Negative, not to derail the thread but no, gerrymandering is one of those things that the GOP base actually despise, even if it's fucking over liberals. Likely for the same reasons, that could result in bad times for Ross. On some level most of the GOP base, which aren't wealthy assholes or small business owners, get that their people in elected office are assholes and that you shouldn't let them entrench themselves because they are likely to fuck you over, once they don't need you anymore. In Ross case, it's more a case of the GOP probably not wanting to argue that the boss should be allowed to shit can competent employees for daring to point out that the boss was wrong, probably because we've had cases where that happened and it was because the boss got called out for not following proper safety guidelines and then a bunch of people either died and/or were maimed.
We'll see where things go, but I don't see the Dorain shit show going anywhere, but I do see Ross's name showing up more often.
I absolutely will not give them credit for despising something, but still showing up on schedule to vote for the the party that does it. Look at the South Carolina special election as another example of this. Conservative voters would by and large agree that fair elections are critical. But then they go and vote for the party that was rigging it so significantly that they had to redo the election.
For a huge portion of conservative voters, "anything's better than a democrat," even a party whose schtick is gerrymandering or outright discarding opposition votes.
So no, I don't think they substantially "despise" it.
To Republican voters "fair elections" means "Keep Democrats away from the polling booths." They are worried about things that don't happen like Democrats using dead people's identities to vote multiple times, undocumented immigrants voting, and bussing round minorities to vote at many different polling stations.
Like it's insane from a simple efficiency standpoint because with leadership changing on such a routine basis it's functionally impossible to get anything done.
I really hope they get nothing done because everything they want to do is vile.
Yeah trump's goals and those of his direct apointees are shit, but the issue here is that theres a lot of basic maintenance that simply can't happen because people are being fired and hired all over the place all the god damn time and in some cases the people who have been fired were actually trying to do good work; 46 of those were attournies whose only fault was that they were appointed by obama and one of those was Preet bahara, a guy who specialized in fraud investigations in New york and had greenlighted an fbi raid on trump tower in 2013.
Not everyone that's gotten canned was a monster.
US Attornies always leave when there's a new administration. Nothing nefarious or scummy about it.
Usually they aren't fired en mass on a specific day and in the case of preet because trump's personl lawyer advised it.
On gerrymandering, I'm willing to believe that your typical uninformed GoP voter is either unaware to how much their party relies on it, or believes it's a "both sides" issue that will never change and just vote based on their chosen issue(s) of guns/abortion/etc. As far as I'm aware, pretty much every initiative for ending gerrymandering has passed by a healthy majority as long as it gets on the ballot, even in deep red states like Missouri, where its version passed nearly 2 to 1.
On the actual thread topic, God I hope Bolton and Trump have a public shitstorm over this. Not going to change anyone's minds, but the shadenfruede of Bolton calling Trump a coward or moron on national tv would make my week.
On gerrymandering, I'm willing to believe that your typical uninformed GoP voter is either unaware to how much their party relies on it, or believes it's a "both sides" issue that will never change and just vote based on their chosen issue(s) of guns/abortion/etc. As far as I'm aware, pretty much every initiative for ending gerrymandering has passed by a healthy majority as long as it gets on the ballot, even in deep red states like Missouri, where its version passed nearly 2 to 1.
On the actual thread topic, God I hope Bolton and Trump have a public shitstorm over this. Not going to change anyone's minds, but the shadenfruede of Bolton calling Trump a coward or moron on national tv would make my week.
An important thing to understand about the Trump/Republican base is that they truly believe they are a massive silent majority, and would overwhelmingly win any fair election in all but the bluest states. So they don't see initiatives to end gerrymandering as a threat because surely those crooked liberals have to cheat to win any election at all. Republican politicians know better though.
Why does Bolton care if he resigned under pressure or got fired? It's all the same thing in the end.
Ego?
Not just that, but it's petty and personal. Bolton could easily do the rounds on cable news to get his narrative out there, but he specifically tweeted Fox news, live on air, so Trump would see. It's an indirect but very clear "fuck you", delivered in a way that is specifically designed to strike at Trump's insecurities. Gotta give the devil his due, Bolton knows what he's doing.
It's been sort of hilarious watching the right wing punditry sphere struggle with how to treat Bolton now that he's persona non grata. Tucker Carlson, ever the lickspittle, opened his show by going on a rant about how John Bolton is a man of the far left! I wasn't sure 2019 could possibly get any dumber, but here we are.
