Trump's competitor promises to give part of Ukraine to Russia and block Kyiv's accession to NATO

Never thought I'd see somebody worse than trump so quickly.
he also wants to remove federal regulatory and law enforcement agencies. Including, the IRS. Whose job it is... to you know... pay the government's bills...
- They are doing it on purpose. He’s 38 years old, no one is letting him near the presidency. But these over the top statements are intended to make some other candidate look like not the craziest guy in the room.
  
  You know that’s actually not the craziest hypothesis
  
  More likely he's doing this on purpose to gain notoriety and wealth through media presence
  Also he's trying to evade lawsuits
  
  "They'd never let this guy take power!"
  Where the fuck have you been.
  
  Considering one of his opponents tried to destroy the happiest place on earth, signed into law a law that allows people to kidnap kids, and worked as a torturer at gitmo, that is saying something
  
  Widening the Overton Window. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window
  
  Plus he's brown. With a foreign sounding name.
  The chances of Trumpy Republicans abandoning Dear Leader and voting en mass for an Indian looking guy are vanishingly small.
  
  Eh I figure it’s just for attention. Rile up the base to get them out to vote.
  Anger is a pretty strong motivator if social media hasn’t shown you that already.
- It's like "conservatives" are actually compelled to make the worst, most unethical choice, every time...
  
  those aren't conservatives. Biden is a conservative. GOP are regressives.
- Are we going to have to do this every 4 years? Just roll the dice and risk some wholly unqualified asshole, somehow even worse that the former guy, becoming president so he or she can just shit on the people and the planet for the next 4 fucking years?
  I am so tired of this bullshit.
  
  Not forever now and probably 2028. The people they are appealing to are dying and are rapidly being replaced by the youth. By 2032 they won't be enough to dominate an entire party. They will return to the fringe.
  
  For the forseeable future? yes.
  Personally. I plan to go start a lunar colony, then mars, then jupiter. Build up a space civilization of enlightened scientists who.... will tolerate my leadership because "well at least it's not as bad as on earth."
- There's a lot worse than Trump. Trump is dumb AF and is easily persuaded. I'm doubting that Trump ever actually came up with an idea of his own. He's a puppet through and through.
  
  he came up with the idea of having a button that summons diet coke,
- Just look at all his accomplishments like .... .... .... .... and .... .... .... .... and don't forget .... .... .... ....
  
  Also, we should remember that time he...
- It seems that some candidates believe that to win against Trump you have to be dumber than him.

Is this guy campaigning for American votes, or a Russian paycheck?
- Yes. And failing that, yes.
- Neither, I think his job is to absorb the negative attention so T looks less unhinged or maybe separate off the crazier magas.
  
  Isn’t it possible that Vivek is just nuts?
- He wants to be VP

At least they don't even try to hide how much they are in bed with Russia anymore.
- .... but, but, but they're the "true patriot" party! No one is more American than Republicans! 1!!
  /s

how anyone cant seem through this blatent foreign agent acting against your country is beyond me. watching in amazement from down under
- Anyone with two functioning brain cells does see it. Unfortunately, there is an entire political party for people who don't.
- He's at 5% of the vote in the Republican primary. He's DOA in a general election.
- The alternative is that his words are bald faced lies and he believes he's all but winking at the "adults in the room" that "of course he'll never actually do this".
  They're both equally horrible, and sadly equally possible.

Russia can't even control it's own military with success, how the fuck are they gonna challenge China and put them on check. Lol this fuckin puppet has the whole arm in him.

US politicians are surprisingly easily bought by foreign adversaries
- The worst thing about American political corruption is exactly how cheap these removed are.
  
  They aren't cheap, they are affordable))))
- Surprising to you

How the actual fuck are the Republicans not getting hammered in the polls?
Americans have been brainwashed for decades with 'communism bad' propaganda, so it seems mind-boggling that Republicans are so willing to give the former Soviet Union any control over Ukrainian soil. Part of the reason we've been fighting back against Russia's invasion with sanctions and equipment donations has been because they've been NATO's ideological enemy for decades.
- I've actually seen a shirt that says "I'd rather be Russian than Democrat."
  
