[cbg0]

It's unclear if he will be allowed to participate again, due to his sympathy for the Iron Guard (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Guard) which is outlawed, and some pending criminal cases for money laundering, as he reported 0 expenses in the election campaign, which is impossible.

[autoexec]

Did tiktok convince 20% of the voters to vote for a racist, or did they trick 20% into unwittingly voting for a racist? Hopefully now that everyone is talking about him and his affection for religious fascism a lot of those voters will realize what they voted for and change their vote in the future.

[poloniculmov]

His campaign messages weren't outright extremist, just your casual populism, impossible promises and a dash of dogwhistles. Once he won the first round of elections, people really started to look into his past and it's pretty insane.

[RealityVoid]

I think he is legitimately insane. He fits schizotypal personality disorder to a T. Multiple psychologists told me he fits.

[H8crilA]

They voted for him because he speaks pretty well for a politician. Also some of his messages really land - consider that Ukraine is losing (very very slowly, and can still win), so it makes sense to talk to both sides since it's unclear who will be calling shots in the region. Moldova is definitely next, right after Ukraine, and it cannot defend itself even from one mechanized brigade.

[cbg0]

His messaging regarding Ukraine was not something that positively affected his campaign, on the contrary it ignited political opponents over his anti-NATO views.

His campaign landed better because of his palatable way of speaking and saying a lot without saying anything, as most people that voted for him were not really aware of his positions on any serious subject.

[RealityVoid]

Yes, I said multiple times he was Schrodinger's candidate, he could hold multiple mutually contradictory positions at the same time. Pretty ridiculous.

[quickthrowman]

Romania is a member of NATO, they don’t need to give two shits about Russia being a regional power because they will not be invaded by Russia as long as the US is part of NATO.

[AustinDev]

>Ukraine is losing (very very slowly, and can still win),

This is not remotely true, Ukraine can't retake what it's lost they have no men left. If it were true Zelensky wouldn't be contemplating ceding territory to Russia. It sucks but Ukraine lost in 2014 when the world let Crimea get annexed with no response.

https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/zelensky-says-for-first-...

[aguaviva]

Ukraine can't retake what it's lost they have no men left.

You're extremifying.

You could have said "they don't have enough people". But instead you had to dial it up to "they have no men left".

No matter what is actually happening on the ground -- you definitely won't be able to make heads or tails of it, if you keep confounding yourself with rhetoric like this.

[rrr_oh_man]

> You could have said "they don't have enough people". But instead you had to dial it up to "they have no men left".

The realities of war are not LGBTQ-friendly.

My male cousin has not been allowed to leave the country for almost 3 years. His wife is in Germany.

[aguaviva]

I'm sorry you got triggered, but that was absolutely in no way what I was getting at.

That line had nothing whatsoever to do with this "people"/"men" nonsense. I was referring simply to the quantifier.

[pinkmuffinere]

You’re missing the forest for the trees. You claim “they have no men left”. This is false, and reduces trust in everything else you say. You might be right about your main point, but the argument you provide is not convincing.

As one datapoint I’d love to hear a convincing argument, and really don’t have a strong opinion on who will win. If you make a more trustworthy argument for why Ukraine will lose, I promise I’ll read it

Edit: truthfully, this is the most convincing argument I’ve seen so far https://manifold.markets/chrisjbillington/will-ukraine-win-t...

[treyfitty]

What? Why are you shoehorning LGBTQ into this... the intent of “…no men left” is well understood, and the vast majority of soldiers in Ukraine are male. The colloquialism is the same as your username rrr_oh_man. Man, and men is used are used in the same vain.

And what does this have to do with your male cousin?

[AustinDev]

"War does not determine who is right—only who is left."

You're right that there are men still living in Ukraine, Zelensky is still alive after all. However, the manpower situation has been pretty bleak for a while. [1] I'm in regular contact with people in theater and I'm not far off in saying 'there are no men left'. Russia is still advancing albeit slowly. We'll likely have new borders in a few months. Almost time to update your globe.

[1] https://www.stripes.com/theaters/europe/2024-03-16/ukraine-v...

[aguaviva]

We're broadly on the same page it seems. I just found that the original choice of wording tiltied more into the territory of spin than a sober assessment of the state of things. That is all. Unfortunately, this kind of blurring has permeated the general discourse.

Best to luck to whomever in your in contact with.

I won't be changing my globe for anyone, however.

