Any thoughts on last night's debate? Who outperformed, underperformed? Who's trending upward, who's going the wrong way? Who's still viable" Who's not? Is anybody a threat to Trump? Who do you still like?
No doubt Vivek had the best evening. He stood up to attacks from all sides adding, in my view to his status as a political outsider. Nikki for the most part had a good night making some very good points but I thought her interrupting of Ramaswamy was somewhat rude and he probably had to bite his lip from telling her to shut up it was his 30 seconds. Scott was lost in the shuffle. Christi wasn't impressive. DeSantis lacks charismatic flare but has a good pedigree and policy. Who were those guys on the edges?
Agree on Nikki, she helped herself to be sure. Pence helped himself also, Vivek held up much better than I had anticipated given his first time on that stage, he is gonna be a force to be reckoned with. DeSantis was fading before and I don't think did enough to help himself, agree on Scott. Christie I think held serve but needs more and the guys on the edges just don't have any juice, Asa would have been my first choice in the group. Disappointed, not surprised Biggest takeaway tho is that there is nobody up there capable of derailing the Trump train at this point and setting us up for an epic sh!t show of an election season......
Vivek came across to me as a glib charlatan. He maintained that China and Russia are our largest threats but stated that he would not provide additional aid to Ukraine and further maintained that the military equipment sent to Ukraine should have been sent to the Mexican border. WTF? I am in support of border security but why would we need to send HIMARS and other artillery to the border? Not sure if Juarez is that big of a threat. Plus, if Russia is a grave threat, how does it serve our national interest to allow the Russian wolf to slaughter the Ukrainian people? Ukraine’s heroic and magnificent resistance against a vastly wealthier, stronger, and larger Russia has only 1 comparable in recent history — when the Finns in 1940 mauled Stalin’s legions. Ukraine has shown to the world by its defense of its homeland how depraved, corrupt and wicked Putin and his henchmen are and it deserves our assistance as it continues to degrade Putin’s power in its attempt for national independence.
Bravo! Agree with your assessment of Vivek, his naivete with regards to foreign policy was properly lanced by Haley and Pence. Confronting Soviet expansionism has been a bedrock of conservative thought for generations. Pains me to see Trumps isolationist impulses persist and risk enabling the Putin/Xi designs. Viveks partisan leanings over national interests make him a non-starter for me.
Vivek also has implied that once we can get semiconductor independence from Taiwan then PRC and ROC dispute is their own business. I like Nikki Haley (a lot). I am dismayed by so many on the right who are opposed to helping Ukraine. Granted we need to tread somewhat softly but...
If you're an investor in weapons manufacturers, this is the administration for you. First we leave billions of dollars in equipment in Afghanistan. Much of that has to be replaced. Then we get into the Ukraine conflict. We don't give Ukraine any weapons to take the war to Russia, we give them just enough to keep the stalemate going. Innocents keep dying, soldiers keep dying, but little happens to force an end. Putin in apparently entrenched in Russia and won't accept a non-win and Ukraine is given just enough to keep them going. Meanwhile Russia's war effort is funded by high energy costs compliments of those ideologues in DC. Where's the rest of the world's moral outrage at what's going on? They look the other way and get oil from Putin. Meanwhile China can't let a good thing end. They're siding with Russia as Putin depletes our munitions supply and treasury. Our military enlistments are down. Our navy wanes in comparison to China as each year goes on. Many military experts think in a war with China we'll be a runner up. If we stop pissing away trillions on green energy crap, if we take this woke BS out of our military making it desirable to military families again, if we redirect our expenditures to a stronger modern military, we can talk about taking on China for the benefit of Taiwan.
I'm amazed anyone on here wants to continue to pour funds into the shithole known as Ukraine when we have open borders, 100K Fentanyl deaths per year, our major cities are crime ridden and unsafe , we are energy dependent, our military is depleted and our national debt and annual budget deficits are enormous. Priorities?
