I got this weird dissonance - like this was a science from a TV show about the White House, because no-one, I mean no-one would ever do that inpublic. Apart from common courtesy, even basic management training says praise in public, criticise in private.
Just doing this in front of the world’s media … it’s hard to understand
I'm less convinced this was planned because I've met people like this in real life. Criticizing someone for showing disrespect while being incredibly disrespectful yourself seems like abusive parent 101.
Also, the fact they talk down to him about the war in Ukraine of all things is pretty shocking, like he wouldn't be there if he didn't understand the situation in Ukraine (it's not like he was there being extorted for minerals because he thinks things are going amazingly). It seems weird from a global policy perspective but on brand if you're just an asshole. Either way, truly an embarrassing day to be an American.
Yes I hope this wakes people up and inspires the country to elect sober thoughtful people again. I'm pretty cynical though so I've learned not to expect much from modern politics.
One thing that gives me hope is that politics has always been a mess (there are some times of stability but they never last forever). Though I think a big thing we need to do is strengthen democracy in the US, get rid of first past the post elections, gerrymandering, the necessity of large donors required for campaigns, unequal representation in Congress, etc. I think if we break the two-party system politics in the US would look better.
The only way that can happen is if several red state legislatures agree to the Compact. This Compact is useless to replacing the Electoral College if only blue states sign up; these states would have voted blue in an election, anyway. It tips over to 270 if several red states sign up and allocate their electoral votes against the wishes of their own red state constituencies. Would that be democratic? It is obvious why the growth of the compact has stalled at 209 votes; it is irrational for a red state to join it. It is also true in the mirror image if it were a "red state 270 vote compact," no blue state would join it.
Restructuring the elections, congressional seat allocation, etc. would require Constitutional amendments. Unlikely to happen. It is baked in the cake that individual votes are weighed unequally between the 50 states of the Republic. The only other way to do it would be an organic mass migration of voters that equalizes the population in all 50 states. The Census would eventually reflect this and the seats and electoral votes would be equal in all states, as I understand it.
We already have a "third party" now in the sense the GOP is unrecognizable from 20 years ago; the old GOP died out, like the Whig Party.
> Restructuring the elections, congressional seat allocation, etc. would require Constitutional amendments. Unlikely to happen.
As a Brazilian, I think it's unfortunately more likely than you think. Here in Brazil, we got a completely rewritten constitution (the 1988 constitution) after our USA-backed military dictatorship ended. So if the current USA government becomes a dictatorship (which unfortunately does not seem unlikely enough right now), there's a good chance the USA will also get a brand new constitution after all that mess ends, hopefully one with better electoral mechanics.
> Restructuring the elections, congressional seat allocation, etc. would require Constitutional amendments.
That's not always true. Proportional representation in the House would help a lot, and that could be done by passing a regular law. (The current "one member per district" law is only from 1967: [0])
I agree, but we're essentially asking for a unicorn for each of those favors. Just getting one of those done with the current societal setup could easily be a decade+ of very heavy campaigning. I'm not convinced I'll see all 5 in my lifetime, and I'm not super old as is.
It is more possible now than ever though with unprecedented communication. But to paraphrase Warren Buffet a bit: "We (the rich) are a lot better at this and we're kicking your ass right now". Imagine if we could have even a fraction of the youth anger from Tiktok aimed at such issues above.
You underestimate how important it is for people who perceive themselves as alpha males not to admit they were wrong about someone for eight years. Ain’t going to happen, they are already falling in line.
I have seen some people start to realize that Trump isn't this infallible hero over this, so it is working. But Some fans will diehard, very very hard over trump. Just gotta keep chinking at the armor, almost everyone will have a breaking point.
You must recognize some irony in how disproportionately democratic party supporters are being punished by the current republican government, whereas before, the chance of you losing your job for supporting Trump was nearly zero (as it should be). Yet here is your government, explicitly seeking to weed out politically non-compliant people for 'efficiency'. Public service is supposed to be apolitical; this witch hunt is patently unconstitutional.
I don't understand how you can write that comment in good faith. It is demonstrably illogical.
The only Trump supporters I know of who lost their jobs due to politically motivated incidences were January sixers, to which... I'd say it's unsurprising to see people let go from their jobs for breaking into the capitol building.
