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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   37968 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 8, 2024

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My two competing theories:

  1. Trump read Project 2025 as "telling him which people to hire." Not exactly wrong, but also not right. If Trump hates one thing, it's being told what to do. He'll always slam that.

  2. (tin foil hat) Actually a coordination between Project 2025 and the Trump campaign to create separation between the two. Trump doesn't need them to win the election (they aren't a campaign vehicle at all!) but they can bring along "bad vibes" because the Heritage Foundation always rubs some people the wrong way. Then, after the election, Trump can just ... hire everyone they recommend without every saying "Thanks, Project 2025!"

Trump thinks in terms of zero sum transactions. That's part of his frankly bizarre constant obsession with NATO spending. In looking at Project 2025, there's zero loss to him for bashing them and zero gain to endorsing them or growing closer. So ... just get it off the balance sheet!

Weirdly his obsession with Nato spending is my single favorite policy position of his.

His admonishment of other NATO countries for underspending on defense was prophetic. After the Russian invasion of Ukraine they are doing it of their own accord and non-NATO countries around Russia are rushing to join. The media likes to make fun of Trump saying Russia wouldn't have invaded Ukraine if he was president, but if Europe had built up it's armories back then, Russia would have thought twice about attacking and might have been defeated in the early stages of the war.

if Europe had built up it's armories back then, Russia would have thought twice about attacking and might have been defeated in the early stages of the war.

My impression is that most NATO countries want a prolonged conflict between Russia and Ukraine and so are not sending much of anything.

Here's how many main battle tanks NATO has access to:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1294391/nato-tank-strength-country/

Here's how many they've sent to Ukraine:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1364974/ukraine-military-aid-tanks/

More military investment doesn't make financial sense because there is no real enemy worth fearing. An actual war between NATO and Russia would be little more than a cleanup operation.

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