>Vance’s presence at the White House also suggests that the meeting was a setup. Vance is usually an invisible backbencher in this administration, with few duties other than some occasional trolling of Trump’s critics.
Trump 2.0, DOGE, and J.D. Vance were created and molded by the Silicon Valley investor class. Worth looking up the term "blowback" when it comes back to bite American techbros.
Can you explain more about being bamboozled? Bamboozled about what? Bush tried to convince us that Iraq was creating WMD’s when they weren’t, but left and right were pretty united at the time as a reaction to 9/11, like it wasn’t just the right that was bamboozled, it was bipartisan.
Left and right were pretty united in defense of Ukraine until Trump came along, but what’s the lie they were trying to convince us of. That Russia started the war when really Ukraine did?
Trump said that the other day, but if he really believes it, why doesn’t he seem to stand behind it?
I haven’t heard a clear confident description of what the lie is???
Russia invaded and annexed part of Ukraine in 2014, and util 2022 approx 0% of left leaning voters could tell you what are ukrainian national colors are. There was a phenomenal propaganda effort to mass market that conflict to that demographic, between social media (russian warship, ghost of kiev etc) and on the ground efforts - all those blue and yellow ribbons worn by flyover state visitors in dc circa may 2022 didn't materialize out of thin air. The amount of emotional messaging to bracket discourse - putin is a murderer, criminal, dictator blah blah - should clue you in on the fact youre being told a stance. Should we cut and run or stay the course?
You literally could see that even earlier today with Zelinskiy going outwith pure emotional framing (putin hates ukrainians), which is literally the same exact black/white good/bad device that Bush used with "they hate us for our freedom".
Literally in this case meaning staring at a spirograph blocking your view of the screen, I suppose, because he never said that once. Trump did accuse Zelenskyy of having hatred for Putin, and didn't get much of a response, but that's not quite the same. What he did say was that Vance's characterization of Ukraine's path as warmongering was at the very least misleading if not much worse. He did this by pointing to a decade's worth of ceasefires that were brokered by the US and Europe that Russia broke with impunity, and held Trump and Vance's feet to the fire about bucking that trend. Pretty wild that you see that as emotional framing, and not the literal shitfit of a response it elicited from a head of state and his deputy.
> The amount of emotional messaging to bracket discourse - putin is a murderer, criminal, dictator blah blah - should clue you in on the fact youre being told a stance.
Yes, it’s been good PR on their side, but you specifically said bamboozled. Where are they lying?
The past three years we have been with propaganda from both sides of this conflict. It’s a war. To point to one side and say that’s the side that’s lying is just more propaganda, it’s not a serious breakdown.
If you saw the way trump and vance treated Zelensky and came away with the impression that trump/vance did was was best for the US' interests or those of the people of Ukraine, then I have nothing intellectual to say to you. Either you're in a cult, or you have no cognitive faculties. Perhaps both.
And grinding that opinion into the leader of a country YOU INVITED to a diplomatic meeting to sign a economic exchange, in front of cameras, with their enemy's media invited. If the US hold your opinion, they shouldn't have offered a deal. Is peace was a precondition, it should have been advertised in private. This was an ambush, not diplomacy.
Zelensky wants support enough to restore and maintain his borders.
The natural conclusion to your argument is that Russia can do whatever they like. Their victims can only roll over and accept it.
New account, no comments on technical discussions, all your comments spew Russian divisive propaganda.
Any way you spin it, this was a dark day for US diplomacy. In my country (West-Europe), even politicians that are traditionally US-philes are heavily condemning this and are saying we should start decoupling from the US as it’s not an ally anymore.
It’s really a sad time. It will also not make America great again, the last month has shown that Trump will only weaken the US’ world power, influence, and eventually the economy.
The silver lining though is that one of the worst misdeeds was averted. The nominal purpose of this was to make Zelensky kiss the ring/feet. And to sign over mineral rights (for no concrete promises or assurances of support).
Ukraine avoided selling their mineral rights. They failed to suck up before doing so, and by virtue of a little bit of intolerable truth-telling (while being incessantly talked over) avoided selling out the nation to buy a fake worthless useless prospect of maybe having short term support continue.
