US US Politics General - Discussion of President Biden and other politicians

 

[Mantis Toboggan M.D.]

Trump isn’t gonna destroy the Civil Rights Act, repeal the 19th, or even address legal immigration in any meaningful way. He doesn’t want to and the will isn’t there anyway. We’ve still got a long, long way to go.

I agree fren, but it's a step in the Right direction. Getting a person to unwind the retardedness of the leftist progressives is a huge first step and shoves our foot in the door, plus Vance should be a major whitepill for all rw men and women. A man who listens to the most fringe dissident (lol) right voices, is a man that sees the problems with the standard viewing of American and worldwide politics. While he may not implement all the policies we may want him to, he's gonna begin the shift.

Besides cleaning house with the illegals and the drugs solves a ton of issues right away and signals to the world that these solutions are not to be "cordon sanitaire"d away but a real political force. It allows the world to uncuck itself. It truly is the completion of a revolution of history.

Or maybe the hopium got to my head and I'll die of an overdose - either way I'll die happy

 

[trent]

And on that same token, we won't have real security because real security is mean. Real security means locking people up, chasing border crossers away with rifles, using nightsticks to make bums move on, and more. People forget that we've already been through this cycle. We shut down law enforcement in the 60s and 70s at the demand of voters because it was mean. Things got really, really bad, so bad that voters came around and were okay with being mean again...for a while. Things eventually got good in the 2000s, so good that once again, voters cried and wailed when they saw how mean keeping society secure was. So we started disabling meaningful law enforcement again, now things are going to shit, and once again, voters are coming around.

But even if Trump does fix things, in 10 years, voters will start crying about how mean putting criminals in jail is.

"Hug a Thug" has literally never worked in the history of humanity. Western countries are dumb as fuck for trying it repeatedly in cycles.

Look at Asian countries with decades/centuries of strict laws and a societal distaste for crime and the people who commit it. Some of the safest places on the planet because they come down on shitters like a ton of bricks.

 

[Breadbassket]

Here is some recent United States military news. Important details relating to national politics include the current American Secretary of Defense making a nice comment about women in the force and that the American stockpile of munitions is dwindling but is expected to ramp up in 2025.

It’s the end of the world as we know it, and more military news​

Happy Friday! Every time I walk into my local Starbucks, a barista I know asks me if World War III has started. It’s a reasonable question considering Ukraine claims Russia fired a non-nuclear intercontinental ballistic missile on Thursday at the Ukrainian city of Dnipro. Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters on Thursday that Russia had fired an “experimental intermediate-range ballistic missile” based on Russia’s RS-26 Rubezh ICBM, and Russian authorities notified the United States briefly before the launch through nuclear risk reduction channels.

Singh also said this is the first time the United States has seen this missile used on the battlefield, and that U.S. officials recently briefed Ukraine about the possibility that it could be used.

The latest Russian attack comes after the United States allowed Ukraine to use its Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMS, to strike targets inside Russia — although under what conditions remains unclear — and the U.S. government has agreed to provide the Ukrainians with antipersonnel landmines.

Things haven’t been this tense since 1983, when the United States and Soviet Union nearly stumbled into nuclear war, first in September and again in November. The recent talk about the possibility of World War III has prompted me to ask Pentagon Rundown readers: Which is the most depressing nuclear war movie of all time – “The Day After” or “Threads”? Send your votes to schogol@taskandpurpose.com and increase the peace!

But enough about the potential for Armageddon. Here’s your weekly rundown.

