He didn’t, though. Look at his efforts to reward Russia with lifting sanctions in response to the overwhelming intel that Russia is helping Iran in the war. What kind of a neocon champions subservience to Russia?
I think it would be helpful at this point to abandon the outdated terminology about neocons and observe that this is something different. I’ve not found a coherent explanation of what’s happening that would take all of it into account. The US is fighting on both sides of the war in Iran. We are not fighting to win. That’s the only conclusion that accounts for all the facts. Beyond this, I’ve currently got nothing. But it’s more than most people are saying.
Clarissa's Blog 
Insane amount of cope here. His only priority is israel and he is just not concerned with the second-order effects of his decisions. Whether it benefits or hurts russia is not meaningful to him. Just because something he does has a side effect of benefiting russia doesn’t mean he’s doing it for them and he’s a slave to putin or whatever. It’s israel, and israel alone.
Trump: “I’m doing it for israel.”
Rubio: “We’re doing it for Israel.”
Israel: “He’s doing it for Israel.”
Clarissa: “He’s doing it for Russia!”
Cliff: “He’s playing 5D chess against China!”
Also, please, it’s jews, not “neo-cons.” Let us not engage in euphemisms in 2026 for fucks sake.
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Rubio, Hegseth, Graham are not Jewish.
I understand they all probably love Israel more than they love the USA. My question is why Trump decided to start listening to these people. Like at this point we need to start getting into some serious dark conspiracy theory space to explain this switch.
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Maybe it was propaganda that he was going to be tough on Israel. The signs were there that he was always pro-israel. He tore up the iran nuclear treaty in his first term, remember? Maybe it was all building to this. A world class narcissist who for the first time in his life doesn’t care about polling? Must be a reason. I don’t know what israel has on him and at this point I don’t care. He’s pure evil.
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“He’s pure evil.”
Trump is on record as saying he doesn’t expect to go to heaven, so you may be on to something here. Something so jarring for a president to just flat out say like that. I truly do believe him on that, probably one of the few truths he has actually uttered.
He’s almost 80 years old and approaching the end of his life. No prospects of re-election, already all the wealth and power a man could possibly want. What else is there after that for someone that doesn’t believe he’ll make it to heaven?
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I have to mention that any Christian saying publicly that he expects to go to heaven is clearly a Muslim. 😂😂
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An explanation that discards half of the evidence to support a pet theory is not an explanation at all.
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“Cliff: “He’s playing 5D chess against China!””
Never said anything of the kind, I pointed out that there was speculation that it was related to longterm China policy.
Basically I don’t know what’s going on (and no one does really).
But everything that comes out in public makes it look like a colossally stupid decision based on a bunch of stupid ideas and/or Witkoff and Kushner being their usually stupid selves…. (stupid is not nearly strong enough a word….).
To attack Iran and not have a plan for what to do when they do THE MOST PREDICTABLE THING IN THE WORLD!!!!!!!!! Which seems to be the case is…. the hands fall (as they say in Polish… meaning you know longer have adequate words to describe how stupid/misguided something is.
And I’m sure that Bibi was goading him on but I have the idea that even Israel is flummoxed by the level of incompetence being shown.
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Here’s the most recent bit of lunacy:
https://x.com/i/status/2032484508688166966
Can anybody explain this? Who has a narrative that can fit this in?
I’m not saying I do. But it’s clear that everything is done to make the conflict as long and as costly as possible to the US.
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“Who has a narrative that can fit this in?”
Krasnov?
More likely, it’s just hubris and being uninformed. Lots of people who’ve worked with/around him have said he can’t stand anyone correcting him or knowing more about something than he does… I don’t know if that’s true but there’s no real surface evidence that contradicts it.
Clusterfuck all the way around…
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I could buy incompetence. But Trump always had phenomenal political instincts. His instincts are his whole thing. But suddenly it’s all gone. Everything is clumsy and off key.
Maybe it is old age, who knows.
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I think he’s also been incredibly lucky and maybe his luck ran out. Trump has done a lot of stupid shit.
I’m surprised at Rubio. He was supposed to be the one in the room pushing against all this, but ultimately Rubio is a neocon just like Lindsey Graham, they doesn’t see a war they don’t like.