"There was not a human problem John Bolton wasn't totally convinced could be solved with the elite force of government," the Fox News host continued. "That's an assumption of the left — not the right. Don't let the mustache fool you: John Bolton was one of the most progressive people in the Trump administration."
Apparently only conservatives can have mustaches? Also there was an interesting quote from Trump's Deputry press secretary buried in that article that seems to support Bolton's claim about some general fuckery going on with his exit.
Deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley told Fox News he did not want to get into the "back and forth" over how Bolton exited, but said the president did ask for his resignation.
"The fact is the president makes these decisions," he said. "We all serve at his pleasure, and we’re moving forward."
Working in the Trump administration has got to be stressful as hell. You're always potentially minutes away from being fired and publicly dragged on twitter by the most powerful person in the world. I bet there are a LOT of people with their fingers hovering over the "Send" button for their resignation letter every week.
Getting out quietly / on good terms has got to be the only win condition for them, because nobody not related to him can last in his inner circle. If you resign and Trump blasts you on the way out, you're burned for any Trump-friendly money making opportunities, and you burned yourself for any non-Trump-friendly opportunities when you went to work for him.
I have four children under the age of six, none of them are as petty as the President.
POTUS seems to be implying that Bolton was fired for not being hawkish enough. Which... sure.
Eh it sounds more like Bolton was hawkish towards the wrong target for Trump's liking. It is certainly well known that Bolton wants nothing more than to reduce Iran to rubble, no matter how the generals and admirals predict it will go. Iran is a functional country with home field advantage and a capable military, the exact opposite of the type of country Trump would want to invade.
Venezuela is the kind of war Trump could get on board with. It'll go swimmingly until well after the election and by that time it'll be somebody else's problem.
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ButtersA glass of some milksRegistered Userregular
If by swimmingly you mean cause an almost instant dramatic increase in migrants seeking safety from a war he started.
If by swimmingly you mean cause an almost instant dramatic increase in migrants seeking safety from a war he started.
Which counts as 'swimmingly' for him because he gets an excuse to crack down even harder on immigration.
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ButtersA glass of some milksRegistered Userregular
Count me unconvinced that further destabilizing South and Central America by putting American troops to war there would play out in Trump's favor politically.
Is kinda complicated. There's a lot of reading between the lines, but the popular theory is that Bolton pushed for the "and then the Venezuelan military will rise up and oust Maduro" theory.
Which....didn't happen. Russian/Chinese intelligence has completely infiltrated the Venezuelan military and all the high profile desertions only showed that currently the para-military groups ARE more poweful and more influential than the Venezuelan military. Which is a big issue since it explains how the Colombia border is heating up, on the military sense, at the moment, since Colombia kinda has a problem with para-military groups and Maduro went for his typical strategy of "two steps forward, then negotiate one step back" with troop depoyments on the border.
Anyways. It seems that the main disagreement was over the Middle East and specifically Iran. Trump is all over ripping up the nuclear deal, but an actual war with Iran is much more costly.
Count me unconvinced that further destabilizing South and Central America by putting American troops to war there would play out in Trump's favor politically.
It would in a wartime president with emergency powers and a convenient enemy to demonize sort of way.
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To those that say a US invasion of Venezuela would be better than the status quo, I hope you are right.
Trumps Presidential Tweet says, to me, that he wants to invade and it was Warhawk Supreme John-fucking-Bolton that held him back.
Then again, its equally likely that Trump is lying, sooo.... yeah.
No, no, no, no. Not better than the status quo. No, Christ, no. However, the initial phases of it will look a lot like the same timeframe in Iraq. Lots of visible progress, not a whole lot of flag drapped caskets to cover it, Mission Accomplished on an aircraft carrier. The new influx of refugees will be politically useful to Trump. His base will cheer as the brown people get shot (be it in some country they can't find on a map or on/in our own borders).
It'll all go tits up, but that'll be well into Trump's lame duck term and he will have lost interest long before and Fox News will blame it on the Democrat president who was elected in 2022 (even if the next president is Republican their graphs will have this blue line segment "where it all went wrong")
Yeah, he's actually seemed to pretty quickly shrink away from anything that might turn into a ground war. I suspect a big part of the reason he's so buddy buddy with Kim is because he's too dumb to understand the politics and history behind North Korea and scared shitless of fighting a war with any country, let alone North Korea.