  At this point being a Republican should be considered synonymous to being part of a conspiracy to commit treason and be treated as such.
  
  So have I.
  I'm not even from the same continent and it hurts my head to think of how a party whose supporters are synonymous with highly patriotic rednecks are willing to continue supporting their team after they've shown a categorical willingness to sell out to the enemy.
  Like... I truly think some big corporation has put something in our food or drink that is making us terminally stupid.
  
  A direct result of IRA/GRU/KozyBear(?), etc., disinfo and influence brainwashing social media campaigns.
  Social media is a hellofadrug to the poorly educated.
  
  So Ronald Reagan's grave is a gender neutral bathroom and a power generator? Wow!
- Because if the other team wants something it must be bad, so they oppose them. No matter how much they cut their nose they will spite their own face.
  
  https://youtu.be/B46km4V0CMY?si=mjpzUg03CKPdLxjK
- The Republicans are more or less split on this issue. With the Trumpians being isolationist and not wanting to meddle and the Mitt Romneys wanting to keep the war machine humming along.
  Nikki Haley, a Republican Romney-ist candidate at the RNC debates last week criticized Ramaswamy
  “You are choosing a murderer over an ally of the U.S"
  His response was
  “I wish you success on your future career on the boards of Lockheed and Raytheon,”
  If you look at certain polls, there are early signs that Americans may be slowly losing fervor for the war and less and less are supporting increasing aid to Ukraine - feeling that the US has done enough.
  Trump and his cronies / wannabes are likely betting on that sentiment becoming more widespread. And historically, they are probably right to bet on it. People eventually get war fatigue. However, it could take a very long time before that leads to an actual policy change. Look how long Vietnam or Afghanistan lasted. These things can go on for decades before the government pulls the plug - even through years of public dissatisfaction.
  So who knows? The Republicans seem to be having a little war of their own

Dont give this stupid ass a platform. Just dont talk about him. All the negative press is what gave credence to Trump by the anti crowd.
- 100% THIS.
- I think it's a little too late for that at this point. And I doubt posting this on Lemmy will get anyone to vote for him.

- You know whats the funny thing here?
  Republicans at this point are just fighting over who will be the worst and most fucked up and evil mother fucker?
  Thats what attracts the republican voters.

Of course, because Republicans get money from Russia to betray their country. What's sad is that it doesn't take much.

We're not seeing this motherfuckers tax returns.
- I cant read cyrillic anyway.

sounds like a russian asset
- Sounds more like a Putin's ass
  
  Same thing

These debates seem more and more like massive focus groups. They get the non-contenders to say preposterous things with two goals: see what sticks and propagate lies.
- It's the one part of Idiocracy we're actually performing.
  Elections are no longer about who's the best for the job. It's now a popularity contest. Intelligence and capability mean nothing anymore.
  And honestly I partially blame Obama for being to relaxed with the memes. Yeah it was funny af but it opened the gates to what we have now.
  It's like how satire can quickly become real. So... Thanks Obama..
  
  Modernizing engagement by going on talk shows and using social media is smart. The message is what makes the difference. Republicans stopped caring about a message that progressed the country around Bush jr. Ever since then been a decline into tribalism and gaslighting. At least Obama ran on something positive.
  
  Elections are no longer about who’s the best for the job.
  They were never about that. It was about which person will get my group what I want. The country could do fine for a long time without any political leadership. The mechanisms of government would just continue to operate. Look at the last admin, how many empty posts were there. I bet your trash still got picked up, I bet you still had to pay taxes, etc.

Who the fuck does he think is. The US has zero rights to do anything like this.
- Right or not, there's a good chance Ukraine would not be standing today without US support. Of course other countries are also giving aid but US tops the chart by a large margin. see here $76 billion in aid as of June this year for a country whose GDP in 2020 was about $150 billion. They're running at a massive deficit and barely holding on as it is.
  Should the US decide to go to Ukraine and say "hey, we're cutting you off. should probably surrender with these xyz conditions" they would be forced to seriously consider their position.
- Imagine being dumb enough to vote for someone like that.

