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

Yes. Other countries have abdicated responsibility for their own defence since the last World War. It's called NATO, the EU and other similar organisation. Defence in numbers if you will. It makes far more sense to contribute to it rather than build up our own rag tag group that literally wouldn't hold off any form of attack. Now if we are talking about small measures (Like closer monitoring of our air and sea) I am all for it, but scaling up spending billions on direct arms, equipment and personel - I ain't for it. Diplomacy and peaceful means are the only way forward, backed up by some security in numbers. You only have to look at what happens when you get someone in charge of a country who has access armies and resources who has the wrong attitude. Suddenly your deparment of defence becomes your deparment of war, you feel you need to use your resources to bully other countries etc etc all the while enriching your arms manufacturers.

We have sat with a "Neutral" posture, I agree, it doesn't make sense to maintain that, but it does make sense to be realistic about how we manage our own defence.

Our outlook has served us well over the decades, appearing the peacemaker rather than the peacemaker backed up with arms. It's helped our global reputation, but obviously some realities have had to be put aside.

This is probably best on another thread.

It does get tiresome hearing people expecting Europe coalesce to be a world power. We're a rapidly aging continent and as putin is showing trying to be a world power is economic suicide with a declining population.

Our biggest security concern after putin is spillover from major future conflicts on the African continent.

Board of Peace?

• Sheikh Isa of Bahrain
• Morocco’s foreign minister
• The president of Argentina
• Prime minister of Armenia
• President of Azerbaijan
• Prime minister of Bulgaria
• Prime minister of Hungary
• President of Indonesia
• Deputy prime minister of Jordon
• the president of Kazakhstan
• president of Kosovo
• prime minister of Pakistan
• President of Paraguay
• prime minister of Qatar
• foreign affair minister from Saudi Arabia
• foreign affairs minister of Turkey
• A representative from the UAE
• The president of Uzbekistan
• Prime minister of Mongolia

or rogues gallery?

I think he just views them as aspirational models for the the US.

Gates seems to be pussyfooting around Trump. He already substantially toned back his position on climate change at the end of last year. Only reason I can see for it is Trump.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/28/business/bill-gates-climate-change?cid=android_app

Interesting poll on New York Times today.

It's amazing that 73% of Republicans think they're better off under Trump.

Shows the divide there and how Republicans believe Fox News and similar outlets.

That is par for the course with cults.

The leader is the Almighty whose utterances and actions are sacrosanct and must be defended and lauded unthinkingly while being aware that if the just once question anything, even to themselves, the whole house of cards is going to collapse.

The point he is making is that with the Trump USAID cuts, there are competing priorities like Famine.

That 73% of republicans wouldnt have a whole lot going on upstairs.

You've seen the videos of those weirdoes being questioned abut why they like trump, the answers carry no weight or real meaning.

"I Like Trump cuz he dont use none a that fancy talk""

Easy mistake to make………….

There's a fair bit more going on than 70 million people are thick. If you slap that badge on it, you never actually get to the root of why that many people would even vote for Trump in the first place.

For one thing, even over in Ireland, we all have that friend or friend of a friend who used to be rational, and could exercise critical thought, but has jumped down the right-wing rabbit hole. They now have all kinds of bizarre takes on things and probably would vote for an Irish Trump. This person may be otherwise functional - have a decent job, a family, and some amount of formal qualification, yet be totally prone to the kind of cult-like thinking that Trumpism preys upon.

So that's one thing.

But then over in the states you also have some deeply, deeply rooted cultural issues that have never been addressed. People seemed to think they were over when Obama got elected, but what really happened was they were kicked into the long grass where they transmographied into something more terrible. A chimera of Christian nationalism, hopelessness from the great recession, racism both latent and overt, conservative talk radio and Facebook disinfo, a whole generation of lonely and angry young men, manifest destiny thinking, a worship of money and materialism….

And another thing people don't seem to realise is that there is a counter-culture going on, here. If the prevailing culture in the west has been to embrace multi-culturalism, and LGBT and equal rights and so forth, then what do you do if you're a disaffected young person, looking to thumb your nose at society? You become racist, homophobic and misogynistic.

It's really quite a trick MAGA has pulled off to co-ordinate all these disparate groups of society around one man into a solid coalition.

And that brings me to another misconception, which is that these groups don't necessarily see Trump as perfect, but he is to them perfectly imperfect. They love how much he p*sses off the people they hate. He is their wrecking ball. Trump wasn't pulling words out of think air when he said when he said he wanted to be his followers' retribution. He was perfectly, perfectly aware of what he was saying and its connotations.

But, yeah. They thick, we smart. Dismiss them all and hope they go away one day by magic….

My favourite one was "I like Trump because he never got anything handed to him, he had to work for it".

I didn't mean it would be better for them, I meant it would be better for everyone else.