Watch out, Greenland (and Denmark!)
| am pleased to announce Ken Howery as my choice for United States Ambassador to the Kingdom of Denmark. Ken is a World renowned entrepreneur, investor, and public servant, who served our Nation brilliantly during my First Term as U.S. Ambassador to Sweden, where he led efforts to increase Defense, Security, and Economic Cooperation between our Countries. As a Co-Founder of PayPal and venture capital fund, Founders Fund, Ken turned American Innovation and Tech leadership into Global success stories, and that experiencegy will be invaluable in representing us abroac#or purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World, the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity. Ken will do a wonderful job in representing the interests of the United States. Thank you Ken, and congratulations!
Watch out, Panama!
Donald Trump suggested Sunday that his new administration could try to regain control of the Panama Canal that the United States “foolishly” ceded to its Central American ally, contending that shippers are charged “ridiculous” fees to pass through the vital transportation channel linking the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
Panama’s conservative president José Raúl Mulino, who was elected in May on a pro-business platform, roundly rejected that notion as an affront to his country’s sovereignty.
He is inspired by Putin, and wants to launch a few militaristic adventures. To start with, he’s selecting easy targets — it won’t take many troops to overwhelm Greenland, but Panama might be a little harder, given that we have plenty of bombs, but bombs disrupt traffic. The aftermath, when the entire world mistrusts us, might be much tougher. Let’s hope that congress and the courts (yeah, right) can check his bloody ambitions.
You know, the UK has managed to isolate itself from the rest of Europe, making itself vulnerable…
reverse colonize england! america must invade the UK now! we’re earth-lings and we should blow up earth-things.
But but but…the MAGAturds and the “leftist” tankies said Trump would end all the wars! Are you saying he was full of shit and so were they? Inconceivable!
My guess is that he’ll also want to reopen the dispute between the USA and UK settled by the Oregon Treaty of 1846. The map at the link shows that the “extreme US claim” would almost link the contiguous 48 states with Alaska. Trump’s “jokes” about annexing Canada are the first stage in normalising the idea of grabbing parts of that country.
One of the objections to describing today’s far right as “fascist” has been that most current far right movements don’t demand territorial expansion, but instead focus on excluding new immigrants and (usually less loudly) deporting existing ones and their descendants. But we see in the cases of Russia and Israel that this has already changed, and Trump appears to be preparing to follow their example.
Colonise us?
OK, then we will build you not just the one wall that you promised yourselves, but TWO. Hadrian’s Wall and Offa’s Dyke. And one extra bonus wall* down the middle of La Manche.
* Made of jet skis.
.
(Having second thoughts now?)
In the case of the UK, President Musk will probably just buy the place rather than bother with that military stuff. He’s threatening to give our political turd-goblin 100 million so his company can outspend all the UK political parties combined by an order of magnitude.
Reform (Party) UK LLC is a private company rather than a political party with 9 of its 15 shares held by the goblin – this sidesteps a load of laws regarding political donations. The law has yet to catch up with this piece of chicanery and combined with the media power of Murdoch the less than 0.025% of Musk’s wealth this represents should be more than sufficient to buy the next UK election. (Incidentally, since being elected the turd-goblin has spent more time at Mar-a-largo than in the constituency he nominally represents).
(Note to self: write to my MP and book woodworking course).
Trump’s mentally arrested development is exemplified by his hatred of Jimmy Carter and the decisions of the 1970s. Next, Trump will show that he is in touch with the zeitgeist of America by ordering MAGA to buy bell-bottom pants he will import from China. 🤣🤣🤣
Cognitive decline?
He has claimed he often goes without sleep, which goes a long way to explain his errstic conduct, especially when you factor in he is even dumber than Boris Johnson. No brain-power margin.
@ ^ bruce85283 : Which of course they then will.. Becoz, cults, cult leaders, Kool aide drinking and consequences.
Pity about everyone not in the Trump kult that they’ll be bringing down with them.
Which is only .. (checks ) our whole planet.
From Shaw’s the Apple Cart. Mr Vanhattan is the American Ambassador and Magnus is the KIng of England.
“MAGNUS [starting from his chair] You dont mean to say–
VANHATTAN [rising also, blandly triumphant] I do, sir. The Declaration of Independence is cancelled. The treaties which endorsed it are torn up. We have decided to rejoin the British Empire. We shall of course enjoy Dominion Home Rule under the Presidency of Mr Bossfield. I shall revisit you here shortly, not as the Ambassador of a foreign power, but as High Commissioner for the greatest of your dominions, and your very loyal and devoted subject, sir.
