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Leaked Trump loyalty test demands NATO allies praise him — or lose US protection (www.rawstory.com)
submitted 2 months ago by to c/world@lemmy.world
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One question directly invokes Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's demand that allies stay "strong, clear, and quiet" in alignment with U.S. interests.

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[–] 35 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (17 children)

I hope all our former allies realize that there's NOTHING they can do to restore that protection during the reign of Clown King. No amount of licking his orange balls will work. They must turn away from us and move on as quickly as possible.

Why? Because he spoke in front of the UN general assembly on September 25 2018 and they laughed at him. If you think that's just too stupid an explanation, if you think he can't possibly be that insecure and petty, finish your nap before you reply.

A normal person would feel that humiliation and go through a cycle of emotion, maybe including an initial anger, but would ultimately self-reflect, conclude those world leaders can't all be wrong, and strive to improve. He's not capable.

But why does he keep making up with the dictators of the world after very public spats? Because they've never publicly laughed at him.

His insecurity is paired with a deep feeling of inferiority to all the worlds' leaders. When Kim, Putin, Xi, etc. fight with him, they lower themselves to his level, so even though they're fighting, he feels like they think of him as a peer. When someone laughs at him, he knows that they don't respect him. He knows they can see through his preposterous facade. He can't pretend they don't, like he can with the dictators.

No imminent geopolitical reality exists that will snap him out of it. No amount of his rivals debasing themselves will unring that bell. No protection "deal" will ever be honored because the sting of humiliation can't be salved with signatures.

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  • [–] 17 points 2 months ago (10 children)

    I hope Americans realize Trump and the GOP have changed America's relationship with the world, forever. There is no going back.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    I don’t think people believe it. But he has undone basically everything achieved on global relationship level over the last 100 years. If anything, we are closer to our enemies than our allies.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago*

    Most Americans are too dumb to pay attention to foreign policy. Even if they weren't, it's never even came into the top 5 "issues" mentioned by the electorate during a presidential election for the entire time I have been alive.

    They just literally don't care and think they are insulated from the realities of the rest of the world. Here is a fun fact, like over a third of American adults have never left their country and a tenth of American adults have never left their state.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    I hope countries start kicking Americans out of the bases. Ahh one can dream.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago

    The US is so stupid right now, they'll probably just leave. They're already having major issues supplying their ships in the Indian ocean, this kind of move will make that worse. But they'll still probably do it anyway.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago (3 children)

    Germany and Italy are allowed to be important. You say "no going back" but history suggests a single generation of "normalcy" is enough.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 months ago

    Italy and Germany had suffered a massive millitary defeat, and had strict conditions imposed on them. And they put in the effort to rebuild the world's trust in them.

    Unless the USA is humbled to that level, and does the hard work of fixing the damage Trump and his cronies did, and fixing their country's systems so a megalomaniac fascisst doesn't seize full control again, the world has no choice other than to not trust them.

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  • [–] 8 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    Unfortunately for the US, Trump was elected. Twice. That means US "allies" need to assume a similar character can be elected again in 4, 8, 12… years.

    Since establishing a strong independent defence and matching industry takes years, even decades, US allies would be absolutely fool to attempt any "back to normal" process after Trump.

    The US arms exportations are to collapse until no one really depends on i. It's only a matter of time before alternatives are developed for every critical piece of equipment.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 months ago* (1 child)

    US allies would be absolutely fool to attempt any “back to normal” process after Trump.

    They wouldn't be US allies to begin with if they weren't fools

    We've been doing Trumpism since Nixon. Even under Trump, quite a few US allies are openly in favor of this kind of leadership

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago

    Oh the US have played their fare share of dirty tricks alright to their allies, but at least, until now, that was in exchange of a military insurance. And now, that's gone forever. One cannot ask an enemy to wait 4 years so that maybe the next POTUS would honor defense agreements.

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