(Tom Nichols definitely comes to mind as S-tier "awful person you know makes a good point". Incredibly blow hard, full of himself in high degree & actively censoring the world around him / blocking views he doesn't agree with. But at least as far as the premise goes, yes. He is correct here.)
Also worth emphasizing that Zelensky has shown enormous gratitude again and again to America. There's dozens upon dozens of tweets of thanks. The premise that he's ungrateful seems simply untrue.
Trump and Vance destroyed whatever credibility the US had. They handed the next century to China. China will now court Europe and if this continues, China's currency will probably replace the US Dollar as the world reserve currency.
When that happens, the US will face inflation similar to Germany in the 1920s and 30s.
I wonder at what point China becomes not just a more pragmatic, but also ethically superior partner to Europe. Are we already at that point? Not sure, maybe not. But we're clearly circling close to it.
Not ethically superior yet, but for sure more stable. If your partner is unstable, it's difficult to do anything as they can basically change their opinions overnight.
I hate to break it to you, but you are in a western country, too. The same anti-democratic forces at work here are working on your citizens too using the same tools, private intelligence, compromising of elites, and social media manipulation that worked on people not so culturally dissimilar from yourselves. You can blame us, but our fates are tied. Your anti-encryption laws are a prelude to despotism. Your PMs don't exactly represent the model of western leadership. I think you guys have dealt with unstable governance in the last decade, no?
There is an up vs down fight happening across the west, it isn't EU vs US. It's not left vs right. It's those who make money chiefly proportional to time vs who make money proportional to what they own. It's those who have the power to be above the law vs those who want justice.
What are people in UK doing to combat their own aristocracy/oligarchy? When you look at us, you're looking at a potential future. Is there anyone worth mentioning in the UK exercising their backbone? Serious question, because there's only one American in all the west (not currently at war) that I've seen use theirs and while I agree, I'd prefer a more palatable model of dissent.
Whilst I tend to agree with a lot of your points, we do make a lot of noise and protest against certain decisions. Unfortunately, there's very little interest in privacy and digital rights, so yes, there's very little pushback against draconian laws invading our privacy, though we do have some laws protecting us against rogue companies (our rogue governments, not so much). As an example, we did not receive Liz Truss's awful premiership with any kind of acceptance, but ridiculed and deposed her.
Just seen that at least Starmer (who I'm not a fan of as he strikes me as being Tory-lite) is making clear that we stand with Ukranians.
Europe needs to step up now that it is absolutely crystal clear that America and by extension, Americans, don't give a rat's ass about Ukraine, her people and the threat posed by Russian.
"European countries have provided €132 billion in aid (military, financial and humanitarian) as of December 2024, and the United States has provided €114 billion. Most of the US funding supports American industries who produce weapons and military equipment." -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_aid_to_Ukrain...
The noises from the EU all look right: realization that US is out, that they need to step up, quick and sharp.
Now the question is, will they put up the cash.
What I think helps is that Europe must have realized it can no longer rely on the US, at all. So aiding Ukraine is what they would be doing anyway. Build up defence, find funding. It's just whether it is the Ukrainians or Europeans at the sharp end.
It's both untrue and unfair. Americans do care, the current administration doesn't. Even among Republicans those who are opposed to helping Ukraine are in minority.
I don't know man. Russians vote, but their vote doesn't have any meaning. American votes aren't very meaningful either. They don't create positive change, not in my lifetime.
From a theoretical perspective, if a president wins by 1 vote, how much of a mandate to rule do they actually have?
Our governments founding document specifically mentions the consent of the governed. I consent to tax policies and housing policies I disagree with, but I don't consent to a government that doesn't seem to have any ruling philosophy other than might makes right. I definitely don't consent to a government that threatens allies in a way that irreparably damages the negotiating ability of future presidents, and I don't consent to rule by a person who wishes to make my future votes meaningless.
If you vote for someone that violates rule of law, it contradicts the system of voting itself.
I don't disagree we "elected" him, just that election is a very black and white view of politics. We elected him, but he does not have mandate to do what he is doing.