Your talk about power structures is also ironic. Power structures are being built right now. Some are torn down, but don't be fooled; something is taking its place. You may not notice because you think it serves you, but consider for a moment at least that this could be exactly what the structure builders want.
Can you clarify this assertion? If a lot of public servants are left leaning, make no mistake about them: they’re working for their incomes, regardless of political affiliation.
As other commenters have pointed out, a staggering amount of federal funds are paid to red states who are not working for these payments.
If this doesn’t debunk what you’re saying, then what exactly are you saying?
They're going to Liz Truss the budget. Economic chaos will be bad for everyone with a 401k. Probably that's the route to getting rid of them, just as people used the price of eggs against Biden.
I'm definitely glad that Trumpism has brought the dark underbelly of America so out in the open. At least I'll be able to avoid horrible people like you IRL.
I'm an American and what's actually embarrassing to me is the hundreds of millions of dollars we have spent keeping a meat grinder running that has claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands to a million good men and women. Likewise the Biden family's involvement in corruption in Ukraine stinks to High Hell and I cannot be moved to regard these two phenomena as coincidental.
I actually do not care one bit where the line on the map is drawn between Ukraine and Russia and I find it very weird that so many of us claim to. Think what could have been done instead, with all the wasted lives, time, and money. THAT, is embarrassing!
They literally said: “This makes great TV” - and both right-wing Fox and the Russian media are cheering.
It worries me that no-one in the Republican Party looks at it and says: Russia is our enemy right, why are we doing exactly what they want and benefits them?
> It worries me that no-one in the Republican Party looks at it and says: Russia is our enemy right, why are we doing exactly what they want and benefits them?
Why would they? GOP senators literally spent independence day in russia a few years back. Multiple GOP congressmembers voted against various resolutions to support the people of ukraine[0], condemn russia for its kidnapping of ukrainian children[1], or direct the administration to collect evidence of russian war crimes[2].
The GOP has had a strongly pro-putin wing for a decade, and Trump has been in russia's pocket for longer than that: ignoring claims that he's a hard KGB asset, the trump family has been reliant on russian money (investments and loans) for at least two decades. With trump being the uncontested leader of the GOP, the party is very much pro russia.
> I believe this is exactly what sebazzz finds worrying.
But none of these are anything new. This is all years old stuff. It does not make sense that it "worries", either you've never cared before and things have not changed, or you should be several steps beyond "worry".
But the votes you cited have 3, 9 and 7 republicans? How do you arrive at "the party is very much pro russia" if for all this time republicans have always voted for Ukraine military aid? What about the other almost 200 people? The pro-Putin freakshow has the White House sure, but can he really turn the entire republican party to side with our enemy? Against all the interests of the military industrial complex that pays for all their campaigns no less.
Russia is an enemy of the Left and "wokeness" specifically at this point, for sure. I'd oddly posit that Russia is at least semi-aligned with the "sane & conservative" values that the MAGA movement represents, so it all makes sense.
Personally, I think all Western nations need to be in partnership-with and promoting Democracy in a relatively-sane and ethnically-white country like Russia. Short of a few eastern-European countries and Israel, Russia has until recently been the only such country that hasn't fallen prey to "pretty please invade us we'll even pay you" kind of left-wing socialism that's fallen upon most of the west. A movement that oddly hasn't fallen-upon any non-majority-white country around the world.
I agree. I'd even go further; I suspect this show was about redefining the term "diplomacy" for the conservative base.
I think it's a step in a larger plan to start moving the Republican foreign policy platform into include a greater emphasis on diplomacy. Since diplomacy's been seen as the "weaker and less effective" path for so long it needs a rebrand in order to sell it to a strength-worshipping constituency.
It's Putin's plan to isolate Ukraine, and what a stroke of luck Trump and Vance are completely on board with Putin's rhetoric. Soon he can affect Ukraine elections and retake it. The war angle didn't work as he wanted.
Ukraine’s constitution doesn’t allow for elections during martial law. This is pretty reasonable, and the UK did a similar thing whilst we were under threat of invasion by the Nazis.
