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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   35708 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 3, 2025

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Trump, in Shock Announcement, Says U.S. Will Take Over Gaza After Permanently Displacing Palestinians

U.S. President Donald Trump made the shocking announcement on Tuesday during a joint press conference with visiting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he will pursue a plan where the U.S. assumes ownership of Gaza, shortly after calling for the permanent displacement of the Strip's residents.

"The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip and we'll do a good job with it too. We'll own it and be responsible for dismantling all the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site, level the site and get rid of the destroyed buildings, level it out and create economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area," he said.

When asked if this meant that Trump would send U.S. troops to Gaza, he said "if it's necessary, we'll do that. We're gonna take over that piece and develop it, create thousands and thousands of jobs. It will be something the entire Middle East can be very proud of."

Now there are a few problems with this. One is that Egypt and Jordan, the obvious candidates, are absolutely against it. Second is that it will be horribly embarrassing when an American soldier gets blown up by unexploded American ordnance that was donated to Israel. It's also somewhat incoherent - he's going to make it into some kind of big multicultural party zone?

"I envision the world's people living there. You'll make it into an international, unbelievable place. The entire world will be there - Palestinians also - many people will live there.

The US does have lots of leverage over Egypt though, their economy has been on the cusp of collapse for a while now. So maybe Trump's increased willingness to deploy coercion will bear fruit here.

His recent obsession with acquiring foreign territory is really strange. It’s been two weeks, and already there’s 4 or so territories that he’s consistently talking about trying to take.

I don’t know but I’m starting to set my assumption toward there being something even more wrong with his brain than I previously thought rather than him doing this in a posturing way or to get some kind of outcome.

I know Trump is just uniquely Trump but even for him this is getting pretty out there.

Consider the world in 50 years: will the US have more, less or the same territory? Until very recently I would have taken the under that the US would only exist as the Eastern Seaboard of the North American continent. A re-alignment and interest in territory expansion might be the thing that re-invigorates the nation and let's it kick it's decline down the road. I have no illusions that any of this will happen under Trump but boy am I glad to see the overton window thrown open. These things need to be discussed and not shunned as gouache or déclassé. I think a lot would need to change at the federal level to make increasing the number of states workable, but there's no technical reason our flag couldn't have 298 stars. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Would you call the concept of mutually assured destruction a technical reason?

sure. I meant, there's technically a way to sew 298 tiny little stars on a flag. What if I sad 296 stars?

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