This just makes me reflect on how many Americans, even Trump voters, are basically screaming from the rooftops that Trump is doing real harm to them, and maybe, just maybe, that message will actually be heard.
Then I remember that he’s replaced just about everyone who can get into earshot of him with an echo chamber of what-the-fuckary. Absolute useless humans, who will shield Trump from hearing about any negatives from the decisions he’s making.
Everything they’re saying to the public is spin. It might be based in fact, somewhere in the background, but it’s so far divulged from that truth that it’s difficult to even tell what true thing was spun this hard to generate the things they’re saying. There’s a nontrivial amount of it that’s just outright fabrications.
I’m not an American and I couldn’t vote in the US election. I’m your neighbor to the North and all I could do was watch, in horror, as the vote went to the orange party.
Rewatched the first half of “Civil War” again (shout out to my boy insomnia -.-) last night.
It’s very close to the bone in a lot of places.
it was very disrespectful, that’s not how a host treats a guest.
JD’s tactic is well known in the psychological manipulation menu and it was extremely rude.
he wasn’t even listening, he had his bullshit ready to go. he said “did you ever say thank you” when zelenskyy literally started talking by saying thank you in that very meeting.
american here.
watching the video of trump and vance yelling at an ally in need of help because he said “thank you” at the wrong time is insulting. dear president zelensky: i am so sorry you have to interact with that donut and his side of coffee. you, sir, are a classy fellow who deserves to be respected.
trump and vance yelling at an ally in need of help because he said “thank you” at the wrong time
That isn’t what they were doing at all.
They were yelling at an enemy in hopes of provoking him, in order to manufacture a justification for their own treachery.
As Americans, we need to understand that Trump is unilaterally forcing the US to switch sides – to betray NATO and join Russia and North Korea as pariah dictatorships – and we need to decide what we’re going to do about it.
No, I think it goes deeper than that. They have no loyalty to America, they have loyalty to their ideology. This is why they sympathise with the AfD, Brexit and the rest. They seek control only to enrich themselves. Russia isn’t an ally, it’s an aspiration
Here’s the kicker, Russia as it stands today, is an all American creation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shock_therapy_(economics)
In post-Soviet Russia and other post-Communist states, neoliberal reforms based on the Washington Consensus resulted in a surge in excess mortality and decreasing life expectancy, along with rising economic inequality, corruption, and poverty. Isabella Weber of the University of Massachusetts said: “As a result of shock therapy, Russia experienced a rise in mortality beyond that of any previous peacetime experiences of an industrialized country.”: 2 The Gini ratio increased by an average of 9 points for all post-Communist states. The average post-Communist state had returned to 1989 levels of per-capita GDP by 2005, although some are still far behind that. In Russia, the average real income for 99 percent of people was lower in 2015 than in 1991.: 2 According to William Easterly, successful market economies rest on a framework of law, regulation, and established practice, which cannot be instantaneously created in a society that was formerly authoritarian, heavily centralised, and subject to state ownership of assets.
Exactly. They were hoping that Zelenskyy wouldn’t just turn the other cheek. Because if Zelenskyy got agitated, they would use it as justification for cutting all ties.
Take up arms.
As a Canadian, we might just build a border wall… Mainly to keep the crazy out of our country.
And make the US pay for it. But please build it after I illegally cross.
Add a wide ass minefield.
Good idea.
Can we block Faux news at that border wall too?
Please??
I couldn’t even make it through a minute without rage building up and had to turn off the video. That he could sit there and put up with that ridiculous circus without getting up and leaving or punching them in the face is amazing. I could not do that. I’m pissed off again writing this and being reminded of the short video I watched.
I couldn’t watch that shit either. Gotta admit, I’m a little relieved that it is the general consensus that they were being major dicks.
If you can give it another look it’s worth it to just see how adept and tough Zelenskyy is, they couldn’t shake him and get him to make a real error. They come out looking terrible and most folks will like Zelenskyy more than ever.
When someone gets you a really crappy birthday present but your parents make you write a thank you letter anyway.
Can you imagine that some idiots were turned against Zelensky - it’s insane. One of true contemporary heroes.
This isn’t debasement. This is manners.
Manners are about you thanking the host, not about the pigs you dined with. Sometimes. The host IS the pig. But it’s still about you, so cast them some pearls.
Then I have no manners and am fine with it.
That’s fine, just don’t seek leadership. Zelenskyy is a class act for this and I’m all the more ashamed of America for it.
You’ve been downvoted, but you’re right.
Folks, this is what debasement is:
debasement noun
The act of debasing or the state of being debased; a lowering, especially in character or quality.
