Not just American citizens. The people he grew up with. His own community. He even wrote a book to exploit it. The guy is all sleaze.

America pulled itself out of the great depression by becoming the worlds largest weapons manufacturer and staying out of WW2 until the very end.

They feel that they have been doing their allies a favor by having military bases in key locations that have allowed these nations to spend less than 2% of their GDP on defense.

This administration would like to reset the world order so that these countries pay for their own defense. Isolationists like JD Vance strongly believe in this.

They also know that allies will likely buy weapons from them which will help balance trade imbalances.

Here’s the problem - there is no situation where this does not lead to nuclear proliferation. It’s essentially inevitable if America continues down this path.

Also, when nations invest more in their militaries, they are more likely to use them, with or without adequate justification. The US is a prime example of this.

Perhaps the post WW2 period of relative peace and prosperity is about to come to an end, along with the concept of the Western world - leaving a power vacuum that I’m sure China and Russia are eager to capitalize on.

You better listen otherwise I’ll crash my economy!

That’s certainly an oversimplification.

Science has representatives that are susceptible to the flaws in human thinking that are also apparent in religion. The recent pandemic made that very clear.

There is a scientific community that has good and bad players in it. Science doesn’t get to wash itself of human corruption just because it’s a process

There are multiple points in human history where science has overestimated itself.

In Abrahamic religions, God is all knowing, not people. Eastern religions are more abstract, some have all knowing deities and some do not.

They can, they’ll just go out of business. Puts them at a huge competitive disadvantage relative to asian and European car makers.

She’s a young, outspoken woman of color. Old white people would never let it happen, even if half are in a nursing home mainlining Fox News straight into their frontal cortex and can barely walk on their own.

A lot of folk are still recovering from Obama being elected twice.

At least Bernie looks familiar to them, so the hatred will be tampered.

It depends on what they’re talking about. I’ll listen to and generally heed a doctors medical opinion, for example. Their political opinion? Eh…

Joe Rogan, who has doesn’t have expertise in anything comparable to a doctors expertise in medicine, no way I’m talking anything he says at face value.

Oh so this is just layperson’s math on the back of a napkin. Thanks for clarifying.

Trump and his ilk are trying to spread the idea that the US doesn’t have to buy the $482 billion worth of goods ans services from Canada and its doing so essentially as a ‘favor’.

Canada does not have the systems in place to sell to the rest of the world efficiently, especially oil. Which is part of why the Canadian economy is more dependent on the US than vice versa.

It looks like ~20% of the $482 billion figure you’ve cited is oil which the US could reasonably procure from elsewhere, even domestically, if there was a will to do so. Especially considering that Western Canada Select is high in sulfur and needs more refinement, making it less valuable on the global market.

Source? Does this include energy / oil or only consumer goods?