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“Trump always had phenomenal political instincts”
With a segment of the American public… yes.
But he has a track record of terrible instincts about staff… Dragging Kushner back into his team appeals to….. who?
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Glenn Greenwald (yes, I know) said that Kushner is Israel’s man on the inside of the Trump administration, and that there was a moment during the first term when he replaced Bannon as the chief advisor. It makes sense…
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OK, but he’s also Russia’s man on the inside of the administration. I’m waiting for somebody to explain the connection. Does Israel have reasons to be particularly pro-Russian? Or what is the explanation?
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I was so happy at the beginning of the second term when it seemed that Kushner was finally out. And then he came back.
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Let’s see Tucker celebrate this:
https://x.com/i/status/2032533458027721037
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Did you notice that Vance has been absent from the public eye since the beginning of the war? No public statements at all. I’ve been wondering why and today I read (per Politico) that he’s been highly skeptical of it just like he’s been of the previous bombardment of Iran last summer. Well, I still don’t like him as a person, but at least I see he understands foreign policy better than Trump. I believe that Trump is completely ignorant of the world outside the US, does not understand other countries and has no idea how to build relationships with them. But then he never stuck me as an intelligent person, quite the contrary. Trump is a populist and a demagogue. This may work on the locals, but it’s useless in the wider world.
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Politico is publishing lies, as usual, for obvious political gain.
Vance is being displaced from the center of the action on every issue because he is a political lightweight. He has nothing behind him. An empty suit chosen as VP for that concrete purpose.
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This is the “positive thinking” side of Trump. (I would be interested to know what you think of the very idea of positive thinking!) Anything he is involved with or approves of, is the best ever, in fact it could be even better but even without that it’s still the best ever, it’s historic and he was the unique variable that made it possible, there will be so much winning you’ll get tired of winning, more people attended his inauguration than any previous inauguration, he won three elections when you think about it, we’ve won the war and we can end it whenever we want and American forces didn’t blow up that school…
If you want an explanation for why he does this, the best I can give is that he’s a salesman, that’s his central persona. His goods are the best, his competitors are the worst. Being a politician just means that he adds the threat of force to his tools, in a way that you can’t usually deploy if you’re just in the business world.
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Yeah. Trump could have easily wiped out Russia as a threat by simply not doing anything at all. Could have claimed the big victory over the greatest geopolitical foe since 1917. With zero military involvement, zero money spent, zero effort. Like his administration is doing in Cuba but on a larger scale. Yet he’s clearly and aggressively choosing not to do that. A famously touchy, narcissistic man chooses to ignore the most bizarre insults heaped on him personally by Russians.
I’ll write about positive thinking separately. Thank you for the suggestion! It’s a great idea.
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Some people can explain why Trump is in thrall to Israel which he clearly is. Others can explain why he’s in thrall to Putin. But nobody has an explanation for both at once. And these two cancel each other out! This is why it’s so nuts.
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” nobody has an explanation for both at once”
An idea I’ve had is that they are both authoritarian non-democratic non-consultative types who seem to trigger some kind of submission response in Trump… he has a very fragile ego so he locks onto their seeming assertiveness as some kind of weird defense mechanism?
Ideologically it doesn’t make sense but psychologically….? He also defers to Orban a crook whose impoverished his country and increased corruption to epic levels.
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Let’s assume, as our friend SB says, that Trump is in thrall to the world Jewry. Ok, I’m willing to assume. But Zelensky is a Jew. And Putin is loudly admiring Goebbels and kissing the Koran. Putin’s entire claim to power is that he displaced the Jewish oligarchs. If Trump is owned by the Jews, he should be anti-Putin. But he’s not. Putin is fighting against Israel in Iran. Trump staked his entire presidency on the war in Iran. And is simultaneously helping Putin have more resources to fight against Israel in Iran.
Take Tucker, for instance. He’s clearly gone pro-Muslim for whatever reason. But at least he’s consistent. There’s inner logic in his position. It makes sense to be pro-Russian and anti-Israel.
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It’s clear to me Trump simply has a penchant for authoritarianism. This is why he gets along well and even respects authoritarians: Orban, Putin, Netanyahu, Kim, Xi, etc.
