The American side deliberately orchestrated the confrontation during President Volodymyr Zelensky’s visit to the White House, Friedrich Merz, the head of Germany’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the likely chancellor, said on March 3.
“It was not a spontaneous reaction to interventions by Zelensky, but obviously a manufactured escalation in this meeting in the Oval Office,” Merz said at a press conference in Hamburg.
The visit was expected to mark the signing of a long-debated agreement between Ukraine and the U.S. on jointly developing Ukraine’s mineral resources.
I want to point out that a very small fraction of the US deliberately did this. Like less than 100 out of 300M. Most of us, and when I say most, I mean nearly ALL of US citizens, and more, are horrified.
Some 60% of Americans feel that what Zelenskyy said was ‘offensive’.
We’re fucked on a societal level.
Where do those numbers come from? I can’t find any source.
But I did find that 46% think no one won the exchange, perhaps unsurprisingly strongly split along party lines https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5173356-trump-zelensky-meeting-poll/
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/03/ukraine-russia-support-poll
The US is a representative democracy, and those were its chosen representatives. Sorry, but you can’t collectively vote Trump into office and then immediately go “woah, we have nothing to do with any of this!” When he turns out to be exactly what everyone expected him to be.
… for the second time.
It’s also extremely disingenous to claim that our country doesn’t support Trump. A majority of Americans are happy to support the status quo that Trump represents. They’re just mad that the billionaires have dropped the mask and stopped using lube while fucking them, but they still want to be fucked. They voted for neoliberal exploitation this election, just like they voted for neoliberal exploitation in the last dozen elections. If Americans really wanted to avoid fascism, they should have started doing something about it at least 40 years ago.
It’s actually looking pretty likely that they didn’t actually win. How very odd that Musk is suddenly buddy buddy with Trump, when he oh so very coincidentally has a team of programmer man children who have a number of proof of concept examples for invisibly changing votes on voting machines.
While obviously if presented with sufficient evidence I’m willing to change my position, I would be shocked if this turns out to be the case. The result was well-within a normal polling error. No reason to act like the Qaninnies and start throwing around vote fraud conspiracies without proof.
https://www.newsweek.com/2024-election-rigged-donald-trump-elon-musk-2019482 https://apnews.com/article/voting-machines-voting-custodio-elections-philadelphia-f8a6453dc9e211ef20e9412d003511b1 https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/voting-experts-warn-of-serious-threats-for-2024-from-election-equipment-software-breaches https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/online-vulnerable-experts-find-nearly-three-dozen-u-s-voting-n1112436
etc etc. There’s a lot of stuff parroting the company line of ‘Oh, well starlink couldn’t have done anything to change the vote, these machines aren’t online!’
Except we already know they’re vulnerable, we already know that if you get into one of the machines, you can spread the malicious to code to offline machines, we know that secure USBs and drives WERE stolen and modified, we know they’re online despite countless claims they aren’t, we know they were going through starlink, and (while i was no longer able to find proof of it, because they went through and scrubbed their resumes, work history, online presence) last I saw at least one of the DOGE team goons was part of a research group for voting machines. Admittedly, I can no longer find the proof of that, so you may take that as you wish.
Fact is though, computer and security scientists have been desperately crying out for years that these machines are compromised in ways that do not get caught by standard checks.
Finally, saying something is ‘within polling error’ is kind of a red flag in and of itself, in my opinion- the polling was HEAVILY democrat, prior to the vote, and the dropoff was absolutely not what we have ever seen before.
Do you have any sources I can read up on? This is the first I hear of this.
https://www.newsweek.com/2024-election-rigged-donald-trump-elon-musk-2019482 https://apnews.com/article/voting-machines-voting-custodio-elections-philadelphia-f8a6453dc9e211ef20e9412d003511b1 https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/voting-experts-warn-of-serious-threats-for-2024-from-election-equipment-software-breaches https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/online-vulnerable-experts-find-nearly-three-dozen-u-s-voting-n1112436
etc etc. There’s a lot of stuff parroting the company line of ‘Oh, well starlink couldn’t have done anything to change the vote, these machines aren’t online!’
Except we already know they’re vulnerable, we already know that if you get into one of the machines, you can spread the malicious to code to offline machines, we know that secure USBs and drives WERE stolen and modified, we know they’re online despite countless claims they aren’t, we know they were going through starlink, and (while i was no longer able to find proof of it, because they went through and scrubbed their resumes, work history, online presence) last I saw at least one of the DOGE team goons was part of a research group for voting machines. Admittedly, I can no longer find the proof of that, so you may take that as you wish.
Fact is though, computer and security scientists have been desperately crying out for years that these machines are compromised in ways that do not get caught by standard checks.
(sorry for the copy paste, but yeah. This isn’t even touching the literal known billions spent on voter suppression, gerrymandering, advertising, concerted media sanewashing, etc etc.)
lol the voters are not who gets represented in American “democracy”, it’s the donors. One of them is literally occupying the office of the president and wreaking absolute havoc.
Is it ok, with you if I’m horrified? Just curious, as your reply will certainly not affect my feeling of being horrified. Were you involved, I mean in any way whatsoever in the events in the Oval Office? I sure as hell wasn’t, I have been minding my own business on the far side of the NA continent. And voted against ALL of this shitshow, in case you are interested. BTW, I never said, "“woah, we have nothing to do with any of this!”, just in case you somehow misread me. Cheers. Also Happy Cake Day!!
Happy cakes
I’m American. You need to face reality: our compatriots did this. Our friends (or former friends, perhaps), neighbors, and family did this. Either with enthusiasm or through complacency, they consented to this trump bullshit. He won the fucking popular vote. It is an indictment upon us all, collectively. It points to the frailty of the voter’s mind.
Let me be clear: fuck us. We deserve what’s coming. My hope is that Starmer, Macron, and Merz can take the helm and guide the West through this.
If I didn’t have such strong ties to this country through my career and my family, I’d fuck off to Canada. I am ashamed to be American. Maybe one day, that’ll change. Maybe.
I’d also like to point out that, of those remaining 200 million or so, 90 million decided to sit out the election altogether. They, in my mind, are just as responsible for letting all of this happen as are those who voted for it.
It’s your country, your attempt at a democratic system and your mess to deal with internally. That it’s a fundamentally broken system you have over there has been known (and in some cases mathematically proven) for a long time now. Personally, I’m getting tired of the ”Not all americans”-stuff. It kinda worked the first time around, but you had four years to deal with him peacefully through your legal system, demonstrations, manifestations and public pressure. He got reelected and there was a peaceful transition of power, possibly the last.
Enough people voted for him. The margins weren’t even that thin. You are now represented by President Orange in your international affairs and force projection. We can’t really help you that much either, as you have positioned yourselves as a dominant global power, with economical, soft and hard power.
My entirely unqualified guess - we’ll start accepting political refugees from the US, fearing for their lives, fairly soon. I’m guessing LGBTQ+, some ethnicities, some scientists and some public servants are in the danger zone. Stop being ”horrified” and start being ”absolutely fucking terrified”.
In short, go deal with your carrot man, we can’t do it for you. We can hopefully provide some refuge. But we can only deal with you as a nation, represented by Trump. Sorry.
With the growing anti-intellectualism in the US, scientists and would be stem would have to go to other countries for their research opportunities, it’s already bad that you have to chase grant money in the US for research, and there is very little support for undergrads to become scientist in general, other than “hope you can find wet lab work somewhere”.