I do not consider Ukraine a shithole but a nation who has fought for its independence from Russian domination with incredible valor and bravery. Ukraine is one of Europe’s poorer nations largely in part because Russia continued to prevent it from having a closer alliance with the West even after the fall of the Soviet Union. When the invasion started, most thought they would crumble in less than a week. At the time of the invasion, Germany offered Zelensky asylum and warned him Putin would have him killed if he stayed but he chose to stay in Kiev even though Russian tanks were at the outskirts of Kiev with the Russians possessing overwhelming military superiority. Despite facing overwhelming odds, the Ukrainians pushed the Russians snack to the eastern counties of Ukraine that are essentially contiguous with Russia. They have suffered horrendously and their civilian population has been brutalized by Russian war criminals. But, they have battered the Russians, revealed the myth of the invincibility of the Russian military, and also revealed the complete moral and financial corruption of Putin’s regime to the point that we now see the snakes controlling the regime turning their fangs upon one another. Ukraine has not asked for American soldiers to fight its fight and we are only 1 of many nations who have provided military assistance. When one looks at this assistance on a per capita basis, we are not the biggest contributor. Bilateral aid to Ukraine by country GDP 2023 | Statista The largest contributors per capita are the nations that lived and suffered under Russian and Soviet oppression who have financially and culturally prospered after securing independence and I hope Ukraine similarly can do so. I am also glad that the advisors to the King of France did not convince him that he was throwing money and men into a hopeless shithole by aiding Washington’s small rag tag army when it looked as they were about to be destroyed by England.
If we do not prioritize our own national health the Ukraine will not matter to us one way or the other.
And yet what is best for our "national health"? What is in our best interest? There certainly is room for disagreement. I'm not sure that the border/fentanyl issue is due to lack of money (not that we are spending any) but rather lack of resolve.
Biggest takeaway of all.....I don't recognize this party anymore. I'm fundamentally uncertain what they stand for, what the true touchstones are other than what appears to me to be rank partisanship. It is not the party that we grew up with nor our fathers before us. It's a toxic mash up of radical partisans, isolationists and national populists with a few traditional conservative centrists barely hanging on. It is no longer my party nor represents my own personal political values. Fundamental pillars of foreign policy, international relations and national defense that were responsible for US ascendancy to the world leadership and victory in the Cold War and have been the standards of conservative leadership for almost a century are now ridiculed by some candidates, ignored by others yet replaced by nothing other than a sound bite here or there. The significance of the NATO alliance and the Reagan Doctrine has been replaced by "let them eat Ukraine on their way to Poland, it's merely a territorial dispute" as Xi looks gleefully across the Taiwan Strait, eyes fixed on Taiwan. Respect for personal accountability and the rule of law has been trampled underneath the lure of cultism, partisanship and political gain. When asked, 6 of 8 on that stage indicated that if the ex-President of the United States were convicted in a United States courtroom by a jury of his peers of felony crimes ranging from the betrayal of national secrets to the attempted overthrow of our legally elected government by violent and fraudulent means that they will continue to support his presidency. How can this be? How did it come to this? This is the depths of political depravity that my former party has reached....is there no end to this madness?
I see that as just another false choice. The two are unrelated. Our homeless aren't going without eating or elderly going without meds, etc simply because we are honoring our international obligations. Just because our political system is broken shouldn't mean we don't honor our international commitments imho
This was brought on by an administration that did nothing as Russia took Crimea. It was compounded when the vp of that administration was put in the White House and like a coward dropped his weapons and fled from Afghanistan. Putin saw weakness once again in the White House. He sense strength there in the 4 years in between fish. Maybe the problem is not with the party you rant on but the terrible selection of leadership
Ukraine is a problem without a good solution at this point. They won't hold out against Putin's war of attrition, no matter what we give them short of warfighters. I'm not even close to ready for some half-assed attempt with a few troops going over there. This needs to be a straight up "if you don't withdraw, we will kick your ass all the way back to Moscow" type deal. If we can't commit to that it'll just be another place to bury Americans that won't be worth it. Anyone here think Biden has that in him?