MAGNUS [collapsing into his chair] The devil you will! [He stares haggardly into futurity, now for the first time utterly at a loss].”
So Britain becomes subordinate to the United States
Watch out planet Earth! Our boiling, flooding, desertifyinmg, melting, long-suffering, over-exploited, over polluted, fascist plagued, oppressed, bullied, neglected, too foten forgotten despite us all living there home.
Trump has Congress and the courts in his pocket. he ha s unchecked power now.
About the only hope far as I can see is a military coup which depends upon the consciences and ideals of the USA’s generals refusing to hand over the nation to a clear domentsic enemy compromised and behodlen to foreign enemies. (i.e. Trump) There doesn’t seem all that much hope of that or of potential assassins who need better aim and now have to take out far many more to undo the grotesque self-destructive, willfully ignorant horrifically poor choosing with deadly consequences of the miseducated, deluded majority of voting Amercian citizens.
Democracy in the USA? Its dead. One way or tóther. Questions now are can anything be saved and can it be revived and can Trump’s fascist regime be stopped before more harm is done to us all. Planet-wide.
Mmm, it seems US politics is in a rare state ot turmoil even before Dementia Donald’s takeover.
Seeing how and how much he’s spewing, an interesting possibility arises: right after his accession he attempts to give a few speeches, copiously shits himself in public, after which he gets immured in the White House, never to emerge again.
His remarkably ineffective minions do nothing much except sticking each other in the back with knives, stilettos, spoons or whatever is at hand.
And four years later, hopefully, new elections.
It would be one of the less painful scenarios.
Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.
I don’t think it’s the UK that has the most to worry about – We’re ALREADY a key part of the US imperial structure, and have been since the late 40s. Mainland Europe is too. Any kind of military hostility against Europe would damage the strength of the US hegemony significantly.
No, it’s places like Mexico, Cuba and Brazil that really have to worry.
I’m sure the Danes will tell Trump to piss off with his Greenland idea. Panama is much more likely to bend to his will and cut tariffs, but the Panamanian public might be less than happy. But given that Trump was babbling about Canada as the 51st State this time last week I suspect he’ll have another target of his interest in short order. Like say deciding to sell Guam to the Philippines. Or for that matter claiming some part of the Philippines.
Cartomance@13 Brazil seems a bit unlikely of a target. I’m sure President Lula da Siilva has said more than enough to piss Trump off, but I can’t see him having any other interest in it. It doesn’t share a border with the US, or have a large constituency of expats with political power in the US like Cuba does.
“You know, the UK has managed to isolate itself from the rest of Europe, making itself vulnerable…”
Which is possibly why the current UK government appointed a long term politician, political strategist, and pro-European nicknamed the “Prince of Darkness” as ambassador to the US.
It is obvious that the USA has a lot of problems right now.
AFAICT, that is why the voters elected the weird guy from Florida.
The high cost of living, immigration, growing economic inequality, Russian aggression, etc..
The Panama canal isn’t even on the list.
I do not wake up in the morning worrying about…the Panama canal.
If we take over Panama, do all the people living there become US citizens?
I don’t know. How are the MAGAts going to Make America White Again if we keep taking over Third World countries?
This just strikes me as an expensive mistake to fix a nonexistent problem.
And you think that would stop him? The USA already has a military base in Greenland. Troops could be landed there under cover of a pretended threat from some foreign power, and spread out to occupy the island on the same pretext. It seems unlikely the forces Denmark maintains there (which are largely naval) would fire on American troops. Having occupied the island, Trump would make Denmark an offer it can’t refuse to buy it.
I wish there was escaping it but the people of the United States have totally fucked up not just themselves but everyone on this planet.
They’ve certainly doomed the USA to metaphorical hell that we’ll soon be seeing literally unfold.
That the best case</b. is a military coup and that specific way of ending the USA’s Democracy is telling. The alternatives?
Trump reigns for suppsoedly 4 more years but, come on, he ain’t ever going away now without brute force or ill health causing his death in
officetyranny.Civil War? Outcome, unpredictable, death toll almost certainly in the tens or hundreds or thosuands of millions. Probability? Too fucking high.
