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A Dutch analyst put it this way: Trump negotiated backwards. He spent billions of dollars to obtain a worse deal than there was before he took office.
It really is one of the most obscene strategic fuck ups of all time.
Like... I cannot think of a historically comparable instance of shooting yourself not in the foot, but in the balls.
Sure, people at various points have made grave miscalculations... but usually that is due to just a total lack of relevant knowledge.
Trump has had to willingly disregard and fire just... tons and tons of people who told him this would be an insane thing to do that makes no sense.
Genuienly, I cannot think of a historical comparison to this.
It is essentially the worst strategic fuckup, literally of all time...
... maybe someone can point out to me a comparable historical fuck up that I am either unaware of or forgetting?
It's not the exact same situation, but Germany attacking the Soviet Union in 1941 when they already had the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact in place is a pretty colossal blunder. We don't know what might have happened if Hitler hadn't done that, but it was the biggest oof I've heard of.
It's an interesting "what if?" in history, but it assumes the Germans negotiated that pact in good faith to assume there would ever be a situation in which they did not break it. In reality, expansion to the east to secure Lebensraum was always part of the plan. If they hadn't attacked in 1941 they would've done so later, but it was always going to happen lest Hitler lose face.
I would agree with you that Germany was always just using the pact as a means of buying time. Either way, it's a fuck up of the highest order.
It was just as likely that Stalin would have attacked Germany as soon as it showed signs of weakness.
I'd think the War of the Triple Alliance would be my pick.
Losing wars someone started has happened many times. Other ends of empires were both invasion of Russia related. Can include Ukraine, to everyone here's anger. GDP down 75% since 2014 US nazification. What were the big ending mistakes of British, Spanish, Dutch, Roman empires? I'm sure a common thread of belief in own supremacy extending their actual power was at play.
Do you think there really were "tons and tons of people"? I mean, i hope there were, but honestly lately im thinking it was the opposite.
The NYT today put out a whole article explaining how Netanyahu dogwalked Trump into all of this, with about half the major figures in his cabinet expressing some opposition to this, some less insane figures being absent when Trump was talked up, by Israel, because Israel knows Trump's brain is leaking out of his ears, and those key people they kept making sure were not present were the ones who were at least somewhat competent at something.
Beyond that, I think we've now had something like a quarter of our top military brass either resign in protest or be purged by Hegseth.
Yes.
Yes there were tons of people who said 'this is insane' to at least some degree, and were either ignored or removed.
Trump's cabinet and government in general has basically been doing a Stalin-esque purge of literally anyone who won't pledge fealty to him, often quite literally with a written pledge.
Everybody that got DOGE'd... yeah this entire Trump term has literally been Trump purging or having purged everyone fairly directly under his command, who's not a loyalist.
When a Democrat President takes over, they always have to lead with an economic stimulus program to recover from the terrible economy that EVERY Conservative president leaves behind.
But the next one will also have to completely rebuild our entire governmental system before they can do anything else. It will take years, and probably TRILLIONS of dollars.
At the same time, we will have to pursue justice against MAGA, and all those who took advantage of the time to steal everything they could. Entire estates of Sociopathic Oligarchs should be confiscated, and donated to the America Fund, to rebuild our country, and to start social programs like Healthcare 4 All, free college/trade school, UBI, homeless assistance, poverty assistance, etc.
Start with the Trump estate, and take literally everything owned by him or his criminal children, every single penny. They won't need it, they'll all be serving life sentences in Guantanamo Bay, with their children separated and raised by foster families, so the Trump family will be essentially ended. Do the same with any other wealthy maniacs who took advantage of the American people - Musk, Ellison, Bezos, McMahon, Lutnick, Bessett, etc. They are National Security Threats, take everything from them, and lock them up for life. Their corporations will be operated on behalf of the American people, and profits will continue to feed the America Fund.
As others become wealthy in the new prosperous America, they will be heavily taxed. They will also be regularly assessed for their behavior toward America, and if they are found to be acting against the interests of America, they will be sent to Guantanamo, and their companies confiscated for the America Fund.
They will soon learn that America's best interests are their best interests, too, and learn to behave. Or at least their children will.
I hope your right. we need all the dissenters in office/positions of power we can get.
I mean, JD Vance cautioned against doing this, but 'relcutantly' agreed.
Fox News is currently doing their best to present him as a sane alternative, indeed JD (along with Kusher and ... some other goober, Wittkoff?) is the one being sent to Islamabad this weekend as the lead negotiator.
JD is of course an evil piece of shit with no principles at all who is functionally a ventriloquist dummy of Peter Thiel... but he's fairly shrewd, his brains are not leaking out of his ears... he's considerably more rational than Trump.
JD is also fairly widely suspected to be one of the main people in the cabinet leaking things to the NYT and other journos.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Yes, it's a huge fuckup.
Yes, saying it is the "worst, literally of all time" is not true. At all.
Worst strategic fuckup would include, say, the US itself being decimated. There's a bunch of examples of that kind of thing in history.
Like, just in modern(ish) history - Operation Barbarossa like someone else mentioned. Operation Somme. Little Bighorn. Operation Market Garden. The Vietnam War escalation. Etc etc.
Go back through "all time" and there's way worse strategic decisions. I mean, did you really think "all time" was that limited...? Are you forgetting, like, the majority of what you know about human history...?
Still, this was a major, stupid, 1000% Trumpesque fuckup.
I wouldn't be surprised if he spent all that money on purpose to line the pockets of some defense contractors that he may be "friends" with
Where did those billions come from and go to?
Answer: from the poor to the rich. It was another trump transfer of wealth. If people think Trump lost, he just conned the reporters too