Bolton probably got tossed for same reason everyone else does, he told Trump something he didn't want to hear while Trump was on the warpath about whatever this week's comically stupid scandal is. I will say though, it's been awesome to watch the right wing sphere turn on Bolton and call him dirt, and act like suddenly foreign wars are a bad thing. Also Rand Paul seems to be angling for the job which is hilarious because Trump's been through 3 of these guys already and in a story as old as time, somehow he thinks he'll be the one that doesn't get fucked over.
It'll all go tits up, but that'll be well into Trump's lame duck term and he will have lost interest long before and Fox News will blame it on the Democrat president who was elected in 2022 (even if the next president is Republican their graphs will have this blue line segment "where it all went wrong")
That kind of thinking only applies to Presidents who assume they are done after their second term.
I think it's more Trump saw the news saying he fired Bolton because Bolton was too hawkish. That can't stand it makes Trump look weak for not wanting war.
So of course he has to say "I didn't fire the war guy because he was too hawkish! I fired him because he wasn't hawkish enough!"
Trump is an absolute sniveling coward. He doesn't like in-person confrontation, which is part of why he 'fired' Bolton: Bolton was going to resign, likely in person. I don't think he wants war with anyone because he only wants fights he can spin his way on twitter, and that doesn't work with an actual war. His whole administration is also very bad at doing any actual work, and wars are a lot of work.
It's a lot better for him to be eternally getting his base frothed up for a hypothetical confrontation with <insert country> than for the shooting to actually start. He wants to be the tough guy while also being able to say he didn't get the US into any new wars. If the Trump admin does get pulled into any new confrontations, I would expect a repeat of Syria where there are a bunch of large, poorly thought out singular strikes that can serve as twitter events, and then they fucking bail.
While it's clearly a noble sentiment, if it means that fuckers internationally get to ramp up their heinous bullshit, because they know Trump is a coward, I'm not sure that's a win.
Russia gets emboldened, and takes the rest of Ukraine. China gets emboldened and decides to absorb Nepal, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Various assholes in Africa and the Middle East decide to ramp up their genocides. Several South American countries could do so too.
I'm all for peace, but one of the driving factors of if not peace, but curbed aggression, was the US being willing to tell most countries to cut that shit out. If it's clear that Trump is avoiding conflict at all cost, and as long as they don't fuck over corporate interests that Trump gives a shit about, then I can see there being significantly more turmoil. Turmoil that wouldn't normally need intervention, because the threat was enough.
While it's clearly a noble sentiment, if it means that fuckers internationally get to ramp up their heinous bullshit, because they know Trump is a coward, I'm not sure that's a win.
Russia gets emboldened, and takes the rest of Ukraine. China gets emboldened and decides to absorb Nepal, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Various assholes in Africa and the Middle East decide to ramp up their genocides. Several South American countries could do so too.
I'm all for peace, but one of the driving factors of if not peace, but curbed aggression, was the US being willing to tell most countries to cut that shit out. If it's clear that Trump is avoiding conflict at all cost, and as long as they don't fuck over corporate interests that Trump gives a shit about, then I can see there being significantly more turmoil. Turmoil that wouldn't normally need intervention, because the threat was enough.
I'm always interested in the political backflips people do when Trump does something antiwar. It's probably the only thing he has come even close to doing right. I don't think progressive politics has a seat at the table for ensuring forever wars to preserve our hegemony.
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I ZimbraWorst song, played on ugliest guitarRegistered Userregular
While it's clearly a noble sentiment, if it means that fuckers internationally get to ramp up their heinous bullshit, because they know Trump is a coward, I'm not sure that's a win.
Russia gets emboldened, and takes the rest of Ukraine. China gets emboldened and decides to absorb Nepal, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Various assholes in Africa and the Middle East decide to ramp up their genocides. Several South American countries could do so too.
I'm all for peace, but one of the driving factors of if not peace, but curbed aggression, was the US being willing to tell most countries to cut that shit out. If it's clear that Trump is avoiding conflict at all cost, and as long as they don't fuck over corporate interests that Trump gives a shit about, then I can see there being significantly more turmoil. Turmoil that wouldn't normally need intervention, because the threat was enough.
