ruzzia is running out of everything and using its last reserves.
EU and NATO need to pool together every resource to bankrupt this rotten state and drive it from Ukrainian soil. The defeat has to be so harsh that the ruzzkis won't be able to cross any border forever. Confine them to their own country, period.
America here.....heh. We're gonna be useless come January!
Actually we might even be working against the cause. It would not surprise me to see trumps cabinet do shitty things like sending russia weapons and money.
In fact, I'm basically expecting it.
Just know that it's not ALL America. Just like 52% of us......or, I should say 52% of the 2024 voting public.
I just hope that Trump's miserable health gets the better of him before he gets the chance to backstab the whole of the western world. As shitty as Vance may be, he comes across as much less in love with Putin than Trumpler.
The moment the Democrats lost the election was the one when Harris was asked what she would do differently than Biden and her answer was basically "nothing". If you ever run for president and are asked that question, just pick something at random and say "Biden does not enough for X. I would make sure that X would be a priority issue!"
This level of stupidity is not the voter's (or non-voter's) fault. Dems made their bed rock and now everyone has to lie in it.
That's not accurate though, there were a number of things she was going to do differently than Biden. She talked about having less taxes on billionaires than Biden did. She talked about less consumer protection than Biden was going to give and she and her billionaire Tech Bro donors were happily about to oust Lina Khan. Unlike Biden she didn't make unions a large part of her campaign. She did want to do things differently than Biden, it's just all the things she wanted to do differently were the things people like about Joe Biden.
'Vote for me or you are a bad person' doesn't sell, never has. Democrats had a wakeup call 8 years ago and let it pass them by. Hopefully they take it this time and strengthen the party and candidates.
The non-voters tacitly agreed to let fascism happen. I totally get that people weren't happy about voting for Harris, I certainly wouldn't have been. But if I have choice between a carbuncle on my ass on the one hand, and AIDS, Ebola, testicle cancer and leprosy combined on the other hand, the choice is easy.
Harris was literally up against a fucking emperor wannabe who already fucked the countey in incredibly short order, backed by a batshit party openly admitting they wanted to implement project 2025.
This is not a situation where you go "hmm, well she didn't quite tickle my balls enough, so I guess i'll let the fascists win". And if you do, you are complicit. You got the chance to stand up and instead you shoved your head up your own arse
You also underestimate the stupidity of the average voter/person. Most people vote on vibes, not policy, and don't pay that much actual attention to politics.
The US reached the "bread and circuses" stage of politics a decade or so ago. Once the population figures out it can vote itself money (or the promise of money) it's all over.
Look at the campaign promises of the incoming president. "More for you, not them", sums it up. The problem is that everyone hopes they are the "you" in that offer.
Society is in a rotten state. People don't care about others or others' rights, they only care about themselves in the depraved delusion that one day they will have "made it". Look back 4 years ago when people were too selfish to cut out their weekend binge drinking or simply wearing a mask to protect others (and themselves). Introspection, empathy, consideration, those are gone, it's all about self-worth, "confidence" (god how I hate that word) and self-respect to push the inevitable realization that what one is doing is unsustainable and damaging to everyone else far, far back into the future.
I don't know why you take so much offense that I wrote that it doesn't surprise me one bit that a fascist is elected over someone who people are sure to not benefit from. The 40 users of lemmy who show respect and care are not representative to society as a whole from what I've seen.
Actually we might even be working against the cause.
That would mean destruction of NATO. No European country can be in a defense alliance with a country that actively support an invasion by Russia in Europe.
Trump doesn't care about the NATO. He thinks it's a big US-led charity organization that protects the weak, poor other countries who rally under the umbrella because murricah is just so superior and cool. I don't think he actively seeks to destroy it, but if his actions lead to its downfall, he would not be upset at all.
What the incoming president fails to understand is that the money that the US funnels towards NATO helps keep a lid on conflicts "over there", so they don't end up "over here", like WWII.
Yeah NATO is a force for American power. It gives us undue influence in the world. And also I can’t imagine wanting a powerful United States and not wanting a powerful nato. It’s a threat of overwhelming force so we can only spend money instead of American lives on stabilizing our interests and critical allies. It’s also a way to have MAD countries without nuclear proliferation, or allowing allies we don’t want to have nukes (Germany) to have them.
