Preferences

ioa8w35l8aw parent
In October, my family in texas was raving about how trump was going to end the Ukraine war overnight. They stopped talking about it the day trump retook office. And the other day they stopped talking about peace entirely and started raving about how Iran has had it coming and a little bit of war is good for the economy. They did the exact same thing in 2002.

afroboy
Because they never seen war comes to their mainland. They think it just game to kill millions of people and torture and rape others while they're sleeping in their houses in peace.
Hilift
Why end it? Ukraine is the most successful proxy war in the history of war. Ukraine has destroyed much of Russian ground forces and armor, and eliminated the only advantage that Russia did have, which was artillery. Now artillery accounts for only 20% of casualties on the battlefield. Even if the war ended today, Russia will not receive any of their funds frozen in Europe for decades, if ever. Russia has no military or technology advantage, and no way to rebuild it. Europe is safer than it ever has been.
ImJamal
> Why end it?

Because it is resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands Ukrainians?

It is easy to tell other people to go die for you.

AnimalMuppet
Yeah? It's easy to tell other people to just let their country get overrun, too.

Ukrainians do not want to be owned by Russia. Ukraine is being invaded by Russia. Why end it, if "ending it" means Ukraine gets taken over by Russia, and the people of Ukraine do not want that?

Tadpole9181
You have severely misinterpreted that comment. They're saying that we should actually help Ukraine and end the war as soon as possible, instead of prolonging it and causing untold suffering for symbolic victories over Russia.

We have not established a no-fly-zone, we have under delivered on promises, we abandoned them even after the mineral deal, and we have repeated lied and slandered their country while parroting Kremlin propaganda.

They're on your side that we should be doing those things to protect Ukraine. Like we promised all those decades ago.

nradov
There was never any promise or obligation to establish a no-fly zone to protect Ukraine. If you're referring to the Budapest Memorandum, it was not a mutual defense treaty and the USA has already abided by 100% of the terms. I support giving Ukraine military aid, but putting our military personnel in direct conflict with Russia is a step way too far.
ImJamal
The Ukrainians can do whatever they want. My problem is, the person I was responding to, basically implied that the lives of Ukrainians is a sacrifice he is willing to make for the safety of the rest of Europe. I don't like that sort of reasoning.
FirmwareBurner
> I don't like that sort of reasoning.

You don't have to like it, but that's the way it is.

nuancebydefault
It is indeed the way it is. This explains why the world is not going full steam ahead in supporting Ukraine such that they would win the war. It is a game of exhausting the enemy over a prolonged time, such that they are not capable of anything else but continuing to _try_ to take 'only' Ukraine.

The harsh truth is that Ukrainians are giving their lives for the freedom of Europeans and probably a chunk of the rest of the world population. Once one of the sides fully wins, Europe will get less safe, since the next step would be WMD.

cosmicgadget
I think he was actually arguing against the conservative talking point that the war is detrimental to US interests. Not that he wants the war to continue but rather that isolationists have no leg to stand on when they wring their hands about Ukraine defending themselves.
FirmwareBurner
>Because it is resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands Ukrainians?

Genuine question: Why do you think politicians in US and EU would care about that?

postalrat
Americans are minimizing the number of dead Ukrainians because a large number of casualties would be seen as a sign of defeat. It's not just that they are another nation, its that they want that number to be low.
It always hurts when people close to you get caught up in cults.
init2null
I was in a new world order survival cult as a kid, and it destroyed any semblance of connection I felt with others. Why connect when they're going to the camps?

Everything I've seen for the last ten years or so feels familiar. That very cult got a little watered down and has consumed the politics of the nation.

platevoltage
Yeah. My dad was actually moving past some of his weird social-conservative hangups. Then came orange-man.
cypherpunks01
"Before I even arrive at the Oval Office, shortly after I win the presidency, I will have the horrible war between Russia and Ukraine settled," Trump told a National Guard Conference. "I’ll get it settled very fast. I don’t want you guys going over there."
Balgair
The best piece that I have found on Donny and his voting assembly is from 1852.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1852/18th-brumai...

Perhaps, unsurprisingly, it's Marx. But mostly its Marx sorta responding to Mikhail Bakunin, the father of anarchism [0].

The question to these early socialists was: Why the fuck are these French peasants supporting Louis Napoleon III for president? It makes zero fucking sense. They were tearing their hair out trying to understand it.

Marx takes Bakunin to task in the novella above, and it's worth the full read if you still can't figure out why MAGA loves Donny. But, to me, Bakunin is still right and Marx was still wrong.

TLDR: Those French peasants really hated the bourgeois. So much so that they elected Napoleon III to president, knowing he would eventually take over in a coup and kill their nascent democracy, just because his election would piss off the effete bourgeois in the cities. The peasants know their life sucks and then they die. But the damn know-it-all bourgeois just need their faces rubbed in it, goddamnit. They know they are in a class war and they aren't winning it. The bourgeois don't, they think that they might make it out of the war, but the peasants know better and need to teach them a lesson. I'm heavily paraphrasing Bakunin here.

As for Donny, look, I think Bakunin's take on the French in 1850-ish is the right one here. The MAGA types know that Donny is a monster. But they really hate the DEI stuff and the liberal urban elites, more so than they hate Donny. They want these bourgeois liberals to feel the pain. It really does come down to 'liberal tears'.

Now, unfortunately, the proletariat here in 2025 are looking down the barrel of another 30 years in the middle east, literally. And the GWOT was already hard enough on them the last time. They do not like the idea of another war that they will be fighting and that the bourgeois will largely forget is occurring at all. Iran will decidedly not be 'liberal tears', but more concern trolling out of the Grey Lady, which MAGA really hates.

Once boys start coming back in body bags, yeah, sure, more patriotism, of course. And the proles and bourgeois will be at odds again, with sympathy coming from the bourgeois and not 'liberal tears'. Driving home that message of how MAGA is on the loosing side of the class war again.

But, and this I think is critical, they aren't going to be looking at Donny the same way. The 'fun' will have been had, and the reality of living on the loosing side will sink in again. It's pretty much what happened to Napoleon's congress in the 1870s after the Prussian war. Well that and Emperor Napoleon was captured in battle.

Anyway, Donny is in real danger, per Marx and Bakunin's take in 1850, of loosing his coalition with Iran. And, just like with Louis, I don't think Donny really knows that.

[0] no, not pitchforks and molotovs anarchism, but an-archy, without rulers old school anarchism.

BriggyDwiggs42
Thanks for the reading rec. Seems fascinating.
msgodel (dead)

This item has no comments currently.