In a normal timeline, the way this was going to get hammered out was behind closed doors where very serious people from the State Department presented a spreadsheet of options for Ukraine's renewal of the Democracy Plus DLC and the ukies, through gritted teeth, chose a mortgage they could live with. This should not be a surprise.
(Absent, say, Europe committing more men or material.)
The US, absent anything else, needs to choose between direct military intervention, continuing sending over material (which is unpalatable long term), or cutting Ukraine loose. Again, none of that should be a surprise--if it _is_, you should get your head examined.
The problem today is that these conversations were had out in public, and in so doing we got to see the top two rungs of the US executive branch act excessively cruel on the one hand and like somebody completely ignorant of the stakes on the other--the "it'll make great TV" being perhaps the icing on the cake. Even worse, it'll probably work, because Zelensky seems to care more about his country than his ego.
Even to the extent that I agree with some of the realpolitick, I cannot abide by the odious behavior adjacent it. Kissinger was evil, but not impishly cruel.
(I also would caution people not to buy into the "Russia owns Trump" narrative when the more depressing--but probably accurate--explanation is simply that he wants the "Look at me, I ended a war I didn't even fight in!" merit badge.)
Biden administration (and even Obama back in 2014 when Russia actually started the war) has to share a good portion of blame but what Trump is doing right now is mental
the ambush was that this was a "negotiation" but yet the entirety of the event took place in front of the media.. there was never any intent to negotiate from our side. it was clearly a "sign the paper or get out" media stunt.
> which should help prevent Russia from further invasion
How will that prevent further agression? There are many US companies that still operate in Russia and even on Russian occupied teritories?
> which will only bring Russia closer to countries like China and a much faster takeover of Taiwan
Russia has nothing to give to China in their Taiwan takeover anymore. What the whole situation does it gives China a clear signal that US doesn't give a fuck about allies and previous promises. They make a move tommorow and that administration will even praise each other for giving up Taiwan because "it's the same nation" and "look we prevented ww3"
> There needs to be more strategic ways of dealing with Russia.
Yes, they are. Russia made it clear that it has no ways for further escalation, had severe problems with its army (DPRK troops and ammo, donkeys and horses on the frontline) and economy (interest rate is 20%+). Tighten sanctions, provide more aid to Ukraine (even in the way of loan), etc. It's not a fast answer though. And requires to have some balls.
You can argue that the deal presented to Ukraine was one that benefits America (access to mineral rights in exchange for nothing -- not even a guarantee of support) and therefore a GoodThingTM from that perspective. And if this conversation had been behind closed doors, that _might_ have been okay (though still damaging to the US long-term, IMO). But there's no way to argue that Trump and Vance's behavior was not highly damaging to America. But it was a shit deal for Ukraine--and the early drafts and pressure to sign by Trump's envoy were shockingly bad, no president would sign something like that. So Z came to negotiate and press his case, which being a country that's been resisting an invasion for the past years, he certainly is entitled to do.
Z did _not_ ask for US troops in the Ukraine[0]. He's smart enough to know that will never happen. But he does want continued military support, which if the US were still supporting democracies and resisting authoritarianism (which it's supposed to be doing, though yes, it has a long history of doing the opposite), it would do. Instead, Trump comes off like Don Corleone: pay up or you're sleeping with the fishes. That's what the world will remember.
Don't tell me who I hate or do not hate based on my partial agreement of one article. Don't tell me how many seconds of critical thoughts I spend on whatever situation.
> Trump wants mineral rights in Ukraine, which should help prevent Russia from further invasion
So if US has the mineral rights, and Russia invades, what is your Trump going to do about it?
> Zelensky wants American troops in Ukraine
How else are you going to defend your minerals? EU has to defend your rights? In that case, EU needs to have those rights then.
> bring Russia closer to countries like China and a much faster takeover of Taiwan
They are already very close to China. Your plan is Trump pissing off Canada, Mexico, Panama, Denmark, Ukraine and the whole of EU, present US as an unreliable partner, throw NATO out of the window, and somehow that is going to prevent China invading Taiwan?
