This is the question.

How improbable is it that he could have made a connection to airport scanners if somebody else told him they were having confusing feelings.

Profit like a motherfucker day.

You think he doesn’t have someone buying the stocks he tanked just before his announcement.

They should have told him if it’s about principles not money, if he is “retiring” then he’ll no longer need his “salary” so he can choose between his allowance and royal accommodation and the pension.

Of course it’s about money. It always is. He is just another entitled wanker who thinks he “deserves” while others “take”.

Tesla: Due to the attacks on our dealerships and stock, we currently only have refurbished cybertrucks to offer. Here is one which has the panels reattached. It’s just like it came out of the factory.

Customer: wasn’t that mine that I just returned?

Tesla: yeah but this time we used gorilla glue. Please ignore the finger prints and hairs that got stuck to it. We let Elon’s kid stick them back on for a photo op. He only got his hand stuck 5 times.

Tesla: alternatively we’ve got this one going cheap. It only has one swastika painted on the side that we couldn’t get off, otherwise it’s brand new.

All you need to do to not need the chlorine wash is to not treat the animals so badly that they shit all over each other due to lack of space. Improve their welfare improve the product, but no. Dollars come first.

I did not mean the toddler thing as a insult, but as an analysis. I genuinely think he can only think in straight lines. Any complexity escapes him. While I agree on the dictator stuff, I do think when he implemented a tariff it’s because he thinks that it will either result in businesses setting up in America, or foreign companies paying. I think he thinks it is a genius move and that he has not thought through all of the possibilities. So although saying he thinks like a toddler like an insult, I didn’t mean it like that. And I will also point out there is a difference between saying he is acting like a toddler to saying he thinks like a toddler.

Boycott Mercedes anyone??

The man thinks like a toddler. “If I put tariffs on goods from other countries, other countries will have to pay to do business here and America will become rich, we are the biggest market so they have to live with what we demand”

He doesn’t think the rest of the world can stand without them or he doesn’t think that reciprocal tariffs will hurt America as bad as they hurt us.

First every company has a cost to produce goods. Typically they cannot go below this. That means putting the tariffs on finished products means the only way non US companies can continue to sell in the USA AND pay the tariff, is to raise the price to the US buyer. If the buyer is the consumer then shit , things get more expensive. If the buyer is a manufacturer based in the USA buying components from abroad, then they have to spend more to built the product, I.e their cost goes up and, shit, things get more expensive. That means the consumer gets hurt or the USA business swallow some of the pain but ultimately both get hurt, because the cost of the goods may become prohibitively expensive reducing the demand. Manufacturing overhead increases as a result so either the company has to fire the newly idle staff or the price goes up. Price goes up and fewer sell again and it gets stuck in a death loop for the business unless it is an essential product that people have no choice but to pay for.

Now the other side of it is that he thinks that imposing the tariffs mean everyone in the USA will buy American and it will be good for American business. Except the USA doesn’t make everything it needs nor can it, at least in the short term. It is not simply a matter of switching suppliers to USA suppliers on the 5th of April. It is a matter of there being no alternative. Any prospective USA based supplier would have to set up a factory, tool up and gain experience in the manufacture of every tyoe of product all of which takes months if not years. Or foreign companies have to establish manufacturer at the cost of millions in a highly volatile country where the rules change on a daily basis. Also any company from overseas is at risk of having any employees who are not white Americans being detained or deported by ICE. Not what could be called a safe bet, or good investment Either way, by the time US suppliers come online the businesses that rely on those parts will very likely have gone under through the increased costs levied on them.

In the mean time, the world outside America is bigger. It will hurt us too, but I expect trade barriers to come down in the rest of the world and non-US manufacturers will be able to find alternative suppliers to the US ones they may currently use.

I was thinking devices like iPhones may become too expensive for people outside the US until I remembered they aren’t manufactured in America, but with all the boycotts which will be exacerbated by reciprocal tariffs, I expect business is going to become very hard for American companies outside the USA.

If I were an American company right now I would be seriously evaluating moving outside the USA. Losing the US market is less harmful than losing the ROTW markets.

At the end of the day, there is an arrogance in these tariffs that says the world needs American goods and services more than America needs the world’s goods and that we will cave before America. We all crave our McDonald’s and Coke and Netflix and Teslas so bad that we’ll give in and play by trumps rules. He thinks that there will be short term pain for long term gain for the USA, but I think it will be like that for the rest of the world and America is in for long term pain.

Ultimately America won’t be the biggest market very soon, because buying power is going to go off a cliff and I think for Americans, it’s going so stay down there. There will probably come a course correction in a few months time when the pain has become so bad for Americans that they demand heads roll. When that happens I don’t think the ROTW is going to just say all is forgiven and go back to how things were. More likely this will cause lasting damage to the US and it’s businesses and the rest of the world will adapt to avoid working with an unstable partner.

You’ve clearly got an axe to grind so I’m gonna leave it here and let OP debate with you if they choose to

Culture can mean different things but the way I read the original post was that the culture being talked about was specifically the arts, and the main discussion about it was clearly censorship.

So the fact that Europe has a violent and bloody history is not relevant to the point that was being made. It is also a fact I don’t think anyone in Europe would want to deny either because if we ever forget the horrors of war we are doomed to sleep walk into another.

There is only a double standard in OPs post if they were trying to pretend Europe has never been violent, but they didn’t address that, they talked about aspects of censorship.

