The bigger the mess made, the more props the following administration can take for cleaning it up. It certainly won't hurt to have a few easy fixes and a few pariahs.

We're so used to Trump having a personal vendetta against the previous administration that it's easy to forget that it's a popular political strategy that works well, an exfoliation of sorts, when you assume competency. ...Which is admittedly a big 'if', these days. Generally you're only supposed to fix the ACTUAL problems, and the fixes are celebrated, and so we march along, red foot blue foot.

Instead of a retarded gimp-walk in circles.

Trump should not be judged as a president, but as a Russian agent breaking down competency and trust in the federal government, increasing in-fighting within the citizenry and allies, splitting NATO, and being supportive of and dependent on Russia whenever possible.

Trump wouldn't be able to do what he's doing were it not for the fact that the Republican Party, which controls the government, is complicit in his treason.

The Republican Party should not be judged as a political party, but as a kleptocratic organized crime syndicate, dismantling democracy by manipulating citizenry through deceitful propaganda, vilification of opponents, and subverting Christianity with free market capitalism.

Well, whatever you want to call it, the public seems to be going along with it and that is what the world is taking away from this. If the globe's most vocal and active proponent of liberty, freedom, and the power of the popular democracy can't keep their own house in order then what confidence does that give the rest of the world in their ability to effectively participate in a cooperative international order? I'll tell you - increasingly none. And that's bad for everyone.

My despair shifted to motivation toward building a bomb shelter, of which I'm now 85% finished and am taking off work two months before midterms to complete and prep. I stopped overestimating US citizens around 2012 when I decided half the US government was the greatest threat to known life.

Are you literally building a bomb shelter, or is that some kind of joke, meme or metaphor?

My apartment was built around 1918 with cellar as bomb shelter for that time, so I have been clearing and cleaning it for over a year, can now sleep and store food down there in a room ~21m2. It had been filled with junk decades abandoned, dusty plaster falling off the walls, coal soot on ceiling, holes in concrete floor... here's my most recent photo:

That scenario is less alarming. The difference between cleaning out an existing bomb shelter, and building one from scratch, is the difference between good housekeeping and unchecked paranoia.

I'm grateful those who built my apartment learned from The Great War and provided a place to hide my family. The building was then one of few which survived the bombing of WW2. My city is currently bringing in increasing numbers of refugees. The head of the greatest military power of NATO, which has altogether protected my country since WW2, currently dismisses it while aligning with my country's greatest threat.

And now we now Trump was also secretly pushing to withdraw the USA from NATO, held back by everyone who heard him (link) and using lines from Putin as justification. "Trump's senior national security officials had already pushed the military alliance’s ambassadors to complete a formal agreement on several NATO goals — including shared defenses against Russia — before the summit meeting even began, to shield it from Mr. Trump."

As US justice comes for Trump, needing Kremlin espionage now more than ever, he has renewed pushes to withdraw the US from NATO, paying the comrade piper. The price of gold spiked during the last 2018 NATO summit, dropped, and has now climbed back up and beyond as the world prepares. My shelter has gotten prettier, better stocked, photo updated.

With the total and complete lack of any policy goals or stated objectives the disregard for old alliances and the hap hazed way things have been done...No motives can be assigned. Assuming competency is just that.

Did Trump’s team feel the need to trick him at the NATO summit?

P.S. That getting credit for cleaning up the mess doesn't work. Just ask Obama how it worked for him.

P.S. That getting credit for cleaning up the mess doesn't work. Just ask Obama how it worked for him.

Or Bill C.

You guys need more feet.

Yeah, but still, Trump is doing real damage to real people all over the globe. The next administration can't just walk in and say "sorry" - it will take a very long time to repair these relationships.

This is, after all, being done by the USA - the loudest, proudest champion of its holy democracy. The people actively chose this clown and the people seem to be perfectly happy to have him do these things. That doesn't look like a country that's sorry about what's going on.