Realistically it’s not possible to hold a free and fair election while:
- A foreign power would bomb polling stations
- An invading power would try to interfere in other ways
- Millions of voters are displaced (within and outside the country)
- Millions of voters are in the armed forces at the front line
- Voting districts are occupied by an invading force and can’t really vote
That last point is pretty key, too. How do you ensure only Ukrainian citizens vote and aren’t doing so with a gun to their head? What if you manage to do this and Russia refuses to recognise your election because “you counted votes from legally Russian citizens” (which Russia claims the occupied regions are)? Then if you don’t count those votes, those Russian oblasts suddenly become Ukrainian and Russia claims you disenfranchised legitimate votes to rig an election.
All of this is why Russia (and by extension the USA) position of holding elections in Ukraine is complete nonsense.
Earlier in the same interview he's explicitly asked if he wants to apologize to Trump and says "no." Possibly a real-time softening but also "sorry for this [situation]" not really being the same as an apology.
I wouldn't be very surprised if there was some thaw in relations that comes with an apology, smiling and making nice for the cameras. But I wouldn't be at all surprised at the reverse, particularly considering that Trump tendency to come down in Putin's corner.
Trump should apologize and probably resign while we are at that. But the conservatives want all the good old times without the honor code that existed to some degree back then.
You're witnessing the collapse of American soft power, economic power, and our transition to an authoritarian isolationist state. Some of us accept it while others still have to grasp the situation.
The death of the post cold war neoliberal world order and the death of the American century. to be replaced by... ?
The thing that I find strange about it is that it's being pursued actively, from the inside, as opposed to it being forced on them by an stringer outside force (ie. China). The US has chosen to retract from it's global power and influence.
Mind-blowing, except, kinda-sorta, for the fact that the effort is helmed by a (short-term thinking) businessman rather than a seasoned politician with familiarity with, or even the ability to consider, long term consequences of actions and decisions and the interplay of other countries and their leaders.
Nearly every decision made since the late seventies has been with the intention of making the most money in the shortest amount of time. Not just in government. In everyday people’s lives, in companies.
And it always fails long term. We lose so, so much and then we just ignore it and do it again. We’re getting to a point where we don’t even remember where we started.
This has been a long time coming, IMO. You can only be selfish for so long before you implode. If everyone is selfish, you’re living on borrowed time.
Oh, Russia is still the outside force pulling Trump's puppet strings. They just did such a good propaganda job with "Russia Russia Russia" that people are afraid to say it.
China will benefit the most from this. Europe has zero interest in backing up the US in a fight for Pacific dominance. Good luck trying to form a trading block that excludes China now.
I think this is exactly right, but very discordian. It shouldn't happen, it makes no sense. No country in the world has benefited more from the post cold war, neoliberal world order, than the US. It's the very foundation of all of America's wealth and power. It makes zero sense why the imperialist-core would willingly step down from it's bloody iron throne it has worked for 80 years to create for itself. What was the point of it all then? All the wars, all the coups, all the covert-action, all the forced liberalization, the neocolonialism and the establishment of the liberal world order?
If this is genuinely what is happening, this can only be some sort of hostile takeover enabled by the legitimate grievances in the domestic depoliticized populations. Neoliberalism made itself vulnerable to be destroyed from within, it's greed went too far, the inequities to much to be sustainable, the post-political ideology became so extreme that it forgot the old lessons of empire, bread and circuses.
Or as Merkel and Thatcher said, "There is no alternative". Wanna bet?
Are we giving up our bases? Sending all personnel home, disbanding some brigades or a fleet? No? Then we are not saving any tax dollars. We’ve just made it more expensive to maintain our global empire.
Europe has always been willing to defend itself, but the US had interests in keeping EU dependent on the US for defense; It was a win-win because US could keep their large global sphere of influence and the EU could spend money on other things to benefit its citizens.
The EU will soon announce major defense spending in partnership with the UK, and the US' large sphere of influence, as well as America's superpower status will continue to decline. Whether that's good or bad is yet to be seen, but the world will rebalance itself - China is already throwing money at places where USAID is no longer present to expand their influence.
If by "resolving" a war you mean forcing the victim into a surrender and making the agressor a victor than sure.
You seem to forget the obligations the US has when they signed (and made Ukraine sign) the Budapest memorandum. In which Ukraine gave up the world's third largest nuclear arsenal in exchange for protection of their sovereignty. The US since 2014 (invasion of Crimea) failed to uphold their part of the deal.
