aeqno
12hr ago
People are more worried than they used to be that the guy swinging the cane might be getting off on it.
Or, indeed, the guy getting the caning.
Ukraine joining NATO would have meant that a major military alliance would sit directly on its border
That was already true before the war (Poland, Baltic states), and even more so after Finland and Sweden joined up.
Man, isn't it weird how all the nations with direct experience of Mother Russia's loving embrace fight so hard to avoid feeling it once more?
Also, why can't people just listen to what Putin actually says? He's on some medieval LARP of Russians and Ukrainians being the same people. Richard Hanania had a great take on Tucker Carlson's interview with him:
I'm glad that we got to see this, because it revealed how out of touch Putin is. Tucker begins with a simple question of what the threat was on February 22. Putin's response spends half an hour on the entire history of Russia.
We're used to people in the Middle East talking like this. An obsession with deep history is the characteristic of cultures that fight wars that never end. No one wonder no one even in the Russian speaking part of Ukraine wants to be part of Russia. Modern people care about their own lives and freedom and want a vision of the future.
That's what Ukraine and the West offer. Not endless lectures from a grumpy uncle on how Vlad Vladimirovich sent love letters to Svetlana the Elegant in 1207 and why this proves that Russians and Ukrainians are one people.
When talking about geopolitics, the deeper someone goes in history, the more disconnected they are from modern reality, and the less likely they are to be a rational actor who can be negotiated with. Putin had arguments he could've started with about the US interfering in Russian affairs or whatever, but he's deranged enough to think that leading with a lecture on the history of the Slavic peoples is how you sell a war in the twenty first century.
Surely a case of free speech is the best disinfectant. I knew Putin talked a lot about history, I had no idea his brain had deteriorated to this point. Hopefully Russians can one day soon have a leader who cares about making their lives better, rather than fighting wars based on what he read in history books.
aeqno
13d ago
The bond market was starting to act up. Nothing good could have come from that.
aeqno
17d ago
So the tariff climbdown begins, at least on the part of the United States. Smart phones, computers, and chips to be exempt from the reciprocal tariffs:
https://content.govdelivery.com/bulletins/gd/USDHSCBP-3db9e55?wgt_ref=USDHSCBP_WIDGET_2
As things stand, this basically decimates small and medium-sized business owners while leaving Big Tech sitting pretty, despite the former being a key pillar of GOP support for decades, and the latter only having their MAGA awakening one month prior to the election.
I think this Hacker News comment really sums up what's just happened:
This is pretty much how I expected this to play out, at least for now. Trump acts all tough and doesn't back down publicly, but China actually doesn't back down. So what happens is that some businesses get exemptions to mitigate the impact. Then some fine print gets changed about how the rules are enforced. Like, suddenly it turns out that Kiribati is a major electronics supplier to the US :) End result - US economy takes a hit, China takes a smaller hit. Trade balance widens further, most likely. The rich get richer, while many small companies struggle to survive.
The admin's hand also seems to have been forced by the bond market going crazy. The trade specialists now have the unenviable task of unwinding the past two months in whatever way is least damaging to Trump's ego. Most likely, everything remains on the books, and we now spend the next several years developing workarounds for this clusterfuck.
aeqno
20d ago
If Trump's attempted coup wasn't the time for her to stand up, what situation would be more fitting?
aeqno
20d ago
China has retaliated with 84% tariffs on US goods:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/live-blog/2025-04-08/trump-tariffs-stock-market-updates
Trade war is now on for real.
They were serious, came prepared for teargas, took precautions to not out themselves or their comrades, hid their faces to avoid being identified, paid for things in cash
You'd probably love Antifa, then.
aeqno
21d ago
So in regards to Trump, I don't think I've seen a better /r/leopardsatemyface example than the SV oligarchs who went all in on MAGA in the run-up to the election.
What was particularly interesting is how they fully took on the MAGA rhetoric style on Twitter and appeared to wholly buy in to that world view, complete with its insane conspiratorial thinking. I often wondered if this was playacting for the rubes, of if they had actually "become the mask".
Well, a look at Bill Ackman's Twitter feed shows that it was the former. For context, Ackman is a billion dollars long on Nike, lol.
