Don't blame me, I voted for the other guy. (Politics General)

BadgingBadger
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@Cosmas-the-Explorer
My theory is that sectors of the American ruling class see the recent industrialization of Mexico and its gradual slipping out of the US orbit with concern for the future of their dominance over the area. Knowing how they often apply the same “containment” strategy to their own rivals (see, Russia wrt Ukraine and China wrt some of its neighbors, such as Taiwan), there is palpable fear that the US’ rivals, in seeing chances for diplomatic bargaining with Washington slip away, could finance an estrangement between Mexico and the US and create a hostile military force on their very doorstep. Ensuring US control over the waterways in the Caribbean and the American portion of the Pacific could secure American hegemony over a sector of the New World in the middle of a time period in which US global dominance seems less secure and more threatened than before, or so Trump and his acolytes think.
Today they blare on and on about the drug cartels being such a force, but if things go wrong, it could be the Mexican government itself. Trump’s tendency to lump both of them in the same box, his professed “doctrine” for transactional diplomacy and his musing in a rally last year about installing a version of Israel’s Iron Dome on the US-Mexico border could be a sign of how things are changing, though i don’t believe he’s the prime mover of this sort of thing himself.
BadgingBadger
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In short, in Trump’s mind his predecessors spent too much time focusing on far-away threats in Europe and not enough on securing the US’ influence over Latin America while it seems to slip away into China’s orbit. Back in mid-2022, after Biden refused to invite Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua to the Summit of the Americas for example (not without understandable justification), Mexico’s president Antonio M.L Obrador announced he would not attend the conference either. His boycott was followed by the presidents of Bolivia, El Salvador, Uruguay, Guatemala, and the PM of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. They still sent delegations, but headed by ambassadors and secretaries, not heads of state. While this does not in itself imply that these are all firmly enemies of the US, it does seem to imply that their leverage over the US has increased and that they feel safer in displaying autonomy and disobedience instead of kowtowing to Washington.
Claudia Sheinbaum, for her part, hasn’t been a pushover either. NAFTA is bound to see a lot of turbulence soon.
Background Pony #F867
Deletion reason: Rule #6 - Don't hot link. If you want to talk about it and provide a link to the external info, do so.
Background Pony #F867
Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.) will introduce a bill that would authorize the president to purchase the Panama Canal and put it under U.S. control, an acquisition that President-elect Trump has been pushing over the last several weeks.
Johnson plans to introduce the “Panama Canal Repurchase Act” on Thursday, The Hill has learned.
“President Trump is right to consider repurchasing the Panama Canal. China’s interest in and presence around the canal is a cause for concern,” Johnson said in a statement. “America must project strength abroad – owning and operating the Panama Canal might be an important step towards a stronger America and a more secure globe.”
The bill would authorize the president, in coordination with the Secretary of State, to “initiate and conduct negotiations with appropriate counterparts of the Government of the Republic of Panama to reacquire the Panama Canal for the symbolic amount of $1,” according to draft text shared with The Hill.
The $1 amount is an apparent reference to a symbolic sale of the canal that was accompanied by numerous other provisions in the Carter-Torrijos Treaties signed in 1977 that transferred control of the canal to Panama. Trump in December had complained that about the deal signed by former President Carter, saying that he “foolishly gave it away, for One Dollar.”
The bill also directs the president to submit a report to Congress within 180 days of passage “detailing the progress of the negotiations” as well as the “potential challenges” and “anticipated outcomes.” Fox News first reported Johnson’s plans to introduce the bill.
Trump on Tuesday refused to commit to not using the U.S. military to take control of the Panama Canal.
“I’m not going to commit to that. It might be that you have to do something,” Trump said in a press conference from Mar-a-Lago. “Look, the Panama Canal is vital to our country, it’s being operated by China, China. And we gave the Panama Canal to Panama, we didn’t give it to China.”
Despite Johnson’s bill, the idea of the U.S. taking control of the Panama Canal — as well as acquiring Greenland — is facing skepticism from other Capitol Hill Republicans.
“I think he was speaking aspirationally,” Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) said recently about Trump’s ambitions of taking control of the Panama Canal and Greenland.
CaptainXtra
Lunar Supporter - Helped forge New Lunar Republic's freedom in the face of the Solar Empire's oppressive tyrannical regime (April Fools 2023).