I'm not into US politics other than the basics, but let me tell every American that the consequences of something like this happening will be catastrophic, and then you'll "fight" China alone, if not with more opponents.
Trump was already a huge liability to European foreign policy, if it happens again, the EU will dissociate from the US, weaponize and go nuclear. The eastern countries will enter direct conflict with Russia eventually (sooner than later), and the whole continent will get dragged into the war. At the end who ever is left will not support the US, actively be against it, and have nuclear weapons.
- In terms of European nuclear weapons, the UK and France already have their own nuclear arsenals. But the broader content of your comment is bang on.
- So you're saying I should support Trump to stop the US empire. Interesting proposal.
  'Course that assumes US allies aren't already looking for the exists regardless of the next election...
  
  Not the OP, but they never said to support Trump. In fact, they said he was also bad.

How fucking removed is this guy?
Russia would make all the promises in the world until the US pulls all its support and resources from Ukraine. Once Ukraine falls, Russia would just tell the US to go fuck themselves and ally with China anyway.
Not that this whack job has a chance of becoming President and actually trying this shit, there's a less than 0% chance of it actually working.
- Oh their chances are low, but never zero.
  
  Look at his skin color and name.
  There’s a negative chance that republicans turn out for him.
  
  His chances of becoming President? Yes, those chances are nonzero. Low, but not nonexistent.
  But that wasn't what I was saying. The chances of Russia abiding by such an agreement not to align with China are less than 0%. His plan has a less than zero chance of becoming reality even on the off-chance he actually gets a chance to try.
  
  It's called approaching zero in mathematics
- I definitely get the impression he is running for Trump's VP more than he is for president.
  
  You think trump would want a name he won't ever learn to pronounce, much less spell, on his ticket?
- Here, I fixed it for you
  Putin would make all the promises in the world until the US pulls all its support and resources from Ukraine. Once Ukraine falls, Putin would just tell the US to go fuck themselves and China will annex Russia anyway.
  
  Vladivostok? More like Hǎishēnwǎi

This goes to show how utterly devoid of critical thinking capabilities those who vote for Republican candidates are.
It is clear their thoughts are no deeper than, Republican representative said this thing good, so must be good. Democrats bad, so Republican TV man must tell truth.
I've seen fucking Chimpanzees with better reasoning skills then these fucking clowns.

Can we give this turd to Russia instead?
- But he's already Russia's turd?

Fuck this moron.

Luckily it’s not his to give.

Never vote Conservative/Republican/Tory or whatever name these RW crazies choose.

How the fuck have so many people never read a history book?
- Guys like Vivek don't care about history because it's not new or exciting.
  
  It is couter to their perogative. Lie, lie, lie, lie and lie some more its not an argument its just full on say anything at whatever opportunity. just say shit that doesn't even make sense and defend it. Its not stupidity, its a strategy. He knows the base just go with anything violent, racist, bigot related, you know all the most vile parts that humanity has to offer.
- it's because he wants russian dark money

Vivek Ramaswamy is one of the more unappealing politicians I’ve seen in quite some time… which means that he will likely rocket up the GOP polls
- You'd probably be right about that... if he were white.
  
  Agree 100%. There’s no way this guy is getting the conservative vote - based purely on his skin tone.
- Yeah WTF is this nightmare reality.
- Yeah, his popularity went up after the debates and people saw all these horrible ideas. What the hell is wrong with people?

And why exactly are we giving fascists a platform?
- Nothing wrong with a platform. It's the lack of trapdoor I object to.
  
