> When it came to the vote, Ukraine’s version passed by 93 votes to 18. The US voted against, alongside Russia, marking a major shift of its position on the conflict and previous votes.
> The US version was also adopted (93 in favour, eight against and 73 abstentions), but Member States also voted to add the European Union amendments with 60 in favour, 18 against and 81 abstentions.
What is the endgame in that world, keep sending weapons? At some point there won't be anyone left to fight. At some point a concession will need to be made, and those concessions can lead to better times.
There is no world where NATO/US invade Russia. That is literally the end of the world.
I agree, I think only a tiny number of additional weapons need to be given to Ukraine.
Perhaps two dozen Trident missiles equipped with nuclear warheads would be all that's really necessary. Russia is only invading because Ukraine believed it would honor its word in the Budapest Memorandum, which was why it surrendered its key strategic defense. With that agreement breached, Ukraine deserves its deterrents back.
I also agree that a concession will need to be made, and I think that's very appropriate. Reparations need to be paid for the war of aggression, and those guilty of war crimes need to be given fair trials by international tribunals.
I don't think they were equating the US to North Korea (where is China mentioned?), but saying that since the US can no longer be relies on for protection (instead of the sheriff we're at best the anti-hero that will maybe protect you if there's something in it for us). This means countries need to put up a stronger front themselves since there's no larger stabilizing force to rely on.
It's interesting, because I'm sure Trump and Musk take advantage of the benefits that the regulated market provide (even when they just ignore it to their benefit because most others don't), but I'm not sure they've really considered what it means when that stability and security is gone, in more than a "I'm the biggest so I'll be okay" type of sense. There's a lot of positive externalities from that stability that maybe they are discounting too much (such as a relatively peaceful world, since it's been a while since we had a World War).
Bear in mind that after WW2 the US didn’t want European countries arming up too much, and was quite happy to pick up the slack and set the pace. Eisenhower in particular was pretty clear he didn’t want a heavily armed Germany or Italy, for reasons that should be obvious, and was Dubious about France. It was the US that wrote the heavily pacifist Japanese constitution.
Threatening to annex Canada and start a trade war to try to compulse them. Invoking Canadian nationalism instead. Note: he arranged the previous "trade deal" he claims to hate now.
Starting a trade war with Mexico, this is actually a source of Fentanyl and I can understand.
Camerading with dictators ( Russia), voting the same as them in the UN. Claiming Russia isn't the aggressor ( wtf), even China didn't agree with it.
Threatening a country being attacked and bullying it's president. Taking advantage of the situation to bully them for resource extraction.
Threatening Europe and stability in Europe:
Threatening Germany and interfering publicly with it's elections.
Threatening the UK and interfering publicly with it's elections
Disrespecting NATO and it's citizens who have died when US invoked article 5 on 9/11
US is getting more and more hate from literally everywhere in a very short time because of Trump. A lot is changing very quickly and it won't take 4 years until Trump is gone. We're 6 weeks in...
The entire world is pretty sure that Trump & Vance will take the US in a dictatorship. A lot of this is smoke and mirrors to keep everyone distracted and busy in the mean time ( personal opinion)
Pointer: just look at Tesla in Europe. Some countries are reporting a 45% drop in Tesla sales while the EV market expanded 40%...
Eg. Tesla sales dropped 70% in Canada in January. 81 % in Australia, 60% in Germany, ...
When people will stop US subscriptions ( eg. Netflix) and it's becoming noticable ( eg. Stocks). That will be a point of no return (eg. I think it's already going to be visible from Canada).
> US is getting more and more hate from literally everywhere in a very short time because of that. A lot is changing very quick and it won't take 4 years until Trump is gone.
> The entire world is pretty sure that Trump will take the US in a dictatorship and is going to loosen ties.
Do you have a source for this or is it just some vibey rant? That last part seems ridiculous.
What seems ridiculous about it? Aggressive expansion of presidential power. A compliant judiciary that just handed the president immunity while in office. Constant comments about not having elections 'next time around'. Erosion of first amendment rights. Concentrated media ownership. Constant outright lies while in office.
He is giving many good reasons to be anxious or concerned. Are these normal behaviors? Is his conduct likely to weaken our institutions, rather then strengthen them?
The lack of self-awareness and celebratory exclusion of most of humanity from this assertion is deeply concerning.
Is there a reason that you consider people in vietnam, indonesia, the philippines, slovakia, mali, and dozens of other countries that are recent/ongoing victims of the rapacious and ultra-violent "good europeans" or the liberal-imperial US in recent ( < 100 years ago) history to be either:
A) Not part of the world (since you're explaining the GP statement about the world)
B) Or are somehow a self-evidently inferior subspecies for whom you assume it is impossible for people on HN to be friends with?
