6 ms·

It all seems so surprisingly unnecessary. Angry geriatric man f*cks the world up for generations to come, then in a short bit he will die, and not have to live

by thecopy 9mo ago

It all seems so surprisingly unnecessary. Angry geriatric man f*cks the world up for generations to come, then in a short bit he will die, and not have to live through the consequences.

littlestymaar 9mo ago
Even if Trump died today, Vance would continue his nefarious job.
- sschueller 9mo ago
  Exactly, just see the gal of garbage spewed by for example Scott Bessent at the WEF yesterday. The arrogance is outright insulting.
  - ImHereToVote 9mo ago
    The U.S. can't really afford the status quo regardless who is in office.
    - sschueller 9mo ago
      The U.S. needs changes in its constitution if it ever wants to go back to where it was and get the rest of the world to play along again. The fact that the DoJ is not an independent institution unlike in almost every other western country makes it impossible to uphold the law if the white house doesn't want to. The only thing preventing a sitting president from going after his political enemies is a "gentleman's agreement" between administrations in the United States. Stability it key and there isn't any as we can see clearly.
  - ncruces 9mo ago
    “The size of Denmark’s investment in US Treasury bonds, like Denmark itself, is irrelevant.” So an ally is irrelevant. People wonder why the EU is built the way it is, and behaves the way it does. It's precisely to avoid this. To bind Germany and France together and avoid the big powers treating smaller neighbors like this. I guess that's bad to some people. This is not a trade dispute over something signed last summer. It's a lot bigger than that.
    - sschueller 9mo ago
      Switzerland is the worlds 3rd. largest holder of foreign exchange reserves. Thinking that small countries are irrelevant is futile. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_foreign_exchange_reserves https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_foreign_e...
      - yread 9mo ago
        Or Norway. 5 million people. 2 trillion $ fund.
- pjc50 9mo ago
  I guess we find out how much of this is cult of personality and how much is just the propaganda system.
- deleted 9mo ago
  [deleted]
- thecopy 9mo ago
  Vance doesn't have the cult of personality
  - Y-bar 9mo ago
    Let's not underestimate the ability of Fox News, Peter Thiel, Turning Point USA, Newsmax, Truth Social, and Elon Musk's Twitter to manufacture a enough of a cult. Recent example is how they are using Erika Kirk (she appears to play along quite well) https://www.foxnews.com/politics/vance-trump-jrs-plans-bolster-charlie-kirks-political-legacy-revealed-help-grow-it https://www.foxnews.com/politics/vance-trump-jrs-plans-bolst...
- graemep 9mo ago
  Vance seems to be very different. For all we know his real views are still these https://www.politico.com/news/2024/07/15/jd-vance-donald-trump-comments-00168450 https://www.politico.com/news/2024/07/15/jd-vance-donald-tru...
  - ndsipa_pomu 9mo ago
    And yet his allegiance is completely up for sale. He will do whatever he is told to do by the likes of Peter Thiel & co.
    - graemep 9mo ago
      It looks like it at the moment. I wonder whether it would remain the same if he was president. He would need Thiel less, and not need Trump at all.
- rsynnott 9mo ago
  Do you really think the threat that “JD Vance might be unhappy with you, and would direct the literally tens of people who like him to vote against you in primaries” would keep the Republicans in congress under control? Trump’s whole thing is his weaponisation of a cult of personality. Vance doesn’t have a personality at all (and I’d assume he was chosen for that reason, Trump not wanting the competition.) He’d be dead in the water from day one.
- thrance 9mo ago
  Vance has none of whatever Trump used to entrance 50% of Americans. MAGA dies with Trump, although I'm sure something else will come end replace it, if the issues that led to it aren't fixed.
  - honzabe 9mo ago
    That reminds me of an article Noah Smith wrote about this: https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/after-trump-the-deluge https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/after-trump-the-deluge He believes they will switch from charisma to ideology to keep the movement going.
ViewTrick1002 9mo ago
Trump is the symptom, not the cause. The cause the US people.
- kzrdude 9mo ago
  That is a very simplified take. Congress has been locking up for the past decades and is now unable to do useful regulation for the people. Much of it is due to how the funding of candidates works and the feedback loop effect it had on the political culture. Trump is a symptom of this failure of political culture too.
  - smashah 9mo ago
    ...A political culture the public has voted for by allowing it to continue despite being bound by a constitutional duty to prevent the same disenfranchisement you've described. America will be judged by its own demonic standards. The standard by which they justified their participation in the Holocaust of Gaza ("they voted for it").