Maybe you don't realise this yet, but the whole world, except probably Israel, hates your guts. The ones who are laughing now are Putin, Xi and Kim Jong Un.
I'm Belgian, and I'm moving most of my US purchases to EU. If I have to decide now between a US or Chinese product, I'll just pick the most convenient one. I don't see how US would be better than China at this point.
Europe's reaction was telling: all (except Orban, of course) publicly expressed their support for Zelensky. The silver lining is that it might galvanize Europe to be more united, which would be a good thing.
But for anyone holding on to the idea that America is the "leader of the free world", that is most definitely no longer the case. For the EU foreign minister to state "we need a new leader" is a major shift.
This is one of those events that will be in the history books, to be sure.
I don't understand who would benefit from money laundering. US military aid is the delivery of weapons systems to Ukraine, purchased by the Federal government from US arms manufacturers. That is money spent in the United States.
People have to stop dying. Putin has demonstrated time and again that this is not going to happen by encouraging his naked aggression.
Forcing a minerals resources deal out of the desperation of a key ally is disgusting, but is the sort of transactional formulation of strongman relations that should be expected of Trump.
When you say left, you probably mean the extreme centre "liberal authoritarians" like von Papen, Bruning and to a certain extend Schleicher, but i have to remind you that Hindenburg was a staunch conservative (and Schleicher would have been considered a RINO more than anything anyway).
Because if you wrote that to attack Muller and what he tried to do despite the German communist party (piloted by the USSR) trying to be their best "accelerationist" self, you are extremely unfair.
I am posting this comment anonymously because I don't think it's safe to publish my comment any more considering my situation. I am a Chinese living in north America now.
Considering that Trump is elected by American people, when I refer to Trump below I am referring to American people.
Trump has destroyed the rule based world and pushing the world to a more primeval one, like the one before world war 2. This will have long term consequences. This is a world where China and China Communist Party will adapt better than the US. If both sides play without allies, US is probably not an opponent of China. We should be able to see this play out in the next decades. China may not take over the US but the playground should be levelled faster than expected, and China does have another decades to play, there are still tens of millions Chinese entering adult age each year, and many of them are engineers.
"Perhaps someone told Zelensky that Trump doesn’t read much, and reacts to images".
This redneck has no empathy whatsoever and it's not fit to lick Zelenskyy boots.
What he should read is Vonnegut and especially a chapter from Cat's Cradle "Why Americans are hated". I've always thought that Vonnegut was too pesimistic about the US. Now I think he was too optimistic.
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 143 ms ] threadTrump 2.0, DOGE, and J.D. Vance were created and molded by the Silicon Valley investor class. Worth looking up the term "blowback" when it comes back to bite American techbros.
Surely you mean eastern Ukraine?
Left and right were pretty united in defense of Ukraine until Trump came along, but what’s the lie they were trying to convince us of. That Russia started the war when really Ukraine did?
Trump said that the other day, but if he really believes it, why doesn’t he seem to stand behind it?
I haven’t heard a clear confident description of what the lie is???
Russia invaded and annexed part of Ukraine in 2014, and util 2022 approx 0% of left leaning voters could tell you what are ukrainian national colors are. There was a phenomenal propaganda effort to mass market that conflict to that demographic, between social media (russian warship, ghost of kiev etc) and on the ground efforts - all those blue and yellow ribbons worn by flyover state visitors in dc circa may 2022 didn't materialize out of thin air. The amount of emotional messaging to bracket discourse - putin is a murderer, criminal, dictator blah blah - should clue you in on the fact youre being told a stance. Should we cut and run or stay the course?
You literally could see that even earlier today with Zelinskiy going outwith pure emotional framing (putin hates ukrainians), which is literally the same exact black/white good/bad device that Bush used with "they hate us for our freedom".
Does Russia owning more of Ukraine further the interests of the United States, European states, and/or NATO?
Yes, it’s been good PR on their side, but you specifically said bamboozled. Where are they lying?
I wonder if in a year or two we’ll see them use catapults.
I can’t decide whether to engage in an argument of a trebuchet being a catapult, or an argument about onagers being better than trebuchets.