I'm always interested in the political backflips people do when Trump does something antiwar. It's probably the only thing he has come even close to doing right. I don't think progressive politics has a seat at the table for ensuring forever wars to preserve our hegemony.
Trump hasn't done a damn thing that's 'anti-war.' He's escalated conflict in the Middle East and Somalia while loosening the rules of engagement, greatly increasing civilian deaths.
"Trump the dove" is a fever dream of the political press with no grounding in reality.
Trump has been advocating for nuclear proliferation in a way that was unthinkable even in the most melodramatic exaggerations of political speculative fiction.
While it's clearly a noble sentiment, if it means that fuckers internationally get to ramp up their heinous bullshit, because they know Trump is a coward, I'm not sure that's a win.
Russia gets emboldened, and takes the rest of Ukraine. China gets emboldened and decides to absorb Nepal, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Various assholes in Africa and the Middle East decide to ramp up their genocides. Several South American countries could do so too.
I'm all for peace, but one of the driving factors of if not peace, but curbed aggression, was the US being willing to tell most countries to cut that shit out. If it's clear that Trump is avoiding conflict at all cost, and as long as they don't fuck over corporate interests that Trump gives a shit about, then I can see there being significantly more turmoil. Turmoil that wouldn't normally need intervention, because the threat was enough.
I'm always interested in the political backflips people do when Trump does something antiwar. It's probably the only thing he has come even close to doing right. I don't think progressive politics has a seat at the table for ensuring forever wars to preserve our hegemony.
I don't like the concept of forever wars either. Afghanistan has gone on way too long, and Iraq was a massive mistake.
Giving him credit for not starting more wars, kinda skips over the reasons why. Motive does play a part in it, as much as the action or lack thereof. Why Trump isn't getting into wars has nothing to do with any kind of ideological purpose. It's about politics and cowardice. Which scares me because with other leaders, I'd see their pacifistic tendencies mean they take relatively measured responses when it comes to having to take action. I can see Trump holding off as long as he can, then having a massive overreaction. And I can't mentally rule out him demanding to use nuclear weapons in a first strike capacity. And then we get to test chain-of-command-chicken, which will be fun.
He's the antithesis of Teddy Roosevelt. "Scream loudly, and carry no stick. But has nukes.".
While it's clearly a noble sentiment, if it means that fuckers internationally get to ramp up their heinous bullshit, because they know Trump is a coward, I'm not sure that's a win.
Russia gets emboldened, and takes the rest of Ukraine. China gets emboldened and decides to absorb Nepal, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Various assholes in Africa and the Middle East decide to ramp up their genocides. Several South American countries could do so too.
I'm all for peace, but one of the driving factors of if not peace, but curbed aggression, was the US being willing to tell most countries to cut that shit out. If it's clear that Trump is avoiding conflict at all cost, and as long as they don't fuck over corporate interests that Trump gives a shit about, then I can see there being significantly more turmoil. Turmoil that wouldn't normally need intervention, because the threat was enough.
I'm always interested in the political backflips people do when Trump does something antiwar. It's probably the only thing he has come even close to doing right. I don't think progressive politics has a seat at the table for ensuring forever wars to preserve our hegemony.
Trump is pro war. He is pro violence. He is just pro OTHER people having to commit the violence, and him being able to sweep in and gather up the scraps. Saying he is anti-war is like saying a battlefield scavenger is anti war because they don't do the fighting.
Trump exists in a world of pro war and violence leaders, who are wholly comfortable actually committing the violence themselves. Russia, Israel, Saudi Arabia. The leader of the united states needs to be anti war, and anti violence but willing to commit violence to enforce that.
Isolationism does not create peace, as we learned in WW1 and 2. The path to peace is through alliances, committed friendships and support to other peaceful nations, and the use of the dividends of peace to prepare to defend yourself and others from those who would attack you. "I will not go to war to take land and treasure, or punish those with different views, and YOU don't get to do that either" is the attitude you want. Not, "I don't give a monkeys what you do providing I can look like I'm not involved, and I get a nice cut of the proceeds"
My read on Trump is that he's against conflict that makes him look bad and for conflict that lets him make money or lets the US make money. With the first generally superseding the second.
Trump needs voters from the military and military families. They do NOT want to die at the roadside of another hot country where everyone hates their guts and no long-term benefit to America will be gained.
