The grown-ups have left the building - Trump thread #136

[Spandauer]

As we descend into 4 years of madness...

(thanks @Jaichangecentfoisdenom and* *@AcrossthePond55 for the suggestions)

Previous thread:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5200273-hands-across-the-water-trump-thread-135

That video is glorious

Just reading that Greenland's PM is ready to talk to Trump about their territory and its future. He did say they don't want to be Danes or Americans but I had to keep reading it and watching it, and reading it again to make sure I was not in a different universe. I totally thought it was outrageous of Trump to talk about this and that it wasn't even an option. Hoping someone here knows the ins/outs, background more than I and explains it all.

I think the thing that amazes me about the countries about which Scrotus makes ridiculous/outrageous statements or demands is that they even bother to respond, other than an initial "Don't be fucking ridiculous, you pompous nitwit", unfortunately couched in more diplomatic terms. Maybe it's politics on a level above my pay grade, but I just don't get why they pander to him with 'meetings' or explanations of why 'whatever' won't be happening. I think the president of Mexico handled it the best when Scrotus said he was going to rename the Gulf of Mexico the 'Gulf of America'. She said she was going to rename North America “América Mexicana” based on a 1607 map.

As far as Greenland I think it technically belongs to Denmark but for all intents and purposes it runs as an independent 'entity' but depends on Denmark's military for security purposes. Although it's rich in natural & mineral resources, it doesn't have the finances to use those resources to become an independent country. Nor do I think it really wants to. They kinda have the best of both worlds as it stands.

Scrotus is used to either being able to buy or steal through shady business dealings anything he wants to acquire. But international politics are not a business and his usual tactics are useless. He's so ignorant of our Constitution that he thinks that threatening a military invasion is a 'real' threat. Although thePOTUS is the 'Commander in Chief', there are still Constitutional 'fail safes' that would stop him from unilaterally ordering such an invasion. Plus he has absolutely no understanding of what a military 'invasion' would mean in terms of international response. Same goes for his supposed 'invasion' of Panama to 'take back' the canal. Ain't gonna happen.

@AcrossthePond55 - thank you for the response - particularly the bit that Trump can't just start military action on a whim - I thought he held enough power to do so, though I imagined he would have 'advice' but then be able to ignore it. It's reassuring my ill informed assumptions were wrong.
Re Greenland it came over to me that the PM maybe saw a way to get a 'deal' for Greenlanders as in full independence via USA cash - I know that isn't what trump meant but thought maybe the PM had seen an opportunity to break free of Denmark - again good to know they don't have a lot of restrictions to object to from the Danes.
It was so nice to hear Biden's first speech and then not hear daily about what he was randomly saying or doing that it really highlighted to me the absolute shitshow of a Trump administration and Trump speeches. I never thought it would happen again. I'm actually in the U.K. so not as much impact at all - with this and with British politics I don't know whether I should keep up with it a bit - and get impotently angry - or not and then not 'know' or be able to share information or discuss it.
Good luck to you from the 20th 😔

Pleased to see that both Canada and Mexico have sent emergency fire-fighters to LA despite Trumps threats/posturing

They have long standing contracts to do it for each other.
Some of the Canadians also worked on the Paradise fire.
It makes sense to share chinooks up and down the Pacific coast.

Bannon has now declared war on Musk and vows to keep him out of the White House 🍟

Ooh. Do you have a link to hand, @DuncinToffee ? (No worries if not.)

It's from breitbart, screenshots here

https://bsky.app/profile/mollyjongfast.bsky.social/post/3lfizim7s7c2a

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/steve-bannon-says-he-will-have-elon-musk-run-out-of-here-by-jan-20-i-will-take-this-guy-down/articleshow/117175796.cms

?

The enemy of my enemy is my friend ? Folk really need to bone up on their classics here (they won't).

Still we can but hope Musk - if not Crassus - is at least Pompey.

One thing this saga seems to be missing is a Cleopatra equivalent. I did try to cast Suella Braverman in my mind, but all I got was a headache.