Trump rules as he chooses? Genocides happen. Ukraine of course, Gaza of course , West Bank and Palestine of course. (Nice choice to NOT support Kamala huh Arab -Amercians!?That suree won’t backfire onyáll? Doe sthat need sarc tag?) Probly many more formerly Russian / Soviet nations and Arab / persoan nations too.
Then there’s the climate implications and .. do those ever nd? Except wirth us all?
World as we know it is dead now. Thanks Vicar, Thanks Beholder, thanks everyone in US of A who did NOT fully support, unify behind and Vote for Kamala Harris. You fools won. You have your bed and now have tolie init. As you lied your way throughtout.
We now have your accelerationist scenario to see how it works out.
I’m guessing horribly badly and everyone dies. May you die last. Sur e would be nice if we could ghave a rebootand choose again – but better this time.
We can’t.
So we’re fucked.
Not in a good way.
All of us.
I don’t know what else to say.
Not that it matters now anyhow. I tried.
I did my best.
Welcome to the world the Trump voters -and Stein etc spoilers voters and tankies and other (?) accelationoists and Putin and Musk have made .
@ outis : You think they’ll be more elections? Hah. I guess. I mean Saddam held elections technically speaking too. Don’t bet onthem being genuine free or fair tho’. They won’t be and the other side – whatever’s left of it by then can’t & won’t win. Becoz, “congrats” you fwits in the States choose totalitarian Christianist fascism and toend what wa salkready a pretttyuy sad excuse for a democracy.
Huh. That bold bit for the lkast bit replying to outis sure wasn’t what I thought I’d asked for.. Dunno how that happpened. Sigh.
Sure would be nice if we could edit comments here. Sigh,.
Okay, fair enough would also be nice if I could fucking type properly and accurately too which I also cannot do. (Expletives.)
.***
Clarity fix (?)
Becoz, “congrats” you fwits in the States choose totalitarian Christianist fascism and to end what was already a prettty sad pathetic, failed excuse for a democracy.
Democracy can only work with a rational, well-informed populace. The USoA sure don;’t have that now – if it ever did.
For Trump’s sake and cult .. becoz you really were / are that fucking messed up.
I have to admit I’m relying, maybe a little too heavily, on Trumps general ineptitude.
@17 . raven : “How are the MAGAts going to Make America White Again if we keep taking over Third World countries?”
Easy, they take them over and give them no rights at all let alone voting ones. Like Israel with Palestinians. Like Puerto Rico now. Trumpland rules them & they get no say in anything at all ever. If they’re lucky they don’t get ethnically cleansed (deported en masse with extreme Trailof tears redux prejuduice & thprejudice is putting it politely) or gencoided. For a time.
Till whole world falls apart and burns just as Vicar, Beholder, Putin, Trump, Musk, Netanyahu, Ben Gvir, Smotrich and co have determined that it will now. Thanks you guys! ( Sarc tag req? Rly?)
So here’s the question: How long until the rest of the world decides it’s tired of being bullied by Trump and bands together to crash the US economy? China could probably do it single handedly just by calling in the loans. The deficits we run (thanks in no small part to our refusal to tax billionaires) are only possible because the rest of the world continues to loan us money; if that spigot goes dry we would be forced to live within our means.
The US can’t even get tiny Cuba to bend to its will after 60 years of near total sanctions; what makes Trump think he will have any better luck with Canada, the European Union and China? Canada is already threatening to shut off our energy supply from Alberta. He may very well go down in history as the president who destroyed, once and for all, whatever remained of the illusion of US power and influence.
^ awomanofnoimportance : Here’s hoping?
But what then?
@20 SteveR
“Democracy can only work with a rational, well-informed populace. The USoA sure don’t have that now – if it ever did.”
America’s education consists of Tik Tok, FOX, Twitter and You Tube. Worse, every media outlet repeats every Trump post he puts on his Truth Social platform. We are being flooded (brainwashed) by social media and there are only a handful of us who recognize the situation. My conspiracy theory is Musk purposely took over Twitter with the goal of turning it into a propaganda machine for Trump. Looks like it worked.
SteveoR, what then is the million dollar question.
I struggle with this. On the one hand, much of US policy, both foreign and domestic, is vile and detestable, and maybe sticking a pin in it wouldn’t be such a hot idea. On the other hand, Putin, North Korea, the Chinese Communist Party and Iran have managed to be far, far worse. Given a choice between US hegemony and Chinese hegemony, I think the world would be better off with US hegemony, even with Trump in charge. The relative levels of freedom are still better.