What Zelenskyy did was the exact opposite of that: by putting his personal pride aside for the good of Ukraine despite Trump and Vance trying to double-team him with the worst bullying they could muster, he showed incredible strength of character and statesmanship.
Make no mistake: this was not Zelenskyy showing weakness or fealty towards Trump. This was Zelenskyy jumping through the hoops necessary to deny the bullies credibility for their claims that he was not cooperating towards peace. His graciousness just sets him further above them, in terms of diplomatic credibility.
In the damn near no-win scenario Zelenskyy is in, this was as close to a victory as he could possibly have hoped for.
It’s debasement because trump deserves no such respect. His character should never have to include bowing to this faux king. But on all accounts you are correct and I will humbly change my title if you ask.
You’re right that Trump deserves no respect and that Zelenskyy shouldn’t have to bow to him. And to be honest, I’m not sure what the best word to replace “debase” would be. Maybe “prostrate” would be slightly better, in the sense that it has more of a connotation of being coerced instead of willing? I don’t know that it’s enough of an improvement to be worth an edit.
I’m not sure if English has a single word that fully conveys “performative capitulation to the petty demands of a small man in order to outmaneuver him diplomatically.”
He’s not showing Trump respect, he’s showing respect to the office of president and to the American people.
You do not think that Zelensky “lowered himself” by absorbing all that abuse, not responding to it at all, and instead praising his abusers? You can describe that as “manners” or “self control” or “civilized” or whatever else you want, and all those things may be true, but it doesn’t change the fact that he lowered himself. He acted as though he were socially beneath Trump and Vance. We can all see that. Yes, it was the correct thing, and the dignified thing to do. But to claim he didn’t lower himself, didn’t debase himself, is warped. It’s trying to spin the situation by denying the obvious, recasting it as something else.
I disagree. He didn’t lower himself, he acted like the only grown up in the group while the others were throwing hissy fits
The EU policy secretary (I don’t remember the exact position) said after that meeting that the free world needs a new leader and she hopes Europe is up for the challenge.
The EU has spent more on Russian oil and gas than it has committed to Ukraine. Why has the EU failed to make any significant diplomatic progress in the past three years? Meanwhile, it takes Donald Trump only a month to bring everyone to the table, and yet his approach seems to draw criticism. What accounts for this disparity?
I don’t know, “unconditional surrender” and “extortion” don’t sound like good diplomacy, but maybe it’s just me.
Go on troll, GIT. GIT OUTTA HERE, GIT
Bad troll.
what’s trump’s asshole really taste like?
smells like shit from here, but your tongue so far up his rectum I bet you’ve got the inside scoop
He precisely DID NOT bring Ukraine to the table.
Wow you’re a real scumbag
I like how he thanked the president on the social media platform he owns, that’s a nice touch.
I don’t get it, what happened?
Baiscally, POTUS invited Zelenskyy to the White House for a meeting to discuss potential terms for a peace deal with Russia. In a press conference, Trump and Vance basically blamed Zelenskyy for the war, told him that by not capitulating to US and Russian demands, he was gambling with WWIII, said that Ukraine doesn’t have any “cards” - that they can’t have a say in peace deals involving them, and literally started yelling at him and lost any sense of decorum.
It was a… bad… PR and diplomatic decision. It weakens US leadership globally, further erodes soft power, is going to make China evaluate if Taiwan has “cards” in the way that Ukraine does not, etc. It was disastrous for US foreign policy and further marks a decline in its importance glabally.
So they tried to bully him into selling out his country for a temporary peace? Didn’t they know that Zelenskyy has balls?
No, they mostly succeasfully bullied him into giving away their mineral rights, and then when he showed up and said “this will guarantee peace, right?” they started screaming at him like enraged babboons on live television.
The whole thing was a setup, designed to catch Zelensky on TV being ungrateful and uncooperative, but he played them like fiddles and absolutely destroyed any standing the administration may have had left with Europe.
Trump and Vance lack any balls at all, so of course they don’t recognize someone who does.
If you find the full unedited versions you can watch two terrible US elected officials try to treat Zelenskyy like an adversary, talking down to him, talking over him, and spreading Putin’s talking points. Zelenskyy handled it well, probably biting his tongue, and showed what an actual leader looks like.
As he said a cease fire with Russia means nothing, because Putin didn’t honour it previously.
Can you give a link or are they being censored by official media?
They’re not familiar with testicular fortitude so no, they had no idea.
They probably still think they “showed him” or something.
They assume that they are good at being bullies.
Just because they try to be bullies and act like tough guys doesn’t mean that people are going to just sit there and take it, though. Especially when they’re dealing with someone who actually is both tough and smart.
Zelensky went to the white house for a mineral deal in exchange for security guarantees.