MTG ?

Lauren Bobert ?

The search goes on.

I'm gonna need a considerably bigger bucket.🍿

Racist Steve Bannon turns on South African immigrant Elon Musk and also points the finger at immigrant Peter Thiel (owner of the very creepy and powerful big data company Palantir Technologies) who grew up in South Africa and Namibia.

That BlueSky thread is calling it all absolutely correctly: all these nasty, manipulative men who repeatedly and opportunistically use racist and xenophobic tropes to recruit to whatever their campaign-of-the-day is (and who're delighted to economically exploit immigrants), suddenly fall out of step and start highlighting each other's behaviour using the same tropes.

🍿🍿🍿

Just to let you know the country that gave you the Trump Baby Balloon isn't going to give up without a fight.

Gotta take the laughs where you can.

Think maybe Bannon could read no further than 'Africa' and thinks Musk and Thiel must be black? Or does he just resent that they're Scrotus' new 'butt buddies'?

All of the "Paypal Bros" have turned out pretty unpleasant

No, Bannon specifies Musk and Thiel are white South Africans and therefore are racist.

I mean, it may very well be true that they are racist. But Bannon's perfectly happy with racists; he's just trying to use it as, well, not even a dogwhistle as it's perfectly audible. He's trying to use it as a recruiting tool among African-Americans.

The BlueSky thread is hilarious. Lots of people going, "Yeah. Nah."

https://bsky.app/profile/mollyjongfast.bsky.social/post/3lfizim7s7c2a

Eg

DarLee‬ ‪@thedlee.bsky.social‬
2 things. Bannon isn't taking on Musk because Musk is racist. BANNON IS EQUALLY RACIST. He just wants magats to feel like they aren't.
Funny to me how no one talks about the industrialists & big ag that employs the illegals they hate so much. They get a pass as the people they employ get attacked.

‪Xavier Onassis‬ ‪@xavieronassis.bsky.social‬
In 2019, an ICE raid on 7 Mississippi chicken processing plants (one owned by Koch, Inc.) netted 680 undocumented immigrants. No management folks were arrested. In words a Cajun might understand: Quelle surprise.

‪[...]

‪Stacy May‬ ‪@stacymay.bsky.social‬
Yup. Every single election they bring this shit up because they KNOW their base is RACIST AF and it’ll get them votes. It’s amazing cuz they’re too stupid to understand IT WILL NEVER GET FIXED cuz big corporations won’t allow it 🤦🏻‍♀️

[...]
‪Yurda Puppet‬ ‪@yurdapuppet.bsky.social‬
Bannon’s nuts but he isn’t stupid. The fact that MAGAs oppose all immigration, even if legal, by South Asians is racist or, at a minimum, xenophobic, on its face. So he cleverly portrays it as anti-racist.
It’s great when they fight each other, but don’t fall for it. He’s still a fascist.

[...]

‪Mrs. C. Avocado‬ ‪@chubbyavocado.bsky.social‬
I’m an engineer (Black Woman) with a very special niche. I can’t get interviews with the tech giants. Full disclosure: I’m long in the tooth. I’ve got maybe 5-10 good years left in me and I work for my meds at this point. 😂

‪If Error GoTo Hell‬ ‪@movezig.bsky.social‬
It's amazing how much the tech worker landscape has changed. They are aggressively commodotizing these positions so that they can pay the cheapest people to do the crappiest work.
It'll all blow up eventually, but that'll be another exec's problem.

‪Mrs. C. Avocado‬ ‪@chubbyavocado.bsky.social‬
You’re on to the real deal. If you can hang that H1-B Visa over the head of a worker, you can pay less. I hate Elon, a Tesla Recruiter reached out in 2024. Engineering role in Palo Alto (very niche tech). I wouldn’t be able to afford a modest equivalent of my east coast home in there.

‪If Error GoTo Hell‬ ‪@movezig.bsky.social‬
It gets worse on the analytics side. They'll just offshore it through companies set up in India (or through consultants who'll do it).
Doesn't matter if you can 3 analysts for the price of one if all 3 are juniors with no incentive to learn the business and one FTE with no incentive to teach them.

