A lot of the attitudes of the Russian government definitely worry me. It's worrying to think how they might behave in the next few years. If the chance of a Russian "victory" in Ukraine starts looking slimmer, maybe they'll lash out. Obviously I hope they don't though.

Definitely a good point about the popular vote, I noticed that in the past that he never got a majority of the popular vote.

And yes I think the Electoral College is too flawed. I'd like to see it abolished, personally. I don't see why voters in less populated states should get more say than voters in more populated states.

Hopefully the US and Europe can be on good terms again in the future, but who knows. I guess it depends a lot on how the 2028 election turns out.

Ah yes, the evil EU, maliciously expanding itself by accepting new members who democratically want to join the EU

Source for image:

I think some Europeans (certainly in my country of the UK) are still quite naive about Trump. Maybe they think "sure, Trump can be a bad person to some countries, but he'd never be a bad person to MY country"

One day, whoever is in the White House will choose to act immorally towards a particular European country (whether it's Ukraine, or the UK, or Poland, or Finland, or whoever) and that European country, on its own, won't be able to do much about it

TLDR: If Europe unites, it protects Europe from potentially hostile big powers, such as the US, China, Russia. A big entity like the EU has more leverage to say "no" than any individual EU country does.

We have different ways of looking at it, so no I don't think there's a lot of point in more discussion. Sometimes people have different views.

It's true that we in the UK have right-wing voters, but look at France and Germany for example. AfD is doing pretty well in Germany. Marine Le Pen might win the 2027 French presidential election.

The current UK government is centre-left, not right-wing. I think it's entirely possible that a centre-left coalition could win the next UK general election. The current polls show that a Labour and Liberal Democrat coalition could form the next government if an election were held soon.

Anyway, the UK rejoining the EU is surely not going to happen any time soon. I do think it would be good if the UK and EU forged stronger ties though, and perhaps one day the UK could fully rejoin the EU.

I would definitely like a situation where everyone in Ukraine and everyone in Russia can decide their futures democratically but yes, that's not likely to happen soon, particularly because Russia seems to have very little democracy.

Zelenskyy apparently had an approval rating in Ukraine of over 50%, and sometimes over 60%, earlier this year, and also apparently 71% of Ukrainians think that new elections should only be held after the war ends.

Russia has no right to invade Ukraine to impose Russia's will on Ukraine, such as the demand that Ukraine can never join NATO. Any flaws Ukraine may have don't justify Russia's murderous aggression.

If you view things differently then okay, but I guess that's how I view it.

Nobody should be drafted and forced to fight

I would definitely prefer a situation where nobody is forcibly drafted or pressured to sign up for fighting.

it seems clear to me that there is/was some genuine support for it... Whether it’s 40%, 60%, 80%, whatever, I don’t have enough evidence to determine

There might well have been some legitimate support for certain regions of Ukraine to join Russia. I don't think that gives Russia the right to start invading Ukraine though. I don't think Russia would be happy if a country where to invade Russia to "liberate" Chechnya, a region which tried to become independent from Russia. The Russian government claims to care about the will of the people when some people are allegedly wanting to join Russia, but it clearly doesn't care about the will of the people in other cases.

Anyway, I hope the Ukrainian people can determine their own future, whether that's being close to Russia, or close to the EU, or neither, or splitting the country, or whatever. Also I think they should have the right to join NATO if they wish, regardless of what Russia wants. Would Russia willingly accept it if the US said to Russia "you can't join a military alliance"? Russia would surely not tolerate being lectured by the US.

Forget air fryers, let's talk about air friars.

I'm not American. I get what you're saying though. But the quote of Tom Morello in the article, after the bit I quoted with "vote your ass off", then says:

...but don't just exercise your right to vote. Exercise your right to fight for, organize for, struggle for, and manifest the kind of world you'd like to really see...

But in any and every contested race, as my mom Mary Morello always said, we have to fight the fascist every which way we can, recognizing that even if there's but an inch of difference between two candidates, there are a lot of vulnerable people who could be greatly harmed in that inch. So vote your ass off

I think this is reasonable. A "corporate Democrat", even if bad, can be better than a Republican in many cases. The Democrat might end up being less bad, for lots of disadvantaged people, than a Republican would be. These aren't ideal choices to make, but you have to deal with reality as it is.