1mo ago

In the US, is this actually the moment past the point of no return?

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I think it's possibly the end of Western democracy. If Russia and China stroll through Europe with Trump's help, that's pretty much it, no?
- Naw this is ridiculous.
  Everyone knows it started in the 70s and we’ve been headed down hill ever since. Reality is this country died 60 years ago. It’s just taking awhile for the wheels to fall off the bus.
  
  Kenedy was the coup.
  
  What? When what started?
  It was still the USSR in the 70’s.
  Wrong comment?
  
  Not OP; but probably referring to Nixon normalising relations with China; or maybe negotiating with the Viet Cong to prolong the Vietnam War so that he could be elected?; or the whole Watergate fiasco which directly lead to the creation of Fox News.. I mean, that man is responsible for a lot of our modern ails.
  But if it’s the former, it directly lead to outsourcing production overseas where labour was cheapest, resulting in the gutting of American manufacturing and the entire middle class that depended on it.
  I more personally believe that Nixon severely injured the US, but it was Reagan who shot the killing bullet. But that’s honestly a debate for another time.
  
  It’s a bit like trying to figure out who invented the car but I would tend to agree it’s when people turned their power over to daddy Regan and went shopping after Carter treated them like adults…
  Still don’t get what OP meant vis-à-vis Russia and Europe.
  
  Honestly it sounds like Sino fear-mongering or Tankie wishful thinking.
  It’s easy to forget because it’s made up of a multitude of smaller countries - but Europe has a population of ~750m, and a vastly more coherent and powerful combined military (even if the US were to pull out of NATO).
  Russia can’t currently steam-roll one nation, how on Earth do you think they’d do anything against Poland, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia and Finland - all countries with a deeply (& rightfully) ingrained distrust/hatred of Russia.
  China isn’t likely to risk making themselves an international outcast just to aid Russia - they are more likely to make a play for Taiwan than anything else.
  
  They’ve been Russia’s main aid all along. The no limits agreement?
  https://hir.harvard.edu/chinas-aid-in-the-ukraine-war/
  https://cepa.org/article/russia-and-china-two-countries-one-threat/
  Russia has almost totally shifted to a war-time economy
  https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/15/rate-of-russian-military-production-worries-european-war-planners
  But they’re not fighting a conventional war. They didn’t invade the US or Belarus on foot.
  Once they have Ukraine and US is not supporting NATO it’s not looking good for Europe.
  Der Spiegel agrees
  https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/donald-trump-and-the-new-world-order-the-end-of-the-west-a-b71fa1bd-6147-47a4-8738-5c17eff44a55
  
  There were similar levels of fear and worry when Russia was amassing troops just under the border ahead of their “3-day special operation”. But the truth of the matter is that Russia has shown itself to be a lot weaker as a military force than they purported themselves to be.
  Their internal war-time economy is anyway starting to flounder as the >1.5K daily casualties they are amassing is having a noticeable impact on not only military production, but also civilian and agricultural. (‘ Russia economy crumbling with food prices skyrocketing as Putin's problems mount’ - Express.co.uk).
  They are relying heavily on Iran, China and NK to supplement their falling arms production; and are now also needing to supplement their conscript forces with NK forces.
  Russia has continually been over-estimated, but don’t doubt for a second that it is being cooked like a frog in a boiling pot in a proxy-war solely using Ukrainian forces.
  In the event of a handful of allied European nations joining the war to aid Ukraine, Russia would be expelled from the region quite quickly - but at the cost of additional human lives, which is why the escalations have been so slow.
  
  I hope you’re right. I’ve heard nothing but how weak and poor etc. Russia is but it seems like they have been advancing their plans since Moldova, Georgia, Crimea, Belarus, Ukraine… and only gaining momentum.
- What democracy? The US never had democracy

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