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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM

AlleyOop Since: Oct, 2010
#156651: Nov 18th 2016 at 1:05:06 PM

It's highly unlikely that they'll be able to pull off another Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere situation anyway.

CaptainCapsase from Orbiting Sagittarius A* Since: Jan, 2015
#156652: Nov 18th 2016 at 1:05:42 PM

Was there a wave of wannabe celebrity politicians after Reagan got elected?

RedSavant Since: Jan, 2001
#156653: Nov 18th 2016 at 1:05:55 PM

It's going to complicate things in the Japan Sea quite significantly, is the thing. Especially if the right wing insists on continuing to thumb their nose at China over the Sankaku islands and Yasukuni.

It's been fun.
Gaon Smoking Snake from Grim Up North Since: Jun, 2012 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
#156654: Nov 18th 2016 at 1:07:05 PM

Imagine President the Rock and Vice-President Ron Perlman.

The unrivaled might of such a nation

"All you Fascists bound to lose."
smokeycut Since: Mar, 2013
#156655: Nov 18th 2016 at 1:07:22 PM

I get more and more worried every time another celebrity decides to run. I want someone who actually knows what they're doing, not another Harambe or Trump.

AmbarSonofDeshar Since: Jan, 2010
#156656: Nov 18th 2016 at 1:09:21 PM

[up]Hey Harambe didn't chose to run. He got drafted. After he was dead.

Draghinazzo (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: I get a feeling so complicated...
#156657: Nov 18th 2016 at 1:09:53 PM

The Rock has always seemed like a decent guy to me but the last thing I want is for american politics to turn into a celebrity circus.

Given the choice between a decent person who will legitimately try and has competent people assisting them, and Trump, there's no real choice, but governing is a politician's JOB.

RBluefish Since: Nov, 2013
#156658: Nov 18th 2016 at 1:09:59 PM

Agreed. Once that floodgate opens, it could be perilously difficult to close, in an age as obsessed with celebrities and showmanship as ours. Leaders should be people with policies, principles, and qualifications, not mere star power or social media presence.

Those things aren't necessarily mutually exclusive, it's true - but still, it's not a trend I want to see encouraged.

On the other hand, again - if someone comes along who can dislodge the GOP, then it might be necessary in the long run. We need to retake power at pretty much any cost.

"We'll take the next chance, and the next, until we win, or the chances are spent."
TerminusEst from the Land of Winter and Stars Since: Feb, 2010
#156659: Nov 18th 2016 at 1:10:06 PM

On Japan:

Which is why security a political hot potato even for the LDP in Japan. Necessary and even welcomed on the US side, but you'll also notice many problems in how it's done and a general ignorance of anything relating to armed forces or national security in the public at large. The US was a very useful go-between with South Korea as well, who for obvious reasons have reservations about Japan's militarization (publically, if not in practice).

Senkaku is Japanese territory, and the Yasukuni shrine is an unsolvable issue until most of the older conservative wing dies (which is happening already). It's just cheap political points for SK and China at this point.

edited 18th Nov '16 1:13:18 PM by TerminusEst

Si Vis Pacem, Para Perkele
blkwhtrbbt The Dragon of the Eastern Sea from Doesn't take orders from Vladimir Putin Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me
The Dragon of the Eastern Sea
#156660: Nov 18th 2016 at 1:13:45 PM

Oh wait never mind I'm thinking of shinsengumi

edited 18th Nov '16 1:14:09 PM by blkwhtrbbt

Say to the others who did not follow through You're still our brothers, and we will fight for you
MarqFJA The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer from Deserts of the Middle East (Before Recorded History) Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer
#156662: Nov 18th 2016 at 1:24:12 PM

Say, how come people weren't flipping their shit back during GWB's tenure, which IIRC was also marked by a period of Republican dominance in the Congress? Is it because there was no Tea Party hijacking the GOP's agenda and driving it to far-rightism?

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.
SeptimusHeap from Switzerland (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Mu
#156663: Nov 18th 2016 at 1:26:07 PM

Yes.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
CaptainCapsase from Orbiting Sagittarius A* Since: Jan, 2015
#156664: Nov 18th 2016 at 1:27:00 PM

[up][up] That and the GOP's dominance of sub-federal government hasn't been this thorough since 1928, and we all know what followed that.

edited 18th Nov '16 1:27:26 PM by CaptainCapsase

AlleyOop Since: Oct, 2010
#156665: Nov 18th 2016 at 1:27:03 PM

Basically.