- smashah 9mo ago
  Foreign and Billionaire demonic interest have disenfranchised the people long ago. Luckily the people have a second-amendment constitutional duty to re-secure the free state. It's clear America is no longer a free state. One cannot be free in a panopticon.
  - ViewTrick1002 9mo ago
    It is time to stop blaming third parties. The truth is that congress is able to rein in Trump any second they want. The reason they don't is that they know that they will get primaried and lose their seat for someone more aligned with the people and Trump.
    - disgruntledphd2 9mo ago
      > they will get primaried Primaries are kinda insane though. It basically means that a small minority of voters control who actually is allowed to stand for election under a party banner. Like, I understand how it ended up this way, but it's having really bad consequences. That being said, if you could fix gerrymandering, a lot of the issues with primaries go away, as there would be more competition in the actual election which would dis-incentivise proposing extremist candidates in the primary.
nosianu 9mo ago
You will have to translate this German language article, but this is NOT Trump. It is about the tech billionaires supporting this quest, and why they want it. https://orf.at/stories/3417584/ https://orf.at/stories/3417584/ I doubt Trump would have ever even thought of Greenland on his own. I think was told about it, and the narrative planted in his head deliberately. This focus on "Trump" in Internet comments and media irks me to no end. Trump is not a failure and not the wrong person in the job - he is ideal for those behind him. The money does not like public attention.
- raverbashing 9mo ago
  But if you repeat the idea as your own so it becomes (Yes the president can't tell Greenland from Iceland, but neither half of those "tech bros" who failed geography at school
- captn3m0 9mo ago
  We even know which billionaire planted the Greenland idea: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/15/ronald-lauder-billionaire-donor-donald-trump-ukraine-greenland https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/15/ronald-laude...
  - austin-cheney 9mo ago
    This gets me thinking that the US would benefit so much from trading its income tax for an aggressive estate tax. The US would have far greater tax revenue, the standard of living would dramatically increase for the average citizen, and idiots like these two would be powerless. Let influence be reserved for those who have built it.
mrtksn 9mo ago
It's the same with Putin. EU-Russia had a good working relationship where Russia sends oil&gas and EU sends Mercedes and Adidas and live happily. However this is not enough for the megalomaniacs at the top, this is boring they need to be conquerors they need their place in the history books be longer than a chapter. Maybe going forward there must be safeguards against power accumulation. The checks and balances obviously didn't work, so something more potent is needed. In Europe it took Putin, Erdogan and the others 20 years to come the place where Trump reached in less than a years, so US needs it much more acutely obviously. BTW this is not only about protecting the society from their existence but also protect the society from their sudden disappearance. With such concentration of power, the power of the nation often dies with those people. If they survive long enough to transition power peacefully, the best they can do is to leave it to their son and their sons often turns out to inherit the brutalities without the skills.
- thrance 9mo ago
  Putin and Trump wouldn't be where they are without their respective oligarchical classes' supports. You can't have democracy when some private individuals are able to hold unto so much wealth and power, buying media and politicians, etc. This is what needs to be addressed if we don't want more Trumps and Putins.
- 4gotunameagain 9mo ago
  If you look at old interviews of Putin and Lavrov, it is clear that they had been warning about NATO expansion and Ukraine for a long time. On 12 June 2020, Ukraine joined NATO's enhanced opportunity partner interoperability program. On 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine. I think Putin is a dictator, but comparing Trump to Putin is simply clueless.
  - mopsi 9mo ago
    > If you look at old interviews of Putin Yes, let's do that: https://x.com/adnashmyash/status/1977146505900573089 https://x.com/adnashmyash/status/1977146505900573089 2008: "Crimea is not disputed territory of Ukraine, and the issues of Russian speakers are internal issues of Ukraine." 2013: "Russia certainly doesn't plan to send troops into Ukraine." 2014: "After the annexation of Crimea, Russia doesn't plan to further divide Ukraine." 2019: "It's nonsense that Russia plans to attack anyone in future." 2022: "Russia's Special Military Operation does not involve the occupation of Ukrainian territories." 2023: "The conflict in Ukraine is not a territorial conflict — we have plenty of own territories." 2024: "Anyone who wants Russia to give up CONQUERED TERRITORIES in Ukraine must understand that this is impossible."

