I looked at my news feed and it’s almost kind of endearing how naive people are and can’t see a clearly staged performance. How can anybody exist in this fun yet cruel world with such wide-eyed naiveté and sweetness?
In any case, here’s my new video about sex spies:
If you got to watch performances, why not to see one where I show a new iteration of my recent haircut?
“can’t see a clearly staged performance”
I have no idea what’s going on behind the scenes but almost everything in public regarding Trump and Ukraine has been screaming ‘kayfabe’ to me for well over a month.
I did not spend years watching professional wrestling without being able to spot a storyline being presented for the marks.
I’m not going to comment more on what’s going on (besides outlining how it’s a pro-wrestling storyline) until things are clearer.
Hint: (going _waaaayyyy_ back in time and creating alliances that didn’t necessarily exist)
Trump: Jim Cornette
Vance: Baby Doll
Zelenskyy: Rock and Roll Express
putin: Cornett’s never seen ‘Mama’….
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I didn’t know what kayfabe was and had to Google it. And yes, it’s totally what this is. It’s kind of funny that people aren’t clocking on but OK.
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But the question is, what was the point of that show? Why couldn’t Zelensky be more humble and better able to manage Trump? Pretty much every other leader in the world right now seems to have figured out how to work with Trump; why not Zelensky?
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Zelensky gave Trump what Trump wanted. Trump gave Zelensky what Zelensky wanted. That’s great management on both sides.
How could this have possibly concluded any better for both sides? Forget words. It’s the results that matter. And the results are what everybody wanted.
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Has Zelensky pretty much given up on receiving US aid, and used this as an opportunity to somehow come out as being a strong Ukrainian nationalist? This seems about the only positive thing to come out of that for meeting for Zelensky.
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Well, the gigantic package of aid from outraged Europeans won’t hurt, I’m sure.
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Very good point as usual Clarissa 🙂
Yeah, I already see a lot of European leaders pledging increase support for Ukraine. So you’re right, Zelensky knew he wasn’t going to get any serious security guarantees from the US, if any; so he played up Trump and Vance. Trump and Vance played their part making Zelensky look ungrateful and hard to work with, then they can pull support.
Make sense now. My only hope is we don’t get close with Russia now. Fuck those assholes forever. You wanna throw Ukraine under the bus? Shame on you, but taking Russia’s side would be something else entirely.
“great management on both sides”
Just watched a bit on a Polish news channel… and despite the anchors best attempts to create a sense of panic a couple of different political analysts said more or less the same thing (without my professional wrestling analogies which is understandable given the low prestige that has here).
Let’s give our excitable brethren on all sides some time to yelp uncontrollably because they need it as a form of mental hygiene.
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Trump and Zelensky were very convincing but they are professional actors. Vance gave it away because he’s not an actor and sounded fake and unconvincing.
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Zelenskyy was not in on this staged disgraceful performance. You’re doing complex loops of mental gymnastics to try to justify this.
Zelenskyy made the mistake of trying to talk to them like to normal human beings who theoretically care about the well-being of the people of Ukraine. He politely explained the 2 main points – (1) that russia has been waging a war of aggression on Ukraine since 2014, throughout multiple US presidential administrations from both parties, including Trump’s own. And point (2) – that Putin had signed multiple ceasefire agreements with Ukraine that he has then violated.
Trump and Vance don’t give a shit about Ukrainian lives, so they launched into their prepared talking points of bashing Ukraine. Have some dignity and don’t try to make Zelenskyy complicit in this.
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And now let’s abandon the soap operesque language of caring and who was in on what because we are way past the age when it was cute.
“Caring” is cheap, dude. “Stay home, save lives.” “Don’t you care what happened to George Floyd? Don’t you CARE? Don’t you care about Palestinian civilians?”
Nothing will teach you.
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OK, so I can’t use the word “care”, and also probably “love”, “children”, “human”, “values”, “rights”, “freedom”, “dignity”, “veterans”, and any other words a political party you don’t like has used in their messaging.
I also can’t use phrases like “critical thinking”. Probably not “emotional maturity”. What term should I use to reference one’s awareness of a wide variety of cognitive biases and the tendency of emotions to drive our thinking? And the evaluation of one’s own views and their infallibility that follows?
I digress.
You are saying that the president of a country literally under attack by an invading army would arrange to be publicly attacked and humiliated by the leader of one of its most important allies.
You have made peace with the wannabe mafia boss/reality-TV drama queen in the White House. But to the rest of the world, official appearances with the US president, especially in the Oval Office, still matter. When Zelenskyy is there, he represents Ukraine. When Trump chides him for his hate of Putin, he chides all Ukrainians for irrationally hating the murderer of their family members.
You’re saying Zelenskyy played along with this and it’s no big deal because it increased his ratings at home.
Try to imagine your own reaction to someone else claiming this about Zelenskyy.
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Be honest with yourself. Did you read the text of that deal and think it was really great for Ukraine, so now you mind that it wasn’t signed?
Or do you not CARE about the deal at all because your whole object is to come here and feel superior and self-righteous? And you use the country literally under attack etc for that purpose?
This is not about Zelensky or Ukraine or Trump. It’s about you being addicted to outrage.