> If by "resolving" a war you mean forcing the victim into a surrender and making the agressor a victor than sure.
What other option is there? In all options, Ukraine loses territory in order to stop the fighting. NATO is not going to escalate with Russia, so clearly Ukraine won't be kicking Russia out.
And even if Ukraine did kick Russia out, then what? Russia can just invade again a year later. Is this just an endless war? Is the West going to pay for an endless war?
Seems like the better approach is for Ukraine to get the best deal with Russia they can.
> You seem to forget the obligations the US has when they signed (and made Ukraine sign) the Budapest memorandum. In which Ukraine gave up the world's third largest nuclear arsenal in exchange for protection of their sovereignty. The US since 2014 (invasion of Crimea) failed to uphold their part of the deal.
The US had an obligation not to expand NATO to Ukraine, but hey, here we are.
> The US had an obligation not to expand NATO to Ukraine, but hey, here we are.
Both Gorbachev (the leader of the USSR at the time) and Jasow (higest military leader of the USSR at the time) both say this was never promised to them [1].
And also; Do you really think they would have just let it out the agreement if this was really promised to them? The USSR just forgot to ask to put it on paper?
> And even if Ukraine did kick Russia out, then what? Russia can just invade again a year later. Is this just an endless war?
So what is the difference exactly with a "peace deal" now? Russia did exactly the same thing with Crimea. They invaded, signed a cease fire and then broke it. Whats going to be different this time?
> Seems like the better approach is for Ukraine to get the best deal with Russia they can.
They had a deal in 2014 after Russia invaded Crimea. And Russia chose to break it. That's besides all the deals (such as the Budapest Memorandum) Russia decided to break when they invaded Crimea in the first place.
> Is the West going to pay for an endless war?
Purely from a military perspective, the west is getting a pretty sweet deal with Russia putting it's army in the wood-chipper.
“Foreign Minister Lavrov and
other senior officials have reiterated strong opposition,
stressing that Russia would view further eastward expansion as a potential military threat.”
Despite Russia sharing its redlines with the West in 2008 NATO continued to expand its sphere of influence into Ukraine including backing the coup in 2014.
So yeah, it’s unsurprising that Russia escalated each step of the way as well.
I’m not arguing Russia is right, I’m arguing a war was an obvious outcome.
Russia has already paid a price in the war and clearly it seeks some sort of solution.
You know Ukraine could have sided with Russia and avoided this saga the whole time, right? The real victim are the Ukrainians that had the suffer this war because Zelinski and their deep state sold the country to Biden’s team interests. As a civilian, I’d rather live in an authoritarian and peaceful Russia than a war torn Ukraine where I am forced to be drafted.
They do not have that option. You know who died by the thousands in meat wave attacks on Mariupol, armed with decades-old rifles? Citizens of the "Donetsk People's Republic" and "Luhansk People's Republic" who were forcibly drafted.
You can't cherry pick one example and ignore all the times choosing war was the wrong choice - Vietnam, Cambodia, Iran, Libya, Iraq 2, Somalia, Afghanistan, Panama, Grenada, Syria, Lebanon, Dominican Republic.
It’s lost all respect from its allies and its enemies are excited at the new world order that has been built. Frankly I had admired the US my whole life and I now detest it and want Western civilisation to shun it completely.
Trump called Zelensky a dictator in public, did he not? Zelensky, democratically elected, president of a democratic country, invaded by a tyran, a non-democratic and extreme anti-western attitude, was called a dictator. That is hard to understand, until you realise Trump tries to man-handle an extortion deal out of Ukrain...and now because the man doesn't bend over backwards he's disrespectful? That man showed a lot of courage in my book.
i'm not saying it's anything new... i'm pointing out that if we view Zelenskyy’s role through a Roman lens, where the term dictator originates, his broad wartime powers—granted under martial law, with elections and normal governance suspended—mirror the temporary, crisis-driven authority of a Roman dictator.
Wasn't the word still nonetheless unjustifiably weaponized? Would it not be extremely reasonable to be upset if a sitting US president prior to the US getting involved in WW2 criticized Churchhill and strategically called him a dictator to delegitimize him?