• “We need you.” CNN rising star and Task & Purpose alumna Haley Britzky pressed Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin this week about comments made by Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for defense secretary, that women do not belong in combat roles. Austin responded that the “very courageous and very proficient” women he has led in combat are examples of the incredible things that women in the military do. “I think our women add significant value to the United States military and we should never change that,” Austin said in Laos on Wednesday. “And if I had a message, to answer your question, to our women, I would tell them that, you know, we need you, we have faith in you, we are appreciative of your service, and you add value to the finest and most lethal fighting force on Earth.”
• Speaking of voluntary service. The Marine Corps is out with its newest moto recruiting commercial as part of its “Made for This” campaign, which features the tag, “You don’t join the Marines, you become one.” Task & Purpose asked a panel of teenagers who are in the Corps’ target demographic what they thought of the commercial. While they sensed there are less glamorous aspects of Marine life that the commercial didn’t show — such as “sitting around doing nothing” — they also picked up on many of the recruiting ad’s themes. “It definitely showed the variety of what you can do,” said Colin, a high school junior. “There were, like, guys jumping out of helicopters and then it clipped to a guy running through a snowstorm. And then spinning a weapon around. I don’t know, just a bad ass on the move all the time.”
• Saying the quiet part out loud. Navy Adm. Samuel Paparo, head of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, acknowledged on Tuesday that the U.S. military’s stockpile of artillery shells and other munitions is dwindling due to the amount of aid being provided to Ukraine and Israel. The Army expects to ramp up production of 155mm artillery shells to 100,000 per month by the end of 2025 — more than three years after the Ukraine war started. One limiting factor has been that the United States has had to import TNT, a major component of artillery shells. Although the Army recently awarded a contract to build a TNT factory in Graham, Kentucky, it is not expected to be completed until 2028.
• Using the military to deport illegal immigrants. This week’s news has moved so quickly that it would be easy to forget that Trump confirmed on Monday that he plans to use U.S. troops as part of his efforts to deport illegal immigrants. The law he will likely use to do so is the Insurrection Act, which gives presidents, “almost unrestricted latitude for the domestic use of the United States military for law enforcement purposes,” said Kori Schake, head of the defense policy team at the American Enterprise Institute think tank in Washington, D.C. While Trump may be challenged in courts, U.S. troops are not allowed to disobey orders because they disagree with them.
• Small Wars Journal reboot. The Small Wars Journal, a blog that was initially launched in 2005 and focuses on unconventional or irregular warfare, insurgency, and guerilla warfare, is being relaunched under the Future Security Initiative at Arizona State University, said John P. Sullivan, an associate editor with the publication. The original site was founded by retired Marine Maj. Dave Dilegge, who died in May 2020. “The new Small Wars Journal (SWJ), or SWJ 2.0. under the leadership of ASU’s Future Security Initiative (FSI) and in collaboration with ASU Media Enterprises publishes serious, authentic voices from across the spectrum of small wars stakeholders,” Sullivan told Task & Purpose.

And on a personal note: The Pentagon Rundown will be off next week for the Thanksgiving holiday. On behalf of everyone at Task & Purpose, I wish you and your families all the best!

 

[YarrBlueballs]

This is going to be a long post, so beware, but this is my try at a condensed and hopefully well written explanation on the tariffs issue.

How is it not the other way around? What business and/or industry exactly does Trump want to economically protect and from whom?

See the following for example : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpALVkRGW1Y

Even in the case of the auto-motive industry, Trump says he doesn't care if a particular company is foreign or not as long as they make cars here and hire workers here, and f they don't do that, he'll put tariffs on cars made overseas.

Reread what you just wrote, think on that for a moment, and then realize that branding and who 'owns' what doesn't matter when the physical point of construction and movement of goods is in the U.S.

For example; why do you think the U.S. is trying to get chip manufacturing set up here? Oh sure it'll be "owned" by the Taiwanese, but it will be employing Americans on American soil, thus it is, by default, an American industry now, with American protections, influence, and capital flow. The U.S. has, for decades, moved American productions outside of our borders and effectively given everything ranging from capital, expertise, invaluable inventions, and data, all being given on a silver platter to other nations (a big example of this would be the F35 project). This can work our way as well, strengthening not just our economy but also our future position as not just a world power but as a leader in policy.

Putting and keeping industries inside of the United States is one of the most important aspects of tariffs, aside from just making money, because you WANT people to not just pay, but sell to Americans, which are a fucking massive market and, once there is more capital flowing, going to be even larger and more profitable even WITH tariffs on some goods. Remember that while economics is not a zero-sum game, we can still certainly stack our side with bonuses to make it patently uneven to play against, as we should. Keeping capital inside of the U.S., for U.S. citizens? THAT is protectionism at it's core.

Many people might be getting extremely confused simply on the basis of thinking of protectionism and tariffs as top-down with American super companies being the focus, when really it is a bottom-up endeavor where the American worker is the focus and competitive companies are the byproduct.

Anyhows, that's enough eco-sperging before I start writing a goddamn dissertation. I've seen my posts get a bit more attention on this subject, so hopefully more people iffy about tariffs will see this and have some fears alleviated. Mind you, economics is as much as pseudoscience as sociology, meaning it can be generalized and have extensive data, but that is still very uncertain and dependent on factors going as expected. Thus, expect growing pains, don't believe tariffs to be a magic wand that will make everything better instantly, and vote hard for people who support MAGA people-first economic policies and not corporate interests, lest tariffs become merely another government bullshit machine.

To end this off a bit American cheesy, make America great again!

