Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[Fugus]

Technically, Canada is a confederacy, and one that still has systems in place to pull new regions into that confederacy. So it wouldn't be "annexation", but if Washington State(for example) asks us real nice, we're open to the idea.

Step 1: SCOTUS rules against Trump.
Step 2: Trump ignores SCOTUS.
Step 3: Trump gets away with it because no one would enforce it.
Step 4: US Constitution proven worthless.
Step 5: California and many other nations succeed from the nation.
Step 6: Republicans get mad because they couldn't mooch off them anymore forcing the welfare queen red states to pull up their bootstraps.
Step 7: California and other states site Trump and company's lack of accountability proving the laws in the US no longer matter as they aren't enforced.
Step 8: The entire rest of the world backs California and the rests actions given what the rest of the GOP is talking about.
Step 9: Well... This will get interesting given they will have cost them their nation, their reputation and their power.

- - - Updated - - -

As an American, a flag and a nation are only as valuable as the ideals they embody. The moment they no longer embody any valuable ideals, they no longer have any value themselves.

[gondrin]

Step 1: SCOTUS rules against Trump.
Step 2: Trump ignores SCOTUS.
Step 3: Trump gets away with it because no one would enforce it.
Step 4: US Constitution proven worthless.
Step 5: California and many other nations succeed from the nation.
Step 6: Republicans get mad because they couldn't mooch off them anymore forcing the welfare queen red states to pull up their bootstraps.
Step 7: California and other states site Trump and company's lack of accountability proving the laws in the US no longer matter as they aren't enforced.
Step 8: The entire rest of the world backs California and the rests actions given what the rest of the GOP is talking about.
Step 9: Well... This will get interesting given they will have cost them their nation, their reputation and their power.

- - - Updated - - -

As an American, a flag and a nation are only as valuable as the ideals they embody. The moment they no longer embody any valuable ideals, they no longer have any value themselves.

To add onto this, Step 6 is already happening. The funny thing about across the board cuts is that they tend to target everyone. The Red states tend to be the largest recipients of federal funding so they will be the ones that take the vast majority of the cuts. So, cue the whining and complaining from the GOP that supported this in the first place. Sorry GOP, you wanted this. You literally wanted this.

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/0...b-gop-00204435

Idaho Republican Rep. Mike Simpson, a senior appropriator whose district is home to a number of National Park Service sites, said in an interview his staff is talking to the administration about how an OMB-directed, government-wide hiring freeze will affect the National Park Service. The park service fired 1,000 full-time staff Friday but said seasonal hiring is resuming, exempting 5,000 seasonal jobs from the hiring freeze.

Sen. Jerry Moran, another GOP appropriator who represents the agriculture-heavy state of Kansas, has told the White House that DOGE’s dismantling of USAID will impact constituents who have long relied on selling their crops to a government program that fights hunger abroad.

And Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, who chairs an appropriations subcommittee with jurisdiction over the National Institutes of Health, said her panel’s funding bill includes language to prevent the White House budget office from slashing billions of dollars in health research grant money. Capito has long been a champion of the NIH, linking the biomedical research agency’s funding to grant opportunities in her small state.

“I’m hearing from my institutions concerned about it,” Capito said in an interview. “It’s pretty drastic.”

It’s an awkward position for GOP lawmakers who have otherwise voiced support for DOGE.

Capito took to the Senate floor in the weeks before Trump took office to laud Musk’s initiative.

“Republicans are proud to have the Department of Government Efficiency … on our side,” she said. “Under President Biden, wasteful government spending spiraled out of control, harming hardworking Americans and their livelihoods.”

But when it comes to government waste, Republican lawmakers are beginning to see things differently as constituents in red states speak out. Many are waiting to see if the courts strike down some of DOGE and OMB’s actions, according to a senior Republican Hill aide granted anonymity to discuss party dynamics.

Some Republicans are “chafing about the basis of [the] executive doing it rather than it being done by Congress,” said the aide.

Capito didn’t say she wanted the courts to settle the matter for lawmakers, but made clear she believes lawsuits will determine whether various funding freezes and recissions are allowed to go through.

“They have given us the backup legal argument as to whether they can do it,” she said of the Trump administration. “I’m sure it will be determined in the court.”

Simpson, whose appropriations subcommittee oversees the Interior Department and National Park Service, has made federal support for national parks a centerpiece of his legislative portfolio over more than two decades in Congress.

“The hiring freeze has been a problem because now’s when we’re hiring seasonal employees for the parks — that’s a challenge,” he said in an interview.