I think the point was more about the double standardz on violence in censorship than it was about whether each region actually is or had been violent. As a famous US show, South Park pointed out almost 30 years ago in 1998…

“horrific deplorable violence is ok as long as nobody says any naughty words”

If he is really concerned with security he should fire Waltz as proof

I meant any incoming administration in 4 years would have to win big in all 3 houses to demonstrate to the world that this 4 years was unwelcome and unexpected. Incidentally that’s also what would be needed to effect the change BUT. A sizable proportion of the US electorate has shown an appetite for what is happening and historically the republicans always seem to do better than they should despite all the horrible shit they do. So I don’t have faith that the next election would go as we hope.

In 2024, despite, or maybe because of his first term, Trump won the popular vote, and project 2025 was also not a secret.

So the question would be, what reform or reforms would convince the rest of the world the USA wouldn’t pull the same moves again?

Donor caps? Media regulation?

The problem is not just getting trump out in 2028, it’s keeping his followers out in 2032, 2036, 2040 etc.

With respect, it will take the US a lot longer than 4 years to rebuild the trust that has been destroyed. Even a return to the norms of the last 75 years, while it would be welcomed by the traditional allies, would mean nothing if it can be reversed so easily again in 8 years and sharing secrets and cooperation with an “ally” like that is dangerous.

Foreign policy changed radically in a matter of weeks. The US is no longer predictable or reliable.

He’s not holding any cards right now. Trump made him a tough guy. He’s gambling with World War 3.

Wait, sounds… Nah forget it.

Except for the fact that he is single handedly responsible for a massive decrease in teslas value. I would not bet on anything he touches because even if he were loved inside the US, he is now despised everywhere else. Tesla was built on left wing progressive ideals and so was spacex, and solarcity, etc etc. Musks turn to the right betrays all of those who liked his companies for ideological reasons. I don’t expect tesla stock to recover any time soon.

“Here is your big mac meal”

“but I ordered a McChicken sandwich”

“don’t worry, our AI suggested swapping your order because it predicted you actually prefer chicken based on your order history which it got from facial recognition when you walked in so we started preparing it before you ordered which also meant we’d get your order out 9.4 second faster! Isn’t it so clever, eh?”

“what about my drink, I didn’t order diet coke?”

“we gave you diet because our AI indicated that you probably have diabetes based on body weight analysis and McDonald’s is committed to healthy eating as well as maximising profits”

“I want to talk to the manager.”

“the manager was replaced by AI last month, corporate felt on site managers were one of the biggest expenditures for the branches and felt AI can offer more value. I’m sure the AI will be able to help you at that terminal over there. If not, we can escalate to the corporate AI which is authorised to offer 1% off coupons and has a slight antisemitism problem…”

“the terminal over there? The one with the queue 30 minutes long?”

“yep, that’s the one. Have a great day!! Oh it looks like our conversation took longer than the time we saved. Oh well, isn’t AI though”

I think Trump had envisaged allies increasing defense funding and using it to buy weapons from him. I think the reality is that European defense contractors are about to expand significantly. While there may be an initial reliance on purchasing military equipment from America, the situation demands western allies reduce their reliance on it. It would be good for the defence industry in e.g. The UK and France if the increased spending bolsters their own economies. It’s not like there haven’t been large projects shared between European partners before. The eurofighter typhoon, the upcoming tempest or the FCAS project mean that Europe would not need to buy F35s or whatever is being offered by America in the future. The increase in funding may accelerate these projects bringing them to service much sooner. That is just aircraft. There are plenty of other areas that European defence contractors can and do collaborate.

The propaganda that American technology is the best, is a bit of an illusion based on the friendships and collaborations with other partners. We don’t need America to have the best weapons. It was just always convenient to have them as a partner and friend who was willing to contribute so heavily. It was perhaps unfair that everyone allowed the US to be the backup but I think that particular aspect of their standing on the world stage is going to change significantly. I don’t think America will become irrelevant, but they will very likely lose a lot of their influence. In the past the US may have been able to force through their agenda with the UN but in future I think that will not be so easy for them. With a big shift away from American products and services which I think is under way, alternatives will become available that challenge their dominance and this will ultimately harm their economy. When their economy is less productive, investors move elsewhere which amplifies the effect. It will take an enormously charismatic president to repair the goodwill and as yet the American public does not seem to favour candidates or that mould. They are more interested in short term stock market gains than long term economic stability.

Risk undermining American leadership?

That already happened. America has significantly diminished standing on the world stage. Leadership requires strength, stability and honour. Leadership is about inspiring others to follow. Trump is seen on the world stage as a problem. His strength, as projected to the rest of the world, is based solely on the machinery and heritage behind him that he is seeking to dismantle. Ironically he said to Zelenskyy, “I made your a tough guy”. Trump is only a tough guy because the US military stands behind him. Stability and honour are clearly gone. The US government won’t even honour it’s own domestic contracts with US citizens and organisations, tariffs or on them off and the stock market is unstable as a result.

Any government dealing with the United States currently has to weigh up whether the deals made will be honoured. Many of them will choose to believe, based on the credit America has built up over centuries, that they will. But we all know that Trump has no qualms about cancelling a contract he decides he doesn’t like.

Over time the EU will move to be self sufficient. America will find it’s influence and GDP diminished as a consequence.

You cannot agree to buy fighter jets from a country that may threaten to change the deal part way through, or remove support. You cannot make trade deals with a country that might decide in 2 years that they didn’t negotiate as well as they could and refuse to hold up their end.

The only reason anyone is still listening to America right now is because the memory of what they used to represent is still so fresh. There is hope that even though Trump says and does one thing, it is just rhetoric and the ocean taker that is the US government cannot be turned so quickly. These hopes assume due progress would be followed.