UK’s parliamentary model spread power via coalition; Ukraine’s semi-presidential setup concentrates it in Zelensky, though Parliament retains legislative monopoly.
He's not a dictator at all as his term does have a guaranteed end, once the war is over. I'm sure he would hold an election if he could, just to prove people like you wrong, but it is illegal for him to do so during wartime as per the Ukrainian constitution, which cannot be amended during wartime either.
That's sort of what Trump was subtly trying to get at -- Zelenskyy's political power continues as long as the war continues. If we take the worst interpretation of his character that he is willing to do whatever it takes to hold onto power for as long as possible ... then he has an incentive to sabotage any peace deals.
I personally don't think that's likely, but it is a valid argument depending on how skeptical you are about Zelenskyy's motives.
Can people just think instead of regurgitating what they hear? To your definition Churchill was a dictator too, right? Or somehow he wasn't?
A war is happening, and how can people think they can just hold a nicely done election... Ukrainians don't even care about that, that rhetoric (propaganda) comes from a foreign nation.
Grief is a good way to put it. I know everyone is reinforcing their priors, and mine has been the "Housing Theory of Everything" for the last decade -- and longer than that if you count my mid-2000's (admittedly naive) urban-environmentalism advocacy. It's was a pretty niche area for advocacy until recently... I'm pretty sure I was the first official Strong Towns member in SF.
I'm just blown away that even after the first Trump presidency, and now during the second, that the left still has no serious intention of addressing any of the legitimate grievances that working class has. It's genuinely bananas to see so many people fleeing California for Texas and hearing "good riddance." I'm basically broken at this point, and I feel like fighting for basic, practical and sustainable policies, policies that just make sense, is pointless.
The moderate left (I.e almost all of the left in positions of power) don’t have answers. But, the rest of the left does. The thing is they’re wildly unpopular.
For example, we all know, left and right, that the healthcare system in the US is broken. End of, no debate. It’s broken. But, even the slightest hint of a reasonable single payer system like the rest of the west is met with immediate and severe backlash.
We’re at a place where we’re not even willing to humor, let alone try, any solutions. The conservative approach is “we’ve tried nothing and we’re all out of ideas”, but the left is really not far off from that either.
So many of the further-left’s answers follow the progression of the “step 3: ???” meme. I guess these days we might call it “concepts of a plan”. Even when the goals sound great, the paths to reach them are vague or non-existent (or even worse IMO, depend on questionable or simply outright illegal means).
You mention healthcare…I lived in Colorado in 2016 and we had a ballot measure for a constitutional amendment to establish universal healthcare. Great!
However, in the months leading up to that vote there were so many questions about details that the organizers of the ballot measure just met with some form of, “We’ll let you know after the amendment passes.”
I was a federal employee at the time, with an FEHB plan, and I was concerned that I would wind up paying for both the FEHB plan and the state tax that would come with the state plan. I sent multiple emails and asked at an information session but no one involved in organizing the ballot measure would even entertain the question.
I mean, I simply disagree. The progressive and socialist left's solutions to 'the housing theory of everything' narrative have pretty much failed wherever they have been implemented, especially in the United States.
That doesn't mean I don't think they have any good policies, they certainly do, the issue is that the structure of their policies typically does not have feedback loops that incentivize change when change is needed. There is a reason Stockholm has a 20 year wait list for getting an apartment. With the exception of the Vienna model, which I wholeheartedly support, but that American progressives have all rejected in practice (even if they pretend they don't), every single far-left housing policy system seems to be captured by incumbent electorates, based on seniority, without any willingness to make sacrifices for the next generations.
I hope I made clear from my post that I think these policies come from problems that do not align neatly with political parties, and one of the main reason I see the American political system failing is that incumbent electorates are unwilling to make any sacrifices to help each other.
Couldn’t agree more. Not a peep about land use reform or even any real action on income inequality. DNC offers nothing and is somehow surprised people rejected inaction.
I mean, I think it's worse than that. I grew up in Austin, and still have family there. The fact that a lefty like me is regularly siding with state Republicans against local Democrats on housing policy is legitimately insane.
Austin is basically the only city with dropping housing prices right now and that's happening in large part in spite of city policy, not because of it. Yes, the Republicans are creating tons of new sprawl there, and that's bad, but it's a crisis, not some long term concern we can fiddle with the knobs over. Obviously, the sustainability parts of me don't like sprawl (especially from a Strong Towns perspective), but it's not like the Dems there are upzoning anything more than a token number of corridors.