Funny thing is, they could simply put a stop to it. They have the direct power to put a stop to it. They can actively disband DOGE by literally passing the law that has already been proposed. They are just cowards and don't want to take the blame. Need to keep reminding their constituents that they agreed to these cuts. They agreed to them because they supported DOGE and Musk.

I wonder what will happen if SCOTUS rules against Trump and he still does it. Will they actually grow a backbone or return to the sea and be jellyfish.

Remember folks, the GOP and by extension the entire conservative voting base for years railed on the mythical "welfare queen". Well, there is one. A really big one. However, it was staring at them in the mirror all along. As they tend to take the most government money out of everyone.

[Fugus]

To add onto this, Step 6 is already happening. The funny thing about across the board cuts is that they tend to target everyone. The Red states tend to be the largest recipients of federal funding so they will be the ones that take the vast majority of the cuts. So, cue the whining and complaining from the GOP that supported this in the first place. Sorry GOP, you wanted this. You literally wanted this.

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/0...b-gop-00204435





Funny thing is, they could simply put a stop to it. They have the direct power to put a stop to it. They can actively disband DOGE by literally passing the law that has already been proposed. They are just cowards and don't want to take the blame. Need to keep reminding their constituents that they agreed to these cuts. They agreed to them because they supported DOGE and Musk.

I wonder what will happen if SCOTUS rules against Trump and he still does it. Will they actually grow a backbone or return to the sea and be jellyfish.

Remember folks, the GOP and by extension the entire conservative voting base for years railed on the mythical "welfare queen". Well, there is one. A really big one. However, it was staring at them in the mirror all along. As they tend to take the most government money out of everyone.

It will definitely be interesting. What most conservatives don't actually realize is that THEY are the welfare queens they personally are complaining about. They are tricked into believing its full of people lying and popping out kids to get it making the majority of the people collecting. When the fact is it's people working lower paying job like the majority of them with jobs that aren't paying enough to the point they need work and welfare just to make ends meet that are collecting. Many don't even realize what they are collecting is welfare.

Farmers don't realize the programs that pay them to no grow crops is a welfare program. They don't realize the insurance they are using is a form of socialized risk combined with a profit motive and actively hate the socialized stuff more than the profit stuff when you talk about other issues.

Many military vets don't realize the program that has companies favoring them over a civilian when it comes to normal jobs is actually a DEI program and virtually all veterans are DEI hires where the government literally pays the company to hire them over an equally or more qualified civilian making vets the absolute biggest offenders of DEI programs as compared to the ones where they just force companies to not purposefully exclude races or genders.

And the list goes on.

And the ultimate irony, the biggest Trump supporters I have met are actually everything he has railed against and ARE the examples they think of, they just don't think they are that type. Got one that lied to get welfare and spent his entire life doing illegal shit till he either lucked into or used his drug connections to buy his way into a job paying better than half the nation out the gate and worked his way up from there while still doing illegal stuff and lied to get welfare till he got caught. But he complained about how others will lying to get handouts and mooched off welfare and how he never relied on welfare and worked his way up.

Got another going through court right now because he was charged with selling drugs (Weed and Coke) who backed him over the people trying to legalize weed and doesn't believe Trump talked about having him executed and gives Trump credit for pardoning all the pot charges that Obama and Biden did. And he complained about "The Migrant Crime Wave" and how they were bringing drugs across the boarder.

And got a few other examples, but the theme here continues. His biggest supporters are also the ones he most complained about, they just don't think they are that way, they believe themselves to be the exception and its everyone else but them in that position that's the problem.

[Edge-]

https://www.reddit.com/r/TikTokCring...d_eat_my_face/

Y'all, if nothing else this will be a great four years for the actual arts and entertainment. Made by human beings.

[Mayhem]

I hate JDVance with a burning passion but yeah, the talk from Europe is literally like the nagging from a child. If you want to show a spine build your own military. If you are so disappointed by the schizophrenic attitude of the US, then maybe you should have been helping with the weapons. All of that foreign aid worth billions did nothing to win the conflict, what Ukraine needed has always been supplies and a strong support from the countries that are literally its neighbors. Instead of relying on the help from a country literally an ocean away. Its a shame the US is deciding to surrender Ukraine but let's be real. The issue is that Europe is weak and spent decades strengthening Russia's economy over and over with gas pipelines

Here have a look, the EU and European countries easily match what the US sent. In terms of money and weapons, you name it, Europe has sent more aid than the US. So if Europe is weak, then so is the US.

[gondrin]

I'll just put this here. This is how unserious Elon Musk is.

[Tech614]

Here have a look, the EU and European countries easily match what the US sent. In terms of money and weapons, you name it, Europe has sent more aid than the US. So if Europe is weak, then so is the US.