by thecopy 9mo ago

It all seems so surprisingly unnecessary. Angry geriatric man f*cks the world up for generations to come, then in a short bit he will die, and not have to live through the consequences.

littlestymaar 9mo ago

Even if Trump died today, Vance would continue his nefarious job.

sschueller 9mo ago
Exactly, just see the gal of garbage spewed by for example Scott Bessent at the WEF yesterday. The arrogance is outright insulting.
- ImHereToVote 9mo ago
  The U.S. can't really afford the status quo regardless who is in office.
  - sschueller 9mo ago
    The U.S. needs changes in its constitution if it ever wants to go back to where it was and get the rest of the world to play along again. The fact that the DoJ is not an independent institution unlike in almost every other western country makes it impossible to uphold the law if the white house doesn't want to. The only thing preventing a sitting president from going after his political enemies is a "gentleman's agreement" between administrations in the United States. Stability it key and there isn't any as we can see clearly.
- ncruces 9mo ago
  “The size of Denmark’s investment in US Treasury bonds, like Denmark itself, is irrelevant.” So an ally is irrelevant. People wonder why the EU is built the way it is, and behaves the way it does. It's precisely to avoid this. To bind Germany and France together and avoid the big powers treating smaller neighbors like this. I guess that's bad to some people. This is not a trade dispute over something signed last summer. It's a lot bigger than that.
  - sschueller 9mo ago
    Switzerland is the worlds 3rd. largest holder of foreign exchange reserves. Thinking that small countries are irrelevant is futile. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_foreign_exchange_reserves https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_foreign_e...
    - yread 9mo ago
      Or Norway. 5 million people. 2 trillion $ fund.
pjc50 9mo ago
I guess we find out how much of this is cult of personality and how much is just the propaganda system.
deleted 9mo ago
[deleted]
thecopy 9mo ago
Vance doesn't have the cult of personality
- Y-bar 9mo ago
  Let's not underestimate the ability of Fox News, Peter Thiel, Turning Point USA, Newsmax, Truth Social, and Elon Musk's Twitter to manufacture a enough of a cult. Recent example is how they are using Erika Kirk (she appears to play along quite well) https://www.foxnews.com/politics/vance-trump-jrs-plans-bolster-charlie-kirks-political-legacy-revealed-help-grow-it https://www.foxnews.com/politics/vance-trump-jrs-plans-bolst...
graemep 9mo ago
Vance seems to be very different. For all we know his real views are still these https://www.politico.com/news/2024/07/15/jd-vance-donald-trump-comments-00168450 https://www.politico.com/news/2024/07/15/jd-vance-donald-tru...
- ndsipa_pomu 9mo ago
  And yet his allegiance is completely up for sale. He will do whatever he is told to do by the likes of Peter Thiel & co.
  - graemep 9mo ago
    It looks like it at the moment. I wonder whether it would remain the same if he was president. He would need Thiel less, and not need Trump at all.
rsynnott 9mo ago
Do you really think the threat that “JD Vance might be unhappy with you, and would direct the literally tens of people who like him to vote against you in primaries” would keep the Republicans in congress under control? Trump’s whole thing is his weaponisation of a cult of personality. Vance doesn’t have a personality at all (and I’d assume he was chosen for that reason, Trump not wanting the competition.) He’d be dead in the water from day one.
thrance 9mo ago
Vance has none of whatever Trump used to entrance 50% of Americans. MAGA dies with Trump, although I'm sure something else will come end replace it, if the issues that led to it aren't fixed.
- honzabe 9mo ago
  That reminds me of an article Noah Smith wrote about this: https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/after-trump-the-deluge https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/after-trump-the-deluge He believes they will switch from charisma to ideology to keep the movement going.