  My platform will be one high enough to push ~~Vicki~~ fascists off to their deaths.
  Maybe with some spikes at the bottom for good measure. You can't be too careful.
- We are doing it right now by upvoting this content. It's the same shit that happened with Trump. People kept him in the news cycle cause he kept doing off the walls shit. We just need to downvote and ignore him. If conservatives see that this guy is effective at triggering liberals they will support him purely on that merit
- I think they are worse than fascists

EU sanctioning the fuck out of the US in 3, 2, 1...

This idiot watched Trump sucking off the Russians and thought that was why he was popular, so he's gonna go ahead and double down.
How the Republicans of all people have managed to turn into the PRO RUSSIA party I can hardly fathom. For all their rampant flag waving and mindlessly spouted "Support our troops" drivel, they'd have been the last ones to kowtow to Moscow. In the end of course, I Do understand. It's their fanatical worship of Trump, the idea that anyone who doesn't adore Inmate Number P01135809 is just a traitor, and He of course was willing to give the Russians anything and everything they wanted to keep that kompromat from being released. So, Republicans have just internalized the idea that Russians Good, just because Inmate P01135809 said so.
And of course because Democrats have been supporting anti-Russian policies. Republicans would rather be traitors than collaborate with the Democrats.
- I think it's because the current incarnation of Russia is their dream form of governance: a veneer of democracy, over an Oligarchy, where the ones with the most money end up making all the rules. (It's critical to note that most of these Republicans think of themselves as Oligarchs-in-training.) And a populace which is used to all that, and won't question things, at least openly. A place where you can make your opposition just go away by saying they are corrupt, and locking them up in Siberia.
  And a place where it you want to whip up some nationalist unity, you just start a war for no good reason. (Well, at least on this point, Dubya gave the Republicans a head start).
- Democrats could be stumping for eating chocolate and every Republican in the country would give it up. But still secretly eat it.

This is what a Russian Muppet looks like… naturally he’s a Republican.

“ in exchange for Russia exiting its military alliance with China”
OMG, so funny. That is even more unlikely than this tool becoming POTUS and I am not sure that would happen even if the rest of them were tragically killed.

If he thinks that Russia will break their military cooperation with China, he is even more stupider that Trump and Biden combined..

how many Russian agents they got in that party now
- YES
  
  ваше здоровье!

"I'll suck Putin's dick so hard it will make ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆ blush"
-This guy

Why is he backing a losing side?
- It$ hard to really $ay why anyone doe$ anything, maybe he really think$ that $tability in europe can only be reached by conceding territory to the mo$t agr$$sive and dangerou$ belligrrant. Who know$.

You can't give away what you can't control

I see Vivek Ramaswamy is gunning to be the Neville Chamberlain of the 21st century. Giving Putin what he wants is like trying to appease Hitler. Putin's expressed ideology is for Russia to conquerer Europe. He is not going to stop with the Donbas region or Ukraine. The best thing for everyone, including the Russian people, is for Russia as we know it to collapse into smaller countries.
This video by Kraut does a good job explaining Putin's ideology.
Not to mention by supporting Ukraine, the US is sending a clear message to China that they will be met with force if they try invade Taiwan. It doesn't benefit anyone other than Russia and China to work with them and give them what they want. Dictatorships are always going to be incentivized to backstab democracies. Democracies are going to champion human rights, where as other dictatorships will look the other way. So no matter how hard you try to separate Russia and China they are always going to be incentivized to work with each other.
And the little cooperation between China and Russia is not worth backstabbing Ukraine over.
- Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=sdFtqa54TuM
  Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
  I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.
- Putin is not Hitler, for many reasons, but chief among them is his incompetency. Hitler didn't get bogged down in czechoslovakia for a year. Putin has almost no chance of conquering the whole of Ukraine, much less the entirety of Europe.
  
  Yeah no Putin rushed that one and has been interfering in his generals' decisions from day one. There's tons of incompetence in the Russian army but Bakhmut levels of strategic self-owns, no, we can safely assume that that kind of stuff was a political decision.