No, I'm pretty sure the US has sent slightly more but it's close and within the same ratio of the GDPs of both since the US is slightly higher GDP than the entire EU so NED is still wrong if hes acting like US is doing more than the EU. Both the US, and the combined EU is a relatively similar % of their GDP given to Ukraine in aid.

If you're talking the individual countries that contributed more of a % of their GDP than the US, well yea it made sense for all those countries since they are geographically close to Russia and in their best interest to keep russia's imperial desires in check. It's too bad the US and western EU did not contribute similar %s or the end result might have been slightly more favorable for Ukraine than it's gonna end up.

[Kiri]

Oh yeah absolutely. US aid to Ukraine wasnt an altruistic effort or whatever. Just pointing out that Europe's worry is annoying more than anything.

They spent decades strengthening Russias economy up until Russia officially invaded Ukraine, have ignore years of the US telling the EU that Russia was going to do what they said they would do. The US sanctioned Gazprom and related companies in an effort to stop this and Europe fought the US on this in order to get that cheap gas. Ukraine was sold out by Europe in the altar of cheap energy. The EU should be last body in this world to scold the US on the matter of Ukraine.

Let's be completely real here. First, the US has, for decades, fostered its position as defender of others due to aforementioned protectors and actively did not want them to invest too much into defense (or, more importantly, to build up anything that can truly compete with the US MIC), also in order to strengthen its position there. A lot of countries are allowing the US military to have bases on their soil explicitly for that. Basically from the end of the cold war to the Trump era, the US very much wanted others to limit their military power and rely on it. But the Trump rethoric has been so effective that by now even those opposed to him buy into his idea that a lack of spending should be a lack of voice.

Naturally, of course, Europe made mistakes with Russia. But ultimately they are owning up to it and are pursuing aid to Ukraine even to their own political detriment. Heck, Vance in the speech that started all of this, basically scolded German politicians for even trying to unite against the extremist parties that want to end aid to Ukraine. Given that, I would say they have the right to scold the nation that voted for hanging Ukraine out dry in order to cosy up to Putin. Again. It's not like the US under Trump V1.0 didn't also help this situation come to pass.

[Mayhem]

No, I'm pretty sure the US has sent slightly more but it's close and within the same ratio of the GDPs of both since the US is slightly higher GDP than the entire EU so NED is still wrong if hes acting like US is doing more than the EU. Both the US, and the combined EU is a relatively similar % of their GDP given to Ukraine in aid.

If you're talking the individual countries that contributed more of a % of their GDP than the US, well yea it made sense for all those countries since they are geographically close to Russia and in their best interest to keep russia's imperial desires in check. It's too bad the US and western EU did not contribute similar %s or the end result might have been slightly more favorable for Ukraine than it's gonna end up.

Yeah, probably should have put a . instead of a , before Europe has sent more aid.

[Mekh]

So what's the level of retardation at r/conservative these days?




Whatever level "This unelected South African billionaire accidentally published NOFORN info like a moron! I bet he had very good, 5d chess reasons!" is.

[Odinfrost]

Just dropping down this little youtube channel that I've been recommended on-off the past year. Very down to earth and sensible man
https://www.youtube.com/@tompowelljr3898

[postman1782]

Just dropping down this little youtube channel that I've been recommended on-off the past year. Very down to earth and sensible man
https://www.youtube.com/@tompowelljr3898

I have been watching him on Tiktok for the last few years.

[Nymrohd]

Whatever level "This unelected South African billionaire accidentally published NOFORN info like a moron! I bet he had very good, 5d chess reasons!" is.

They are clearly all woke DEI hires, they deserve to get burned.

[Breccia]

One of the first meetings I want to have is with President Xi of China and President Putin of Russia. I want to say let’s cut our military budget in half.

-Trump, in public, on purpose

It's going to be fun to see the "We support the troops!" crowd explain how this is what they meant when they voted for Trump.

"But he said other stuff too!"

There’s no reason for us to be building brand new nuclear weapons, we already have so many. You could destroy the world 50 times over, 100 times over. And here we are building new nuclear weapons, and they’re building nuclear weapons.

We’re all spending a lot of money that we could be spending on other things that are actually, hopefully much more productive

Well, there's never a @Skroe when you need one, but, the short answers are "the point is to have so many nobody fucks with you" and "you do know the US, China, and Russia have ways to kill a nuke in flight, right?" While "destroy the world 50 times over" is a bit of a myth that, of course, Trump believes, you don't go to a gunfight with six people with six bullets. You might miss.