This is not about me either because I’m not the one following you around like a lovesick puppy whelping to be noticed for how good, CARING, and virtuous I am.
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I just woke up and was told by a (very anti-Trump) relative that Trump and Vance had a shouting match with Zelensky in front of world media, after which nothing was signed and Zelensky was hustled out of the White House.
I have avoided looking at any footage or media commentary yet, I want to keep my head clear for a while longer, but I did come here for an assessment by someone who cares and is not part of mainstream political media.
If I understand correctly, you’re saying there was something staged or inauthentic about whatever just happened. It sounds to me as if Trump and Vance can’t stand Zelensky, and that Zelensky is refusing to make a deal on their terms. Is that much true, in your opinion?
Thank you for your trust and high opinion.
I don’t care about how these men feel about each other or anybody else but it’s a great result for Ukraine who didn’t have to sign anything or legitimize any territorial losses. And it’s a great result for Trump who no longer needs to pretend to his base that an easy peace is possible.
I don’t know if they planned this or the spirit moved them or what. But what could have been a better result, realistically? I can’t imagine one.
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If you were watching it, it was for you. The question is why so?
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Alternatively, you could ask your question in a way that I could understand and then answer but what’s the fun of that, right?
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I’m thoroughly confused. Can you please write a separate post about this, assuming I’m a 5 year old? Thanks!
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There’s not much to say except that this was a show orchestrated by both sides and equally beneficial to both. Now the normies will emote and foam at the mouth about who said what to whom. Emotional incontinence is how they lose.
“He refused to recognize that we were invaded!” “No, your guy refused to apologize.” It’s a kindergarten playground for people who will get fleeced interminably because they have no self-control, no discipline.
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I also want to mention that in the span of 4 days, Trump won Zelensky’s election for him, sending him from 45% approval to 70%+. Trump could have easily destroyed him but did the opposite. Result is what matters.
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by both sides and equally beneficial to both.
Could you elaborate on this part, please? Thanks!
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Ukraine gets to continue fighting on its own terms. Zelensky wins an election that was looking pretty hopeless until this week.
Trump gets out of the necessary but hopeless electoral promise of “peace in 24 hours”. He gets to say, “see? I tried” and go concentrate on urgent domestic matters, which we really want him to do.
At the same time, both leaders get a freshly energized, supportive base. Of course, this is less valuable to Trump who only recently got inaugurated but still.
I don’t see how a better development was realistically possible. We can now concentrate on everything that needs to be done in our country, and there’s a lot to do.
If anybody can show me what would have been better for everybody than this but also realistic, not fairy-tale, I’d love to hear it.
We’ll see but the European aid will finally start shaping up.
It’s perverted that this has been a US thing more than a Europe thing. Europeans should have sent troops a long time ago, in my opinion.
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“Europeans should have sent troops a long time ago…”
With what? Both sides consider now this a matter of this of Blut und Boden, so this requires a long term demilitarized zone. Who mans it? The UN is now a costly joke. The Russians are not going to accept NATO, which doesn’t matter, because other than the Americans, none of us have the manpower.
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It would be better to have started asking these questions sooner, wouldn’t it? But if it took this sort of a performance that we saw yesterday for people to start wondering, then good. Better now than 5 years hence.
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From what was leaked, there was nothing whatsoever about any military aid from US. Nothing at all. It made zero sense for Zelensky to sign it.
But it also made no sense for the US because it was all pure vapor. Words with no value. All I can conclude is that the text was written just to have something in place. It wasn’t aimed at achieving anything.
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Here’s the draft that was approved by the Rada:
https://x.com/Mylovanov/status/1894808347754270798?t=RnzbFPndRx_a2zwMuE74yg&s=19
Again, “security guarantees”, which means same old nothing.
I can’t convince myself to be heartbroken that this wasn’t signed.
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I’m responding to Clarissa’s comment
“Be honest with yourself. Did you read the text of that deal and think it was really great for Ukraine, so now you mind that it wasn’t signed?
Or do you not CARE about the deal at all because your whole object is to come here and feel superior and self-righteous? And you use the country literally under attack etc for that purpose?
This is not about Zelensky or Ukraine or Trump. It’s about you being addicted to outrage.
This is not about me either because I’m not the one following you around like a lovesick puppy whelping to be noticed for how good, CARING, and virtuous I am.”
My response:
I haven’t read the text of the latest version of the deal. I do know that Trump tried to extort Ukraine in the original version that Zelenskyy refused to sign.
The rest is comparatively immaterial. The new version of the deal doesn’t offer any security guarantees. I’m not going to deceive myself into thinking that having American companies involved in specific locations means russia won’t invade. In the end, it doesn’t particularly matter whether they sign in.
As for my motivations:
I have been curious to see how you would react to Trump’s actions given your predictions for his behavior re: Ukraine. I think you said that Trump would make sure russia and Ukraine negotiated a ceasefire, then Putin would violate it thus humiliating Trump, who would then retaliate by giving Ukraine all the weapons it needs to defeat russia, or something along those lines.
I never thought that would be the case. I don’t understand why you think Trump would be humiliated by Putin violating a ceasefire with Ukraine. He would just blame Ukraine for that. I’ll stop myself from getting into an argument about Trump with you, that’s kind of pointless.
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A conservative literary critic and college professor
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