[arandomusername]

> Russia is still advancing albeit slowly

Isn't their rate of advancement a lot faster than a year ago?

[the_mitsuhiko]

Just depends on how you define “winning”. Right now both Russia and Ukraine are losing a lot compared to before 2022.

[mrguyorama]

By their own goals, Russia already lost this war 2 years ago. They may end it with a little extra territory and people, but that's not a victory, again, by their own claims.

[wyager]

Our Democracy(tm) is when elected candidates are judicially removed due to accusations of having unfavorable "sympathies"

[cbg0]

This has not happened yet, it's merely a speculation at this time, but the accusations have a solid foundation in videos of him talking about the subject and even plagiarizing speeches by famous Iron Guard members.

Romania does not have free speech like the US, we have protected speech and there are some sympathies which are simply illegal, whether you agree with it or not.

[serial_dev]

I know nothing about this situation, but I bet it's like when they say Trump = Hitler, because he had a rally at MSG.

[cbg0]

Nobody's calling him Hitler, there's a lot of very weird things the guy says though, as he's pretty heavy into religious mysticism and a bit of a nutjob, some of his hits:

- Pepsi contains nanochips that enter your body

- water isn't actually H2O

- capitalism is communism, there is no difference

- everybody accepted that Covid exists, there's no such thing, there never was

[tsimionescu]

No, it's way beyond that.

He got booted out of one of the other far right wing parties when he publicly praised Romania's 1930s-1940s fascist/nazi dictators as "heroes, who maybe did some bad things, but a lot of good". He has refused to diaavow them every time he has been asked about them.

One of his major campaign leads wears Romanian nazi symbolism (think the Romanian equivalent of a swastika). The other one often posts about those same dictators, especially in commemoration of their deaths.

He has started one of his speeches with an exact quote from one of said dictators.

This is beyond all of the insane conspiracies and religious mystic declarations, from seeing aliens to "C-sections interrupt the divine cord", "water is not just H2O, it is information, that is why they bottle it to keep this information contained", and so many more.

[aguaviva]

One of his major campaign leads wears Romanian nazi symbolism (think the Romanian equivalent of a swastika).

One of these, perhaps?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Romanian_fascist_symbols....

If you could provide these symbols (in Romain) that would be very helpful. And if it's not too much trouble, a few keywords (in Romanian) of that speech so I can look it up.

Not doubting you in the slightest, but these don't seem to be easily searchable (and I'd appreciate your take).

[tsimionescu]

Sure, here are some links:

- The leader with the legionary / Iron Guard pin (what I called "Romananian nazi movement" pin) [0] (the man on the left is wearing the top Iron Guard symbol as a golden pin, the man in the center is Călin Georgescu)

- Wikipedia entry on this movement [1]

- The copied speech fragment from marshal Ion Antonescu, the Romanian military dictator that allied with Hitler [2]

- Wikipedia entry on Ion Antonescu [3]

- if you want some keywords on the people here, you can search for Eugen Sechila [the person with that pin], neo-legionari, Antonescu, Corneliu Zelea-Codreanu (the leader of the legionary movement in the 1930s and 40s, whom Călin Georgescu was praising)

[0] https://www.bursa.ro/calin-georgescu-apropiat-de-neolegionar...

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Guard

[2] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eoE9zQ16b0A&pp=ygUiY8SDbGluIGd...

[3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion_Antonescu

[aguaviva]

when they say Trump = Hitler, because he had a rally at MSG.

No, not "because he had a rally at MSG".

But because of the things he said at that rally.

Do you understand the distinction?

It's also definitely not true that most of the people saying he's a fascist are saying he's "a Nazi"; that's an overdrawn distortion. And a lot of these people with concerns about his rhetoric don't even necessarily think he's a fascist per se; though they do find a matter of concern that he seems to at least be channeling fascist rhetoric.

Whether you agree with them or not is beside the point. What seems much more significant is that you seem to have a weirdly muddled (and hyperemotionalized) view of what people actually think about Trump, and why.

[hcurtiss]

Uhm, you have "sympathies which are simply illegal"? Wow. You trust the government to tell you where you can lay your personal sympathies? I sometimes run into casual statements like this that make me SO GRATEFUL I live in the United States.

[cbg0]

I don't trust the government, but I do trust history on this. If you're curious about the movement: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Guard

I'm very grateful to live in Romania and have a lot of things about the US that I disagree with, but I understand it's a different country with a different history & culture.