An unholy trinity or just a seedy threesome: Trump, Musk and Putin? - Trump thread #138

[Spandauer]

With a side order of Vance, Zuckerberg and Netanyahu.*
(*Other flavours are available)

Whoever is winning at the moment will always seem to be invincible.
George Orwell

Previous thread:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5258416-trumpmusk-folie-a-deux-trump-thread-137

Europe without Britain is nothing as a military bloc. That isn't hubris but simple strategy.

Imagine trying to retake Europe from Germany if Britain had been occupied.

Also, as the Romans knew. You can't contain a continent that has a sodding great island of resources permanently available to harass you at every turn. It was the pretext for Caesars invasion.

However right now we are dealing with Emperor Trump quoting Napoleon :

Writer and actor Bill Corbett ‪said, "Trump making an excellent argument for his own assassination."

Amazingly we still have a Duke of Wellington.

How many people would a Nuclear war between the United states and Russia kill?
5 billion people.

So settle the war and have European troops on the new border - because otherwise if it was Nato country two Nuclear powers would be rubbing up directly against eachother militarily.

Do you know how fragile and antiquated the systems are safeguarding us from a mistaken Nuclear war are? Russian weaponry are now crumbling and antiquated, watch this podcast and I ask you what can be gained by dragging this war on for 2-3 more years and what we could risk if it escalates.
Drones have already hit Chernoble in the past week, that's scary enough, it could have contaminated ground water in Ukraine for 1000's of years if there had been a leak.

I don't want an angry Trump aggrivating Russia and backing them into a corner,
why would that be preferable to ending the war???

I hope they become best friends and de-escalate this existential threat that we seem to ignore completely and I don't care if it's Trump or anyone else, just get it done.

Ukraine says Russia drone attack hits Chernobyl nuclear plant, radiation levels normal

@herewegoagain29, fucking hell - what did I just read?!

No, we do not become best friends with a murderous dictatorship that has stolen, lied and subverted its way across Europe, from elections to sabotage to outright war. If the USA wants that, its Trump's lookout. However, Europe should not reward an abusive neighbour.

Please note: Russia and the USA are not the only ones with nuclear weapons. Britain has been directly (poisoned agents) and indirectly (cyber warfare) attacked by Russia. According to your logic, Russia should back off because we are a nuclear power as well. Why aggravate us, when we can send bombs to Moscow?

Russia can end this war instantly if they choose it. The fact they don't speaks volumes.

Do you think Putin is going to stop at Ukraine now he has his bought and paid for patsy in the Whitehouse? Dream on

Are you taking the piss. Judging by the quality of the rest of Russias equipment, there is no guarantee that their nuclear missiles will further than their own silos.

However fucked up putin and Trump might be, I still have faith that there are good people that don't want to die with the nuclear switch.

This sounds as though we are back to willy waving again. Empty threats to get Europe to fold. That has hairs on it.

Russia can end this war instantly if they choose it

The MP for Dubai, Richard Tice, was absolutely pulverised on TalkTV with his suggestion that it's all Ukraine fault and they should just give up. If that is the Reform policy then anyone who had money on Farage being the next PM has lost it. Bigly.

Seems some of the European far right have twigged that backing the US may not be in their best interests if it basically invites Russia into Europe.

Remember before WW2 there was a lot of upper-class sympathy with Hitler putting the working classes in their places. Until it dawned on them that as the Nazi war machine headed west, they would not be in the new elite, and their stuff would be nicked by the Germans. Then all of a sudden we were "all in it together".

I wonder if this could be the salvation of the Tories ? They have a brief opportunity to put some clear blue water between them an Reform and have good old Nige on the ropes. This could be that Churchill moment Boris has dreamt of since he was putting spiders down girls blouses (you know he did).

Then I woke up.

Ukraine gave up voluntarily its nuclear weapons when it became a sovereign state again in return for security guarantees from the US, UK and Russia

Why should it believe any deal that the US and Russia cobble together come up with?

This but also, appeasing Putin and not wanting to rock the boat is how we got into this mess.

It hasn’t exactly worked well when we ignored them killing British civilians on UK soil or marching into Crimea. Oops. Oh well try not to do it again.

"Europe without Britain is nothing as a military bloc."

But would Britain with a further-right government suck up to them? Isn't that why Russia is pushing it so hard in all these countries? Forgive me if I'm not understanding.

"If that is the Reform policy then anyone who had money on Farage being the next PM has lost it. Bigly."

I would assume they wouldn't be shouting about that bit, and will have enough haters on their side who won't care. I totally agree we should NOT be giving in 'for peace'.

Russia has 1674 Nuclear weapons deployed,I'm not as confident as you seem to be that every single Russian Nuclear warhead would not fire if the button was pressed.

The longer the war goes on the more likely an accident or an escalation occurs.

I'm more worried about an accident that occurs because the two countries are at war with eachother, Ukraine as a proxy for the US.

Better the Europeans police the border between Russia and Ukraine after a settlement and the US and Russia not be in direct conflict with eachother. Also Ukraine is running out of people and recruiting older men and more women into the army, do you think that European troops should be enlisted to fight there until the origional border of Ukraine is returned? What is your end game scenario?