Which, by the way, is also my take on the Middle East. Yes, Israel is a fascist, genocidal state, but it’s still better than Hezbollah and Hamas. We can quibble about by how much it’s better.
Unfortunately, we live in the world we actually live in, with the players on the stage that we actually have, and not what we would like to have, so sometimes it’s a matter of picking the least bad alternative. I hate that Trump is going to be president for the next four years; I’m scared half to death of what comes next if China or Russia or North Korea decide to seize the opportunity.
Sorry, typo:
Should have been “maybe sticking a pin in it wouldn’t be such a bad idea.”
Re Trump and Panama:
BBC world service (More or Less) investigated his claim that 35000 Americans died constructing the canal. The majority (25000 Approx) died during the French attempt most of these were from Jamaica, Colombia and central America. 6000 + died on the railway construction earlier and another 6000 on the American canal project, of whom about 300 were US citizens. That’s my attempt at a summary.
The fourteen minute programme is here https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0gcyz95 I hope that it plays outside the UK
If you read “Our Gang- Tricky And His Friends” by Joseph Heller you may recall Tricky Dick used a war against Denmark as a distraction from domestic failures.
Logic: Hamlet is part of English culture, and Hamlet was a Danish prince. Clearly USA should have hegemony over all territories associated with Denmark.
Plus, Denmark was at the time one of the few countries that permitted the production of p*rn films, which was clearly an aggression against American values.
Submoron @ 29
So Trump was only wrong by a matter of 11800 % .What is your point? (S)
I suspect that sometime within the next year we’ll have to recalibrate our reactions to Pres. Vance.
Trump’s last words will be “what are you doing with that pillow, JD?”
KG @3
Let’s see, in 1939 there was a quarrel about some sort of “corridor”. Any day now, Trump will demand an Autobahn connecting Alaska with Washington State.
The minor problem of huge mountain ranges being in the way is a minor detail. The very long tunnels will be built by companies that contributed $$ to the GOP election campaign.
@ 31
My mistake. Trump was only wrong by 11429 %.
@33: “an Autobahn connecting Alaska with Washington State.”
You can already drive from the USA to Alaska through British Columbia without any ferry crossings. It’s a small enclave of Alaska cut off by water from the rest of it, but still…
birgerjohansson @ 34
I only thought that somebody might find it interesting as Trump’s as going to cite the 35000 Americans who gave their lives as justification for… America’s Suez?
Thing is, the USA has all these inconvenient treaties with these countries, that make Emperor Musk and Prime Minister Trump’s ambitions actually against the settled laws of their very own country. But I don’t imagine that’s a worry to them.
Heard somewhere that the fees for shippers to use the canal is something like $10/ton, which hasn’t been changed in like 80 years. Adjusted for inflation, it should be somewhere closer to $40/ton. If anything, Panama is getting royally screwed.
@32 – Snarki, child of Loki
That was funny until I thought about it. Vance would certainly do that if the situation was ripe.
“Emperor Musk and Prime Minister Trump”
All Musk has to do to control Trump, is tell him how much money (grifting) he will get by following through on Emperor Musk’s ideas.
Greenland eh? How about Tasmania, NZ South Island, Newfoundland, Ireland, Sicily…..Plenty of targets once you realise there are more than 100 countries (who knew?) in the world.
KG@18 I see no actual scenario where Trump would actually seize Greenland by force. There is zero constituency in the US for attacking a fellow member of NATO, a country mainly composed of European white people. There would be no support in the higher echelons of the US military and State Department. I can’t see any of Trump’s closest bootlicks having an interest in violence to seize Greenland. Cuba, sure, given how long Cuba has been a thorn in the side of the US, and the political weight the Cuban American community carries. (Of course if you assume Putin has a strong hand in telling Trump what to do he’s not going to let the US attack one of his few actual Latin American allies.)
Greenland fought a long time to become somewhat self-governing within Denmark. Is the US willing to make it a separate state including 2 senators and a representative? Simultaneously the largest state in area and smallest in population (Wyoming has 10 times the population of Greenland). I note that the US did seriously seek to buy Greenland in 1946 for 100 million dollars but Denmark turned them down (no one seems to have consulted the Greenlanders).
timgueguen@42,
Well, we’ll see. It wouldn’t be Trump’s first approach to getting it – he’d try to buy it, threaten Denmark with special tariffs, get Elon to try to bribe the Greenland government… And if it came to taking it without even the appearance of consent, it wouldn’t be presented as seizing Greenland by force, but as a necessary temporary measure to prevent someone else (China?) doing so.
