I never thought I'd see the US aligning with Russia

YANBU @VolcanoJapan. The lies are coming thick and fast.

I'm not sure Trump will last 4 years. There are multiple protests in the US. Much of what he is trying to do is illegal or dangerous. Trump voter regret is spreading quicker than Covid.🙈

Ukraine couldn't outright join NATO because they were severely compromised by both internal and international corruption and by the type of fighters they were using on the border.

It's all a bit George Orwell 1984-ish.
Countries being painted as enemies, then suddenly a different country is announced to be the enemy and the narrative is rewritten

My understand is that to change the actual constitution including the 4 year rule you need two thirds of both houses to agree. It doesn’t look likely that the republicans can get two thirds of the seats in both houses. At least not anytime soon.

It's extraordinary how quickly the narrative around Ukraine is being changed now to paint them as being the obstacle to peace who needs sidelining.

I never thought the Ukrainian government had been snow white in events in the years leading up to the war, but the fact remains Russia invaded and now Ukraine are being painted as somehow being awkward because they didn't agree to be invaded and have their territory stolen?

This poster is spot on.
Even friends of Trump say there is no way he will just step down in 4 years time. He will just change the constitution to suit himself and the rest of the world will bend to his will terrified of the economic consequences.
I am truly scared. Every day it gets worse.

It's important to understand what the people behind Trump are up to. They'll use him while he's useful to them, but they don't have a high opinion of him.

This stuff's coming from the tech oligarchy, who've been dreaming of this for a while. Their idealogue is Curtis Yarvin, funded by Peter Thiel (who founded Palantir, the big-data company).

Silicon Valley Whistleblowers Warn Elon Musk ‘Hijacking’ Republicans to Control Entire US Government
Former followers of the ‘Dark Enlightenment’ say a planned ‘neo-reactionary’ hollowing out of government is happening in real time
https://bylinetimes.com/2025/02/07/silicon-valley-whistleblowers-warn-elon-musk-hijacking-republicans-to-control-entire-us-government/

and

The Billionaires’ Plot for Ending Democracy Is Already in Motion
The Butterfly Revolution: A Roadmap to Corporate Authoritarianism
https://thelostnerve.tumblr.com/post/775295725065125888/the-billionaires-plot-for-ending-democracy-is

I've edited out the name of a famous online payment system, as it seems to cause MN to automatically hide the post pending inspection, but from the second link:

[The memo says:] “Elon Musk’s unchecked consolidation of power over government infrastructure, financial systems, AI governance, and digital media does not serve the interests of the Trump administration or the broader conservative movement”, warns the memorandum. “While some may view Musk as a useful instrument in dismantling the bureaucratic state, in reality, his actions demonstrate that he is not working for Trump or the Republican Party, but rather for his own power and the broader neo-reactionary agenda.”
[...]
Musk, the memo warns, is moving rapidly to take control of the apparatus of US Government power on behalf of a core network of interests who subscribe to Yarvin’s ‘ Dark Enlightenment’ ideology. Other leaders in the US technology oligarchy aligned with Musk who subscribe to Yarvin’s ideas include Marc Andreessen (partner at venture-capital firm A16Z and author of the Techo-Optimist Manifesto), Balaji Srinivasan (former chief technology officer of Coinbase and author of the Network State), David Sacks (who co-founded [online payment system PP] with Peter Thiel), and of course Thiel himself.
[...]
The [whistleblowers'] memo points out that Curtis Yarvin has a vision for an “American Caesar”—a strong leader who would dismantle existing democratic institutions and centralize power, but argues that “Trump is no Caesar.”
Although Yarvin has recently, in light of the rapid dismantlement of key US Government agencies, endorsed Trump’s second term, his pro-Trump position still sees Trump as little more than a vessel and tool for the neo-reactionary movement. “Caesar was an Olympian. Trump should be on Ozempic”, Yarvin wrote.
[...]
The memo reveals that Musk’s actions fit alarmingly well with Yarvin’s prescriptions for how a Trump administration can be exploited by the neo-reactionary movement to install a new faction of elitist Silicon Valley technocrats at the helm of a hollowed-out US Government.
[...]
The whistleblowers conclude: “The hollowing out of government, the privatization of state functions, and the centralization of decision-making in unelected corporate-backed figures—once abstract concepts in Yarvin’s writings—who make a spectacle of the Presidency are now being tested at the highest levels of government.”

I agree that Ukraine was screwed over but not just by Putin - it's been used by both sides. NATO had personnel in Ukraine at the border and were hinting at moves to install missiles capable of reaching Russia.

That's Russia a country which remember has for over seventy years had nuclear weapons pointed at it by the only country in human history that has used atomic bombs - twice - on civilian populations, which is also a founding member of the same NATO making inroads in Ukraine.

There is no way that any Russian leader worth his salt would let that go. Ukraine administration must have known this - NATO certainly did, and was just waiting for Putin to escalate even slightly - if you remember it was NATO and EU that stated all out war had started after eight years of fighting.

Stalin and Hitler all over again .. and history tells us how that one ends.

Trump actively despises “western values”, hence him banning books, talk about arresting journalists, accessing sensitive information on “enemies of state” (in this case people who prosecuted those who took part in insurrection), nationalistic ferver, removing any people who are in a position to hold them to account (DOGEs current job)

There is a great podcast on Dictators, and they talk about the “Dictators Playbook”, and that is what Trump is executing.

I guess his ultimate step will be changes to the Constitution, so he stays in power forever.

And I fully expect to see political prisoners.

He's on our doorstep and stepping up his aggression. We all know he's a brutal dictator and Russia is devoid of human rights. His opponents are clumsy around windows.

However, invading Ukraine is a major escalation which is why we were meant to be on Ukraine's side. Ukraine was completely screwed over by everyone.

He was always dangerous and brazen. That's how come he managed to get a grip on Russia after drunk Yeltsin left it in chaos.

And he was useful to us for that reason, because once Russia was turning a profit, everyone benefited. During that time his administration was responsible for many atrocities but no one batted an eyelid, really. What turned the tables for him was squaring up to NATO via Ukraine as proxy. This showed him to be getting too big for his boots as far as USA was concerned and where USA went other NATO followed.

Support for Ukraine may have been couched in ideological terms - all modern wars are spoken about in ideological terms because they all involve huge amounts of civilian losses and they would otherwise be unpalatable - but war and alliances are always about money and power.

YANBU @VolcanoJapan. The lies are coming thick and fast.

I'm not sure Trump will last 4 years. There are multiple protests in the US. Much of what he is trying to do is illegal or dangerous. Trump voter regret is spreading quicker than Covid.🙈