back. If the US government buys American weapons and ships them to Ukraine, then the money circulates in the US and leads arms manufacturers to employ people.
With Russia at war with Ukraine, Europeans have turned to US fossil imports and funneling money back to the US.
The arms in Ukraine then hurt the Russian military and degrade it. So it is effectively spend to further American goals even then.
The mental gymnastics performed to make it seem like a loss of US taxpayer money is really insane.
They literally can't have an election until the war ends:
* millions of Ukrainians in the occupied territories
* 1000km frontline that is extremely thin in places. should they pull troops off the line to vote, or run ballot boxes to the trenches?
* their Constitution forbids it
* the Russians will attack polling places, possibly killing hundreds
Britian didn't have an election for 10 years because of WWII, so it's not like it's unprecedented for a democracy to put elections on hold during an existential crisis.
They cannot have normal elections anyway, a bunch of people in occupied territories, not to mention soldiers in active duty who cannot leave their posts to vote. Whilst Putin is ruling since 2020 (except Medvedev term).
Absolutely an unimaginative & incorrect take and here's why:
1. The entire affair provides cover for continued operations against Russia without great power escalation. Hopefully Putin doubles down and loses even more military assets. If you don't understand this point take a day or two to think it through.
2. Ukraine cannot win (its objectives) this war without Western troops at some point & that's been clear since the start. US objectives have been met, with Russia unable to mount a conventional threat to Europe; with its hardware now discredited against Western weapons - much to the dismay of the Sino-Russia-Iranian axis; and with European underspending on defense & overreliance on Russian energy now reversing.
3. Get used to the new USA. We are going to very publicly assert our power and by doing so hopefully deter war in Asia.
Anyone who doesn't understand 1-3 needs to meditate on this and grow a pair.
Horrible take. We’ve just told every supposed ally of ours that they can’t trust us. Trump just single handedly set back International relations by over a hundred years.
All that post WW2 good will and trust just went poof. You think Germany or France is going to support us after this?
Of course it was. Look at Trump's facial expression. He was calmly waiting to attack. Everyone had become desensitized to previous antics, so they had to escalate, just like on any good TV show.
People need to understand that who they're dealing with a trolls, not idiots or geniuses. The two negotiating strategies are to 1. provoke 2. create uncertainty. This seems to be extremely efficient at getting them attention, emotionally exhausting opposition, keeping counterparts off-balance and has the benefit of being able to make them a lot of money, considering that they're in control of market instability.
>fighting for his countries freedom against a totalitarian regime
He sent hundreds of thousands of his own people into a meat grinder to fight for the privilege of being ruled by his corrupt government (recognised as one of the most corrupt governments in Europe) instead of a different corrupt government, with his thugs literally going door-to-door dragging unwilling youths off to die. The average Ukrainian wasn't any better off under Ukrainian government than under Russian government, and they'd certainly be much better off alive than dead.
The vast majority of them volunteered. And that's just conscription -- every country would do the same in such a situation. The US pursued and prosecuted thousands of cases of draft dodging in WW2, forcing most of them to go and fight.
In the short term, certainly. In the longer term? I'm pretty glad not to have been born into an occupied British puppet state. If not for a man with the obstinacy of Zelenskyy, I might have been.
It was always ironic that Trump kept a bust of Churchill in the Oval Office but after today, it's almost obscene.
In the longer term there's realistically no chance of Ukraine regaining the land it lost. In both this scenario and that scenario Russia annexes part of Eastern Ukraine, but in that scenario there aren't hundreds of thousands of dead Ukrainians.