Netanyahu in particular is a fellow kindred. Persecuted by the courts at home. A war hero, willing to take risks and use massive military power to demolish his enemies. I think Trump saw Israel’s success in subduing Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran, and thought why not join in and boost his ego with a massive win? I think he was blinded by ambition and grandeur, and his recklessness got the best of him.
He has also surrounded himself with neocons that whisper in his ear and push for war constantly. I think he needed a Banon or someone similar to push hard and show him why Iran was going to be a huge mistake. Strikingly similar to what happened to Putin in Ukraine actually…
In any case, we’re in this now. He needs to call victory whatever that means, and pull out. Otherwise he makes the same mistake as Putin, and unlike Russians, Americans don’t have 1% of the pain tolerance that Russians have for these type of wars.
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I think it has been a long-term dream of Trump, to preside over a deal with Russia to radically reduce nuclear arsenals. He visited Russia in 1987, the year after Reagan and Gorbachev reputedly came close to agreeing on abolition. In his political interviews before he ever ran for president, Trump regularly talks about nuclear weapons as immensely dangerous. He may even hope for a worldwide agreement to get rid of them.
Beyond even that, I think Trump would like to do a grand bargain with Putin over many issues at once. That means that Putin has something that Trump wants – the power to participate in such deal-making. There’s also no sign that Trump views Russia as any kind of necessary foe. I’m sure he believes in spheres of influence, and the Ukraine war as just a massive inconvenience brought about by the poor statecraft of his predecessor.
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“To attack Iran and not have a plan for what to do when they do THE MOST PREDICTABLE THING IN THE WORLD!!!!!!!!! Which seems to be the case is…. the hands fall (as they say in Polish… meaning you know longer have adequate words to describe how stupid/misguided something is.”
This is exactly how I feel about the whole thing. Like I can’t even fathom the level of incompetence and stupidity here.
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Why is this an issue? Is this some breach of protocol I haven’t heard about? Hasn’t the US been helping Ukraine in the war? I watched his answer to the reporter’s question and he brushed it off because it was nonsensical.
I agree. It was a stupid question. America is helping Ukraine target and attack Russians. And in the same way Russia is helping Iran target and attack Americans. There’s no need to be so dramatic about it. It sucks, but that’s how things go.
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China’s been helping Iran in the war too. I guess america should open up another front and drop a few bombs on Beijing. Such a pussy move, not invading China right now.
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We could, you know, not reward them for trying to kill Americans. Because they aren’t rewarding us for helping Ukraine kill Russia.
I know it’s a novel thought that we don’t have to push the chair back subserviently for every creep who despises is and wants us dead but why not try that for a change?
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Trump gave Rubio an incredible amount of power over foreign and security policy. Rubio is as neocon as they come. Peter Hegseth as well. At some point he switched over from the Banon, Tucker Carlson, Marjorie Taylor Greene, MAGA camp to the neocon camp.
This was in Iran was so I’ll advised, it’s approaching Iraq and Afghanistan levels of bad. Tremendous damage being done to the USA.
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Like if someone wanted to do incredible harm to the USA, another war in the middle east against a fanatic, geographically hardened adversary would be the way to do it.
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True. Especially if dumb, thick individuals of this caliber are in charge:
https://x.com/i/status/2032433800072790251
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I know, absolutely embarrassing. It’s crazy that these clowns are making the Bush cabinet seem smart in comparison. Like Rumsfeld was evil, but you couldn’t say he was dumb. Kegseth seems evil and dumb.
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Here’s another example of the point I made in the OP. In Iran, we are using 2 million-dollar Patriots to shoot down $20,000 Shaheeds. This is clearly insane. Ukraine offered to sell us the technology to intercept these drones very cheaply months ago. The offer was refused.
Why? If you are planning a war with the creators of Shaheed drones, why not consult with the only people with years of experience of intercepting these drones?
There are many things like that. Every opportunity to make the conflict shorter and less painful to the US is being aggressively discarded.
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Principles like “Save money” and “Fight the war efficiently” can clash with other principles like “Buy American” and “Create jobs in political districts where Patriot missiles get made”…
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Rubio is handling Cuba and doing a fantastic job. They are already prepared to talk. I’m voting for Rubio in 2028.
