but Putin’s invasion wouldn’t have looked like an invasion at all, if it had gone according to his plan. He infiltrates territories, creates areas heavily inhabited by Russians, assumes more and more direct control of them through puppets and only then eventually moves in with the army to “liberate them”.

And then we all collectively pretend to look the other way and resume doing business with him as soon as possible. That’s how it mainly worked with Crimea, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, so not a new thing. This time NATO didn’t play ball (and Trump is trying to go back to the usual routine).

When the “move in with the army” phase happened with Ukraine, the way I remember that last part, it was pretty abrupt as far as invasions go; “drills” was a brief excuse when they couldn’t hide all the troops that were amassing near the border, not a continuous flexing of military muscle.

Not saying that “Putin did it better” here; in fact I hope he’s going to get the right comeuppance for what he’s doing to millions of people (Ukrainians and his own). Just that whatever China is doing with Taiwan looks different to just-a-schmuck-on-the-internet me…

what is the point where having continued drills becomes just ridiculous? What is it that they are actually testing at this point?

trying hard to see the glass half full: it’s good that he implies that there will still be elections

And this makes like… 10 of them now who changed their minds? Seriously, what the heck?

Trump’s polls are still pretty high: https://news.gallup.com/poll/658661/republicans-men-push-trump-approval-higher-second-term.aspx Better than his first term overall and 92% among Republicans. 92%!

Hahaha, good point. On the other hand, “cheap” depends on the perspective. From Musk’s it’s an incredibly cheap way to get a big payoff…huge ROI!

“Hey we said ‘rapidly’, nobody said anything about it still working when we’re done”

sure, but let me be just as obvious: the issue is not with what they want, it’s the “grab them by the p__y” approach to international diplomacy. You know those groups of teenagers that do stupid, violent things to be cheered by the gang? That’s modern politics, apparently.

And he gets mad at so many things! It’s liberating, really

At this point, it looks like Trump is trying really hard to mess with his voters and lose them. But unluckily he is failing hard even at that.

yes, so typical and yet so effective so far.

Phase 1: eat a baby in plain view at a crowded event

Phase 2: get really angry and personally attack anybody who mentions it and their employer

Phase 3: after a few days just roll your eyes and dismiss with “again with that baby thing?”

If nothing serious happens right after phase 1, holding onto this as future political ammo seems to be worthless. I really hope I’m wrong and that the accumulation of these things is enough to turn enough of Trump’s base against him but they accumulated a whole fricking lot by now and there is still room for more…