How unfortuitous.
Zelensky wants support enough to restore and maintain his borders.
The natural conclusion to your argument is that Russia can do whatever they like. Their victims can only roll over and accept it.
Any way you spin it, this was a dark day for US diplomacy. In my country (West-Europe), even politicians that are traditionally US-philes are heavily condemning this and are saying we should start decoupling from the US as it’s not an ally anymore.
It’s really a sad time. It will also not make America great again, the last month has shown that Trump will only weaken the US’ world power, influence, and eventually the economy.
The silver lining though is that one of the worst misdeeds was averted. The nominal purpose of this was to make Zelensky kiss the ring/feet. And to sign over mineral rights (for no concrete promises or assurances of support).
Ukraine avoided selling their mineral rights. They failed to suck up before doing so, and by virtue of a little bit of intolerable truth-telling (while being incessantly talked over) avoided selling out the nation to buy a fake worthless useless prospect of maybe having short term support continue.
(Tom Nichols definitely comes to mind as S-tier "awful person you know makes a good point". Incredibly blow hard, full of himself in high degree & actively censoring the world around him / blocking views he doesn't agree with. But at least as far as the premise goes, yes. He is correct here.)
Also worth emphasizing that Zelensky has shown enormous gratitude again and again to America. There's dozens upon dozens of tweets of thanks. The premise that he's ungrateful seems simply untrue.
When that happens, the US will face inflation similar to Germany in the 1920s and 30s.
There is an up vs down fight happening across the west, it isn't EU vs US. It's not left vs right. It's those who make money chiefly proportional to time vs who make money proportional to what they own. It's those who have the power to be above the law vs those who want justice.
What are people in UK doing to combat their own aristocracy/oligarchy? When you look at us, you're looking at a potential future. Is there anyone worth mentioning in the UK exercising their backbone? Serious question, because there's only one American in all the west (not currently at war) that I've seen use theirs and while I agree, I'd prefer a more palatable model of dissent.
Just seen that at least Starmer (who I'm not a fan of as he strikes me as being Tory-lite) is making clear that we stand with Ukranians.
Putin must be howling with laughter.
Also it should probably be "don't give a rats ass anymore"
Now the question is, will they put up the cash.
What I think helps is that Europe must have realized it can no longer rely on the US, at all. So aiding Ukraine is what they would be doing anyway. Build up defence, find funding. It's just whether it is the Ukrainians or Europeans at the sharp end.
It's both untrue and unfair. Americans do care, the current administration doesn't. Even among Republicans those who are opposed to helping Ukraine are in minority.
The point of an election is to give a leader a mandate (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandate_(politics)) to rule...
From a theoretical perspective, if a president wins by 1 vote, how much of a mandate to rule do they actually have?
Our governments founding document specifically mentions the consent of the governed. I consent to tax policies and housing policies I disagree with, but I don't consent to a government that doesn't seem to have any ruling philosophy other than might makes right. I definitely don't consent to a government that threatens allies in a way that irreparably damages the negotiating ability of future presidents, and I don't consent to rule by a person who wishes to make my future votes meaningless.
If you vote for someone that violates rule of law, it contradicts the system of voting itself.
I don't disagree we "elected" him, just that election is a very black and white view of politics. We elected him, but he does not have mandate to do what he is doing.
(Absent, say, Europe committing more men or material.)
The US, absent anything else, needs to choose between direct military intervention, continuing sending over material (which is unpalatable long term), or cutting Ukraine loose. Again, none of that should be a surprise--if it _is_, you should get your head examined.
The problem today is that these conversations were had out in public, and in so doing we got to see the top two rungs of the US executive branch act excessively cruel on the one hand and like somebody completely ignorant of the stakes on the other--the "it'll make great TV" being perhaps the icing on the cake. Even worse, it'll probably work, because Zelensky seems to care more about his country than his ego.
Even to the extent that I agree with some of the realpolitick, I cannot abide by the odious behavior adjacent it. Kissinger was evil, but not impishly cruel.
(I also would caution people not to buy into the "Russia owns Trump" narrative when the more depressing--but probably accurate--explanation is simply that he wants the "Look at me, I ended a war I didn't even fight in!" merit badge.)