Then Trump said you have no leverage and sent Zelensky away. Probably forgetting about the minerals which were Zelensky leverage.
Open any news site and look for Zelenskyy?
I could, but I’m holding a baby right now
If you’re typing out these responses, you might be able to search up the info lol. Zelensky met with Trump and Vance at the White House. People are raging at Trump and Vance. That’s the best summary I have.
Trump is such a dingus
Put the baby down.
I know several effective insults if you need help.
And yet you are able to reply to the comments. Curious.
You got me! I actually duckduckgoosed an article from a non-American source and boned up on the sitch
Fucking moron keeps bringing up Hunter Biden even in peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine. What a disgrace Trump is.
A very small part of me wants to believe the “he’s playing 4D chess, he’s six moves ahead, and we just can’t see his next play yet” MAGAts. Because the only other alternative is that he’s a fully senile idiot who holds the most powerful seat in the country. And unfortunately for my sanity, I know his actions are not due to genius.
At the beginning of Trump’s first term I suspected a Boris Johnson style idiot facade, but it soon became clear it was real.
Was it a facade with Boris?
His GPA at Fordham was 1.28
While it probably was in that ballpark cuz he’s an idiot, that transcript image that made the rounds a bit ago was a forgery, so it’s unknown what his gpa was. Plenty of provable real stuff that shows him to be a moron, however.
As someone who graduated college with a 2.7 and is leagues smarter than Trump, I can at least corroborate anecdotally that his GPA was sub 1.0.
Another good indicator that he didn’t do well, is the fact that he didn’t release it himself.
He is 100% the kind of person who if he did at least mediocre in the universities he would have posted the gpa’s himself, but he hasent which makes me think that he was easily bottom of the barrel gpa wise
It’s the same reason that I firmly believe he cooks his books for taxes, if he wasn’t he would be in everyone’s face that they were wrong.
They’re attempting to extort Ukraine for their own personal benefit by using our tax money to do it. The worst part is that they sat around and rehearsed that shit.
My personal theory is much darker than that: They got aggressive in the hopes that they could provoke Zelensky into talking back. So they could then clip it and use it as justification for cutting ties and handing the country to Russia. Trump is obviously acting like a Russian asset, but pulling a complete 180 on the Ukraine thing will need to be justified somehow. This was their attempt at justification.
Trump is way better at this.
He’s willing to debase an entire country!
😏
I am so profoundly ashamed to be an American right now.
I honestly don’t want to say I am an American anymore, yet I am a full on (non-white) citizen.
I feel like a lot of the world is feeling some sort of satisfaction like “we told you the USA fucking sucked”
I’ve been ashamed to be an American since I could understand what was being said on the news. We’re really quite an evil country.
I can’t even begin to describe how profoundly ashamed I am to be “represented” by this piece of human garbage.
Fuck every last person who voted for them.
You just “your mom” 'd so many people with that last sentence. 😂
I hope you guys can channel that shame into enough action to fix your country.
Preferably before these “elected representatives” start a shooting war on your behalf.
America’s political system has reached a breaking point with Trump. There is simply no precedent right now for what he’s doing. Typically, we can vote roughly every two years to re-balance major problems in our government (a push and pull between red and blue, so to speak). If enough Republicans see the damage he’s doing, they actually can vote against their party, and/or push their representatives to impeach Trump.
But the problem is our representatives are not representing us. THIS has been going on for years - even Obama didn’t represent his constituents, though he tried to keep up appearances, and that was important in and of itself. But, I digress, even if those of us opposing Trump in the States can convince our idiot family members and neighbors to drop their support for Trump, there’s little chance their representatives will listen. Those people are entangled in a web of self service, bribes, and extortion.
In short, America is run by corrupt leaders and enough of them do not intend in any way to represent their constituents. The democrats (THE defense against Trump) are also corrupt. We had a chance to put Bernie on the ballot, and they steamrolled his campaign and shoved Biden in there instead of Bernie, despite immense support for him. Biden is THE reason Trump won at this stage. If we had an enigmatic leader, he or she would have never lost a re-election campaign.
So now here we are today… America has in many ways fallen at this point. I believe it can still be fixed, but the right combination of force needs to be applied both internally, and externally. If this can’t be achieved, and the people of my country can’t do what needs to be done, then it will likely come down to violence, and the destabilization (and potential splintering) of the worlds most advanced and monied military… that is an incredibly frightening thought for the entire world.
As for Ukraine… it has more support than the Ukainians may know. I have a family member that never budges on Trump, and the first time I’ve EVER heard them speak against Trump was yesterday, when I asked them how they felt about Trump pulling support from Ukraine. I hope this is a crack in the hate machine Trump has generated. If it is, then even with Trump in power, support may return to Ukraine, or we may expel Trump with the help of his own voters. That’s very optimistic… but well, sometimes hope is all you got. Until we fix things, I can only hope Europe can provide the support Ukraine needs.