Hahahaha, he'll get Russia to sever military alliances with China eh? I'm sure they'll kindly pack up their things and leave Ukraine alone, just like they did in 1991. Putin has showed his hand. He's not to be trusted with any diplomatic issue. He will not abide by American rhetoric. Negotiating terms where Ukraine is blocked from joining NATO simply signals to the West's enemies that if you're able to make inroads, we'll make concessions. It's ultimately as weak piss of a foreign policy as it gets.

I'd rather kick America out of it's own NATO before blocking Ukraine, jesus crust.

Given how many jokes I've made about Trump ordering Ukraine to "just surrender" in a second term, I'm not mad, I'm just sad that my low opinion of the world is justified and accurate.

You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.

Paid by russia

Fuck you Vivek, you fawning douchebag
Is there no remotely sane candidate in the Republican party? It's not even a matter of supporting bad policies anymore, they have literally lost their minds and betray the very values this country is supposed to stand for

He is the ultimate grifter...I wonder what kind of donation that got from the NRA.

I don't get why he thinks Russia would end a military alliance after being given everything they want without having to end that alliance. And what makes him think other nations won't still back Ukraine? We would just be putting ourselves on the wrong side of history and on the wrong side of the war.
- And what makes him think other nations won’t still back Ukraine?
  That's the weirdest thing about this. His whole plan assumes Ukraine will just say "Ok Vivek, we'll just stop fighting because you want to be friends with Putin!"
  Only thing he'd accomplish is making the war drag on for years longer. This guy is so gullible he believes the Russian propaganda that tells him that Ukraine is a US puppet.
- History is for nerds. Paying attention to how appeasement turned out for the world back in the mid-20th century won't get you airtime.
- Its weird that that is not 0% chance.

I'm so glad he feels confident enough to do such a thing.
You would have thought that not been Ukrainian would make him think he has no right to make that decision, fortunately not.
- Yeah. The USA is the one supplying the most monetary help, but I doubt Ukraine would just give up, if that help stopped.
  
  US is supplying the most military hardware, the EU leads when it comes to finances.

This guy has no idea what geopolitics is and how the East is playing it.
- Yes he does. He just does not care. This guy is evil, not stupid. He has said many, many smart things before. He can sound pretty compelling saying super crazy shit now. Not an idiot.
  He listened to all the people that said “can you imagine what a smarter Donald Trump would be like” and though “ya, let’s go for it”.
  The only saving grace is that he is also at about zero percent chance of becoming President.
  
  Could be VP and then....
  
  "Not stupid"
  After seeing what the Republican party has done over the past 30 years I'd have to disagree with you there.

"in exchange for Russia exiting its military alliance with China."
"...You're questioning if is Russia is good on its commitments? Who had every heard of Russia not following through with its promises? What? Budapest memo-what?" -Ramaswamy probably

It will never not blow my mind that people alive during the cold War and all that drama are like yeah... liberal Americans are the enemy! We have more on common with Russia so we feel comfortable backing them in anything.

My thing have changed since the Cold War.
- Mine too :(
  
  I swear I spend more time correcting autocorrect than actually typing now, and it's still not enough.

He can't realistically win potus, so he's only running to angle for {ed: Worst. Ever.} Sec of State position in the next GQP admin
- Oh god, you're probably correct. I hope something unfortunate happens to him to spare the country from years more of this dude's fucking bullshit.

This fairy tale world where this dude thinks he can get “Russia to exit its military alliance with China”, this seems temping. But if this chucklefuck thinks that’s going to happen, then I’ve got 5 bridges to sell him.
- Hes going to need them to cross that five-head of his.
  He's the Wish version of Megamind.

I guess fuck Ukraine's right to self-determination?

why is it this dinguses decision

The guy is brown and his name isn't something they can pronounce. There is not a snowballs chance in hell that this guy would even be a possible front runner for a spot to even say he is competing with Trump for the nomination.
Hillary Clinton has better odds of winning the Republican nomination.
- Nikki Haley is Nimarata Randhawa and plenty of Republicans support her...
  
  And there is a reason she goes by Nikki Haley.

Oh I'm sure China would be absolutely thrilled if the US was soft on Russia.