Donald Trump the Megathread part II - Mod Warning updated in OP 12/2/26

Doubt if Trump even has a 25% control on what is posted on Truth Social, Miller/Bannon and the others will control all the content and shape the actual posts he thinks are his.

Relationship between Trump and Macron seems particularly bad. This probably reflects well on Macron though - sounds like he has been standing up to Trump in private and not doing a Rutte or a Starmer.

You are right, tools are there to respond collectively, but I fear as with situation of Hungary basically reneging on all of its promises when it joined the EU and acting as a Russian catspaw, they are not going to be used due to internal divisions and inability to come to sufficient consensus (and the worry about irreparably "splitting" the EU, if some countries act and some still refuse to).

For example, our govt. (based off things M. Martin and others have said recently in the media) will be arguing once again to do absolutely nothing in response to this US bullying + aggression, and even continue to ratify and implement the trade agreement reached with Trump (for our part - obviously the US is free and clear to alter its own part whenever the mood takes the POTUS), so sanctioning his friends and family, or other GOP leading lights and thought leaders driving all this is in another universe.

Worth watching the comments of California Governor Gavin Newsom to Sky News in the past hour.

When talking about Europe in general he said:

I'm inclined to accept he is 100% correct.

What are our considered views about Trump's mental state?

Is he just a bad person or is he also mentally crippled?

Do we think that his advisers and pushers understand that he is the latter and are just getting what they can of their agenda while Rome burns.

Or do they wholeheartedly follow him like a group of madhatter penguins** sharing his basic ideas?

**"lemmings", the word I was looking for ;-)

Maybe Trump got mad because Macron put a video of his call to Trump on the internet a couple of days ago for the whole world to hear. Not the first time he has done that either.

No difference to showing a text message for the world to see really.

I would agree with you. While the appeasement in 2025 was sickening to watch, I understood why it was necessary at the time and hoped that things would then quiet down - they haven’t.

This is all about “fool me once” - when it comes to negotiation if you fck people over after a deal as Trump has done, and/or use total aggression as Trump is doing, you’ll lose.

Cowering to trumps demands would be the end of Europe - Trump would indeed become king of the western world - we HAVE to show balls, even if it hurts us- because if we don’t it will cost us even more money long term - it will become squeeze after endless squeeze - you can’t run international trade that way - industries and companies don’t work that way

That's been my thinking on Rutte too. NATO as a defense pact has already been betrayed by Trump with information that's been passed on to Putin, so in effect all that's left to see is if the USA will vote for another chaos candidate after Trump.

If they do then then the alliance is over. I have a feeling the Canadians know better than anyone that the US believes it doesn't need allies.

Agree to an extent (on the UK weakness), but unfortunately these 3 are an order of magnitude (or maybe even more) out of the league of the US individually. Even collectively the 3 don't measure up in any dimension.

Only the EU would be on the same scale as the US or China in solely economic terms, but it is not a nation of course and its security role is (still) quite limited.

The UK left the EU, and it ended up being almost the "hardest" possible Brexit that was contemplated at time of the referendum and so it is divided from the other 2, particularly when it comes to trade/economic policy. It's now in a really poor position to be able to stand up to the US at all.

A lot of us posting here back then thought the UK was no longer strong/large enough to be distancing itself from all its European neighbours through Brexit in the 21C, and that has proven out now IMO. Did you take the other position on this back then (?) - I think so but am not sure.

Germany I expect will adopt similar position to France, if Trump actually follows through with the tariff threats, even though Merz is not being as loud in public as Macron.

To be fair, in the same interview he put the boot in to both parties in the US Congress also.

As a state governor, his purview is limited to the running of California and what the constitution dictates concerning the relationship between state and federal level.

The markets wouldn't like that and Trumps not more powerful than the markets.