 

[Diana Moon Glampers]

And on that same token, we won't have real security because real security is mean. Real security means locking people up, chasing border crossers away with rifles, using nightsticks to make bums move on, and more. People forget that we've already been through this cycle. We shut down law enforcement in the 60s and 70s at the demand of voters because it was mean. Things got really, really bad, so bad that voters came around and were okay with being mean again...for a while. Things eventually got good in the 2000s, so good that once again, voters cried and wailed when they saw how mean keeping society secure was. So we started disabling meaningful law enforcement again, now things are going to shit, and once again, voters are coming around.

But even if Trump does fix things, in 10 years, voters will start crying about how mean putting criminals in jail is.

I think a lot of this is that "virtuous victimhood" is used by people with high levels of Machiavellian traits, but a huge number of "be kind" people just see their signals at the surface level. "This unfortunate person is uniquely scapegoated by an unfair system!"

It's important to teach kids to identify manipulators and people who attempt to mask dark traits through pity-seeking behaviors. Kids should know enough about abnormal psychology to identify people whose opinions and requests may not be based in reality. If everyone could recognize the signs of antisocial personality disorder, a lot of psychopaths in prison would be unable to ply their sob story to every journo in town.

 

[CarlKingofDucks]

Good point. I did not know that about SpaceX or Tesla. I was going based off of his comments on X.


Honestly this seems pretty on the mark.

People still need to realize he’s a fair weather friend though. Who knows how long it will last.

He keeps up how he has been, he will be stuck with us whether he likes it or not.

 

[Hey Johnny Bravo]

Small Wars Journal reboot

FUCK YES
Small Wars Journal was kino as FUCK. If it's at ASU's FSI, then David Kilcullen will have something to do with it. I am so fucking excited by this news.

 

[quaawaa]

"Elon Musk came in and he's going to help Make America Efficient Again. He's a great guy and really wants to do some things, and we're going to let him do it [...] Elon, leave defense to me. We have more planes than any country in the world. We have more than Russia. Elon, stay away from our military":

Source (Archive)

 

[he who has thus come/gone]

Florida would have also passed a measure if they used the same 50% threshold as other states but they require 60% to pass a measure and only got 57% of the vote.

Florida's referendum would have passed if the proponents actually tried a moderate approach. If the proposal was to protect abortion for, say, 15 weeks and that's it, then that's somewhat reasonable and likely would have passed. But they tried to push for free abortion up to viability, which is just too distasteful to garner the supermajority necessary for a state constitutional amendment. Jury's still out on whether they realize this or not, but I'm guessing their ideological possession will just push them to double down in the future.

 

[WelfareNiggerQueen]

"Elon Musk came in and he's going to help Make America Efficient Again. He's a great guy and really wants to do some things, and we're going to let him do it [...] Elon, leave defense to me. We have more planes than any country in the world. We have more than Russia. Elon, stay away from our military":
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Source (Archive)

The best way to save money with the military is to get them to stop spending $20 on nuts and bolts. Not bulk packages of them, $20 for 1 nut or bolt.

 

[Verdun_Salient]

I won't lie, the tariffs I think are a bad idea. Unless Trump can actually reduce the barrier to entry for factories to return such as by getting rid of the regulations that encouraged the outsourcing in the first place, the tariffs are only going to make prices worse

 

[Breadbassket]

"Elon Musk came in and he's going to help Make America Efficient Again. He's a great guy and really wants to do some things, and we're going to let him do it [...] Elon, leave defense to me. We have more planes than any country in the world. We have more than Russia. Elon, stay away from our military":
View attachment 6680028
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Source (Archive)

Drones have use for surgical strikes, reconnaissance, and cheap to produce disposable close air support but on their own as technology currently stands they are not suitable to replace fighter jets just yet.

 

[Not Really Here]

Florida would have also passed a measure if they used the same 50% threshold as other states but they require 60% to pass a measure and only got 57% of the vote.

Florida's referendum would have passed if the proponents actually tried a moderate approach

You guys know it was a State Constitutional amendment, and not a simple 'ballot measure' right?
It should take a 2/3 majority.

 

[Hey Johnny Bravo]

I won't lie, the tariffs I think are a bad idea. Unless Trump can actually reduce the barrier to entry for factories to return such as by getting rid of the regulations that encouraged the outsourcing in the first place, the tariffs are only going to make prices worse

The most legitimate criticism of tariffs that I have read is that Trump wants manufacturing to happen in the US that has not happened at significant scale in decades, so there is no way to keep prices low on certain goods because the US supply chain is not prepared. The counter to this is... no shit, and why aren't we self-reliant? Why are we relying on China, who is our main trade adversary, to give us cheap shit? Liberals see no issue with China supporting Russia by buying their cheap natgas and shipping them the North Koreans to get addicted to porn, but they would have a stroke if we bought anything from Belarus.

