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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 24, 2025

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Why the difference between 2003 and today, why Iraq war had to be prepared by two years diplomatic and propaganda offensive, while now the orange man points with his mighty finger on map, says "bomb this" and everyone is fine with it?

I don't think everyone is fine with it - the usual anti-Trump forces both inside and outside the US are responding with outrage calibrated to the fact that this is a shitpost and not an actual announcement of a no-fly zone. But the marginal Trump supporter either ignored it or responded along the lines of "Obvious shitpost - lol TDS if you care about it"

Also Bush needed to the diplomatic prep for Iraq because he wanted the largest coalition he could get, notably including Tony Blair, whereas for Trump attacking Venezuela the whole point would be do to it unilaterally as a way of reminding your allies that you don't need them.

My gut feeling is that if Trump does indeed announce a real no-fly zone over Venezuela, and then sends US planes to Venezuela to shoot down civilian airliners violating said no-fly zone, his domestic political support will collapse rapidly. The absence of Trump-sympathetic voices saying "don't attack Venezuela" (compared to the number of Trump-sympathetic voices saying things like "release the Epstein files" or "be more careful with tariffs") is evidence that my gut feeling is wrong.

The US is not going to be deliberately shooting down civilian airliners (not even Venezuelan ones) in Venezuela, and even another USS Vincennes incident would be bad for Trump's domestic support.