Trump says U.S. strongly considering NATO exit, Telegraph newspaper says

You are spot on. Thats why he said that he likes poorly educated people and abhor smart, successful people.

The lack of understanding is precisely it. This is a complex mechanism that neither the ones voting nor the ones they put in charge understand in terms of function or benefit, thus they go about dismantling it without knowing what it does or what its lack will do. I am reminded of that perennially insightful Sagan quote— >”I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time—when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...” >”The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance.”

They believe that their ignorance is their strength.

WWPD‽ What would Putin do? Exactly what this administration does every damn time!

Some of his actions are unpopular, but apparently there is some parallel reality where he actually speaks coherently about subjects, and does anything other than lie an belittle people. Its weird.

But is he outweighed by the apathetic people who can’t be bothered to prevent his rise in the first place?

each time his promises to his base are getting more deprived and divisive. This fat f*** is making monsters out of people. We are at "virtual immunity from the law and if in his graces, go murder a couple dems, you'll be fine" I don't even know how he's gonna top that? "Wanna kill your neighbour, take his shit and wife? Seen some kids you like to f*** too?" Now he's raping the elections. How is this to end

So does a war.

It does, and after his first term legislation was enacted to ensure he couldn’t do this. My guess is he writes an executive order that means nothing.

Surely it would occur to these people that the US, or indeed any country, would not pay out to defend other countries unless there was something to be gained in return. Whether it’s political or economic influence, a country would not do this without getting something out of it. Amazes me the lack of critical thinking skills.

Yeah, some guy called Marco Rubio, who was a senator at the time was celebrating that law passing. Wonder what he’s doing these days!

\> 5 The destruction of the us reputation as a global superpower Americans started with that when they elected Trump a second time... His first term was already a large disgrace to the US, but then americans have demonstrated that they are unable to learn from mistakes.

Correct...not since Eisenhower really.

Not even.  Their only political ideology is "owning the libz" 

What a protest Every couple months ?

What were the demands of the protest?

Proposition is gaining roughly 30 votes each 3 years, without accounting for the loss of naysayers

How many times have we said / heard ‘yeah but that can’t happen because of X, Y, Z’, and then found out that normal things don’t really count anymore.

If you extrapolate those votes, support drops from ~99% (2017) to ~94% (2019) to ~85% (2022), about -2.8 percentage points per year; at that pace it falls below a majority around 2034-2035.

>Maybe americans should have thought about that before they elected him. I’m sorry. My once great country’s direction is now driven by people who read at a 3rd grade level and have never left their state.

That's a fragile card stack. Denmark might care about Greenland but does Germany? To the point they would take hostile action against America if America made a move on Canada or Greenland?

I think the illegal ones are still percolating through the courts. It definitely appears that the court has a strong bias for him, but the extent of it is going to be unclear until they start making more final rulings this year.