But that's not even the point. Stopping making nuclear weapons won't have that effect on the military budget. Biden's CBO says nukes would cost $756 billion over the 2023–2032 period, also known as about $76 billion a year. And that's everything, not just making more. The US military budget is $857 billion a year. 10% is significant, but it's nowhere near half...and that's assuming we let aging missiles die and don't staff them.

Which, as a reminder, he's already tried.

Trump firings cause chaos at agency responsible for America's nuclear weapons

It was a tall order for the relatively obscure civilian agency that conducts a wide variety of nuclear security missions, including servicing the nation's nuclear weapons when they're not on missiles and bombers, and making extensive safety and security upgrades of the warheads. Some workers were responsible for making sure emergency response plans were in place at sites like a giant facility in Texas, where thousands of dismantled warheads are stored. Others worked to prevent terrorists and rogue nations from acquiring weapons-grade plutonium or uranium. Many had "Q" clearances, the highest level security clearance at the Department of Energy.

Yep. Trump, by proxy of Musk, fired the people keeping US nukes out of terrorist hands. It's highly unlikely that short "you're fired, you're hired" span actually resulted in that, but the 10% cut I mentioned before would mandate that.

So again, bare minimum, Trump would need to cut the other 40% of the military budget. And, no, that cannot be done with fraud and waste, the US military keeps receipts and shit. The US military budget is very public and broken down. A lot of it, half-ish, is new "contracts for products and services". Trump has every right to end those, meaning the military doesn't get, you know, cars, guns, and food. And while I do so look forward to the people at Lockheed and Boeing to look at some canceled projects and say "Well, it turns out everyone saying this was a bad idea were right", this move will require mass layoffs of rank-and-file soldiers and servicement.

"Maybe Trump was lying, tricking Russia and China!"

Remember the part where I just flat-out linked multiple sites with US military spending? No.

"But Trump has already proven he can delete or hide that!"

Well, Congress can't, and more importantly, why would Russia believe Trump cut military spending if Trump is the one saying it, and hiding the proof?

There is no way for Trump to do what he's saying he's doing without fucking his own base, harder. I personally predict he won't, which means, he's just outright lying to the world and its super powers. That's the good ending. The worst ending is he's serious, he downgrades the US military significantly, and damages the US's ability to be an effective help in world military issues for decades.

"But won't that force the US to stop getting into wars they don't belong? I thought you wanted that?"

Unwanted, yes. For example, I don't like the idea of just siezing Gaza and putting Trump hotels there. But there's a difference between "I don't want to fight" and "I can't fight". And amongst Trump's "LET'S BOM DEM DERE TERRORISTS YEEEEEEEHAW" cult, what he's doing is an intentional reversal of what they want and voted for.

Again, the only interpretation of Trump's words and actions that isn't bad for the country and bad for his voters specifically is "Trump was lying on purpose".

[Nutjob]

Just dropping down this little youtube channel that I've been recommended on-off the past year. Very down to earth and sensible man
https://www.youtube.com/@tompowelljr3898

Thanks for the heads up, bookmarked.

Favourite quote so far ''its all of a sudden you fuckin potato''

[PhaelixWW]

Trump, in public, on purpose

I feel like the report of every Trump quote should just come with the abbreviated clarification: (PIU), which stands for "publicly, intentionally, & unironically".

[Cthulhu 2020]

Anyone remember when Hegseth said he'd go dry if he got the appointment?

Anyone see him down 3 drinks within 6 questions on live TV?

[Breccia]

Based on what we now know, this appears to be a working timeline:

Trump: Zelensky, I want you to give us all your rare earth metals.
Zelensky: No, we need those. I'm not giving you those.
Trump: Fine, we'll meet in the middle. Give me half.
Zelensky: Still no. I think we don't owe you anything until you DO SOMETHING!
Vance: We're sending troops to Ukraine! Wooooo!
Zelensky: You know what, I'll come back later.

[NED funded]

I love that not even the most conservative of prosecutors is willing to sign Trumps quid pro quo scheme of holding Eric Adams hostage with litigation

[Poopymonster]

Based on what we now know, this appears to be a working timeline:

Trump: Zelensky, I want you to give us all your rare earth metals.
Zelensky: No, we need those. I'm not giving you those.
Trump: Fine, we'll meet in the middle. Give me half.
Zelensky: Still no. I think we don't owe you anything until you DO SOMETHING!
Vance: We're sending troops to Ukraine! Wooooo!
Zelensky: You know what, I'll come back later.

Sounds like the 90s in the middle east.
We're sending in troops to liberate a̶l̶l̶ ̶t̶h̶o̶s̶e̶ ̶r̶a̶r̶e̶ ̶e̶a̶r̶t̶h̶ ̶m̶a̶t̶e̶r̶i̶a̶l̶s̶ Ukraine.