Poll is fake news in the sense that the GOP has been a criminal conspiracy since well before Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon. The object of the conspiracy is to elevate their leaders beyond the reach of politically (i.e. electorally) actionable consequences. Watch out for partisan propagandists whose job it is to transfer blame from Republican politicians to their voters, their goal is to convince you that civil war is an acceptable solution to issues that they already lose against at the ballot box.
That really sucks for the country, but I want to be nit-picky for a second:
Should drug gangs, even violent ones, really be considered terrorists? IMO that word requires some political/social aim, whereas I suspect the drug gangs really only have financial/power aims and aren't particularly interested in social change (outside whatever they need to stay in power).
One side is saying 'we will attack you if you vote for person A', the other is saying 'please let them vote for whoever they want to' – but both sides are the same, huh?
Okay... Should congress likewise be allowed to pass laws without any oversight from the president or the courts?
Should the court not be constrained by the laws created by Congress and approved by the president?
(Just to be clear, that's a fuck no...)
What the hell do you mean half the population doesn't think checks and balances should be maintained? It's a very fundamental concept of our governmental structure... If you suspend the system if checks and balances, the partisanship we're currently struggling with becomes an absolute nightmare, for everybody... Imagine a president that can willingly ban whatever they don't like... A congress that can fund everything, or nothing, at will... Courts that can convict on feelings...
It's because half of the Republicans don't want democracy anymore. Democracy means that the other side might have power if the right's views aren't popular enough. That's unacceptable to Republicans. They want a system where they are always in charge and nothing so minor as "our policies are highly unpopular" can stop them. They want a dictatorship with them in charge.
At best, maybe they're willing to have a "democracy" where you have the choice of which Republican you want leading you. (It would sort of be as if the Republican primaries were really determining who would be President - not who would be the Republicans' candidate for President.)
We also need to add in the built up belief that a dictator is the only way to simplify and clean up the world as it should be. Also great at shutting up all of those they don't want to hear or think about.
The world has become too complicated for them. (in fact for many of us) With theories of baby eating liberals controlling everything wrong in the world it simplifies from the heavily complicated world that we really live in to 1 group is causing all the issues. Gays, minorities, BLM, Hollywood types, immigration, abortion seekers, inner city poor, blacks, Indians, trans, progressives, and heck even real Jesus they wouldn't need to deal with as the adrenal-chrome eating child kidnappers are behind them all.
Their new dictator will make all of that right as rain. If they aren't locked up forever, they can be killed.
If they cared about democracy or true justice their guy wouldn't have "more than 25 women who have accused Trump of sexual assault or misconduct (which he has denied), and the countless more who have endured public vitriol and threats to their life after being targeted by him, have all been punished either for challenging him or for denying him what he fundamentally believed was his due."
He's solidly their man for their new moral order harkin back to when things were great...
When I tell my cat not to get on the table he looks at me like he understands and walks away but we inevitably have the same conversation the very next day.
They’re going to need some heavy El Salvador-style crackdowns to unfuck this situation. When you let gangs destroy the very fabric of your country, it’s going to get worse by the day if you don’t.
Trump just says the quiet part out loud here, if push comes to shove then US will absolutely hang Europe to dry. The fate of Ukraine is a preview of what the rest of Europe can expect.
That's a problem for the EU to figure out. Maybe antagonizing its biggest neighbour hoping that US will come charging in to save the EU wasn't the smartest idea in retrospect.
Fighting individual countries might favor Russia depending on the country, but I would love to see Putin get his ass handed to him if he dared attack the whole european bloc.
Given how badly Russia is performing in Ukraine, I'd love to see it fail at trying to project power in the EU.
Leaving aside the sheer absurdity of Russia attacking Europe, the fact that Russia has the biggest nuclear arsenal in the world appears to escape you. Of course, you also think that Russia is performing badly in Ukraine, so what else is there to say about you.
It did not escape me. Too bad they can't use it because using it means they're also "turned to glass", as the cool kids say, if they do. France and the UK do have a nuclear arsenal of their own, and the US might actually hold their promises and retaliate. Their arsenal may not be as big, but hey, it works at least, and it's enough to kill all the war criminals in Moscow (and, sadly, thousands and thousands of civilians, which would be an absolute tragedy).
Despite the narrative that you despicable Russian trolls are pushing, the war of aggression launched by Russia is a failure that is reminiscent of the failure that Afghanistan was. Russia failed to achieve the objectives it set out to accomplish in a reasonable time frame. It's a stalemate, at least for now. Which shows how pathetic the Russian war machine is, especially when you consider the numbers involved here. If it's struggling against Ukraine alone, just imagine how ridiculously it would fare against a bloc with multiple times the population, with a nuclear arsenal to boot.
I wouldn't dare say that Ukraine is winning the war, or that it will eventually, mind you. I never have. Only time will tell. All I was saying is that Russia has nothing to brag about. They achieved very little in the past two years relative to the effort they put in, and managed to reach new highs in cruelty and perfidy.
It's pretty clear that you genuinely believe everything you wrote here, which means that no constructive discussion is possible with you. Enjoy living in your fantasy world while you can, it's going to come crashing down soon enough. Best of luck to you.
Plenty of people have already explained what's happening in the war. Here are two excellent articles from people with a clue that you might want to read.
It's incredible that you think Russia is just fighting Ukraine here while ignoring all the resources the west has poured into this war. Not to mention the fact that NATO was training and arming Ukrainian army for close to a decade before the war even started.
Russia is fighting a war of attrition with a very limited force, and it's depleting entire NATO arsenals as western media openly admits now. If you think Russia is doing poorly here, then what can we say about the achievements of NATO in Afghanistan for two decades. NATO lost against the Taliban who didn't have any support from anybody, or any modern weapons.
Not only is Russia prevailing on the battlefield, but Russia is also winning the economic war with the west. Russian economy is now growing while the west is going into a recession. Russia has massively increased its influence with the Global South, while the west is becoming the pariah of the world.
The fact that westerners can't understand this is absolutely incredible.
Those links seem silly to me, but I evidently don’t have a clue. I think I’ll skip those articles, all the same - I prefer to avoid propaganda, be it western, Russian or otherwise.
You're seriously trying to suggest that U.S. Lt. Col. Alex Vershinin retired after 20 years of service, including eight years as an armor officer with four combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and 12 years working as a modeling and simulations officer in NATO and U.S. Army concept development and experimentation. This included a tour with the U.S. Army Sustainment Battle Lab, where he led the experimentation scenario team, is writing propaganda for Russia here?
You genuinely don't understand how absurd that claim is do you.
I didn’t mention the Afghanistan conflict. I wonder why you deflect and mention that. Whether it was a success or not isn’t what was being discussed here.
You said that Russia is performing poorly in Ukraine, so I'm comparing how NATO has performed in Afghanistan. It's weird that you're unable to acknowledge this and call it deflection. We're comparing the strength of Russian army to NATO here. So, if Russia is able to defeat a large modern army in Ukraine, and NATO can't defeat the Taliban I think it's pretty clear which army is stronger.
Russia is certainly trying to woo India and China and it may be working for now as their agendas align. Suggesting the West is becoming ‘the pariah of the world’ is ridiculous though and an individual of your obvious intelligence must realise that.
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