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“Rubio is handling Cuba and doing a fantastic job”
So far he’s the class of the foreign policy wing (much to my amazement). I realize it’s a very, very low bar but stilll….. If only he weren’t saddled with drooling idiots like Witkoff and Kushner…
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He should have stayed focused in the America’s. This war with Iran might be the thing that brings everything down for him and this administration.
I can see Trump in the near future needing someone to throw under the bus, and that’s going to be Rubio and Hegseth.
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This is the COVID of Trump’s second term. A huge unforced mistake.
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“At some point he switched over from the Banon, Tucker Carlson, Marjorie Taylor Greene, MAGA camp to the neocon camp.”
He did inherit two very serious wars from Biden, a European war and a Middle East war. His first term already showed he was a NATO skeptic and a lover of Israel, so perhaps it’s not really surprising that he dealt with them as he has.
As for the “neocons”, what do you make of the anti-Trump factions who think he’s a shameful betrayer of Ukraine and an appeaser of Russia, and so on? Are any of those people neocons? e.g. Bill Kristol co-founded “The Bulwark”.
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I don’t find the term “neocon” to be at all helpful or enlightening.
Obama was an appeaser of Russia. Trump is not an appeaser. He’s a cuck in relation to Russia.
The idea that he expects Russia to reduce its nukes is too dumb even for him.
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“Does Israel have reasons to be particularly pro-Russian?”
Well wasn’t it a large producer of extremely rich criminals given citizenship and protection? I think rich and jewish is more important to Israel than “rotten criminal who deserves to spend years in prison….”
Netanyahu was bragging about frequently talking to putin earlier this year. I was starting to form an idea that he’s behind Trump’s efforts to be nice to russia and nasty to Ukraine….
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\\ Well wasn’t it a large producer of extremely rich criminals given citizenship and protection?
The influence of any new immigrants from Russia on Israeli policies is … zero, regardless of their wealth.
Only on this blog I heard about their existence at all. They are truly not important in Israel, to Israel, etc.
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” immigrants from Russia on Israeli policies is … zero”
I guess it’s crazy talk… a group of extremely rich people not known to the general public playing a role in domestic and international policy making? Who ever heard of such a thing?
https://www.sajr.co.za/abramovich-joins-more-than-30-russian-jewish-tycoons-in-israel/
https://www.voanews.com/a/russian-oligarchs-in-israel-could-try-to-circumvent-sanctions-/6490140.html
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A good point (by a Russian expert on the Middle East):
Btw, at last I read some good news about my country :
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If somebody wants to understand the Middle East, I found some book recs on a good blog by an Israeli expert on our region (the book titles are in English):
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—Let’s assume, as our friend SB says, that Trump is in thrall to the world Jewry. Ok, I’m willing to assume. But Zelensky is a Jew. And Putin is loudly admiring Goebbels and kissing the Koran. Putin’s entire claim to power is that he displaced the Jewish oligarchs.
My take on it is that Trump is being blackmailed by both the Russians and the Israelis. With stuff of Epstein variety, but not necessarily present in the Epstein files that the US already has.
Also, if you look carefully, his actions re Iran are more beneficial to Russia than to Israel. Israel is getting bombed for possible future rewards… Russia is only getting positive things. Real, not potential.
As far as displacing Jewish oligarchs goes, only the Jews or the Antisemites care about these oligarchs being Jewish. And Putin saying things that could come out of Goebbels’ mouth does not mean he literally admired Goebbels.
Finally, I’d like to remind you that Putin was genuinely popular among Trump’s base for quite a long time. Exactly because Putin has been doing what these conservatives wished the US were doing. Openly and unapologetically projecting their will into the outside world.
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How do you explain the intense lobbying to make this war happen coming from Netanyahu (seven visits to the white house in one year), all jewish organizations, people like ben shapiro, etc. Just because the war is not going well for them (and who knows if that’s even true), doesn’t mean they didn’t want it. And they wanted it now because americans are increasingly getting tired of israel so this seemed to be their best chance to make it happen. They’ve advocated for iran regime change since forever but I’ve never seen this sense of urgency, bordering on desperation, from them until this year.
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Sure, Israel was lobbying for its own reasons. I am not denying it. I am also not denying that Trump is more amenable to Israeli lobbying than some other US presidents. But at the same time, this war appears more beneficial to Russia than to Israel. For Israel the results are mixed. For Russia they are overwhelmingly positive.