Some incidents have involved early warning sensors giving accurate but ambiguous data that suggested an attack: • January 25, 1995. A Russian early warning radar detected a missile launch off the coast of Norway with flight characteristics similar to those of a U.S. submarinelaunched ballistic missile. Fearing that it could be the first move in a larger attack, Russian nuclear forces quickly went on full alert. Russian President Boris Yeltsin activated his “nuclear football” and retrieved launch codes, preparing for a retaliatory launch. Fortunately, the tops of clouds had fooled the satellite into thinking it was detecting a missile attack.

Close Calls with Nuclear Weapons

I’m not sure Ukraine’s position wrt people is quite as dire as Russia’s tbh.

Thanks for new thread @Spandauer

Hitler gambled that the British upper classes would cave and join him because he was anti-Bolshevik. (Possibly aided by Eddie VIII hinting that was the case, and the complete and utter incompetence of Ribbentrop).

He gambled wrong and the rest is history.

With the Tories currently out of the running, the next best hope for a far right party is Reform. And they are already hitting the rocks as Tice - to his shock - discovered when JHB surgically removed the things he thinks are testicles and served them up with a parsley garnish. If Farage wants to hitch the Reform bandwagon to the Trump-Putin engine, it could be a lot of carriages will be empty. Appealing to patriotism is a dangerous game if you start to ally yourself with an enemy. Just ask Oswald Moseley.

However this isn't a bad remake of WW2 with dodgy casting. The world has moved on, and China is waiting to absorb whatever would remain if there were to be a spat between a US-Russian alliance and the world.

Talking to well educated Gambians about world affairs was interesting.

They actively dislike the way the Chinese behave - we drove past a compound for Chinese workers building something - 10 foot walls and razor wire to stop them interacting with locals.
They despise the local politicians who sign Chinese contracts, pocket the cash and move their kids to expensive schools in America.
Despite Colonialism and slavery, most are well aware that Europe and the West will come begging for their fit young workers soon.
Many have family in the UK sending cash back to build uprated family homes with solar power etc.

Many were shocked by how badly Californian houses were built (Gambians use Cement blocks for walls)
and find Trump's approach to trade utterly deluded.

They do not expect the west to be competent to lead for much longer
(they see fat rich old white Brits / Dutch / Germans and judge from that)

Africas problem has always been it's geography. It's a cruel trick that a continent so rich in everything lacks the natural infrastructure to bring them together.

Successive colonial empires cottoned onto this very early which is why all powers have tried to prevent a pan-African alliance.

Conversely, North America got a golden ticket in the world. Huge continent, resources a go-go and an almost designed river system to move it around. As soon as it homogenised that was it's dominance assured.

Africa could easily feed itself and the world if we so wanted. Just from the land around lake Victoria.

When you take this on board, all of a sudden the world makes a lot more sense.

I think you're exactly correct with all of this.

For all that is wrong in the UK today. For all that we have done wrong (and the margin isn't big enough for that list) the one thing Britain has on it's side is a weird, mongrel half-caste crush of peoples that overall are fairly resistant to extremes.

For all the regional banter, we're far more inclined to clump together against threats than revert back to pre-Alfred squabbling. Arguably the last time that happened was the Northern pushback to William the Bastard.

Robert Riech's lectures are great. I guess from the comments that most posters have not listened or believe there is a disconnect between economic reality and real world politics.

It is the underlying economic reality of increasing inequality and shift from the poorest to the richest that has recreated political unrest and rise of the right.

We have shifted over the last decades to the economic conditions that were conducive to the rise of the right and adopted conducive ideology.

Musk and Trump are the greatest threat. At least Putin thinks he had to wage actual war to take over territory, The civilised world knows how to act.

Trump is like a spraying Tom cat and thinks he can just declare territory is now his. Canada, Greenland, Panama Canal, Gaza. The civilised world have no protocol. And then has a crazed but rich random with his 4 year old in the Oval Office?

This will not end well. Because the system allowed the rise of dicks. There are always dicks in any time. But we live in a system that allows dicks to profit to the detriment of the rest of humanity.

Huxley will rise up & say ‘I damned well warned you!’

My son & friends wrote this:

thelostnerve.tumblr.com/post/775295725065125888/the-blueprint-for-ending-democracy

I see there's an idea taking on some momentum on Bluesky for the Dems to hire Pete Buttigieg and give him a staff and get him out there doing daily updates and opposition briefings. Mark Cuban is joining the call. I so hope they do something like this. They desperately need a real communicator like him.

@SIFM It's really terrifying how much of that has already been put in motion.

Thanks for the new thread. About to re-watch The Handmaid's Tale in preparation for new season. It feels timely :(

Hey, thanks for the head's up on the release date! I've marked my calendar, it looks like corker!

I usually watch the final season before this one. But TBH, I'm not sure I can handle it in today's climate.

Thanks.

That's uncomfortable but important reading, @SIFM .

I think the economy is the key to this, when people aren't doing well, they vote for change, even when it's easy to see that the change isn't going to be a good one. People take the guardrails for granted, and think nothing is bad is going to happen/Trump won't really do those crazy things he talks about.

This video has clips of some of the tech oligarchs on it, including Musk and Peter Thiel. Their ideal world looks different from ours. It's out there, this is where some of Musk's ideas come from and it aligns with Project 2025. Vance, Thiel and Musk get some of their ideas from Curtis Yarvin, and he has some very strange ideas.

Honestly, I feel like we are living through a dystopian sci-fi novel from the 1960s and wonder how the 2020s have gone so strange.

Weirdly moving towards the UK model.