ViewTrick1002 9mo ago

Trump is the symptom, not the cause. The cause the US people.

kzrdude 9mo ago
That is a very simplified take. Congress has been locking up for the past decades and is now unable to do useful regulation for the people. Much of it is due to how the funding of candidates works and the feedback loop effect it had on the political culture. Trump is a symptom of this failure of political culture too.
- smashah 9mo ago
  ...A political culture the public has voted for by allowing it to continue despite being bound by a constitutional duty to prevent the same disenfranchisement you've described. America will be judged by its own demonic standards. The standard by which they justified their participation in the Holocaust of Gaza ("they voted for it").
smashah 9mo ago
Foreign and Billionaire demonic interest have disenfranchised the people long ago. Luckily the people have a second-amendment constitutional duty to re-secure the free state. It's clear America is no longer a free state. One cannot be free in a panopticon.
- ViewTrick1002 9mo ago
  It is time to stop blaming third parties. The truth is that congress is able to rein in Trump any second they want. The reason they don't is that they know that they will get primaried and lose their seat for someone more aligned with the people and Trump.
  - disgruntledphd2 9mo ago
    > they will get primaried Primaries are kinda insane though. It basically means that a small minority of voters control who actually is allowed to stand for election under a party banner. Like, I understand how it ended up this way, but it's having really bad consequences. That being said, if you could fix gerrymandering, a lot of the issues with primaries go away, as there would be more competition in the actual election which would dis-incentivise proposing extremist candidates in the primary.

nosianu 9mo ago

You will have to translate this German language article, but this is NOT Trump. It is about the tech billionaires supporting this quest, and why they want it. https://orf.at/stories/3417584/ https://orf.at/stories/3417584/ I doubt Trump would have ever even thought of Greenland on his own. I think was told about it, and the narrative planted in his head deliberately. This focus on "Trump" in Internet comments and media irks me to no end. Trump is not a failure and not the wrong person in the job - he is ideal for those behind him. The money does not like public attention.

raverbashing 9mo ago
But if you repeat the idea as your own so it becomes (Yes the president can't tell Greenland from Iceland, but neither half of those "tech bros" who failed geography at school
captn3m0 9mo ago
We even know which billionaire planted the Greenland idea: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/15/ronald-lauder-billionaire-donor-donald-trump-ukraine-greenland https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/15/ronald-laude...
- austin-cheney 9mo ago
  This gets me thinking that the US would benefit so much from trading its income tax for an aggressive estate tax. The US would have far greater tax revenue, the standard of living would dramatically increase for the average citizen, and idiots like these two would be powerless. Let influence be reserved for those who have built it.

mrtksn 9mo ago

It's the same with Putin. EU-Russia had a good working relationship where Russia sends oil&gas and EU sends Mercedes and Adidas and live happily. However this is not enough for the megalomaniacs at the top, this is boring they need to be conquerors they need their place in the history books be longer than a chapter. Maybe going forward there must be safeguards against power accumulation. The checks and balances obviously didn't work, so something more potent is needed. In Europe it took Putin, Erdogan and the others 20 years to come the place where Trump reached in less than a years, so US needs it much more acutely obviously. BTW this is not only about protecting the society from their existence but also protect the society from their sudden disappearance. With such concentration of power, the power of the nation often dies with those people. If they survive long enough to transition power peacefully, the best they can do is to leave it to their son and their sons often turns out to inherit the brutalities without the skills.

thrance 9mo ago
Putin and Trump wouldn't be where they are without their respective oligarchical classes' supports. You can't have democracy when some private individuals are able to hold unto so much wealth and power, buying media and politicians, etc. This is what needs to be addressed if we don't want more Trumps and Putins.
4gotunameagain 9mo ago
If you look at old interviews of Putin and Lavrov, it is clear that they had been warning about NATO expansion and Ukraine for a long time. On 12 June 2020, Ukraine joined NATO's enhanced opportunity partner interoperability program. On 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine. I think Putin is a dictator, but comparing Trump to Putin is simply clueless.
- mopsi 9mo ago
  > If you look at old interviews of Putin Yes, let's do that: https://x.com/adnashmyash/status/1977146505900573089 https://x.com/adnashmyash/status/1977146505900573089 2008: "Crimea is not disputed territory of Ukraine, and the issues of Russian speakers are internal issues of Ukraine." 2013: "Russia certainly doesn't plan to send troops into Ukraine." 2014: "After the annexation of Crimea, Russia doesn't plan to further divide Ukraine." 2019: "It's nonsense that Russia plans to attack anyone in future." 2022: "Russia's Special Military Operation does not involve the occupation of Ukrainian territories." 2023: "The conflict in Ukraine is not a territorial conflict — we have plenty of own territories." 2024: "Anyone who wants Russia to give up CONQUERED TERRITORIES in Ukraine must understand that this is impossible."