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I agree 100%. Russians perked up in the last couple of days and started bombing Kyiv again. So yes.
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This war is an absolute gift to Russia, no doubt about it whatsoever. Probably the best thing to have happened to Russia since their invasion of Ukraine.
Let’s not forget about China either. USA bleeding itself out of precious military resources and money is yet another military fiasco it’s absolutely amazing for them. They’ll hurt due to higher oil prices, but getting the USA to smash itself against a wall in the middle east again makes it absolutely worth it. We’ve already moved lots of military hardware away from Asia into the middle east.
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This is undeniably true.
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Blackmail is dead in the age of AI. Nobody is getting blackmailed ever again.
I agree that the war in Iran is more beneficial to Russia. Few things are as moronic as Israel’s consistent policy of making every country in the region detest it.
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“Israel’s consistent policy of making every country in the region detest it”
What’s that saying about, better (for a state) to be feared than loved?
The very legitimacy of Israel’s existence is constantly questioned or denied by its neighbors. It cannot count on them to defend it against a regional power like Iran that makes the overthrow and abolition of Israel into official policy. So I think it’s natural that Israel would grab at a chance to disarm Iran, change its regime ideology, or simply break up the country, even at the cost of worsened relations with its other neighbors (who have their own reasons to be afraid of Iran, but who also don’t want to lose billions of dollars in national income).
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“Israel’s consistent policy of making every country in the region detest it”
Are Jews addicted to people disliking them? Do they even feel Jewish if they can’t imagine bunches of outsiders despising them?
I get that they were selected for ethnocentrism and clannishness for many, many, many generations….
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Cliff asking the right questions. About fucking time. Have you heard of Kevin Macdonald?
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“Have you heard of Kevin Macdonald?”
You think I’m a hillbilly or something? Honestly…
Israel does tend to need outside enemies to maintain any level of social cohesion (IIRC the period of greatest peace in recent decades was also especially fractious domestically).
But in that case it’s mutual… Palestinians literally have no identity apart from being pitiful victims… it’s their one card, they glory in it and they play it relentlessly (and also seem to strive to make other Arabs hate them).
That’s why I disengaged from caring about Israel v Palestine many years ago, I’m not going to put myself in the middle of a dysfunctional symbiotic conflict. If others want to…. they are free to waste their time.
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I haven’t heard of Kevin Macdonald till googling him. Don’t understand why this ignorance would mark one as a hillbilly, cliff.
wiki describes his as “an American antisemitic conspiracy theorist, white supremacist, and retired professor of evolutionary psychology.”
Truly a great mind here.
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“antisemitic conspiracy theorist, white supremacist”
Meaningless babbble words…. He has some wrong idea but he also has some right ideas.
Jews in general distrust any group that’s in the majority and seek to undermine them to get to the kind of society they prefer – a bunch of groups squabbling against each other.
Jews more or less openly say as much (they use nicer words but the intent is the same).
The golden age of American Jews was probably just after WWII when they mostly assimilated and wanted approval from other Americans. Around some time in the late 1970s? too early, maybe the 1980s? 90s? they said hell with that and began recultivating separateness and now there’s…. what there is….
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It’s literally the smart position to take.
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Cliff hiding his power levels until now. I love it.
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Israel seems like almost an inverse of SA rather than an “apartheid state.” The white SA attitude is more about being the indispensable special snowflake like Elon.
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“The white SA attitude is more about being the indispensable special snowflake”
How do things work without them?
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So far not great. We have some interesting local elections coming up.
https://www.biznews.com/rwjohnson/rw-johnson-zilles-great-trek-joburg
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I’m not from SA but I do suffer from special snowflakiness quite a lot.
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Why is zelensky supporting a war that is enriching russia?
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He’s trying to ingratiate himself with the US. The war would have been won 3: years ago if he wasn’t so obsessed with being a good boy for the Americans.
Words can’t describe how annoyed I am by this.
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” trying to ingratiate himself with the US”
Trump keeps trying to imagine that he can get a reset with russia…
Ukriane keeps trying to imagine that the US is a reliable ally….
Both efforts are doomed.
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