u/Lupus

Yep, been to transnistria in 2010, the society was heavily russified. Russian military settled the secessionists civil war by supporting the creation of the transnistrian state and Russian troops and propaganda are now a part of that state. Moldova got completely fucked over by loosing their industrial centers and it's ensueing instability has made Moldovans more suspectable to Russian propaganda. Had the EU stepped up more to help Moldova stabilize the state and democracy there they wouldn't be so bad off.

*TLDR: Hard disagree on almost anything you just said*

>Well historically it is not a terrible system, it is very stable and tends to not self implode regularly like democracy does.

Yeah if you ignore for example wars of succession, because of incestuous family ties, arbitrary rule, repression and exploitation of its citizens, one could call it stable... Although the escalation and tyranny unfortunately are baked into the system.

if you look at monarchies historically they tried very very hard to avoid having rebellions in their hands and usually worked in the interest of the nation, as the interest of the nation was the interest of the monarch.

Have you ever read history books? Sure some rulers may have had that kind of view but theres also plenty of megalomaniacal, terribly violent and unjust rulers in those big ol books of history. And since it is an imposed rule of tyranny there's really only violence to get rid of an unjust ruler, you know a neat thing about democracy? Violence is the last resort to getting rid of rulers because we can vote! Crazy right?

>So if a democratic nation seems headed towards anti democratic rule, it would seem to me that a better goal would be to install a monarchy instead of a fascist.

In that case- what's the fucking difference? Oh, to avoid an autocracy let's install an autocracy with cherry flavor... Great?

>saying ‘nobody was close to us in terms of bravery

Yeah tell that to the 13 million dead Sowjet soldiers.

For perspective that is more than the current inhabitants of Belgium or Bolivia.

Adding 14 million dead Soviet citizens - 27 million dead, that's more people than currently living in Australia.

>Its quite odd that Ukranians were being handled differently in the first place.

Its as if they were deemed to have more value than those pesky *normal* refugees.

Here in Germany during the "refugee crisis" 2015 I noticed a heavy uptick in ticket controls in the public transport, while as with Ukrainians during 20222 the public transports advertised on billboards that Ukrainian refugees can drive for free. Biggest difference between the two groups? The skin color...

I know it is only anecdotal but to me it was noticeable.

The EU started negotiations for a free trade agreement in 2015 during Obama, then the orange threw the proposal out in 2016.

Now in 2025 he imposed the tariffs, then announced he'd be willing to negotiate new trade terms and the EU opened the drawer and got out that proposal from 10 years ago.

Basically what the EU always wanted in the first place.

>So now he thinks he can make demands extraterritoriality

To quote the grandmother of a friend: "Wish into one hand and shit into the other, see which one is filled first"

>Not entirely sure if Vance was using the Europe angle as a strawman to voice his disapproval of bombing Yemen knowing that the rest of the administration hates Europe,

Yeah, unfortunately I think that dude is a lot smarter than we all give him credit for. Like Boris Johnson, his perceived idiocy makes him fly under the radar a lot of times, which makes them more dangerous.

When gaming on the couch I just put a neck roll on my stomach and rest the deck on there.