AugustDeRosa
1mo ago
Officially, Iran will start the CEASEFIRE and, upon the 12th Hour, Israel will start the CEASEFIRE and, upon the 24th Hour, an Official END to THE 12 DAY WAR will be saluted by the World.
Am I understanding this incorrectly or does this essentially mean "Israel gets 12 hours to do whatever it wants to Iran"?
AugustDeRosa
1mo ago
In that case it should be easy to provide an example of others that made the same predictions.
AugustDeRosa
1mo ago
But then he turned around and did exactly that when Tucker said that leaders of governments kill people, as if the idea of the President of the United States having someone killed was unthinkable and that Trump could never, ever have done such a thing.
AugustDeRosa
1mo ago
Sure, but I think it's fair to say that someone who is interested in regime change would be better off knowing some basic facts. It's of course not necessary - you can hold whatever opinion you want with or without facts - but an individual who has done some research is likely to be more adept at the decision making involved. It has utility.
AugustDeRosa
1mo ago
The Bible makes it pretty clear that there is something special about the relationship between the Jews and God, that this is passed down in a tribal fashion, and that this was not, at least in its entirety, entirely erased by the crucifixion and resurrection (e.g. Romans 11). I would personally read it as "the tribe of Israel is very special, but now everyone is able to become part of that tribe in a new, special way that didn't exist before, and this is partially because of how the tribe of Israel really dropped the ball".
These politicians hardly act as devout christians who believe every word of the bible.
They act as most devout Christians act, in my experience: when it's something that doesn't impact them directly on a personal level (e.g. nuking Iran), they're all for it, when it's something that inconveniences them personally (e.g. not having sex with underage male prostitutes), they had a moment of weakness and will return to the Lord.
That doesn't mean they don't believe it, it just makes them human.
AugustDeRosa
1mo ago
Many have explicitly said regime change is the goal.
AugustDeRosa
1mo ago
While I don't believe Cruz is stupid (based on his background, he is probably one of the most intelligent members of the current batch of leadership amongst the American right, although to be frank I think there are some genuinely not very smart people amongst them so perhaps I'm being too charitable due to who I'm comparing him with), the one thing that I genuinely thought was pretty 'stupid' in this interview was his inability to engage with the issue of whether the polity of Israel in 2025 is the same Israel referred to in the Bible. His arguments elsewhere were not particularly 'stupid', they were just occasionally dishonest or misleading, but in this one instance he seemed to be genuinely confused as to how two things that have the same name and are somewhat similar in 'type' couldn't be the same thing.
Some somewhat unstructured thoughts:
Why doesn't Ted Cruz know the population of Iran? And what is with him generally? Or the whole upper echelons of the US govt?
While "Cruz doesn't know anything about Iran" seems to have been the big takeaway that people focus on from this interview, I think the much more important and more alarming part is, as you pointed out, the religious element - but I don't think it's a case of stupidity, at least on that specific issue, or of ignorance. "What is with him" is that he genuinely believes that his God, through scripture, has commanded him to support Israel, and there are many in the upper echelons of the US government who genuinely and wholeheartedly believe the same thing.
"Republicans want to go to war in the Middle East because they're Millennialist Christians" is one of those horseshoe / bell-curve-meme situations where if you know nothing about the state of the American right, you probably believe it, if you are sort of read up on the American right, you probably think it's nonsense, and if you really listen to everything they say and the actions they take and try and discern their motivations, then yeah, it turns out they really just do believe it. Yes, sometimes they'll give other justifications based on liberal principles or American statecraft or plain might makes right rhetoric, and sometimes those justifications make sense, but they are all made in the shadow of the initial basis of theology. They are add-ons, NOT the central thing itself. In that way, it's telling that Cruz gives two reasons for his unconditional support of Israel, and the first one he describes is theological.
I really wish Tucker had asked the natural follow up, which is, "If your God has commanded you to support Israel, then surely you would do it even if it was actively against American interests?", but he instead chooses to focus on the difference between what Israel meant in the Bible and whether it can be understood to refer to the modern-day polity of Israel (the answer is very obviously no, because the polity did not exist in any meaningful form, but Cruz refuses to engage properly on that point).
HOWEVER, with all that said, I would be curious as to whether Tucker himself disagrees with the idea that Christians have some obligation to support some form of Israel, whether that is just "the chosen people" (i.e. Jews). I've heard some Christians explain this away by saying that "nah, doesn't matter because Jesus, new covenant, we're all God's chosen, etc. etc." but I don't think that holds out when you read through the Bible. I, personally, follow in the strong and storied European tradition of pick-whatever-works faith, so would be interested in what the more theologically-minded Christians of the motte believe.
AugustDeRosa
1mo ago
Trump barely posts on Twitter as it is. He's still full-bore Truth Social, although I have never heard of anybody using the website for anything other than seeing what Trump has posted on it.
AugustDeRosa
1mo ago
I think the more important question in the coming fallout - if this is permanent, as Trump has demonstrated a pretty remarkable willingness to 'get over' stuff like this in the past (Cruz, Rubio, Vance, basically anybody that isn't Barack Obama or Rosie O'Donnell), and Musk could potentially try and undo this by groveling - will be what happens amongst the other assorted figures within the tech world. Thiel is clearly closely integrated into the Trump admin, but figures such as Zuck, Huang, Bezos, Ellison who hold an immense amount of clout, power, and capital that spans far beyond the borders of the USA have been very friendly to the admin this time around but are far less intertwined with it.
