I think this most likely too. But still ridiculous that his White House lies so much that they won’t just admit this. Like who cares if he has the flu? Everyone gets the flu.
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DARLING happens to be an anagram of LARDING
LARDING, a soft white substance that is made from the fat of pigs and used in cooking
Maybe Melanie is sending signals?
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The only non-lie explanation is that she calls literally everyone Darling. Like Zsa Zsa Gabor.
(It’s lies.)
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“why did i have a heart attack?” is a strange question
“why would i have a heart attack?” is a question that at least makes sense within the context of the story he’s telling, but the clear answer would be, "you have the most stressful job in the world. it has physically aged every other president 10 years for every 4, and you’re in your mid-70s in years and mid-200s in pounds.
On the moon maybe.
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Are you more confident that China will protect freedom and democracy? Cause those are the options.
Okay yes I see. I was more referring to the post-Trump period, whenever (if ever?!) that happens. I used three years as an example if we successfully impeached him TODAY.
However, I’d say this also applies to any American who said well I didn’t vote for him, but if I’m stuck on this island with him for four years, I guess I’ll give him a shot. Those people now realize no, they should have stayed on their side of the island completely alone, if not jumping into the water and swimming until you find land or quiet release.
I also think it applies to the broad international perception of America. America elected this corrupt idiot. The fact that a majority of the population didn’t actually vote for him means little to nothing outside of America. So yeah, if we impeached him TODAY, the international perception will be like America is the guy who now regrets giving crazy a chance. The details like well 60% of the population never wanted this guy doesn’t diminish that perception.
For example, do you know how much of the population actually wants Erdogan in power? For most people, even if you could show it’s something insane like only 10%, that’s not nearly as important as the brute fact that he remains in power. There is a sense of blame and culpability to the people under subjugation if for no other reason than allowing the circumstances that enabled their oppression.
I don’t know how fair that always is, but certainly America deserves SOME of that perception for allowing the circumstances that enabled Trump to seize power.
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Meh. At the time, if you squinted hard enough and weren’t politically involved I think you could think “successful businessman, tired of politics as usual, American jobs, what the hell”. I didn’t agree, but you could argue it. Clinton was a lousy candidate, and I would have voted for pretty much anyone but her because philosophically I see no reason that we’ve had two families camped in the oval office for the last couple of decades - for similar reasons I’d been against Jeb.
And I think if someone had cut off Trump’s thumbs and kept him off Twitter, he’d go down as a garden variety lousy president - he’s so incompetent that outside of the tax cut and his foreign policy fuck ups most of what he promised to do (nice wall, BTW) hasn’t and won’t happen. I hope.
In terms of electing corrupt idiots, Boris, Berlusconi, Erdogan and about 6 dozen other leaders say “hi”.
MM MD
I don’t think it’s at all obvious that they aren’t. China is South Korea’s largest trading partner (more than twice as large as the US) and South Korea is China’s fourth largest trading partner (counting Hong Kong as not-China) (Japan is third). China’s interests are much less about a military standoff and more about economic prosperity and development than the US or Russian interests.
China is our largest trading partner, what is your point? Japan is China’s third largest trading partner, yet they have territorial disputes over rocks that can start a war at any time. Sorry I did the thing again when you weren’t replying to me.
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I’d feel considerably better about this if they’d knock off the South China Sea/9 dash line nonsense. But I agree in terms of Korea it makes a lot more sense for China to play nice, especially as it gives them leverage with Japan, with whom they have a complicated (to say the least) relationship. I’d strongly suspect China has as much interest in North Korea acting up as the rest of us do, in the long term.
MM MD
My point is that China has an interest in South Korean and Japanese success. They are closely tied with Chinese success.
Say you’re a Martian who just got to Earth, who is more likely to interfere with the governments, democracy, liberty, and even territory outside of a few disputed areas, China or the US?
If you want to talk about countries that China actually threatens, the number one is definitely Taiwan. They consider Taiwan to be part of China. China has for a long time, like 1000 years, not been very interested in expansion and I think seeing them as the major threat to South Korea and Japan is not something that the Martian would do. We should have a stronger policy now in regards to Taiwan (even though we also supported dictatorship there for a long time). But we don’t. Why? It’s not in our economic interest to do so.
The idea that the US is so great is ahistorical and what I really think is more relevant is that it’s magical thinking. We always think about what we could do and should do and will do when the right people are in power. But, the wrong people are often in power. We, you and I, do not get to set US policy any more than the Martian observer does. The US has had some terrible FP in the past, and I don’t have faith that it will have great FP in the future just because it’s possible.
This proves the point and all. But we didn’t elect Boris.
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True enough. I’m an anglophile, but I’m still mystified by how that all works over there.
MM MD
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Those are good points. Trump vs Clinton was an awful situation for sure. It’s the thing South Park nailed that season. If only they could have predicted he would win. I think they really got caught by surprise.
It is interesting to speculate over what Trump’s presidency would look like if he had no access to social media. It’s so hard, because at what point would you cut him off from it? Without it, he wouldn’t have been elected imo. Do you stop him the day he’s elected?
That’s really getting into the weeds. Just the idea of him not being on Twitter. I like to think the incompetence would shine through, but Bush got reelected. We could say well he had the benefit of x/y/z, but we can do that for every elected President.
And it’s not like Democrats are not in many ways playing the same game as Republicans. It’s like that old clip that got Tucker Carlson canceled (the first time) where Jon Stewart destroyed Tucker and his co-host for only pretending to debate both sides. It’s all theater.
I’m sure everyone ITT has watched this many times, but here it is again. I can promise you, it never stops being delightful.
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China has multiple occupied territories and currently is mass importing settlers into a colony that has a million people in concentration camps.
We need some perspective here. There are shades of terrible.
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It’s like trying to explain to someone outside of the US how America both did and did not elect Trump
What’s your suggesting for a policy response to this? Military conflict over Korea? That’s not really relevant. Disengagement from China economically? Boycott of Chinese goods? Tariffs and sanctions tied to human rights in China? Those are probably all good and responsible reactions to Chinese human rights abuses. Trade deals like Bernie talks about where the labor and environmental impact of the production of those goods are a big consideration? That’s awesome.
But that’s all basically apparently impossible. We all, Australia too, would like throw Taiwan out of the UN before we would interfere with trade with China. But, a giant 50 year military parade? That’s good for business.
… Does Russia have an interest in Ukrainian success too?
China has an interest in its own interests, there are any number of bad scenarios for Japan and South Korea of having to accept China’s expanding security interests.