If anyone knows a good Ukrainian charity, I’d love to help raise money in my community. I found this one, in case anyone can weigh in? https://u24.gov.ua/ <-- Good donation source?
So Americans CAN feel shame wrt their federal government! What an absolutely unexpected discovery, after all these years.
If you voted Democrat, or for some reason weren’t able to vote, don’t be.
Counterpoint: you should have been ashamed a long, long time ago.
I’m absolutely disgusted and enraged.
James_Franco_First_Time.jpg
Can you please use the PNG next time? 🙏
It’s said POTUS instead of President Trump, so it’s not a valid thanks for Trump.
what’s the specific context here?
It’s . . . stunning.
Can someone fact check him about the Obama gave sheets, Trump gave Javelins? I’m not really clear on whether Trump was in office at all when the Javelins were handed to Ukraine.
No this is correct. Obama was much more restrained towards Russia, probably keeping in mind the disaster of 8/8/08. He ignored a lot of bad shit that went down in 2014, going against the hawkish members of his own cabinet as well. Lethal aid started under trump
Ah okay, this was during the occupation of Crimea then. It’s not really possible to view that separate from the current situation but arguably, Trump was not in office during this Russian ‘military operation’.
“looking like a dick idiot in front of the world.”
thanks that whole article is bananas, i don’t think i could stand to watch the video though
Literally unwatchable
I watched 11 minutes of it. Normally I don’t yell at a screen unless my work computer freezes and I haven’t save in 10min. I was YELLING at the screen. Like full on crazy man. The audacity to change the narrative to the guy who’s being invaded is astounding.
was at white house today, it’s all over the news
Trump and Vance invited Zelenskyy to the White House, only to talk trash about him.
Vance asked if Zelenskyy has ever thanked for their aid. Zelenskyy responded that he has done that many times.
- while in front of TV cameras for everyone to see.
ah, got it thanks.
“You supported the other campaign” was my holy shit moment.
Like, the country doesn’t belong to you, shitheads. Someone needs to make them realize it.
How could you support someone who unquestionably had your back while your home was being attacked? The nerve.
Trump tried to provoke Zelenskyy to blow up at him, in order to manufacture an excuse to blame the victim for Trump’s decision to ally with Putin.
got it thanks, I read a lot of the transcript, what a piece of shit Trump is.
Also JD tried to use that young republican “debate” tactic where you ask someone a question and then talk loudly over them with nonsense. It was definately rehearsed and he had that stupid smarmy look on his face like a liitle prat. He reminds me of Macaulay Culcin in little rascals when Trump played the dad of the little rich asshole.
What do you mean “debase”? I see an adult acting as one. Maybe it looks a little weird next to the behavior of vhildr.
You must be trying hard not to see it. It wasn’t intended as in insult, perhaps if you can understand that you won’t need to lie to yourself.
Ah. I see. I don’t think “debased” means what you think it means. Cheers
How would you describe it when someone humiliates you in front of the world and then you thank them…because it’s the only viable path forward for your country?
I think what they are saying is that Zelensky did not devalue himself in this moment, that being the meaning of “debase”. He stood up for himself, and in that I’d say he created MORE value within himself.
I think you used the perfect word: Humiliation. Zelensky didn’t do anything ‘wrong’ and was basically yelled at and belittled by “the leader of the free world”.
Hope that makes sense, homie. No shade or anything.
Yeah he sat there and let them humiliate him and talk over him then thanked them.
He doesn’t really have a lot of options, the U.S. govt is compromised. He came out of the meeting looking like a world leader, Trump/Vance came out looking like idiot bullies. It was a nice confirmation to the rest of the world that American interests are no longer aligned with the rest of the world.
And he went on FOX later last night and continued to stand his ground. I think he did the best he could with the cards he had. The dude has a lot of conviction over this war, imagine how hard it would be to hold your tongue to Trumps lying. lmfao I’m surprised he didn’t punch him in the face lol
Nobody is perfect but he did what was needed for his country. He can’t fix the current regime whores but he ensured that the record is clear on what it is going on.
Any adult with half a brain can see through the charade.
With that being said, Ukraine gonna be fucked and Russia benefits from this.
So i doubt Zelensky cares about making history here. But this is how you deal with a bully who has all the tools at his disposal.
Because he is thanking Trump after they treated him like crap. He is doing the adult thing for diplomacy, but had he had no war situation Thanking somebody for being overly douchey to you would be considered debasing yourself