If you use "all the people in the world" and "a handful of majority-white former or current imperial-colonial powers" interchangeably, I don't see how anyone can assume in good faith that you're not carrying water for a set of very unpleasant european ideas used to rationalize dehumanization.
Look at the entire thread and notice my comment explicitly referenced the GP comment and the prior dialogue. This can be expressed as a set of logical axioms, and I hope that you are simply bad at reading comprehension.
1. "Everyone on earth hates X now"
2. "Well, not the whole world, that's not a serious claim"
3. "My evidence that it is indeed true that everyone on earth hates X is that a majority of white western europeans hate X, as will all of your non-american friends, all of them."
4. "Equating a majority of white western europeans as evidence of the feelings of all people on earth is implicitly exclusionary and illogical."
5. "I'm going to ignore the original claims being discussed and their context even though there are literally nested comments to show associated thoughts and doing so violates the basics of reading comprehension."
So that should catch you up. Again, I'd like to assume good faith but "pretending top level comments don't exist or inform subsequent comments" indicates some kind of learning disability or lack of socialization.
Many don't seem to realize that removing bureaucracy and installing loyalists is exactly how a dictator becomes a dictator
And that's exactly what Trump is doing.
Eg. 6 january, it's really not that hard to see that Trump wants to cling to power and just earn an insane amount of money ( Trump coin, Melaniacoin, ... ), ignoring court orders, ... ( It's project 2025 and happening for weeks)
Claiming to have won the previous elections, with no proof
Do you have any proof that he isn't? Everything seems to support my opinion that Trump wants to be a dictator. He literally said so himself.
"I'll be a dictator for one day", we're currently 6 weeks in.
My concern about checking my own circle is that it is an inherently biased approach. I'll add that I'm not the biggest Trump fan. In fact, according to the political compass tool (take with a grain of salt, I guess) I'm quite liberal. If I go to a liberal circle, of course they're going to confirm this rhetoric that Trump is going to take the US in a dictatorship.
Al Green was being disruptive and frankly let his emotions get the best of him. There were even democrats who voted in favor of his censure.
Your point about removing bureaucracy and installing loyalists is solid. Though, to say it is exactly how a dictator becomes a dictator is of course an oversimplification. There's more to it than just that.
Also, keep in mind that this is happening within a democratic framework. Removing bureaucracy and installing loyalists can be done in pursuit of objectives other than obtaining dictatorial power:
- Margaret Thatcher in the UK reduced government size through privatizations and appointed conservative loyalists to implement her policies, operating within democracy and stepping down after her term.
- Nelson Mandela in South Africa transformed the bureaucracy from apartheid to a democratic system, installing officials loyal to the new democratic vision, and served two terms before stepping down.
- Ronald Reagan in the US cut regulations and appointed conservative officials to support his economic policies, also within democratic bounds.
In all of these, removing bureaucracy and installing loyalists was framed as efforts to enhance efficiency or fight corruption, not to consolidate absolute power.
Now, Trump is no Nelson Mandela. On the flip side, he is no Adolf Hitler.
There is a lot of alarmist rhetoric going around (such as "Trump will take the US in a dictatorship") that I think will prevent people from seeing what is actually happening (be it good or bad).
That is my attempt at being rational while being bombarded with propaganda from both left and right.
He said publicly during the election that if he won “you won’t have to vote anymore” several times, including on a Fox interview.
During protests in his first presidency in 2020 he asked his security advisors “Can’t you just shoot them, just shoot them in the legs or something?”
Combined with his persistent attempts to overturn the result when he lost to Biden, and retribution against Repubican election officials that certified Biden wins, and I’m frankly confused what isn’t clear about what’s going on.
I think it’s Eurocentric to imply that China is morally inferior to the US. Yes the United States have more personal liberties, but China has less wealth inequality. While the US is more democratic, we have had many questionable elections in our history. Most notably in favor of the victor, Nixon committed treason by sabotaging peace talks in order to influence the ‘68 election [0]. Giving more recent examples of questionable elections would be too controversial and political for HN.
When discussing nuclear proliferation, North Korea is pretty much the worst example and should be mentioned.
Nitpick: I assume you really meant US centric and not "Eurocentric", as as you point out european countries are more in the middle of it and look at each camps from a distance while being involved with all of them.
In practical terms, we can see how Huawei is not banned in the EU, the EU isn't in a tariff war with China either, while it's also not a clear Chinese ally, also having a independant stance from the US in most geopolitical fights.
> I think it’s Eurocentric to imply that China is morally inferior to the US.
Apart from the genocide of the Uighur, the brutal oppression of Tibet, the complete lack of even the pretense of democratic rights, the total lack of freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and on and on. Last I checked not wanting your ethnicity eliminated or brutally repressed isn’t just a European thing.
Even China and Iran didn't vote with Russia on that one, they abstained.