Pretty much, yeah. Except that as @Fire_Joni_Ernst notes, DonOLD Drumpf got 49.8% of the popular vote. I’ll add that Drumpf got 49.8% of the 155.2 MM votes cast for President. The US population is about 340 MM persons. So he was elected by rather less than 1/4 of the US population.
Tell me, Mr. Justice Balls’n’Strikes, can a bit more than 1/5 of the country empower someone to torture the rest of the country? I understand that you’re opposed to little-d democracy as well as big-D Democrats, but in what universe does that even approximate fairness?
If Merz wants nukes, Merz can have nukes in fairly short order. I would prefer that Germany did not a expand the N-6* club to the N-7 (or N-8) club. But if Merz wants nukes and his governing coalition goes along my preferences are irrelevant.
– * The N-6 is the US, Russia, UK, France, China, North Korea: the acknowledged nations that have tested nuclear devices.This should probably be the N-7 club. Israel has nuclear weapons, although they’ve never publicly admitted it (and haven’t been undeniably caught testing them). Whether they have thermonuclear weapons is an open question. Making an appropriately-sized mass of fissile material go BOOM! isn’t terribly complicated. Managing the energy and neutrons properly to trigger fission of lithium deuteride and fusion of the resulting deuterium and tritium is a lot more complicated and pretty much requires testing at a scale that we would know about, had Israel conducted the tests. (Note that Israel and South Africa may have tested a nuclear device, the VELA Incident of 1979.) So nuclear weapons for Israel is a definite yes in my book, and thermonuclear weapons are a very real possibility.
Both France and the UK have nuclear arsenals. France has 290 (280 deployed) and the UK 225 (120 deployed). Both the UK and France could give Germany 5 nukes each and it would have a “deterrent”. There are already way too many nukes in the world, and firing off just a couple would certainly get attention. This discussion is a bit silly, however, as NATO was supposed to be this umbrella and nobody had to spend more money on nukes. Indeed, 30 years ago the idea was still to reduce their numbers. What is not healthy is uncertainty caused by incompetence. Trump was animated by “raw earths” and nobody had the heart to tell him about lanthanides. Trump is animated about tariffs, and he still doesn’t understand how they work. I want to say chimpanzee with a machine gun, but it would be unfair to chimpanzees.
Testing nuclear devices is pretty much a consequence of having a nuclear arsenal. I’m aware of only two cases where a nuclear power voluntarily destroyed its arsenal: the South Africans (following the end of the apartheid regime) and Ukraine. Ironically, one of the reasons the government of Ukraine was willing to surrender its (inherited) nuclear arsenal was the security guarantees provided by the US government.
In the 1950s there was a rush to build nukes, so a rush to mine uranium. Australia was the big supplier for the UK, but the SALT treaties ended all the demand on the weapons side. The US continued to refine Pu. Uranium prices fluctuate wildly depending on political views on commercial nuclear power, but weapons-grade material will be in overabundance for centuries to come. Fun fact, the Rum Jungle Mine pit in Northern Territory eventually filled with water. Even though it was behind a fence, it was a mecca for canoeists and divers who didn’t mind glowing a bit. It was clear, crocodile-free water. What’s not to love?
Liberals and conservatives exhibit different cognitive styles and converging lines of evidence suggest that biology influences differences in their political attitudes and beliefs. In particular, a recent study of young adults suggests that liberals and conservatives have significantly different brain structure , with liberals showing increased gray matter volume in the anterior cingulate cortex, and conservatives showing increased gray matter volume in the in the amygdala.
Appeals, under Trump, are not a process to clarify complex legal arguments. Under Trump, appeals are a method to delay the application of law while lawlessness continues to occur.
In personality type theory, there are certain types of people who crave a strongman leader telling them what to do. It makes them feel safe. They think this is the proper order of things. Regardless of nationality, culture, race or gender, about 1/3 of all humans fall into these personality types. So, yeah, they’re everywhere. Personality type is congenital, although, over time, a person may learn how to reflect on their traits and start to modify their world view. For the most part, though, you’re going to get a big chunk of the world population who loves them some Nazis.
As with all of trump’s impetuous vengeful actions, he is cutting off our nose to spite his face. It is American defense contractors who will feel the loss, as their contracts to resupply arms dry up.
It is obvious that the Presidency, especially in the hands of a lunatic, has way too much power. Even if Repubs in Congress had a spine, the slow moving slugs in Congress are not fast enough to turn this ship of state before it sinks.
