Randahl Fink6h ago

Welcome to war crime day.

Trump has told the press yesterday that Iran will be returned to the stone age at 8 PM US Eastern Time — that is two hours after midnight in Berlin.

So far the European reaction is complete silence, and I believe this is a case of “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake”.

There are only two outcomes:

1. If Trump chickens out, he is weakened at home.

2. If he commits the war crime, he is severely weakened internationally.

Either way, Trump loses.

Show threadInfoseepage

@randahl It's very much the classic dictator's dilemma, brought on by the need to cling to power at all cost. Has a tendency to drive dictatorships to do grossly unconscionable shit, often against their own people. Providing some option for luxurious exile has often been seen seen as a least bad third option internationally.

I really miss the option of ancient Greek style Ostracism, where people could vote to exile someone too dangerous to the state, who might otherwise rule as a tyrant.

12:06pmWeb
Show threadInfoseepage5h ago
@randahl I wonder if a lot of Democracies would function better if there was some ability to expel someone from office based only on a popular vote. That has it's perils too, of an executive who only acts when it is popular to do so, but I think that's a lesser evil than what we've seen time and time again. Better the weak executives of places like Italy and Japan than a fucking Führer.
Show threadRobert H5h ago

@Infoseepage @randahl

I rather like the U.S. schedule of presidential election every four years. After your eight years, you're done. We don't have a habit of electing VPs for an encore.

Voting a unpopular president out after a year would lead to chaos. Look at the U.K.

Show threadInfoseepage5h ago
@Stinson_108 @randahl The US has a president who is very clearly making moves to maintain his hold on power for longer than the constitutional two terms. I question any executive system which allows too much power to get invested in one person for too long. I'd far rather have a weak executive. The US Republic seems to be in a failure mode and I'm not sure if a reboot within the constitutional bounds of the system is possible or even desirable at this point.