All Russia has to do (and by Russia, I mean specifically Putin and the KGB) is compromise our President

The KGB hasn’t existed since 1991.

And no, compromising our president is NOT the only thing that a foreign actor would have to do. They would have to outmaneuver the entirety of the CIA working to prevent EXACTLY that situation from ever occurring. They would have to somehow stop the CIA from stopping such an agent at every possible step of the way over the past 12 years. You are living in a magical sitcom fantasy land where the bad guys are trying to get the McGuffin and if they do - GAME OVER, MAN. That’s not how reality works.

It’s quite interesting how many pro-Russian decisions and talking points that are coming out of Trump’s mouth.

It is interesting. It’s almost as if US policy has shifted its position regarding Russia and the president is aligned with that policy.

how much ‘influence’ we have (which is dwindling every day since Trump has alienated our allies and made us an absolute mockery on the world stage)

You have no idea how influence works, do you. Sure, Trump is a laughing stock. You still can’t buy oil from OPEC without USD. Most nations still have billions of dollars in the US economy, and particular in US bonds. Most nations operate under USA-favorable conditions dictated by treaties with USA back with credible threats. US intelligence still operates the 5 Eyes, still runs the terrorist networks all over the world, still educates and trains the world’s most deadly death squads. Yes, Trump is a laughing stock and the USA still dominates the globe and EVERY SINGLE NATIONAL LEADER has to consider the USA when choosing their words and their actions.

The size of our military, the amount of money we have or how much ‘influence’ we have - none of it matters if Putin has control of Trump

Pure young adult novel fantasy writing. It’s just so incorrect and all the evidence of history shows how incorrect it is. You just can’t imagine any other way that US foreign policy would suddenly change and desire an alliance with Russia the only thing you can come up with is a paper doll fantasy.

Trump, who has wasted no time in replacing the heads of government agencies with those loyal to his agenda

You do realize that the reason the CIA has a dozen different classifications for information is so that no single person or group ever has 100% of the information required? The agency is organized to survived the constant change of president. It couldn’t serve its function otherwise. So yes, Trump has chosen a cabinet of “loyalists”. Do you think all of those people are compromised by Russia? Or do you think that they all believe they can get more power if they turn the USA into a vassal of a smaller nation? Or do you think every single one of them is stupid?

By the by, how did Trump find all these loyalists? What did he offer them and how did they meet? Did Trump’s real estate dealings and golf outings put him in touch with these people? Or is there just a huge pool of power brokers out there just waiting to take the world’s richest and most powerful country and try to gain more money and power by subjugating such a country to a smaller, weaker, poorer country?

It’s very easy to dismantle your fantasy by considering that other people also have agency and aspirations and asking yourself why anyone would be loyal to Trump if Trump is acting out of complete desperation because he’s been compromised and if his choices lead to a worse outcome for the business community and the intelligence community, both of which are communities who assassinate people for far less urgent reasons on a regular basis.

You’re wrong. Or you’re a propagandist. Either way, time will tell.

Ah yes. Your analysis is so thorough. Also, the only people who could possibly disagree with you are paid to disagree with you by a nation with far less money and far smaller intelligence capabilities and far less globally effective operations than the one in your home country. Classic.

That’s utterly ridiculous, see my reply here: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/7141540/6029073

Essentially, Trump doesn’t have that kind of power. I don’t mean legally, I mean socially. The business community in the USA is organized well enough to take out presidents. Let’s not forget that as early as the 1930s there was consciousness among veterans that the military was used to further business interests. Let’s not forget that the CIA was founded by the Dulles brothers to advance US business interests abroad. Let’s not forget that when FDR was trying to implement the New Deal the rich of the USA organized a criminal conspiracy to coup the US and install a dictator.

Let’s also not forget that the US military intelligence community has been organized against Russia for the last 80 years. Everything it does is informed by it’s early foundations as an anti-Russia movement. They know more about Russia than Russia knows about the USA. US military intelligence also didn’t suffer a complete and utter rupture like Russia’s did when the USSR was dismantled. The USA got access Russian internal documents during that time, the Russia received no such boon to its intelligence.

In short, the USA is the more powerful of the two countries by every single measure, and both countries are fully aware of this. Not only that, but the elite of the USA are capable of stopping any Russian agent from slowing down their gravy train. They were willing to coup FDR just for helping the working class. There’s no way the Russophobes in power in the USA would allow a Russian agent to take the reigns. They’ve had AMPLE opportunities to neutralize the threat. They’ve done so much killing, so much maiming, so much disappearing for much smaller stakes. Why do you think know that the stakes are the highest they could be they just won’t do anything about it?

Further, the billionaires have every reason NOT to become a vassal state of Russia. It affords them absolutely no benefit and makes things far far worse for them. The USA has a strong currency, stronger economy, more money, greater access to markets, better trading terms, more military power, more global domination, more tax revenue, more colonies, more slave laborers, essentially more of everything (except the ability to produce effective weapons, I guess). No power bloc in America benefits from subjugating themselves to Russia.