[...]

‪mkolanda.bsky.social‬ ‪@mkolanda.bsky.social‬
Interesting. But I seriously doubt he’s concerned about blacks and Hispanics having those jobs.

‪Steven‬ ‪@lud-art.bsky.social‬
True, but he targets them, specifically men of those demographics, it helped them win the last election

‪mkolanda.bsky.social‬ ‪@mkolanda.bsky.social‬
Oh. Fully agree. He blames dems for Id politics but plays it all the time. But there is nothing behind it in policy.

[...]

‪smgdh.bsky.social‬ ‪@smgdh.bsky.social‬
There’s no “good cop/bad cop” here because they’re both evil, racist fuqqers presently jealously fighting over the ear of their love interest. They will kiss and make out soon.

‪Chevan Nanayakkara 🗽‬ ‪@chevan.info‬
Nothing makes Bannon and Brexiteer, Fascio-Nationalist types commendable, redeemable or acceptable: Even waging war against the technocrat libertarians. 😡
That being said if this conflict decelerates and takes up resources preventing them from whatever they are trying to do.. great! 🙂

And more:

‪Joan‬ ‪@joanejet.bsky.social‬
So now Bannon is concerned that blacks and Hispanics don’t have access to tech jobs? 🙄🙄

‪Mertul‬ ‪@hedkas.bsky.social‬
I found that very strange.

[...]

gussthelawyer.bsky.social‬ ‪@gussthelawyer.bsky.social‬
I didn’t have Steve Bannon being the champion of black and Latino Americans in tech on my bingo card.

‪Torettox84‬ ‪@torettox84.com‬
I’m sorry, is Steve Bannon arguing to hire minorities in tech?
Why am I on his side? This feels wrong.

‪Deirdre‬ ‪@maddniez.bsky.social‬
He's only using the argument to pit American minority groups against immigrants. This is one of the reasons they pulled Black and Hispanic votes to Maga.

That thread can be summed up by this one:

‪elmersmom.bsky.social‬ ‪@elmersmom.bsky.social‬
Holy crap on a cracker ... This is going to be interesting to watch!

Sorry, edit failure above.

Bannon specifies Musk and Thiel are white South Africans and therefore are must be racist.

Bannon has been making noises about Musk for a while - what is it they say about scorned women… 😜

They talked at length about their Twitter spat on TRIP US last week. The transcript is too long to post here but you can listen here: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-rest-is-politics-us/id1743030473?i=1000682431744

Mooch’s very basic assessment was:

“But my thing about Steve Bannon, I have met a lot of bad people in my life, but I have never met anybody like Steve Bannon because Steve Bannon has got, and again, we've talked about this. Thank God he's so ugly, but he's the triple threat.

Let me explain that. He's well-read, he's incredibly malevolent, and then he has that dark attention-seeking madness. We're now in the dark attention-seeking madness phase.

He's come out of jail, his podcast is doing okay, but he's nowhere in MAGA world. He's nowhere. Now, he's trying to make a flank move.

He's trying to assess if he is the heartbeat of MAGA, if he's the core of MAGA. And he's going after Musk in a way that's not endearing him to Trump and is not endearing him to the people in the inner circle. And so this is a fascinating thing that's going on, is a civil war taking place.

Musk is winning that war right now”

Apple bucking the cocksucking trend and refusing to drop it's DEI.

Fuck. I may actually have found something not shit about them. Who knew ?

(The TL;DR is that it will cost more to dismantle DEI than keep it. An interesting capitalist take on ideology).

on the calofornia fires - could the fire hydrants be fed by ocean water in this dire situation?

Salt water would corrode the pipework, and I don't think there's a mechanism to feed ocean water into the water system without polluting drinking water and domestic supply.
Hopefully the rebuilding process will incorporate architectural ways to conserve water, and thought will be given to firebreaks throughout the area.