I've had a perpetual criticism of my fellow Dems since my days of naive urban-enviornmentalism: as long as "the bus is for other people" we won't have good public transit. The same goes for housing. As long as lefties don't actually want to live in a multi-unit European-style townhouses in walkable neighborhoods, we're not going to actually do anything substantial about housing or climate change, but with token projects we can pretend we will... and proceed to keep failing working people.
That’s because the Dems aren’t so different than the GOP when it comes to a lot of that stuff. They’re still the party of the rich, just a different set of rich. The DMC made it clear in 2016 that it rejected the liberal economic policies when it shut down Bernie (who I think could have beat Trump). And radicals like AOC have been a thorn in the side of Pelosi and her ilk. The Dems try to play it safe, but I think if they embraced the radical side they’d find a base to match the MAGA energy and win. That’s what it’s gonna take.
> the left still has no serious intention of addressing any of the legitimate grievances that working class has
Cliché at this point, but worth remembering the Democrats are not a leftist party by any means.
Until America sheds the anti-communist gene and produces an actual, bold left-wing movement rooted in Socialist thought, all you'll have is chauvinism wrapped in politeness optics.
>Just do the opposite of Trump / Musk, it will get you so close to being a saint.
yeah that didn't really work out that well with Kamala.
Problem is, over half the country just doesn't give a shit. Its easy to lose yourself on places like Hacker News and Reddit and think this is the general sentiment, but in reality, on the average 8/10 people around you in US either didn't vote or voted for Trump.
Not all dollars spend translate back to direct dollars earned, but rather political power or influence - which itself is a catalyser for other benefits. But some don’t seem to understand that.
Some understand it fine but are realizing the influence we get isn't worth it. Stop acting like we are idiots for not wanting to engage with geopolitical power games as much as we have been. We know our history, we know our place in the world, we understand all the trade offs, and we may actually not feel they are worth it at this time.
It is the constant refrain of "if they disagree with us they are not informed or are not as intelligent as we are". It is as if they can't believe people could have informed opinions that differ from theirs...wild...
Why can’t it? Stating that America should prioritize itself is a direct and unapologetic stance. Brevity is not a lack of thought—it’s efficient communication. Dismissing a position because it’s concise rather than engaging with its merits is a weak argument. I recognize that some dislike this perspective and will seize any opportunity to undermine it, but that doesn’t make it any less valid.
Stop acting like we are idiots for not wanting to engage with geopolitical power games as much as we have been.
The time for that attitude was the early 2000s, when we started two wars that cost us 30 trillion dollars. We're currently disposing of old military equipment that we would otherwise have to spent money destroying. We're also getting commitments from them to buy our military equipment going forward.
It's ridiculous and disingenuous to claim that supporting Ukraine is playing World Police or even a financially meaningful engagement in foreign affairs. We're giving them "store credit" to get rid of our closeout merchandise and getting a ton of value in return.
The assertion that America's wars cost us $30 trillion is not accurate. As of 2012, the national debt stood at approximately $16 trillion, with a significant portion resulting from domestic spending and the financial crisis, not solely military engagements. Our debt is not that large because of the wars, are they contributors of course, are they the long pole in the tent, not even close.
America is under no obligation to provide endless support to Ukraine. The notion that it's our duty to act as the world's arsenal is misguided. While assistance can be strategic, perpetually fueling a conflict without a clear path to peace is neither noble nor wise. It's time to prioritize diplomatic solutions over an indefinite cycle of military aid.
I mean the US is spending money on US weapons and arms and sending them to a foreign country. We're not sending them cash. The military industrial complex in the US benefits.
Not to mention the huge benefit to us that this equipment is field tested in a way that it can't be done by just testing. That feels a little crass, but the first major comflict of this century has changed somewhat how war is fought.
Sure, the military-industrial complex benefits—but the military-industrial complex always benefits. That’s not a justification for continued involvement; it’s just a fact of how defense spending works. If anything, this strengthens my argument; why not prioritize military production and readiness for the Pacific, where our actual strategic interests lie?
