• corroded@lemmy.world
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    6 hours ago

    I just don’t understand what the goal here is. It seems like everything this administration does is with the purpose of offending or alienating our allies. Even if you believe in the whole “America First,” how could that possibly be achieved by pushing away every other country except for maybe Russia or China.

    My theory is that there is no goal. It’s just bullying for the sake of bullying.

    • Nate Cox@programming.dev
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      5 hours ago

      GOP politics have been firmly in the area of “just say something inflammatory for the sound bite” for a long time now.

      There is no strategy other than being a bully, which tragically seems to play very well to their base.

    • aramis87@fedia.io
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      6 hours ago

      Putin holds the US responsible for the collapse of the Soviet Union, and wants to see the US collapse. How would you collapse the US? You’d divide the country against each other so neither side (red/blue, both politicians and civilians] trusted the other. You’d alienate all their allies. You’d make the people distrustful of experts, of science, of news media. You’d sow distrust of the government, then make the government unstable. You’d destabilize the financial market. It should take a lot of subtle effort at the start, but once there’s momentum it gets a lot easier.

      If you look at things from the point of view that Trump is a Russian asset, it makes a lot more sense.

    • ATDA@lemmy.world
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      6 hours ago

      Hey you’re under selling Trmp’s allies, remember rocket Man sent him a VERY nice letter that one time or some shit…

    • snekerpimp@lemmy.world
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      4 hours ago

      That is the goal. It’s what daddy putin wants. Destabilize the west and then carve it up for himself.

    • Nougat@fedia.io
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      5 hours ago

      Imagine that your level of self-confidence is zero. You feel utterly powerless. You have no control of anything. No choices you make are your own.

      How do you prove - to the world and to yourself - that you are in control, that you are powerful? You make the worst decisions possible.

      Wait, what? What does that accomplish?

      See, if you were to make a good decision, how does anyone know it was your decision? If you make a good decision, you’re just “doing what you’re supposed to.” You’re “doing what other people want you to do.” By making decisions that nobody wants you to make, you are most definitely “in control.” Those worst decisions are yours, and nobody else’s.

      Bad decisions are a demonstration of power, to the world and to themselves. And every time those bad decisions are criticized without any real consequence, that power is reinforced. The criticism is part of the power play.

      They can do anything they want, and they prove it every day by making the worst decisions.

    • peregrin5@lemm.ee
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      5 hours ago

      Trump, Vance and the Republican party are owned by Putin. Their actions make complete sense through that lens. Putin wants to destroy the West and this administration is following his orders.

      • corroded@lemmy.world
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        1 hour ago

        But why, though? Trump is a narcissist and Vance is his lapdog. Licking Putin’s boots shouldn’t feed his ego, so why do it? Maybe Putin has some dirt on him. Nobody is going to give a shit. His MAGAts are still going to rationalize why he’s their messiah and continue supporting him.

        Calling him a Russian asset is giving him too much credit. He’s being mean to what he sees as the “little guy” because it makes him feel like a big man, and the rest of us have to live with the consequences.

    • Brkdncr@lemmy.world
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      6 hours ago

      They aren’t smart. If you ask “what would they do if they were unintelligent?” Then things start to make sense.

  • mortimer@lemmy.world
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    4 hours ago

    Here at ‘Bumpkin Watch’ our investigative journalist team have uncovered the real reason why weirdy-trimmed-beardy JD Vance uses his initials rather than either of his actual forenames. At first we just assumed it was some kind of a hillbilly thing like being called Gomer, Cletus or Booger, but it actually turns out it’s because his real name is even more shit than any of those.

    Vance, whose parents were siblings, was actually christened Jebediah Doofus on August 3rd, 1984 by his mentally ill mother, Trixie-Bob, at the Middletown Confessional Calvinist Church, Ohio after she escaped from the local mental institute with the one day old nipper.

    His father, Goober Charles Jnr (renowned crystal meth manufacturer and three time near miss KKK Grand Wizard) passed away eight months earlier in what has only been described in the local ‘Middletown Gazette’ as “a freak washing machine accident”. According to sources, Goober, “was at the local laundromat” and “got his frayed neckerchief caught in the machine’s drive belt during its spin cycle”. Apparently he had been “raking for loose change through a removed rear panel”.

    Initially christened with the surname Bomen, his mother changed it to Reynolds when she married her sixth husband and uncle, Herschel Beauregard “Burt” Reynolds III.

    Quite where he got the surname Vance from has remained a mystery for many years, however, having recently tracked down his old juvenile detention buddy Virgil Buford, we can confirm that he adopted it from the famous UK Radio One disc jockey and heavy metal enthusiast, Tommy Vance, whom JD had become enamoured with during his early years. Sources have disclosed that he used to tune in to his step father’s portable shortwave radio every Friday night during Uncle Herschel’s weekly weekend “fishing” trips, although Buford did remark that “the only fishing Ol’ Burt ever got up to was for some well worn pussy.”

    “I can’t believe he’s got to where he is today,” Buford added, “to start from such humble beginnings and end up third in command of the country under Elon is one hellava achievement.”

    https://txt.fyi/0bca2ba9a9f78be5