The world can look to countries like Thailand where, when the leader starts acting stupidly, the military walks in, kicks out the obvious fuckup, and instructs the people to try voting again to pick a less corrupt shitbag this time. They can look to that and ask why the USA has not done something like this. The only clear answer is that this is actually what the US wants, and that makes the psychological damage to the American reputation all the more deep and serious.

I can say that, even here in mild-mannered Canada, there is a brewing popular hatred towards the US that I've never before experienced in my life. It is palpable and unprecedented. When the gloves come off and you stab people in the back it takes time to heal that shit.

You can laugh it off if you want, but the effect is also plain here in Australia. Hell, even our right-wing government can barely conceal their contempt of the Orange Horror and our Prime Minister spends his spare time with the press gallery doing impressions of the cock-juggling thunder-cunt for shits and giggles.

But that is in large measure beside the point. After we stop wiping the tears of laughter from our eyes the question we face is this: Does the U.S. remain a dependable ally? The answer is really not clear any more, and that is sort of shocking.

We all understood that the U.S. was wacky, but in the final wash they could be considered reliable. There is a sense that in Trump a line has been crossed; it really is hard to take the U.S. as seriously as we once did. Trumpettes in the U.S. seem to be of the view that this is all to the good. The rest of us get the feeling that when the penny drops for these people on the full implications of this tantrum - and these implications will be both profound and long-lived- the much diminished state of the U.S. as a nation of influence will rankle.

The Trump era is nothing but nation undertaking a colossal act of self-harm. It fairly reeks of decline and decay.

Donnie is likely right. And you, Fish, are little more than a discarded cunt wipe.

It seems pretty clear that the era of US domination of the world stage is passing, for good or ill. The best case scenario I can imagine is that the EU gets its act together and takes on the role of global moderator for the coming decades and centuries of what may very well be climate driven chaos and instability. Or maybe it will be China or Russia and human civilization will go in a very different direction. As I've said many times here, the whole idea of the US as a liberal democracy is a very recent experiment. 200 years is the blink of an eye. To quote Lincoln, "... testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure." There's no guarantee that such a system will continue to dominate the governments and social structures of our species.

Isn't that description the point of having the Second Ammendment, to be able to overthrow corrupt governments?

Thailand may be unique though because it is a monarchy, and the military (defacto, if not explicitly) responds to the King over the PM. When they military "steps in" it is to dissolve parliament, not to establish a Military Dictatorship. Their recent struggles (yellow / red shirt factions) is a country arguing between a Parliamentary Democracy within a Monarchy (eg: yellow, what they have today) and a true Republic Democracy (red, what the big money interests want).

Unless the US is going to have another revolution that changes the structure of the Republic, or tries to rewrite portions of the Constitution like eliminating Electoral College, then there is no reason to try to operate outside of the current legal framework. Congress has the power to override most of the President's powers, and can impeach if necessary. No need for military (orwell regulated militia) intervention ... Yet.

Isn't that description the point of having the Second Ammendment, to be able to overthrow corrupt governments?

HAHA... NO! It never was.

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

It was there to help the new government defend it self if the French or the pesky British showed back up. Grab your musket and run down to the square and help us.

Nowadays it is beyond stupid to think that is even a possibility. An insurgency could make it difficult to govern but that is about it.

Not to the over through, but the security... of a free state....having trouble with the big words did you?

Political parties are supposed to die, eventually. It's not healthy to keep the same ones for hundreds of years.

When the great war begins, will Turkey fall on the side of Russia/USA or of EU/Nato?

The way Erdogan is acting at the moment? Neither. He’s become the Turkish equivalent of Trump.

+++++++++UPDATE++++++++++++

Turkey received its first pair of a projected 100 F-35 fighters in June. However, the jets remain in the United States where their Turkish pilots are receiving training, and are not due to arrive in Turkey until at least Sep. 2019.