For the last few days there’s a massive “let me explain slowly” dick contest unrolling on Twitter with hundreds of “patriotic Americans” making categorical statements like “don’t even expect we will help you when you need us” because, apparently, “Europe refused to help USA in Iran”. One expert uses even more absurd argument - “you’re not dealing with a man [Trump], you’re dealing with the authority of the United States of America”.
The mistake they’re making is that regardless of any future Trump’s decisions nobody is going to even ask them, precisely because that’s the core of Trump’s new management style.
Do you remember the Congress debate or invocation of Articles 4-5 of the North Atlantic Treaty prior to the “ the authority of the United States of America” entering the war in Iran?
Neither do I, because none of the mechanisms designed to ensure a democratic state based on rule of law only enters wars for a good reason were used here.
That’s the very essence of my criticism of the war, regardless of how evil IGRC is objectively - Trump basically did precisely what Putin did in 2022: he the whole country to a war without asking anyone.
As it comes to Putin, almost all experts agree that it was a strategic mistake but the very point of Putin’s and Trump’s style of management is removing experts from the decision process and replacing them with sentiments and feelings. And Trump seems to love Putin’s decisiveness, even if he’s decisively making absolutely moronic decisions. Both seem to honestly believe you can cover up literally any mistake with enough talking and hand waving.
As I said, the fundamental fallacy of the “patriotic Americans” threatening “we won’t help Europe” is that nobody is going to ask them.
If Trump decides he sends US troops to Ukraine… no, not to help them but to gift it to Putin, nobody is going to ask the Americans - Trump will just do it.
Same if Trump decides he gives Taiwan to China.
If Trump decides to sell the key US strategic assets to Russian cronies because they offer him a multi-billion dollar kick back, he will just do it… and blame “leftists”, “gay Europe”, “Ukraine” or whoever else crosses his mind at that moment. And some people in the US will still buy it, even if they lose jobs or are robbed of their property - because that’s precisely the business model of Russian cronies.
That’s the main problem with Trump’s style of management - he reverted a century of of US state-building based on rule of law back into one man’s “I feel that’s what we should do” decision only because he liked the decisiveness that Putin has. Whether they’re both making good or bad decisions doesn’t matter, what matter is that they’re making them decisively.
P.S. when I speak of “patriotic Americans” I specifically use double quotes to differentiate between the people infected with Trump’s tribal morality and Americans who actually believe in the values of the United States Constitution.