As for "field testing," that’s a pretty thin silver lining to justify indefinite support. Wars evolve regardless, and we don't need to offload billions in weapons to foreign conflicts just to learn how modern combat works. If we’re going to spend, let’s spend where it serves America’s direct security, not someone else’s.
Trump could have just told Ukraine they weren't going to support them anymore. He didn't need to have a public press conference and publicly act like a petulant child demonstrating how truly pathetic and weak his leadership really is.
The fact that you aren't upset by the way Trump and Vance acted is incomprehensible to me. How are you not ashamed that they are leading the US?
My understanding is that a deal was in place. President of Ukraine publicly reneged on that deal and took what was supposed to be more of an announcement as an opportunity to grandstand and renegotiate the deal that had been worked out.
Things got heated. I am not really that upset about this. I have been in far worse meetings with far less at stake. I am glad that our leaders are not letting people we are trying to help push us around. Usually such meetings are not public and basically most people don't get to see the sausage making of diplomacy.
I am more embarrassed that previous Presidents let foreign leaders come to our country and stomp for candidates or make demands of us.
Have you seen the deal? Or are you just speculating? For all we know, Trump actually told Zelensky the US would provide security guarantees to set up this spectacle. Or maybe in fact the deal was never in place and Zelensky was just repeating for the hundredth time what it would take for Ukraine to sign a deal and then Trump and Vance flipped out when hearing something they already knew was a cornerstone to his terms?
Presumably we'll never know what actually went down. But we do know that Trump and Vance act like weak little children and are totally incapable of actually mediating between the parties in this war. In the future, they should have the decency to stay out of this discussion and let adults do the talking.
Everyone has their own take on how they behaved. You say they acted like children, others say Zelensky was disrespectful. Either way, I’d rather have leaders willing to push back than the so-called "adults" who let this war start and then kept it going on autopilot.
Whether a deal was fully locked in or not, what we do know is that previous leadership had years to find an off-ramp and failed. The last group of "adults" spent years writing blank checks and getting nothing in return. If the current approach shakes things up and forces real discussion, maybe that’s exactly what’s needed. Looking out for America’s best interests doesn’t mean playing nice—it means knowing when to say enough.
> I’d rather have leaders willing to push back than the so-called "adults" who let this war start and then kept it going on autopilot.
What are you talking about? Putin started this war and I don't see Trump pushing back against him.
So far Trump has _failed_ to broker a deal to end this war. That fact is incontrovertible. At this point I don't understand why Trump doesn't just walk away. If he's not willing to help Ukraine anymore, he can just say so and explicitly change US policy. Everyone already knows that's the truth anyway. He should stop wasting everyone's time.
Putin started the war, but U.S. policy played a major role in keeping it going. The so-called "adults" spent years writing blank checks, refusing to push for peace, and actively discouraging negotiations.
Trump has been in office for barely a month, and you're already declaring his efforts a "failure"? Wars don’t end in 30 days, especially when the previous administration spent two years fueling it instead of pushing for a resolution.
America operates on its own timeline, not anyone else's. If we want to change our approach to Ukraine, we should do it in a way that aligns with our interests, not because of some artificial urgency. The fact that negotiations are already moving forward with Putin should tell you something: a real process is happening. If the previous administration had done its job, we wouldn’t even be in this mess.
You know I don't actually follow that take to be honest. I find this an interesting and important topic. So I am responding where a statement trips my fancy. I mean I am getting down voted all the time so not like I am doing it for the attention. I have opinions on this and have been thinking about the geo political climate intently for the last few years, as such I see no reason I can't chime in. Is there some policy about not being overly engaged in a topic I was unaware of?
Yeah it's incredible when the mask drops this far.
Trump is a pathetic fuck, but this lines up with how he only ever plays to the domestic audience in advancing protectionist interests. We're feeling that dissonance because this kind of protectionist thinking is extremely rare, basically unheard of these days for world leaders.
Which is why Zelensky mishandled the event. He should have just kept his mouth shut in front of the media. Especially since he's not as articulate in English.
> no-one, I mean no-one would ever do that inpublic
I agree. It seemed to me like Zelensky initiated the public display. Both trump and jd Vance we also commenting on his inappropriate public statements.
Just doing this in front of the world’s media … it’s hard to understand