Exactly. They've been screeching about this decades before Trump, insisting the US is some Christian fascist paradise being besieged by an international cabal of communists. Every Trumpite politician I see yammers on about "the left" in every negative thing that happens. Trump didn't need to get shot at for them to start marching with torches at Charlottesville, or to start attacking city infrastructure to target minorities, or to push state governments and courts to adopt more and more aggressive reactionary legislation. Yes, this will be their rallying cry, their "proof", but with how much pressure reactionaries have been putting on citizens, it was only a matter of time until someone pushed back and gave them the excuse they wanted.

Not disagreeing with you, but they would eventually turn to violence inevitably. Either through "legal" means as reactionaries restructure the government under Trump and his supporters, or through continued terrorism in areas or periods where he isn't in power. It doesn't matter if he'd gotten assassinated or if there had never been an attempt. His fanatics are convinced they're in a holy war, and they look for any shared of evidence - real or imagined - to support that bias.

I'd wager you're more annoyed at the hypocrisy of liberals wanting Trump dead than them simply wanting him dead, because I can guarantee his fash followers are going to do violence and terror regardless of any attempt, its success, or its failure.

I ain't busting out the tinfoil hat just yet, because it's entirely possible with all the fearmongering of making Trump the antithesis of freedom, that some unwell person might think they're saving the world by attacking him, but so much of it feels... off. I can't help but be suspicious. That said, I'll withhold any final conclusions until experts can investigate and weigh in.

Reminds me of Prohibition and how violent it got all because Americans couldn't get booze. To this day, I don't doubt there'd be an uprising if they ever tried that again here. We're dependent on bread and circuses, and we project like no other.

The book is very different from the film, especially in tone. The film is pure satire, but the book was quite serious in its anticommunist themes, going so far as using the Arachnids as a metaphor for - specifically - Asian communists. Heinlein thought of Asian communists as virtually mindless, sacrificing themselves for the collective - like bugs.

Having talked to a few South Koreans who live or frequent the US, the general consensus I've gotten is that they think the conflict is caused by external countries trying to manipulate them (US, Japan, and China), and that if they were left to their own devices, they'd reunify in time. Of course, they also think North Koreans worship the Kims as gods.

This is a really small number of people I've talked to, I've talked to them in the US where I assume they spend most of their time, but it seems to align with the takes I've seen in South Korean media that's critical about South Korea: disenchantment and even contempt for the ROK government and US occupation, but also a view that the DPRK is cultish and China is just another US. This is purely anecdotal, so take it with a heap of salt.

Is that why pistachios are so goddamn expensive for the past few years? Or was that going to happen anyway?

Ironically this is the only lib map I've seen where the Crimea is part of Russia.

Also, of course they'd see "we'd murder more people" as good news.

It seems to be their preferred strategy.

Yeah, they're good at that.

I'm sure it will backfire for the liberal element in the West, but this is exactly what the fascists could have hoped for. And unless those would-be terrorists are dealt with in the aftermath of the war, I foresee a fascist shitstorm in a region that's primed for fascist takeover.

I can't shake the feeling that more than a few people planned for a Russian victory from the beginning, martyring Ukraine for a fascist revival in Europe. Not saying people didn't genuinely think Ukraine could win, just that there were cleverer puppeteers who sacrificed the country for a wider fascist movement.

If that doesn't change, then it's less resources and risk holding the Russian-speaking areas, but the West will try and stir the pot in the area. I don't think we'll see them simply abandon fascist assets just to use them as scapegoats. I think they'll keep anti-Russian terrorism going in the region as long as it takes to force Russia to get involved again.