I have absolutely zero faith that Obama would do anything to meaningfully help Mamdani, but let’s watch and see I guess.

The best anti-Zionist propaganda is the IDF’s actions.

Yeah but it’s more decentralized, and is Musk more hostile to Iran than, say, NYT?

A: … But isn’t that the goal of the blockade?

The blockade is only on Iran if I understand this right, while Iran’s closing of the strait is for everyone else. They’re pointing two different guns at the global economy, not the same gun.

B: Can we take a moment to wallow in depression over yet more major diplomatic statements being posted on fucking Twitter? Fucking hell, stop giving that shithole US platform legitimacy.

I mean, both sides here have plenty of problems with US legacy media, though for different reasons. It makes perfect sense that they’ll rely on alternative media. Doubly so for Iran because it knows the Western political class will never listen to its demands; they’re talking to the average Westerner here, hence Twitter.

I’m not too sure about the whole tariff thing. A lot of people in his inner circle made a fuck ton of money through tactically placed trades before and after each wave of sanctions.

Yes, that’s why I said “intelligence and discipline,” not just “intelligence.” Compared to the expected gains from a fascist dictatorship, a few insider trades are peanuts, so a better fascist might’ve kept their eyes on the prize and held back on this front instead of threatening the whole project.

And again with the Iran war stuff, a lot of people are making a mint off this war.

See above. A competent fascist wouldn’t risk their entire project just to make mint.

And also it’s Israel that wanted this war and basically all of the people pulling the strings have some loyalty to Israel.

Yes, which is also an unforced error. Israel can’t force a US president to do something they don’t want to do, and US presidents with a backbone have a long history of saying no to them, most recently with Obama and JCPOA. A better fascist would be able to make their own decisions rather than listen to whoever is loudest at the time. And in any case, even if war with Iran happened, it could’ve still happened much more competently.

I don’t think so, historically when we see a fascist leader get killed the underlings fight each other for power and fall apart more than they coalesce around a new leader.

What fascist leader died while on the cusp of power? Dying after decades in power is a whole different deal.

Phew.

I expect once the [new] Tisza government is in place, that would be one of the first things the EU would like to push

I’ve learned not to expect nice things from the EU, but hey maybe.

I mean that’s possible, but also Trump is 100% being managed by the federalist society. He can barely stay awake during meetings, no way he’s actually dictating policy.

For the most part, yes, but there are pretty clear Trumpisms that a better fascist would have the intelligence and discipline not to indulge in. The whole tariff fiasco for example was completely unnecessary (which is why it’s not in Project 2025), and the sheer mass of unforced errors leading up to and during the Iran war would never be made by someone like Putin or Erdogan. Trump is being manipulated behind the scenes, but he’s also head of an increasingly authoritarian executive and can do things without his handlers’ approval. I’m certain, for example, that a more competent fascist would’ve been able to manufacture at least some consent for the Iran war, as well as get traditional American allies on board to some extent. These unnecessary failures keep kneecapping his administration’s credibility in ways that would’ve already been fatal if America had better opposition (though I guess with enemies that bad who needs allies). And this is before we get into factors like Trump’s inability to channel his own support into down ballot votes. Hell, at the very least America might’ve been run by a fascist who can stay awake during meetings.

And that also assumes their was a clear second to take the reins of MAGA that the inner circle would rally behind, power vacuums tend to lead to infighting and without a clear cult leader the low level maga worshipers would likely be in chaos.

Initially, yes, but very quickly the systemic need for fascism would win out, and there’d be a consensus candidate ready to sweep the elections by 2028 at the latest. Again this is hard to appreciate due to how incompetent the anti-MAGA coalition is, but with a martyr and a somewhat competent leader it’s perfectly plausible that neo-MAGA would’ve had bigger—maybe even filibuster-proof—majorities in Congress and more cooperative state governments across the board. As far as fascism goes, this is still easy mode.

… Wow. I’m going to hope for the sake of everyone you’ll ever meet that you’re just 14 or something.

A replacement candidate didn’t exist then, but one would quickly emerge from the general mass of American fascism if Trump disappeared. They wouldn’t make it in time for 2024, but they’d crush it in 2028.

GJ Iran!

I hope you have the same opinion regarding philosophy, pure math and string theory, but also: Then don’t fucking answer the question. Clearly some people, including the OP, see value in discussing beings whose existence cannot be verified in reality.

Don’t forget to report antisemitism, y’all.

More like he almost doomed the free world and the economy. Imagine if Trump died and an actually competent fascist came in his place. This is the best realistic scenario for America; someone like Putin would already have his opposition in gulags.

You could say she added some Polish to it.

I’ll see myself out.

For either Mandarin or French to supplant English as the world’s most widely spoken language we would need not just a large and wealthy segment of the world that natively speaks it, but a mechanism that encourages people who know neither French nor Mandarin nor English to learn one of the former and not the latter.

The latter usually follows from the former. Wealthy people buy things, sell things, create things and go to places, all of which requires those on the other end of the deal to be able to talk to them. China is also investing in its global image, and in a few decades they’ll be forced to import immigrants to make up the shortfall in their labor force.

Similarly, Mandarin is the second language of a bunch of non-native speakers who live or work in China, most of which are presumably Chinese natives whose first language was a different dialect like Cantonese.

Chinese is also gaining steam in Russia and Africa, though admittedly it’s probably going to be at least a generation before it becomes an actually popular language to learn.

The fact that the US had any credibility in the first place is the real news here.

Being widely spoken in one particular region (or even a few regions) doesn’t automatically connect to being a global lingua franca. If that was the standard we’d be speaking Hindi or Mandarin here. Francophone Africa is projected to experience a popular boom, but even in the best case scenario (i.e. one where francophone Africa experiences better economic growth than other parts) that’d only make it more widespread in Africa. Globally there’s no way it can compete with the rising utility of Mandarin.

Because nobody actually answers the question. “Because it’s bullshit” is the least interesting, least informative answer you can give to a question like this, and it does nothing except make the commenter feel clever. It gets especially annoying when legitimate answers are buried under dozens of “because God doesn’t exist I’m so smart.” Now an answer could reject the premise that a creator exists and still be interesting, but it’d have to do better than the armchair anthropology everyone here seems so fond of.

This makes me very happy.