No. The real answer is just too emotionally difficult for you. You’ve grown up in a Russophobic culture. We played video games where they replaced the Germans with Russians as the primary enemy. We’ve been socialized to believe Russia is terribad and dank evil. But the geopolitical situation is not good for the USA and the camp that believed they could defeat both Russia and China has been shown to be incorrect. So now, the situation is that the USA needs an alliance with Russia in the hopes of peeling Russia out of BRICS, away from its alliance with China, and eventually have Russia’s support in fighting against China. So Trump is the figurehead put in place to shift American policy towards an alliance with Russia.

And you and every other American, with so much indoctrinated Russophobia, can’t imagine that the same people who told you Russia was evil are now seeking an alliance with Russia. The only way you can square that circle is to believe Trump is some “great man” who can single-handedly overcome the most powerful institutions in the history of world because a bunch of overtly racist morons voted the wrong way.

You’re going to have to face the reality that the US government’s policy regarding Russia has changed and that, like all presidents since WW2, Trump is the outward face of that policy.

Oh I do. The USA is a country that has Russophobia built into its institutions and social fabric, that has a spy network that has been operating continuously since it was formed post WW2, that controls more money, more arms, and more territory than any other country. It has assassinated more people, overthrown more governments, dropped more bombs, and killed more people than any country in the world since WW2. It has the most powerful companies, the most powerful billionaires, the most billionaires, the most billionaire-friendly laws and politicians. It has the world’s reserve currency that every other country has needed to obtain in order to buy oil. It has destroyed entire countries for trying to prosper outside of its rules. It regularly imprisons or kills anyone that would threaten it even a little bit.

There is quite literally no path by which Russia could make the USA a vassal state. Russia has nothing to offer the USA billionaires, Russia’s military and military intelligence had to be reorganized 30 years ago after the USSR was dismantled. Russia doesn’t have the continuity that the USA does. It does have the money, it military, the resources, or the influence to make the USA a vassal state. The anti-russia CIA has had plenty of opportunities to put their thumb on the scale with Trump. They have not. Trump cannot get richer by becoming a vassal to Russia. But even if he could, there are far more billionaires running this country that would not benefit from becoming a vassal. And yet, there’s not one of the powerful people trying to stop him.

The business plot in the USA shows just how organized and powerful the rich can be. They organized and were planning a coup in the USA so they could become more like fascist Germany, not to become a vassal, but to organize society to their benefit and ally with Germany.

You think billionaires would cheer on the USA becoming a vassal to a smaller, weaker state?

Russia can offer nothing, Russia’s intelligence cannot overcome the CIA domestically, and the USA is the best place for the rich and powerful to be.

It is literally impossible for the USA to become a vassal of Russia

This is so ridiculous. It is literally impossible for the US to become a vassal state of Russia. The USA spends, in aggregate over all states, TWICE AS MUCH ON ITS DOMESTIC POLICE AS RUSSIA SPENDS ON ITS ENTIRE MILITARY INCLUDING NUKES.

It is literally impossible. You are falling for children’s story about the bad people over there.

The Chinese government literally has a 95.5% approval rating as researched by Harvard University over 15 years. The party is not terribly worried about criticism. In fact, because the party is structured with a bunch of internal factions, they are constantly experiencing criticism.

China has a pretty strict policy about not allowing anything that is anti-social and can be used to create mass unrest. A generative AI that can produce millions of fake news stories about political leaders is one of those anti-social things. It was one of the reasons OpenAI was so terrified of the possibilities of what they figured out. China just made it policy instead of sitting idly by whole bad actors automated incendiary publishing.

Add salt?

First tell: “perceived Western hegemony”.

Second tell: zero-sum thinking regarding Russia-China influence and economy

Third tell: the loud implication that China building relationships in Central Asia is a threat to Russian influence, as though China’s presence there would be an equal threat to Russia as if the West was building up relationships there

This is schlock

It’s bugged

I want to make abundantly that Gen Z did not fumble the election, the Democrats did. The Democratic party analyzed the situation much the same way you did, and realized that there was no way the Republicans would ever win over Gen Z, so they took that as opportunity to move further right than Reagan and expose the entire two party system as one large fascist bloc with 2 different sheep dogs.

And Gen Z correctly saw electoralism as a dead end and are actively exploring alternatives.

They need to be educated

Oh there’s rent. Most US prisons charge per diem rates for housing, and they charge for many “services” and they charge literal extortion rates. Prisoners leave US prisons deeeeeply in debt

I don’t believe anarchism is viable before communism.

Your critiques of anarchism, however, are terrible. They are mostly strawman arguments.

Anarchism does have mechanisms for warfare that work. They do have mechanisms for production that work. What they don’t have are mechanisms to prevent warlordism.