Just doing this in front of the world’s media … it’s hard to understand
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.
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.
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.
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])
[0]: https://act.represent.us/sign/proportional-representation/
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.
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.
For his base, they won't care, and this event will justify the next few actions that the US takes.
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!
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.
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.
[0]: https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/202251?Page=3
* Russia will betray the GOP in an instant if it serves their geopolitical goals
* Russia is increasingly allying with Iran, North Korea and probably China
* Russia doing well out of the Ukraine invasion will embolden China to move in on Taiwan and potentially other Pacific territories
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".
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 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.
https://x.com/CollinRugg/status/1895618072905384351
The whole thing was just sad to watch. Politics have hit a level of inanity unimaginable..
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.
The death of the post cold war neoliberal world order and the death of the American century. to be replaced by... ?
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.
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.
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?
It's not. If you're a remotely rational American right now you are experiencing large amounts of grief.
This is just the denial stage of grief.
Make sure you cover your traces.
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.
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.
https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-housing-theory-of-every...
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.
Bernie lost the popular vote in both the 2016 and 2020 primaries.
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.
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.
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.
Is it any wonder the measure failed 80-20?
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.
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.
There's that old saying about best friends and worst enemies...
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.