Republican Senator Lindsey Graham suggested at the Munich Security Conference over the weekend that Trump’s demand was a clever ploy to bolster declining popular support for the Ukrainian cause. “He can go to the American people and say, ‘Ukraine is not a burden, it is a benefit,’” he said.

I continue to be amazed by how frequently the entire spectrum from mainstream liberal regular conservative to Trumpist conservative fascist fall back on a line which is tantamount to “they’re not tricking you, they’re tricking someone else! Totally trustworthy!”

This from the same people who told you to inject disinfectant and are actively distancing themselves from international medical consensus.

Bill Burr’s project to turn every mansion into Luigi’s Mansion

Without knowing the finer details, my assumption would be that it’s some kind of risk/reward tradeoff.

Ok the nuclear risk is higher, but causing chaos in nuclear security could create opportunities like giving Trump or Musk more direct access to the nukes or removing people who might have prevented them from using them, thereby granting them more personal leverage. This would be in keeping with the Project 2025 aligned executive orders and such.

There might even be commercial opportunities for Musk: “oh well the state management of nuclear security was super inefficient, ApocalypseX will do it”

Remember disaster capitalism is a thing.

I think Hanlon’s razor is a false dichotomy here. Neither stupidity nor malice are required to explain self-interest, which is the far more likely explanation given the people involved and their actions up to this point.

the guy who thinks detonating masses of nuclear warheads on a planet is likely to make it more habitable rather than less

well the publishing associations should be catching wind of this and it’s already going through court so I guess we’ll find out.

But if I had to guess I’d say the bourgeois court system which is loaded with Trump’s picks right at the top is actually not going to let the billionaire donor go to jail

oh interesting, but they did seed some. Distributors! Zuck go straight to yar-har jail

The very stretched use of the word “voluntary” here also leads one to inspect the meaning of “departure”.