It wouldn't. The U.S. is a big part of NATO, but NATO will live on without the U.S. the European Union has very much the same clauses - even the U.K. would still be part of that.
IDK if we can throw out USA in case they work against us, maybe we will form a new alliance without them?
But maybe I should have written NATO as we used to know it will be dead.
That really is a baffling project. Like it’s American fascism but instead of attempting to form an axis it seems to be attempting to piss off everyone that might’ve considered joining us as fast as possible. Also it involves just random shooting our own feet pointlessly
Yep, he's probably ending nato. Or at least he keeps promising to do that, and there's nothing that will stop him, so.... Good luck! We'll all fucking need it!
If Trump continues the policies of his first term, but dial it up as many say he will. He will destroy not only NATO, but American international influence in general, because nobody can trust USA. That will do a lot of harm to American economics especially over time, USA has essentially decided the terms for international trade since WW2, helped by their many allies, ending that will be very costly for USA.
yeah honest at least from the people i’ve spoken to in my country (australia, so take the opinion of the voting populace with a grain of salt - we’re entirely dependant on the US for defence against china, and even more so now that we’re buying US nuclear subs which we have no capacity to maintain ourselves since we literally have to even make laws to deal with nuclear to deal with them)
… sorry rambletangent
… last time people were like “okay well we know that the 4 years are up soon and stability will return”… this round, the world really can’t trust the stability of the US: from now on, who the fuck knows what’s going to happen? we just have to make backup plans, and that severely curtails US influence because there are suddenly alternatives - and nobody wanted alternatives - we all wanted to give the US power (well, kinda)… but you just can’t rely on US politics any more when it’s existentially important
Yeah as an American that’s one of the frustrating parts of all this. Like, a lot of our wealth came from dependability. “We give you good deals on military technology that would’ve cost you more to make, you give us good deals elsewhere. Meanwhile this means we dominate the military technology market and we always have the best equipment and produce a stable environment in which those who are on good terms with us are more economically and militarily stable. And anyone who goes against us now can’t maintain their equipment.” Then these fucks ruin a pretty good deal we had not out of ideals against our hegemony but because they think we don’t have it good enough
After how we treated the Kurds, I cannot believe anyone still trusts us. We have a lot of shit in our house that needs cleaning, and we sure do seem to be shooting all the maids....
It's not even 52%, in the end it's ended up being 50% VS 48.3%. He barely got half of all votes with the overall gap only being 2.6 million votes. That's razor thin, the only reason it worked out the way it did (apparent "easy win") is because of the electoral college system, which is a bit biased towards conservatism anyway by giving quite a bit of power to smaller, less populated states.
Besides that, I do agree that it's a bit of a question what will happen. I've seen people say that Rubio and Waltz appear to indicate a slightly different course but no one really knows besides the coming government.
Russia has that black poop from the ground which is a valuable enough resource to be bought by someone for something .
It goes bankrupt if suddenly oil consumption drops 3 times. Or something like that. But not immediately even then, because it has reserves.
EU and NATO are not interested in Russia imploding. They are showing very clearly that their intention is to softly bleed it so that it wouldn't be too aggressive, but also to preserve its current regime, because that regime is convenient.
It's just the sad truth.
As to why Western countries always supported said regime, since Yeltsin usurping power in 1993, - I just don't know.
There is a sizeable proportion of population not yet penetrated by the whole idea of democracy, but those would back any “current” regime.
You're infantilizating the russian population. Political satirical TV shows in the 90s (remember this was before the internet) easily rivaled what you would see even on current US TV. Yet most russians were happy to accept a clampdown on independent TV and reelected putin in 2004 (generally considered a free and fair election). And they were OK with the comical medvedev seat warming exercise in 2008, not to mention putin's formal return in 2012.
The russians would never back any political force that would reject imperialism or even acknowledge russian crimes. Even the alleged "opposition" in the form of Navalniy's gang is deeply committed to imperialism.
In real life everybody is to blame, it’s just a question of proportions.
This is a non-sequitur. The ultimate responsibility for the state of russian politics lies on the russians themselves.