How will that prevent further agression? There are many US companies that still operate in Russia and even on Russian occupied teritories?
> which will only bring Russia closer to countries like China and a much faster takeover of Taiwan
Russia has nothing to give to China in their Taiwan takeover anymore. What the whole situation does it gives China a clear signal that US doesn't give a fuck about allies and previous promises. They make a move tommorow and that administration will even praise each other for giving up Taiwan because "it's the same nation" and "look we prevented ww3"
> There needs to be more strategic ways of dealing with Russia.
Yes, they are. Russia made it clear that it has no ways for further escalation, had severe problems with its army (DPRK troops and ammo, donkeys and horses on the frontline) and economy (interest rate is 20%+). Tighten sanctions, provide more aid to Ukraine (even in the way of loan), etc. It's not a fast answer though. And requires to have some balls.
Z did _not_ ask for US troops in the Ukraine[0]. He's smart enough to know that will never happen. But he does want continued military support, which if the US were still supporting democracies and resisting authoritarianism (which it's supposed to be doing, though yes, it has a long history of doing the opposite), it would do. Instead, Trump comes off like Don Corleone: pay up or you're sleeping with the fishes. That's what the world will remember.
[0] https://apnews.com/article/fact-check-volodymyr-zelenskyy-uk...
If that was reasoning. They could just buy those minerals like France wants. This proposal does not want to prevent, but join the invasion.
So if US has the mineral rights, and Russia invades, what is your Trump going to do about it?
> Zelensky wants American troops in Ukraine
How else are you going to defend your minerals? EU has to defend your rights? In that case, EU needs to have those rights then.
> bring Russia closer to countries like China and a much faster takeover of Taiwan
They are already very close to China. Your plan is Trump pissing off Canada, Mexico, Panama, Denmark, Ukraine and the whole of EU, present US as an unreliable partner, throw NATO out of the window, and somehow that is going to prevent China invading Taiwan?
Maybe you don't realise this yet, but the whole world, except probably Israel, hates your guts. The ones who are laughing now are Putin, Xi and Kim Jong Un.
I'm Belgian, and I'm moving most of my US purchases to EU. If I have to decide now between a US or Chinese product, I'll just pick the most convenient one. I don't see how US would be better than China at this point.
Good luck with your president.
But for anyone holding on to the idea that America is the "leader of the free world", that is most definitely no longer the case. For the EU foreign minister to state "we need a new leader" is a major shift.
This is one of those events that will be in the history books, to be sure.
https://www.snopes.com/news/2023/04/19/400-million-embezzled...
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2025/feb/05/facebook-p...
.
I don't understand who would benefit from money laundering. US military aid is the delivery of weapons systems to Ukraine, purchased by the Federal government from US arms manufacturers. That is money spent in the United States.
People have to stop dying. Putin has demonstrated time and again that this is not going to happen by encouraging his naked aggression.
Forcing a minerals resources deal out of the desperation of a key ally is disgusting, but is the sort of transactional formulation of strongman relations that should be expected of Trump.
The silence of the broad American society, though, is deafening.
As the American left says: "Silence is complicity".
Because if you wrote that to attack Muller and what he tried to do despite the German communist party (piloted by the USSR) trying to be their best "accelerationist" self, you are extremely unfair.
Considering that Trump is elected by American people, when I refer to Trump below I am referring to American people.
Trump has destroyed the rule based world and pushing the world to a more primeval one, like the one before world war 2. This will have long term consequences. This is a world where China and China Communist Party will adapt better than the US. If both sides play without allies, US is probably not an opponent of China. We should be able to see this play out in the next decades. China may not take over the US but the playground should be levelled faster than expected, and China does have another decades to play, there are still tens of millions Chinese entering adult age each year, and many of them are engineers.
This redneck has no empathy whatsoever and it's not fit to lick Zelenskyy boots.
What he should read is Vonnegut and especially a chapter from Cat's Cradle "Why Americans are hated". I've always thought that Vonnegut was too pesimistic about the US. Now I think he was too optimistic.