My prediction: this doesn't fizzle out, Elon remains on bad terms with the admin, Trump makes an example of him albeit not in the most extreme sense, the tech world meekishly maintains its closeness with Trump for fear of retribution, and the economic position of the USA worsens as it demonstrates more dysfunction - and, most importantly, humanity takes a few more steps backwards from any end goal of expanding beyond the rock we are currently stuck on.
AugustDeRosa
1mo ago
Sure, but we're talking about the average person who buys an EV, which is already a very small portion of the population in the first place.
AugustDeRosa
1mo ago
That makes sense and in itself reflects a much larger problem: often, policies regarding EV mandates are made with urban areas in mind, where the infrastructure is in the process of being entirely revamped to suit them at the expense of ICE vehicles, whereas once you drive five minutes outside the capital, you can't find a charger, you can't find an EV dealer, and your income drops below the required amount to purchase one in the first place.
Even though my preference is towards EVs for a multitude of reasons, if I lived rural there's no chance in hell I'd use one. Getting off-topic here but it's one of the major reasons I feel EVs have found less uptake in the USA, Canada, and Australia when compared to Europe, which then gets retrofitted to more sensationalist cultural/political lines.
Firstly the choice to want an EV in the first place is purely virtue signalling - nobody I know ever justified it with anything other than highfalutin saving-the-planet rethoric
This could very well be true in the US, but at least in Western Europe, governments subsidise the hell out of EVs through either direct subsidies to the manufacturers and distributers or indirect tax subsidies, and some cities (London, Paris, I assume others) explicitly discourage or even disallow non-EVs from certain areas.
Because of this, if you are in Europe and are:
- A company purchasing a fleet of cars,
- An urban professional,
It's probably in your best interest financially to buy an EV, or at the very least a hybrid.
You could argue this is second-hand virtue signalling, but the end purchaser who will make the decision as to what they buy is probably thinking mostly of practicality. I currently drive a hybrid purely for financial reasons (and since having owned it, I am far more partial to EVs and would consider them in future), and most of the people I know who drive EVs do so either for tax purposes or because they live in an urban area.
And both of these purchasers would be particularly attuned to the inverse-virtue-signalling presently associated with purchasing a Tesla (e.g. I am aware of a European company that has this year taken every Tesla off of its 'approved vehicles' list for company cars, and when pressed on why, they said they didn't want the brand "associated with any political direction"). This means that even if the initial purchase was primarily a financial decision rather than virtue signaling, you can still then be swayed by "Musk man bad".
I obviously have no means of demonstrating this, but this isn’t an alt, I just genuinely got that baited by your bizarre analogy.
That also doesn’t really explain what you meant, either. What is Vance doing in this situation? How is he Agrippa? You’ve just put names to figures without any actual connection.
The Putin-Medvedev analogy makes far more sense, but Medvedev worked as a patsy precisely because he was seen as “responsible” and “conciliatory” towards the West as opposed to Putin, which gave Putin time and space to breathe while cementing his power. Don Jnr. ain’t that. In that situation someone other than Don Jnr., perhaps Ivanka if you want to keep it in the family, would be the pick. Rubio would be the obvious choice though, and in fact, Rubio seems to be getting Trump’s blessing as a successor. (https://tass.com/world/1952703)
This is why getting your analogies right actually helps - it lets you consider what strategy worked or failed in the past.
AugustDeRosa
1mo ago
I am also currently rereading Caesar’s ‘The Civil War’ so suppose I was particularly primed to react, however, if that dated meme is anything to go by, we’re all only a few hours gone from thinking about Rome anyway.
AugustDeRosa
1mo ago
I've lurked the Motte in its various incarnations over the past however many years and have felt strongly about many of the things posted, however, I have never felt any strong enough need to post that I thought it necessary to make an account - until your description of 'The Octavian Strategy'.
What would this strategy have to do with Octavian? Octavian was a complete nobody politically until Caesar died, at which point, Caesar certainly wasn't "backseat driving", because Caesar was dead. There was absolutely no sense that people 'didn't care' about Octavian because they thought Caesar was in control, since, as mentioned, he was dead, and many of the key Caesarians had either taken part in the assassination conspiracy or ended up as Octavian's opponents, so they also weren't in control.
Or are you saying that it's the 'Octavian strategy' just because Donald Junior bears his father's name, in the same way Octavian was given Caesar's name by virtue of his adoption? Sure, I guess, but it's far more accurate to describe this strategy as literally any other political dynasty that isn't Caesar's, given that "son takes power after his father dies / exits the scene" is an incredibly common historical occurrence, and again, your primary point is that the father is still in the driver's seat, which definitely doesn't apply to Octavian.
And that's not even getting onto the Marcus Agrippa comparison. Agrippa had very little to do with Caesar, and was incredibly close to Octavian throughout his life. That does not map whatsoever onto Vance and Don Junior. I don't even understand what you're trying to imply with that.
I know some might view this as nitpicky or irrelevant but I honestly can't think of a less apt historical comparison I've seen here, ever, and I've seen some bad ones. Trying to just hamfistedly map scenarios onto what you think happened in Rome just leads to very bad conclusions, since you're evaluating strategy based on outcomes that never happened.
Trump, on Truth Social, after reports of Israel continuing to bomb Tehran:
This tone towards Israel is, to me at least, unexpected given the terms of the ceasefire. I expected Israel to have carte blanche to 'finish the job'.
Maybe a reductive take but I genuinely believe the next move depends on what Trump is currently watching on television. If Fox News presenters start covering for Israeli actions, or harping on about Iran 'breaking the ceasefire first', Trump may be convinced. It really is a shame that Tucker isn't on a major network anymore - if it's not on TV, Trump doesn't care.
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