[up][up][up] That's really bad, because now there's no good way to make sure Trump stays out of the White House.

edited 18th Nov '16 1:27:17 PM by AlleyOop

Draghinazzo (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: I get a feeling so complicated...
#156666: Nov 18th 2016 at 1:27:07 PM

Dubya wasn't a super smart guy but he at least had a pretense of respectability and lacked the overt malice and bigotry of Trump. So it was just standard GOP regression.

This on the other hand is a different time with a strong wave of reactionary malice.

speedyboris Since: Feb, 2010
#156667: Nov 18th 2016 at 1:29:20 PM

SHADDAP SESSIONS. Seriously, quit peddling that lie that marijuana is dangerous.

CaptainCapsase from Orbiting Sagittarius A* Since: Jan, 2015
#156668: Nov 18th 2016 at 1:31:27 PM

So for all the freaking out about Sessions, Pompeo is also quite scary, insofar as he seems to like the idea of the CIA acting the way it did during the cold war, deposing democratically elected regimes left and right, assassinating foreign journalists and dissidents abroad...

Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
CaptainCapsase from Orbiting Sagittarius A* Since: Jan, 2015
#156670: Nov 18th 2016 at 1:33:40 PM

[up] Clinton wouldn't have accelerated this particular trend towards illiberal democracy in the way Trump has, but I doubt she and many other democratic leaders recognized it as a problem, and thus wouldn't have made any attempts to avert it. It's also not entirely impossible we would've gone to war under a Clinton presidency, nothing on the scale of Iran, but the same sort of bipartisan failures that lead to Iraq could potentially have happen again under a Clinton administration.

It wouldn't have been anything compared to the sort of insanity Trump seems poised to bring to the table however.

edited 18th Nov '16 1:35:48 PM by CaptainCapsase

TacticalFox88 from USA Since: Nov, 2010 Relationship Status: Dating the Doctor
#156671: Nov 18th 2016 at 1:33:41 PM

General Flynn, Trumps new National Security Advisor confirmed to CNBC, that he agrees with Trump on NATO.

I.e no automatic guarantee of response and in costs on "reciprocity" of allies.

Any tropers, if you're in the Baltics, you need to get the fuck out right now.

New Survey coming this weekend!
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#156672: Nov 18th 2016 at 1:35:52 PM

[up][up] I'm not sure what you mean by "avert" in this case. Democrats, at least since Clinton, have seemed to go out of their way to ask politely how other nations felt about it before we invaded them or their neighbors. Republican administrations have not had quite the same track record. This meme about how Hillary is a neocon imperialist is frustratingly impervious to facts and reason.

Did she not negotiate a peace treaty with Iran? I mean, come on folks. There is no evidence that she would suddenly go on the damn warpath. None!

edited 18th Nov '16 1:36:30 PM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
theLibrarian Since: Jul, 2009
#156673: Nov 18th 2016 at 1:37:00 PM

We're going to be dealing with a League of Nations scenario all over again with NATO >_<

CaptainCapsase from Orbiting Sagittarius A* Since: Jan, 2015
#156674: Nov 18th 2016 at 1:37:00 PM

[up][up] Clinton's no neoconservative, but I still maintain that the democrats to this day seriously undersell their own role in enabling the invasion of Iraq and all the disasters that stemmed from that. While most of the accusations leveled against Hillary Clinton over the course of this election are baseless, Powell's denouncement of her hubris seems very on point given how she lost the election, and hubris is something that was very much part of why Iraq was such a disaster.

As far as "avert", leftist intellectuals have been warning that America is on a path towards illiberal democracy (or managed democracy or inverted totalitarianism depending on which term is being used) for many years now.

edited 18th Nov '16 1:42:36 PM by CaptainCapsase

speedyboris Since: Feb, 2010
#156675: Nov 18th 2016 at 1:40:26 PM

FWIW, the NATO chief is confident Trump will honor the NATO commitment after their meeting. Whether Trump actually follows through on it, of course, remains to be seen.

edited 18th Nov '16 1:51:34 PM by speedyboris


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