Erik Haugen @ech@qoto.org

@holgerpatzelt @rchusid "allow it to compete with other countries" – I am afraid that ship sailed long ago, they have perhaps the strongest military in the EU, or close to it. But worry not, they seem pretty cool these days.

@freemo I don't know, I think Russia was more the one entering that deal out of fear of invasion (from Britain), but I suggest the geopolitical realities are maybe a bit different these days.

@freemo yeah but like come on they aren't going to invade Alaska.

@freemo yeah, think of how much blood is on our hands because of this.

re. Europe: I'm not saying Europe is *responsible*; that isn't my point; I'm just noting there's more at stake for them than for the US.

@holgerpatzelt @rchusid You might be right, but Trump still has the right idea: Europe needs to step up and deal with this. They easily can.

@freemo @rchusid Yeah, I hope Ukraine can win completely, but US giving them just enough weapons to keep fighting but in inadequate quantities or with too many restrictions to actually win seems like the worst possible thing we could be doing.

Also Trump was right on in saying Europe should deal with this; they easily could if they had the resolve. Follow Poland's lead.

@SoGeneris@mastodon.social @Kraemer_HB @wdlindsy Politicians from both parties talk about "fighting" metaphorically *all the time*; you're being disingenuous.

In the speech you're quoting he actually urges people to keep the protest peaceful.

@Kraemer_HB @wdlindsy well if Trump was calling for violence, I wish *somebody* would tell me what happened that day. I've never seen evidence of that.

@Kraemer_HB @wdlindsy apparently I'm a "trump sucker": "it very much seems like he says stupid stuff because he's an idiot" is not sufficiently anti-Trump, you see?

This is a weird place.

@Kraemer_HB @wdlindsy I've heard about 1/6? I don't see how any of that description fits; e.g. he called for no violence pretty soon after things went off the rails, etc.

@Kraemer_HB @wdlindsy Yeah, a fascist mob spilling blood would have me convinced, if that happened, for sure!

Ok so there's tons of turnover with each administration; how do we determine if it has reached the threshold of alarm?

@Kraemer_HB @wdlindsy for sure, but if you think every clowny populist is Hitler, then that isn't too useful either.

@volkris @RussCheshire @guardian Yeah, turns out nearly all the wealth being held is actually companies that are literally trying to improve the lot of mankind; OP has it 100% wrong!

(I mean, we can quibble about how much good his companies do, but still.)

@RussCheshire @guardian Nope, turns out economics is not zero-sum.

@Kraemer_HB @wdlindsy I was pretty worried about his rhetoric in 2016 like "I'm going to open up our libel laws" – that sort of thing is gross and I'd strongly prefer a president who didn't say that, to put it mildly.

BUT: he didn't really *do* anything along those lines while he was president for 4 years. That's gotta count for something. I mean, it very much seems like he says stupid stuff because he's an idiot, and not because he's Hitler-in-waiting. (I realize this is not a *good* thing, I'm just saying it probably isn't nearly as bad as Hitler.)

What other aspects could a "serious" person compare to Hitler? The Guardian had an article about this in June, and in typical-insipid-Guardian fashion it basically just said he's legitimately Hitler-like because he's a populist that does weird political-theater.

OK so populism is probably usually bad, and political theater is annoying, granted, but the thing about Hitler that we all think of as being Hitler-level bad isn't the political theater or populism. This is not a "serious" argument.

@mike Good discussion in the comments.

@nazgul @augieray ok I'm glad I live somewhere where people seem to support the police 😂

It's good that assault rifles aren't what you'd want for self-defense; you pretty much can't get one anywhere.

@amydiehl You read this article as describing it as a weakness?

@shellheim @mjk what kinds of interview questions do people use to filter out this mindset?