Look, we can all agree that the Ayatollah was not so great. To be fair, neither was the Shah before him.
But violent regime change is only barely acceptable when it comes from within. If it comes from without - well, what's stopping other people from doing it to you? (Other than our enormous military might, that is.)
Oh, I think he's keenly aware of the risk of somebody "doing that to him", for values of "that" including violent deposition, assassination, impeachment, and prison. And he's keenly aware that what prevents that is his (which now includes the US's) awesome power, hence the burning need to accumulate more and more awesome power.
What? You act like that's a bad thing? That's what anybody would do. That's the way the world is, the meaning of life: you accumulate as much power as you can to protect yourself from other people trying to accumulate as much power as they can. And once you've got power, you use it to preemptively crush and humiliate anybody who might eventually accumulate enough power to hurt you.
He follows the Athenian Peloponnesian philosophy even if he's never heard of Thucydides, yes. The question is whether he actually believes his own invulnerability or if that's just part of the show, I guess.
I have an Iranian coworker that I don't think approves of Trump in any way but was hoping for strikes so that the revolution would win; she's just a regular person, she's not plugged into foreign policy, she's not on Bluesky reading what the CIA says about stuff, she just wants her family and friends to be safe and free. So I get it. It fucking sucks, because it's not going to happen, but I get it. I feel so bad for her.
And ICE's killings and other profound abuses. I'll bet he uses this to attack Dems for not funding DHS -- "putting the homeland at risk", when he's the one who did that.
Nowhere, but if it does the job of distracting from the understanding that powerful figures are involved in crimes far more heinous than the ones we are regularly prosecuted for, the waste of time, money, and lives is considered a success. And the mess is for someone else to try and clean up afterward.
Maybe if we started turning them over to the Hague on the regular, they'd stop doing it.
Fair! I think we may have to check timestamps on saves and go back a ways, but this reality definitely calls for some save-scumming if it can even possibly get us out....
I wouldn’t mind going back to a certain Supreme Court case about the results of the 2000 elections…. (if someone else had been in charge during 9/11, I think the world would look different from our current reality in a lot of decent ways).
I swear to got, these people make me feel like I'm taking crazy pills. Didn't he RUN on "no foreign wars", "stop getting involved in other countries' shit!"? Instead it's rapidfire "let's go kidnap or kill foreign leaders if we don't like them". I expected the admin to be cynical and do what they thought was best for them, but I never expected it to be SO incompetent that there's no one in the room actually in touch with how the constituency at large is going to see things. Why do they think that people were all "no foreign wars" in the first place? This administration is so bad at reading the room that it would be comical if it weren't getting people killed.
The frustrating part is how many folks who apparently cared about “no foreign wars” or whatever, don’t seem to care now that we’re later. Whatever is happening now seems to be what we always wanted, as it were.
Yeah. It's always kind of disheartening to be reminded that a lot of peoples' opinions aren't really because they have rationally-chosen moral decisions: they're from their identification with a certain tribe. When whoever leads the tribe changes their story about "this is what my tribe is about", a lot of tribe members just...accept it, even if it's very obviously an aboutface from what the tribe was about last year. We are very good at convincing ourselves that something has changed, this is fine now, some sort of exception has occurred.
And some decide they don't want to be that tribe anymore, but honestly? The administration's approval rating right now is propped up by people who have decided that whatever Drumpty says is fine.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2026-03-01 03:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-03-01 03:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-03-01 03:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-03-01 03:44 pm (UTC)But violent regime change is only barely acceptable when it comes from within. If it comes from without - well, what's stopping other people from doing it to you? (Other than our enormous military might, that is.)
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Date: 2026-03-02 02:52 am (UTC)He's so far down the "rules for thee but not for me" path that I think he is completely incapable of even considering that. :-(
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Date: 2026-03-02 01:05 pm (UTC)What? You act like that's a bad thing? That's what anybody would do. That's the way the world is, the meaning of life: you accumulate as much power as you can to protect yourself from other people trying to accumulate as much power as they can. And once you've got power, you use it to preemptively crush and humiliate anybody who might eventually accumulate enough power to hurt you.
no subject
Date: 2026-03-02 02:35 pm (UTC)He follows the Athenian Peloponnesian philosophy even if he's never heard of Thucydides, yes. The question is whether he actually believes his own invulnerability or if that's just part of the show, I guess.
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Date: 2026-03-01 04:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-03-01 03:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-03-01 03:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-03-01 05:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-03-02 02:54 am (UTC)And ICE's killings and other profound abuses. I'll bet he uses this to attack Dems for not funding DHS -- "putting the homeland at risk", when he's the one who did that.
no subject
Date: 2026-03-01 06:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-03-01 02:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-03-01 07:30 pm (UTC)Maybe if we started turning them over to the Hague on the regular, they'd stop doing it.
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Date: 2026-03-01 02:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-03-01 02:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-03-01 06:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-03-01 06:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-03-01 08:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-03-04 04:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-03-01 02:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-03-01 03:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-03-01 03:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-03-01 05:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-03-02 07:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-03-02 07:17 pm (UTC)And some decide they don't want to be that tribe anymore, but honestly? The administration's approval rating right now is propped up by people who have decided that whatever Drumpty says is fine.
no subject
Date: 2026-03-04 04:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-03-01 05:46 pm (UTC)