 

[Sithis]

The most legitimate criticism of tariffs that I have read is that Trump wants manufacturing to happen in the US that has not happened at significant scale in decades, so there is no way to keep prices low on certain goods because the US supply chain is not prepared. The counter to this is... no shit, and why aren't we self-reliant? Why are we relying on China, who is our main trade adversary, to give us cheap shit? Liberals see no issue with China supporting Russia by buying their cheap natgas and shipping them the North Koreans to get addicted to porn, but they would have a stroke if we bought anything from Belarus.

People forget that although the older generations were made of tougher stuff, we still went through our own period of indulgence and Weimar style degeneracy before we ramped up to that level of manufacturing, people were soft and drunk and enraptured by trappings. Then Depression and war took those trappings and hammered them to dust and people rose to the challenge of making better.

The issue isn't within the people themselves tbh - humans are malleable sacks of meat that have repeatedly shown that even weak dysgenics can improve themselves to fitness. The issue is that back in Ye Olden Times there was a sense of national unity and pride. America wasnt just a geographical place, it was an idea and a national organism, a people. Nationalism is not a bad thing, it's actually a very good thing, because it brings up a sense of national pride and "we can get through this because we're AMERICANS goddammit!" That propelled us through the tough times and into prosperity, and could help us again, but we have become a nation full of traitors who despise America and think it should be radically altered.

Our survival as the United States of america rests upon the "silent majority" deciding to not be silent and to tell these faggots to shut the fuck up or leave.

 

[The best and greatest]

Drones have use for surgical strikes, reconnaissance, and cheap to produce disposable close air support but on their own as technology currently stands they are not suitable to replace fighter jets just yet.

You just described 3 out of 5 of the roles of a multi-purpose fighter like the F35, the remaining jobs (Strategic ordinance delivery) can be fulfilled by dedicated airframes more efficiently, and (Air superiority) is only necessary in the context of other people having fighter jets, yet even this can be outsourced with ever smarter G2A/A2A-loitering solutions.

Ideally the F35 should be the last manned fighter America ever produces

 

[quaawaa]

The most legitimate criticism of tariffs that I have read is that Trump wants manufacturing to happen in the US that has not happened at significant scale in decades, so there is no way to keep prices low on certain goods because the US supply chain is not prepared. The counter to this is... no shit, and why aren't we self-reliant? Why are we relying on China, who is our main trade adversary, to give us cheap shit? Liberals see no issue with China supporting Russia by buying their cheap natgas and shipping them the North Koreans to get addicted to porn, but they would have a stroke if we bought anything from Belarus.

Imagine if Deng Xiaoping had said "we can't compete with the US and Europe, we don't have any manufacturing. We should just trade rice for manufactured goods because there's no way that we could build up our own industry".

 

[he who has thus come/gone]

You guys know it was a State Constitutional amendment, and not a simple 'ballot measure' right?
It should take a 2/3 majority.

I absolutely know that, and I am not even disagreeing that it should take more than a bare majority to amend the state constitution. My point is that it would have passed the 60% threshold if the proponents tried a moderate compromise rather than trying to get everything they wanted. I'm more surprised that the recreational marijuana amendment didn't reach the 60% majority, even though I personally didn't like the idea of smelling marijuana everywhere like you do when you walk the streets of New York.

 

[pwnest injun]

Massive illegal immigration from Latin America has been a significant national security issue that our government has been completely ignoring like an ostrich in the sand since, what, the 1930's at the very least? This issue is cataclysmically awful for the US and I feel like I'm taking crazy pills when I hear people say it's really not a big deal at all.

I remember a couple of years ago, California public schools were trying to teach Reconquista as part of their curriculum..

 

[SanctedElectromagnetism]

You just described 3 out of 5 of the roles of a multi-purpose fighter like the F35, the remaining jobs (Strategic ordinance delivery) can be fulfilled by dedicated airframes more efficiently, and (Air superiority) is only necessary in the context of other people having fighter jets, yet even this can be outsourced with ever smarter G2A/A2A-loitering solutions.

Ideally the F35 should be the last manned fighter America ever produces

air superiority is one of the most important parts in any modern war though. Just look at the Ukraine Russia war, if either side started flying jets more often then the war would have been over in like half a year.

Wasn't Musk also in favor of replacing tanks or something? I may be wrong but I remember a bunch of military autists sperging out about him saying how tanks are useless in current times?