Military folks are willing to go to war to defend America, but not particularly enthusiastic about giving their lives and health for a chance to be part of the endless, pointless Middle-Eastern clusterfuck. This is one reason why the alt-right appeals to young military men: they like the isolationist philosophy. They were not happy about saber-rattling towards Russia by Clinton and Obama because they feared we would get into a war with Russia.
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I absolutely will not give them credit for despising something, but still showing up on schedule to vote for the the party that does it. Look at the South Carolina special election as another example of this. Conservative voters would by and large agree that fair elections are critical. But then they go and vote for the party that was rigging it so significantly that they had to redo the election.
For a huge portion of conservative voters, "anything's better than a democrat," even a party whose schtick is gerrymandering or outright discarding opposition votes.
So no, I don't think they substantially "despise" it.
Usually they aren't fired en mass on a specific day and in the case of preet because trump's personl lawyer advised it.
On the actual thread topic, God I hope Bolton and Trump have a public shitstorm over this. Not going to change anyone's minds, but the shadenfruede of Bolton calling Trump a coward or moron on national tv would make my week.
An important thing to understand about the Trump/Republican base is that they truly believe they are a massive silent majority, and would overwhelmingly win any fair election in all but the bluest states. So they don't see initiatives to end gerrymandering as a threat because surely those crooked liberals have to cheat to win any election at all. Republican politicians know better though.
Not just that, but it's petty and personal. Bolton could easily do the rounds on cable news to get his narrative out there, but he specifically tweeted Fox news, live on air, so Trump would see. It's an indirect but very clear "fuck you", delivered in a way that is specifically designed to strike at Trump's insecurities. Gotta give the devil his due, Bolton knows what he's doing.
Apparently only conservatives can have mustaches? Also there was an interesting quote from Trump's Deputry press secretary buried in that article that seems to support Bolton's claim about some general fuckery going on with his exit.
Getting out quietly / on good terms has got to be the only win condition for them, because nobody not related to him can last in his inner circle. If you resign and Trump blasts you on the way out, you're burned for any Trump-friendly money making opportunities, and you burned yourself for any non-Trump-friendly opportunities when you went to work for him.
I have four children under the age of six, none of them are as petty as the President.
POTUS seems to be implying that Bolton was fired for not being hawkish enough. Which... sure.
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It's hard to imagine anyone being more hawkish than Bolton.
Eh it sounds more like Bolton was hawkish towards the wrong target for Trump's liking. It is certainly well known that Bolton wants nothing more than to reduce Iran to rubble, no matter how the generals and admirals predict it will go. Iran is a functional country with home field advantage and a capable military, the exact opposite of the type of country Trump would want to invade.
Which counts as 'swimmingly' for him because he gets an excuse to crack down even harder on immigration.
Which....didn't happen. Russian/Chinese intelligence has completely infiltrated the Venezuelan military and all the high profile desertions only showed that currently the para-military groups ARE more poweful and more influential than the Venezuelan military. Which is a big issue since it explains how the Colombia border is heating up, on the military sense, at the moment, since Colombia kinda has a problem with para-military groups and Maduro went for his typical strategy of "two steps forward, then negotiate one step back" with troop depoyments on the border.
Anyways. It seems that the main disagreement was over the Middle East and specifically Iran. Trump is all over ripping up the nuclear deal, but an actual war with Iran is much more costly.
It would in a wartime president with emergency powers and a convenient enemy to demonize sort of way.
Law and Order ≠ Justice
ACNH Island Isla Cero: DA-3082-2045-4142
Captain of the SES Comptroller of the State
Trumps Presidential Tweet says, to me, that he wants to invade and it was Warhawk Supreme John-fucking-Bolton that held him back.
Then again, its equally likely that Trump is lying, sooo.... yeah.
No, no, no, no. Not better than the status quo. No, Christ, no. However, the initial phases of it will look a lot like the same timeframe in Iraq. Lots of visible progress, not a whole lot of flag drapped caskets to cover it, Mission Accomplished on an aircraft carrier. The new influx of refugees will be politically useful to Trump. His base will cheer as the brown people get shot (be it in some country they can't find on a map or on/in our own borders).