What's fascinating is that you can see how the mask slowly comes off Ackman's face. The earlier Tweets, as the situation was just starting to develop, are along the usual MAGA lines of "Leader strong and wise! America's enemies will tremble before him.", along with a laundry list of how the pure and innocent United States has been taken advantage of by bad actors.
However, as it becomes clear that Trump isn't bluffing, panic starts setting in and Ackman (who unlike the average MAGA knows the difference between a tariff and trade deficit, and also why the latter is not a bad thing) starts diplomatically hinting that this is actually a pretty fucking stupid idea. After a while, he realizes subtlety doesn't work with his new audience says we'd be starting "economic nuclear war" with the rest of the world, and "this isn't what we voted for".
As of this posting, he's currently at the bargaining stage of grief:
https://x.com/BillAckman/status/1909313079130951801
I find Ackman really interesting as he's a very visible proxy for all the smart people who pretended to be stupid because they saw MAGA as a vehicle to even more wealth, power, and influence (Vivek & Vance would be others).
aeqno
21d ago
Alternatively, both you and the market are still in the denial/bargaining stage.
aeqno
21d ago
Most of those things are probably bought by the lower and middle classes on credit.
aeqno
22d ago
Would Nero or Caligula have had the full support of the Evangelical community, tho?
aeqno
22d ago
We will see a return to the spoils system where government appointments are cycled in and out with every new administration as payoffs to supporters
Hey, just like the late Roman Republic!
aeqno
1mo ago
So after Sec Def Hegseth denied posting classified info in the leaked Signal chat, the Atlantic has released more screenshots of him describing the full play-by-play warplan:
Also, looks like it might have been Waltz's deputy Alex Wong who accidentally e-vited Goldberg to the chat:
https://x.com/RichardHanania/status/1904883964072124642
What gets me is that none of this even matters anymore, so I don't get the big deal made over it.
When you've refused to concede a national election, your supporters have stormed the central seat of government, and you've then not only been allowed to run again but been resoundingly re-elected, why would something like this be even a ripple? I'm surprised even right-wing rags like the NY Post have this at the top. What do they think will be the outcome of any of this? Trump already said he's not firing Waltz. The GOP will remain dutifully silent. The public sure as shit don't care.
Yeah, in 2012, this would've been career-ending for everyone involved, but these are different times. Absolutely nothing comes of this.
aeqno
1mo ago
EY's three frames scenario was excellently debunked in this Less Wrong post:
Someone also pithily asked what physical theories the AI would arrive at if the three frames involved a helium balloon.
aeqno
1mo ago
If Trump invalidates these pardons, what do you think is going to happen to his own pardons when the Dems return to power?
aeqno
1mo ago
Vance does listen to the online right, but his kids are literally half Indian so it’s hard to see the wignat message converting him
Guy tweeted that the "normalize Indian-hate" DOGE kid should be reinstated.
aeqno
1mo ago
Before we engage in fantasies of mighty Russian army reaching the English channel like the last three years never happened, how long would you estimate it would take them to reach Zaporizhzhia & Odessa, let alone Lviv?
The current situation is the equivalent of the entire US army being halted in Tijuana during an attempted invasion of Mexico (and indeed, having to fight the Mexicans in Arizona two years into the war).
All of Russia's "superpower" credentials are gone.
aeqno
1mo ago
I mean one of Russia's stated aims, halting NATO expansion at its borders, has resoundingly failed.
Those NATO arms also erased vast quantities of Russian invaders and their hardware, making Russia even less of a threat to NATO than they were before the war. I do agree with RandomRanger that Russia is unlikely to try invading the Baltics. Not because they don't want to, but because we and they now know they're completely incapable of such a feat.
aeqno
1mo ago
NATO isn't totally broken right now
NATO is, in fact, larger than it was at the start of the war.
aeqno
2mo ago
He's gambling with WW3
This kind of thing always reminds me of Richard Hanania tweeting:
"lt's aways World War III with these people. We're never on the brink of a medium sized conflict like the Iran-Iraq War."
aeqno
2mo ago
There's a similar thing with Trump but nowhere near to the same extent as it was for Obama
C'mon, are you kidding me with this?
What's the Russian Air Force doing while this hypothetical invasion force is rolling across wide open steppe?
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