Donald Trump the Megathread part II - mod warnings in OP, Updated 18/03/25

Project 2025 had a detailed plan in how to bypass these checks and balances. They published it and everything. You didn't have to be a political sleuth to know what would happen. Once you have the justice system, military and civil service on your side, US Congress is completely irrelevant. I don't think the stomach is there among Trump's opponents to oppose him by force, so they're stuffed.

Russia doesn’t release American citizens for no reason- a deal has most definitely been done behind the scenes with America - likely at a loss to Ukraine

Marc Fogel, an American teacher who was deemed wrongfully detained by Russia, has been released in what the White House described as a diplomatic thaw that could advance negotiations to end the war in Ukraine.

https://m.independent.ie/world-news/north-america/russia-releases-imprisoned-american-marc-fogel-in-what-us-calls-a-step-toward-the-end-of-ukraine-war/a1904785458.html

Musk made some claims last night about gross overspending in the US Federal budget. Like most, I am inclined to believe that he's not doing these budget cuts for entirely noble reasons, but before we all go all-in on that, has any journalist refuted Musk's claims about this government audit? An empirical analyses of what is b*llshtt and why? It would be best to have that because without it, it becomes a game of he-said she-said.

Why do you need to divide people into pools in the first place. We're all humans after all. Put everyone into one pool and may the best man or woman win.

How long before this President Musk stuff fractures Trumps hair trigger ego and he will be torpedoed and thrown under several buses on the way out?

Steve Bannon was fired for stealing less thunder than Musk is this very minute, so you could be waiting a while. The longer Musk hangs around, the more roots he puts down, and the harder it would be to shift him out.

I'm not sure if I agree with this actually because one side of the divide has possession of the vast majority of those guns and the median Democrat would be more likely to appease than fight imo.

Another friend of Trump seems to have a bizzare Nazi obsession

The t-shirt with swastika had a product code of HH-1, subtle these guys are, subtler than Musk tho

If any deal on Ukrainian land is wrong it will be rejected by the EU and Ukraine. At a guess they will get the Russian speaking zones in the East and probably Crimea. Handing over areas that never wanted to be a part of Ukraine anyway is hardly a loss for anybody involved

Its clearly Trumps aim to worry the hell out of people listening to him, to unsettle them and he's succeeded. The thing now is: what effect his words on the future of Gaza and relocation of its citizens will have, especially in Jordan. I have memory enough to know what happened in Jordan in September 1970 when its government clashed with PLO in refugee camps there and I'm damn sure the Israeli Govt has it in memory as well.

Its actually even more insidious than that. The Oligarchy sees opportunity in filling the gap in the private sector once the provision of necessary services through the public purse is hollowed out. You are already seeing the first steps with voucher schools etc.

Their goals are:

• Continue to avoid paying their fair share of taxes
• Resist calls to share the gains of their monopolies built on public infrastructure and productivity of workers
• Eliminate regulation to further remove checks and balances on their consolidation of wealth and power
• Have taxation on ordinary worker maintain military industrial complex and other spend that is never questioned
• Necessary services impacted by government cuts to be taken up by the Oligarchy. This will be sold as "Private efficiency" however will in effect be an additional taxation on the ordinary person, but only those who can afford it, and the transfer of wealth to the oligarchy.

What's particularly bizarre is that the MAGA mob turn like snarling hounds on anybody, or any country that incurs trumpist displeasure in the slightest and not just the usual suspects like China or Iran. Even a year ago I'd have found it improbable that on social media Trumpist attack dogs would be foaming at the mouth and demanding retaliation against the EU, Panama and Canada, of all places. Some loon was even demanding that US special forces be sent across the border to arrest Trudeau for insulting Trump. To MAGA it seems that the whole world, with a very few exceptions, are regarded as being enemies of the USA.