Iran ain’t agreeing to that. It’ll just be Trump imposing a toll immediately after ships leave the strait.

That’s the key thing about your way of thinking: you need me to support one side. The idea of not giving critical support to one side just doesn’t cross your mind.

I love when people throw out basic facts like they expect nobody to know anything. Only you can enlighten us. Only you see the truth of who the real bad states and good states are.

The bigger irony of this is that a Trump actually doing this would further turn the world away from the US. If it was just Iran imposing the toll, over time the international community would sour on Iran for not moving past the war. This would economically benefit the US more than any direct cashflow from a toll ever would, as it would stabilize devestment from America. Now nobody will ever blame Iran for the toll, solidifying the loss in American soft power forever.

It was never free and we were never brave.

Straps for Jesus 🙏

It’s a joke. Trump’s is just only interested in his personal power and bully mindset, not what actually made the empire powerful.

It’s impressive how much Trump seemingly wants China to gain power and the US to lose it.

The 25% will likely never wake up. It’s the 13% or so who enable the 25% who can actually be “flipped”

If what you want is America tasting its own medicine, that’s unlikely. Even if the empire loses most of its international luster, only civil war could bring war to the homeland. That is at least a decade or more away if it ever happens, and by then the villains responsible for this mess will be dead. A civil war between nuclear armed factions would also be a huge crisis, as could the possibility of those weapons ending up in the hands of new villains.

Shit is fucked no matter how you look at it. Hell getting forced onto others never makes things better, as all of the imperial meddling by the US has proven.

Tbf, Taiwan is in increasing danger as everything the US does seems to make it easier for them to invade successfully. The energy crisis is causing countries that might’ve assisted Taiwan to invest in Chinese green energy. Trump proving again and again that past agreements with America mean little under him would make it much harder for America to rally support for a country that isn’t even accepted in the United Nations. It doesn’t help that China has made huge advancements in their Navy and gotten to test their military technology in a couple real conflicts against their American counterparts. It looks increasingly likely that the US won’t have much of a say in protecting Taiwan, no matter how much they try.

On top of that, if China takes Taiwan they’ll take control of the most advanced chips the west has. The US building their entire economy around speculation into AI has made them vulnerable to an economic collapse if China invades. As China’s own chip manufacturing and dominance over the rare earth market increases, they can deliver a fatal blow to American dominance by simply doing what they’ve promised to do for decades. Most of the world will not be that surprised or outraged by their invasion, especially when the US and their allies have engaged in even less justifiable wars of conquest recently.

China can take Taiwan with minimal international blowback while also securing economic dominance in numerous sectors. The main defender of Taiwan will have a spent military from fighting Iran, fewer allies, and a TACO for a leader. It’s sad, but Taiwan is so fucked that them surrendering might be the best thing they can do.

The only silver lining is that the data a noninvasive headset can collect is limited, and only really useful if you can tie it to whatever stimulus the person is experiencing. It’s still scary af if they do manage to get good data from you.

They probably count people like the Unabomber as left wing.

bruh, genuinely where have you been? There is a gestapo loyal to Trump who round up his culture war scapegoats. There are concentration camps that hold immigrants in perpetuity. I could literally get sent to one of those camps for being trans if that gestapo ever carded me, something they could easily do thanks to racial profiling. If that did happen, not only would I be denied my hormones while in captivity, I could be medically tortured by psychoactive drugs in the hope that it causes lasting psychological damage.

I’m sorry, but Trump is already a Hitler like dictator, and you’re ignorant beyond belief if you truly don’t realize that.

So it wouldn’t have been right to kill Hitler even though he took dictatorial control? It can easily be argued that once a democratically elected leader moves to nullify elections, purges non political government positions, and starts to ignore the authority of other elected positions, that their contract as a democratic leader is null and void. We’re already there with Trump on all accounts. Him starting a war without congressional approval should make it obvious that he will take every shred of power the other branches have left given enough time. His position isn’t the only one we vote on, but he will ensure that no other result matters.

Besides, he plans to stay in office until he dies, and if he corrupts the military with enough loyalists by 2028, he’ll succeed. The only mechanism to remove him will be him dying and hoping his replacements are too weak to maintain the grift. I don’t say this as a call to action, but a statement of fact.