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

From US news.

His cuts to USAID have fucked over American farmers.
His mass firings in the Nuclear Security and Air Safety sector has meant they are now scrabbling around trying to rehire the workers fired.
His actions are being challenged in 100s(?) of expensive court cases.
There were protests all over America on Presidents Day.
Even elected Republican officials are horrified at his actions wrt Ukraine.

These are not all bellyaching Democrats. They are Republicans and Trump voters and he's only been in a few weeks.

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.

I despise both of them (and a few more as well) but do not suggest that they are mad. That excuses them for what they do. It's the old Hitler "mad" or "evil" line. It's a way of distancing ourselves from their actions - they must be "mad" or "evil" to do what they do because "us normal people wouldn't". We all, every single human being, have the capacity to do or think like they do - it is a conscious choice that makes them who they are, and us who we are. Recognising how easily we might slip down that slope is one of the things that stops us being one of the three "wise" monkeys. They are there, in power, because people are either too scared to stop them or believe that they represent their best interests. And mostly, unfortunately, the latter.

Try reading How to Lose a Country: The 7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship by Ece Temelkuran. She saw all this coming, and we are dangerously near to a precipice where the whole world can fall. It's too late to recognise what they really stand for after they have been elected.

Oh, that was quick! Thanks MNHQ!

Ah, bollocks, it obviously triggered the temporary "hide till MN inspect" even though I thought I'd removed the triggering term.

<sigh>

Sorry, you may have to wait a few minutes to read that.

It's because he's becoming more dangerous and brazen. However, we recently supported a genocide and ethnic cleansing and our PM advocated for war crimes - so it's not black and white.

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.”

Brexit was part of the same end game so no I am not surprised. Just saddened and worried.

Tbf nobody gave a crap about his various land grabs over the decades while the western financial markets were profiting from vigorous Russian laundering.

I remember the first time that Trump first got in, I was laughing at the people with Trump Derangement Syndrome.

Not sure what to think now. Things that seemed ridiculous are coming true.

They weren't so deranged after all? Trump is now even more deranged than they were?

https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-popularity-polls-changes-favorability-2032684

Falling approval ratings.

He did not “smash the polls”.

He won. But it was as close as ever and he did not get over 50%.

Genuine question: where are you seeing this regret? I'm hearing plenty from Democrats but the Trump voters all seem as happy as pigs in shit.

No but the voting data shows which groups majority went for him and which did not….

Super powers led by dictators carving the world up into spheres of influence. Classic fascist dictator playbook.

It's shocking right?! We obviously should have supported Putin's land grab.

It will be interesting to see how far this is going to divide Europe.

At the moment it looks like a united front, but the cracks are showing.
The results of the German election and subsequent policies will be a good starting point for observations of what is to come.

Europe has been relatively stable over the last 80 years, I believe this is going to change. Trump & Putin will play a big part in this.

His voters are becoming more aware of that by the day as the popular policies they voted for have become a destructive, dangerous, expensive mess.

But even I'm surprised at how quickly and rapidly Trump voter regret has hit.

I never thought the UK would align with Ukraine 🤮

I think one of the important things to hold onto about how he's spinning the origins of the conflict is that he's completely written out the USA's and NATO's pivotal roles in making Ukraine a target for Putin. The Ukrainian administration made serious errors of judgement - they pissed NATO around, collaborating with them, compromising them then letting them in, failing to tidy up etc - but this was all done in the context of public promises re future membership and who knows what allusions made in private.

To hear Trump talk now, you would think that Ukraine just upped and decided to piss Russia off all on their own, with no USA/NATO involvement.

But, this is standard behaviour from "the world's policeman".

Exactly!

He was voted in democratically though because people liked his policies. He smashed the polls.

Not sure what you’re getting at with your last sentence about people being thrown under a bus.

A marginal win in an election isn’t insane popularity. However, Trump regret isn’t yet at a level that reflects any understanding of what is happening to the country.
If the deleted poster thinks this is normal international relations they are not as informed or intelligent as they believe themselves to be.

I think the dementia we suspected is beginning to more obvious.

All US citizens get a vote. Trump wasn't just elected by rich white men.