It'll all go tits up, but that'll be well into Trump's lame duck term and he will have lost interest long before and Fox News will blame it on the Democrat president who was elected in 2022 (even if the next president is Republican their graphs will have this blue line segment "where it all went wrong")
Yeah, he's actually seemed to pretty quickly shrink away from anything that might turn into a ground war. I suspect a big part of the reason he's so buddy buddy with Kim is because he's too dumb to understand the politics and history behind North Korea and scared shitless of fighting a war with any country, let alone North Korea.
Bolton probably got tossed for same reason everyone else does, he told Trump something he didn't want to hear while Trump was on the warpath about whatever this week's comically stupid scandal is. I will say though, it's been awesome to watch the right wing sphere turn on Bolton and call him dirt, and act like suddenly foreign wars are a bad thing. Also Rand Paul seems to be angling for the job which is hilarious because Trump's been through 3 of these guys already and in a story as old as time, somehow he thinks he'll be the one that doesn't get fucked over.
That kind of thinking only applies to Presidents who assume they are done after their second term.
So of course he has to say "I didn't fire the war guy because he was too hawkish! I fired him because he wasn't hawkish enough!"
It's a lot better for him to be eternally getting his base frothed up for a hypothetical confrontation with <insert country> than for the shooting to actually start. He wants to be the tough guy while also being able to say he didn't get the US into any new wars. If the Trump admin does get pulled into any new confrontations, I would expect a repeat of Syria where there are a bunch of large, poorly thought out singular strikes that can serve as twitter events, and then they fucking bail.
While it's clearly a noble sentiment, if it means that fuckers internationally get to ramp up their heinous bullshit, because they know Trump is a coward, I'm not sure that's a win.
Russia gets emboldened, and takes the rest of Ukraine. China gets emboldened and decides to absorb Nepal, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Various assholes in Africa and the Middle East decide to ramp up their genocides. Several South American countries could do so too.
I'm all for peace, but one of the driving factors of if not peace, but curbed aggression, was the US being willing to tell most countries to cut that shit out. If it's clear that Trump is avoiding conflict at all cost, and as long as they don't fuck over corporate interests that Trump gives a shit about, then I can see there being significantly more turmoil. Turmoil that wouldn't normally need intervention, because the threat was enough.
Trump hasn't done a damn thing that's 'anti-war.' He's escalated conflict in the Middle East and Somalia while loosening the rules of engagement, greatly increasing civilian deaths.
"Trump the dove" is a fever dream of the political press with no grounding in reality.
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I don't like the concept of forever wars either. Afghanistan has gone on way too long, and Iraq was a massive mistake.
Giving him credit for not starting more wars, kinda skips over the reasons why. Motive does play a part in it, as much as the action or lack thereof. Why Trump isn't getting into wars has nothing to do with any kind of ideological purpose. It's about politics and cowardice. Which scares me because with other leaders, I'd see their pacifistic tendencies mean they take relatively measured responses when it comes to having to take action. I can see Trump holding off as long as he can, then having a massive overreaction. And I can't mentally rule out him demanding to use nuclear weapons in a first strike capacity. And then we get to test chain-of-command-chicken, which will be fun.
He's the antithesis of Teddy Roosevelt. "Scream loudly, and carry no stick. But has nukes.".
Trump is pro war. He is pro violence. He is just pro OTHER people having to commit the violence, and him being able to sweep in and gather up the scraps. Saying he is anti-war is like saying a battlefield scavenger is anti war because they don't do the fighting.
Trump exists in a world of pro war and violence leaders, who are wholly comfortable actually committing the violence themselves. Russia, Israel, Saudi Arabia. The leader of the united states needs to be anti war, and anti violence but willing to commit violence to enforce that.
Isolationism does not create peace, as we learned in WW1 and 2. The path to peace is through alliances, committed friendships and support to other peaceful nations, and the use of the dividends of peace to prepare to defend yourself and others from those who would attack you. "I will not go to war to take land and treasure, or punish those with different views, and YOU don't get to do that either" is the attitude you want. Not, "I don't give a monkeys what you do providing I can look like I'm not involved, and I get a nice cut of the proceeds"
Military folks are willing to go to war to defend America, but not particularly enthusiastic about giving their lives and health for a chance to be part of the endless, pointless Middle-Eastern clusterfuck. This is one reason why the alt-right appeals to young military men: they like the isolationist philosophy. They were not happy about saber-rattling towards Russia by Clinton and Obama because they feared we would get into a war with Russia.