I’m not giving up.
@Angrybrony
Now I’m reminded of the ELON IS ANOTHER XEHANORT meme:
But seriously, it was funny when these dickheads weren’t actually in positions of government but now it’s just mostly painful.
CaptainXtra
Lunar Supporter - Helped forge New Lunar Republic's freedom in the face of the Solar Empire's oppressive tyrannical regime (April Fools 2023).

I’m not giving up.
Sorry for double posting this shit warrants immediate attention in it’s own post:
The conservative think tank told prospective donors that the project was part of its work to combat antisemitism
The Heritage Foundation, a prominent conservative think tank, plans to “identify and target” Wikipedia editors who it believes are engaged in antisemitism, according to documents obtained by the Forward.
Background Pony #3E47
Trump in December had complained that about the deal signed by former President Carter, saying that he “foolishly gave it away, for One Dollar.”
Anyone else think that the only reason Trump cares about this is because former President Carter got a little bit of good press coverage last year and that thin skinned walking Narcissistic Personality Disorder can’t handle anyone but him being talked about?

I mean there’s more than likely some other reason, but it honestly would not surprise me at all if Jimmy bumped him to the second news story of the day at some point in 2024, and Trump swore eternal vengeance and sent some lackey to find something he could attack him on.
Dustcan
Magnificent Metadata Maniac - #1 Assistant
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Dogs
The only other excuse I’ve seen is that Trump is finally but s l o w l y reading a history book over the last few years and becomes enthralled at the idea of recreating what he’s read, like a child wanting to act out scenes in a cartoon they’ve just watched. ‘What if this thing, but with me!’
Canada and the White House, tariffs and the guilded age, the Spanish Flu, well he’s always been a big fan of Germany circa 1933-1945, Panama and the Panama Canal, etc.
The big hole is it hinges on Trump being able to read let alone willing to, but it is very amusing to think that when/if Trump ever reaches 2009-2017 American history he’ll come out and declare that he’s the first black president.
Wiimeiser
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@Meanlucario
I don’t know. Socialism in theory, but actually imagining it is like describing a rhinoceros to a Viking, you’ll get a unicorn. And this can be blamed solely on Kissinger.
Background Pony #6471
@Wiimeiser
With this, i’m now wondering what the right would do to Glim Glam. Probably charge her (and maybe ponies who want “harmony”) with treason, declare them enemies of the state, and preemptively sentence them to death.
Kazapsky
Lunar Supporter - Helped forge New Lunar Republic's freedom in the face of the Solar Empire's oppressive tyrannical regime (April Fools 2023).

Five scoops of ice cream
On a small (village) scale it can work. At a national level? Not really, no. The problem is communism runs somewhat counter to human nature.
Humans, as with any animal, are hardwired to grab what they can for themselves and their family/tribe/whathaveyou. In many cases, this extends to exploiting whatever economic system you’re working under. Hence why so many companies make bank helping people squeeze everything they can out of an income tax return.
Communism, at the fundamental level, is “to each according to need, from each according to ability”. Makes sense on paper, and can even work in small communities where everyone knows each other. But it’s a hilariously easy system to exploit, by either overstating your need or understating your ability. In small groups, simple peer pressure can curb a lot of that. But on a larger scale, you need a level of policing that invariably goes overboard in its efforts to make everyone plays fair. You also need to silence those that insist on pointing out that there ARE other systems out there that just plain work better, unless you want to be dealing with uprisings on a regular basis.
In short, works well enough for a local co-op community, does not scale up well at all.
Dustcan
Magnificent Metadata Maniac - #1 Assistant
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Dogs
Worth noting that California cut its firefighter budget by like $1.4 billion but raised the police budget by $1.5 billion last year.
How’d that work out for Malibu? Well, one of the most expensive and ritzy neighborhoods in the world managed to keep the poors out but now it’s an ash pit.
No doubt the NIMBYs think this was worth it.
SleepySteve
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Apples and Pears
For real though anyone who thinks LA is doomed or will never recover from this is just a laughingstock. I’m from a city that was totally burned down by General Sherman; nobody back then expected hundreds of years later that we’d contribute more to US GDP than either Philadelphia or Detroit after that.
In fact, many people thought Atlanta would never be its former self ever again. To their credit, they were right about that; just not in the way they thought.
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