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

Not quite true.

The less educated love Trump even though he hates them but knows he can manipulate them to do his bidding.

"Will leave them with friends who are tied to them solely because of a lack of alternatives."

They aren't interested in friends; they are only interested in business partners. US now sees itself as a monoploy, or perhaps a duopoly with China as the other power, but they want to turn it into a monopoly. They don't care why people trade with them, just that they do and they do it on their terms.

Friendship was always a notion rather than a policy, but before Trump, it was one that the US at least paid some attention to. Under Trump 1, and most definitely under Trump 2, the notion has been dispensed with, and the clear choice for other countries is to deal with the US or not.

Trump, and it seems 50% of the voters, believe that the US has been getting taken advantage of by the rest of the world and they no longer need to play nice. 'You are either with us or against us". Trump has taken that message and used it for everything. Trade, military, justice everything.

So lack of friends isn't a problem for them as they have everything they need. Does a mafia boss care if the local businesses are his friends? No, once they keep paying. That is what the US is like these days.

The head of the DoJ's Anti-Trust division has announced their leaving the role.
A week after their deputy has done the same.
If the usual Trump Admin playbook follows?
They will be replaced by an "acting" AAG, allowing the most consequential mergers for Media in recent history to be ushered through unhindered.

When this abomination of an administration ends?
The Judicial and legislative actions needed to unwind the lunacy allowed across all aspects of the actions taken, via EO and a cowed Congress?
Will make make the 24yrs between the Sherman Anti Trust act and the creation of the FTC seem like a quiet couple of weeks.

Exactly. You can see the narrative here and elsewhere that the solution is to get the Democrats in. The Democrats are beneficiaries of this system. They have no interest in reforming or changing it because of this.

It's overly simplistic and completely ignores any complexity. But worst of all it offloads the actions of the guilty onto the shoulders of the innocent.

Your example above only shows how rigged the political game can be. You cannot blame the innocent party for that.

No, people do not always deserve the government they get. Especially when the people who are voted into power are done so in good faith by the majority, but who later turn out to be everything but what they claimed to be before they got into power.

There's a case to be made that the US currently deserves Donald Trump because he was given a go previously and made a balls of it. But that's an edge case that doesn't translate into the norm.

You say that "The people need to stop the rot and vote for other parties or new parties.", but what are the alternatives? The fucking Libertarians? They're just a much worse version of the Republicans.

The fact is that nothing short of a revolution in the US is going to change the ways things are done over there politically…and that's a huge ask.

”A republic, if you can keep it” - certain geezer called B. Franklin

A lot of attacking the American Political system, and of course having a go at the Democrats. A bit of a distraction from the main problem: MAGA and its leader. If you need further proof, here it is:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/12/trump-racist-video-staffer

From the horse's mouth 😁

They aren't going backwards, but are working hard to stop the rest of the world from moving ahead.

China is embracing renewables because they do not have oil or gas resources. So coming up with a reliable alternative is in their interests. I doubt climate change is the core point.

The US, on the other hand, not only has plenty of fossil fuels, but it also controls much of the world's supply, and all that supply is traded in US$. They won't have that control over renewables. SO they need to work hard to try to convince the rest of the world not to worry about Climate change, as if they don't, then the reason to move away from oil/gas is greatly reduced.

The problem the US faces is that both China and now the EU have interests in moving away from Oil/Gas. I actually believe that the EU partly wants it because of climate change, but also knows it cannot continue to rely on Russian gas, which the US has been very keen to point out. The US wants the EU to simply switch to US gas, but the EU can see that long-term, the solution is to at least maximise what impact renewables can have and thus reduce reliance.

And this is probably the biggest issue that Trump has created. Prior to Trump, while many had issues with the US, they were generally seen as a reliable partner. That is no longer the case. And the EU will now need to start developing its own capabilities across a host of areas. It was already mentioned how an alternative to VISA/Mastercard needs to be developed, the same with social media

Listening to a liveline segment from yesterday and a Dutch guy who was in the El Paso concentration who has now been deported was on. He's lived in the US since he was five and is in his forties. His daughter died last year from fentanyl exposure. He was a permanent green card holder and has been traveling to Holland on and off. He was deported for a juvenile drug conviction... Poor guy was literally crying cause he might never see his daughter's grave again. His remaining family are leaving the US.

He described conditions as a concentration camp. The guards were doing bets on who would kill themselves over Christmas ..

https://nltimes.nl/2026/02/11/dutchman-deported-living-us-40-years-spent-months-ice-detention