jj4211

Well the explanation would work for one election, 2024.

In 2016, he was a terrible choice on so many fronts, but no especially strong reason to expect he would dramatically shift inflation or pay. And on those specific metrics, his first term was mostly typical, except pandemic, which people can believe to be an utterly freak event beyond anyone's control if they still wanted to vote for Trump.

The global economic shock continued and was exasperated by war. Biden had little to do with it, but it was on his watch, so he gets saddled with blame, so to the extent a voter just thinks about their personal economic situation, they vote for "not the current leadership".

So this term has been marked by utterly predictable economic problems that everyone told them would happen, but they didn't have first hand experience to trust that, and Trump's rhetoric resonated with the "I know smart people say it doesn't work, but 'common sense' tells me get rid of immigrants and tariff all imports and things will be great, making American jobs and getting rid of foreigners taking the jobs".

So now they get to see first hand why those common sense thoughts don't actually work.

Still. I predict next year they'll roll back tariffs to try to create a bit of deflation and also cut checks to everyone to make them feel like winners in the moment as they decide midterms.

Whatever the situation is in Venezula, it's not going to be a good thing for America to get entangled.

Hussein was a pretty bad dude, but our intervention in Iraq ultimately was bad for America and didn't exactly make things in Iraq better.

Yes, indeed, it's open ended and on the surface it is consistent with a plausible follow through on existing decision.

Though the prospect of suspiciously selective enforcement comes to mind, in the midst of this very specific scenario they decide to execute a seizure that is conveniently adjacent to the boat strike operations.

Of course I won't leave the platform because no one else will is a self fulfilling prophecy.

I mean, how many factors do you advocate for? Two is generally plenty as long as they are good ones.

E.g a passphrase protected ssh key is solid. Similarly protected passkey is good. A TOTP with password is... Not terrible I suppose... SMS would be pretty bad...

Or simply "drone attack on Ukraine". The audience can fill in the obvious perpetrator.

Let's see what happened between 2020 when none of this was happening and today that might make these nations feel like they have to be prepared for conflict... Total mystery...

And what disturbances do you mean?

This very article seems to be a prime example. Yes, NATO spending is up, and because of Russia conducting a violent unprovoked invasion of a sovereign territory in their area, and a general reduction in confidence that they can rely on USA and must fend for themselves. Trump's schtick is mostly 'America shouldn't help so much, fend for yourself'. Even with somewhat elevated spending, would that offset the loss of capability that would come with the US just failing to live up to their NATO obligations when the time came?

Why would Putin kick off the Ukraine war immediately after his “agent” leaves office?

Because things were going to be as good as he could get them and the best opportunity was before the new administration could reverse course? In the most favorable Russia outcome, Trump might have followed through on threats to further reduce NATO contributions, but with Trump gone and a more NATO-friendly admin in place, things were going to get worse for Putin before they could get better. I vaguely recall some non-US situations that similarly could have greased the wheels for an easier annexation of Ukraine, so it's not like the US is the only factor in such timing anyway, but don't recall what specifics made me think of that.

Trump is not a Russian asset. He’s an easily-manipulated businessman

I will agree that it's not a straightforward "Trump is a Russian agent", but an "asset" is not an agent. He's a convenient "friend" that is easily manipulated/bribed. He doesn't have loyalty or anything like that to Putin, but he is plainly easy to manipulate, and Putin's circle has been consistently in position to do that manipulation for decades. Others may be no saints, but Trump is comparitively easier to mess with because of just being terrible at the things he purports to be good at.

Broadly, I agree.

I would still worry as while they might not actively attack, they may happily just nope on out of helping any NATO allies. NATO allies are more self-sufficient than before, but NATO without US forces and equipment would be much weaker than an active US.

However, he might just go and pick up Greenland if things pop off. If NATO were chewing on a fight with Russia, I think it would be a safe bet that europe would barely spare the time to shake their head disapprovingly if US just went and occupied Greenland. I don't think they'd actually do a hot war with western european nations, but could easily see them just 'declaring' ownership of Greenland and no one stopping them.

I concur that a fight against EU is just completely unlikely, I do think Venezuela is possible since his administration has pretty much been giving free reign and seems to have their heart set on it...

I don't think having the US attack them is in the cards, but I could see them sitting such a conflict out.