It's about the choices they make. There is nothing inherent to russian society/culture that would justify such a state of affairs.
You’re infantilizating the russian population. Political satirical TV shows in the 90s (remember this was before the internet) easily rivaled what you would see even on current US TV. Yet most russians were happy to accept a clampdown on independent TV and reelected putin in 2004 (generally considered a free and fair election). And they were OK with the comical medvedev seat warming exercise in 2008, not to mention putin’s formal return in 2012.
This whole paragraph does not contradict what I said, but your tone seems to suggest it does.
Also those satirical TV shows were all basically crying wildly that bad things are coming. Said bad things came. So?
Anyway, this doesn't make the Russian population any more or less infantile than the Ukrainian population.
The russians would never back any political force that would reject imperialism or even acknowledge russian crimes. Even the alleged “opposition” in the form of Navalniy’s gang is deeply committed to imperialism.
That political force was dissolved after its key figures were murdered or ridiculed on TV 24/7 in the late 90s and early 00s. It definitely existed.
Also Navalny's ideas have changed a lot over time. If you are referring to his "Crimea is not a sandwich" statement, it's just correct - international law has such a thing as right of self-determination, regardless of what Ukrainian laws say. The fact of military aggression doesn't negate that right.
This is a non-sequitur. The ultimate responsibility for the state of russian politics lies on the russians themselves.
My cousins' father is from Artsakh, Ukrainian politicians congratulated Azeris with their crimes. I couldn't care less what Ukrainians have to say on responsibility after that. Try following your own declared principles first. Otherwise it's not even funny.
It’s about the choices they make. There is nothing inherent to russian society/culture that would justify such a state of affairs.
People are responsible to the degree the structure of power is affected by their choices. Said structure right now is affected negligibly by most of the Russian population.
I never said russians were more or less infantile than any other group of people. I said your inability to treat russian like adults who are responsible for their actions ("they've never seen democracy", "the west has backed Yeltsin since 1993") is an infantilization of russian society. Is this not true?
Also those satirical TV shows were all basically crying wildly that bad things are coming. Said bad things came. So?
I referenced the satirical political shows during the 90s to highlight that the russians did have experience with an independent (perhaps imperfect) mass market press. Yet they did not see this as important. What do you mean by "bad things are coming"? Can you be clear and specific and not beat around the bush? Because it sounds like you haven't actually lived in russia and you have no idea what you're talking about.
Also Navalny’s ideas have changed a lot over time. If you are referring to his “Crimea is not a sandwich” statement, it’s just correct - international law has such a thing as right of self-determination, regardless of what Ukrainian laws say. The fact of military aggression doesn’t negate that right.
Thank you for proving my point about broad support for imperialism among russian society.
People are responsible to the degree the structure of power is affected by their choices. Said structure right now is affected negligibly by most of the Russian population.
And who is ultimately responsible for the said [russian political] structure right now?
I never said russians were more or less infantile than any other group of people. I said your inability to treat russian like adults who are responsible for their actions (“they’ve never seen democracy”, “the west has backed Yeltsin since 1993”) is an infantilization of russian society. Is this not true?
No, it's my opinion of the humanity as a whole. My experience shows it's infantile. There's no moral principle obligating us to believe in something not confirmed with experience.
What do you mean by “bad things are coming”? Can you be clear and specific and not beat around the bush? Because it sounds like you haven’t actually lived in russia and you have no idea what you’re talking about.
I thought you meant "Куклы" and such.
Thank you for proving my point about broad support for imperialism among russian society.
Right of self-determination is anti-imperialist. If the conflict were between Ukraine's constitution and that right, Ukraine would be imperialist. It's just not.
But hypothetically, if they ever want to, they have that right. And if you want to make the world better, there's no use denying it. Especially since no region possibly votes in favor of voluntarily splitting from Ukraine in proximity of Russia, not after this war. I mean, it's a clearly hypothetical question since they are occupied.
And who is ultimately responsible for the said [russian political] structure right now?
I've already said that responsibility is proportional to input in a decision, right?
So first and foremost people on top of it, diplomats, special services workers, intelligence workers, high-ranking military people.
Then those whose input is a bit less.
Other than that, I guess one can differentiate by how someone voted in their life.