[info]
https://chinapower.csis.org/us-debt/
https://usafacts.org/articles/which-countries-own-the-most-us-debt/
@StevoR: yes, it is indeed the time for yelling and cursing the universe entire. That scenario of mine is intended to be optimistic, compared to many others I prefer not to imagine (I started to outline one here but stopped). Spes ultima dea est.
That said, I would wager a small sum on the poopy-pants scenario.
He’s just distracting people from the GOP’s balls up over the CR, and everyone falls for it – as if it’s serious; conquer panama, take Canada as a 51st state, buy Greenland – and no one talks about the boring details of actual governance and maintenance of any standards in decency or honesty.
EVERY article like this is a mistake, reiterating and amplifying his nonsense distractions.
It’s hard to see how to stop it.
Trump does “let’s see how much I can get away with” at every level. Zero-sum game, transactional…with cabinet picks, congress, economics, other nations, other races, women…
The hell it does, you crackpot. I bet support for this idea polls in the single digits. AFAIK, Trump never even mentioned it during his campaign, although of course he proposed it during his first term.
Also, Trump, you don’t speak for what “the United States feels”, not even when you are president — which, currently, you aren’t. (Somebody charge this asshole under the Logan Act, please?)
From New Republic:
Repossessing a ditch for such terrible lèse-majesté seems an act of magnanimous mercy!
@Snarki #32:
Oh, come on! We all know that Vance will be humping the pillow.
@19 StevoR
Aww, you shouldn’t have! You’re welcome, StevoR.
Please, ‘splain to Arab-Americans why it’s all their fault. It’s comedy gold, and I could use a laugh right now.
Beholder, No. 52: I don’t think StevoR said it was all the fault of Arab Americans. I would say that any Arab American who voted for Trump is the equivalent of a turkey voting for an early Thanksgiving, and should not be surprised at the entirely predictable results.
I get it. They were pissed off at the Biden administration for not cutting off Israel. In their place, I’d be pissed off too. But when the election is in practice a binary choice, where it was either going to be Harris or Trump, who in their right mind thinks that Trump would have done better for the Palestinians? He won’t. Just like he won’t bring down egg or gas prices.
fentex@47,
Nonsense. Reacting to Trump’s threats against several foreign states hasn’t stopped anyone talking about “the GOP’s balls up over the CR”. Nor about the deadbeats, weirdos and fascists he is saying he will appoint. And I don’t share the widespread assumption that there’s no possibility he will follow through on any of these threats. We know he’s planning to appoint leaders of the military who are loyal to him, not the constitution. And he may well have noticed that the era in which there was a general presumption against seizing territory by force has ended, and want to get into the action to big himself up.
Obviously, Trump doesn’t understand the Mercator Projection.
@52. beholder : “Please, ‘splain to Arab-Americans why it’s all their fault. It’s comedy gold, and I could use a laugh right now.”
A laugh? You helped put a fascist into power and destroy our planet and you find it funny? Pointless trying to explain anything to you, beholder since I’ve already tried multiple times and you remain willfully ignorant by choice.
There were twoi -just two choices and options. You and the other Trump voters inclduing those who undermined Kamala Harris and didn’t unify behind he r and fully support her chose wrong. That simple.
Now the whole world is about to pay for your self-destructive stupidity.
To be clear the choice Americans had was to either do everything they could to stop Trump’s Fascism and all it it very clearly means and brings with it including multiple worse genocides, a globally fatal incalculably catastrophic lack of Climate action, the death of Democracy in the USA, Project 2025 with all its horrific implications for Women’s Rights, Queer rights, Human rights, ad nauseam or to NOT do that and thus to enable Trump’s Fascist actual fucking nazi takeover of the world’s biggest miliary, cultural and political superpower.
You, beholder, The Vicar, the Arab-Americans who just effectively voted* for the genocide in Gaza to continue & expand with a far worse and more pro-
IsraelNetanyahu regime POTUS chose all that is about to come and deserve everything you get as a result and worse.The decent, rational Americans who unified behind Kamala and the rest of the world which didn’t get any say, OTOH, do NOT.
.* Including voting by NOT turning out and for and supporting the ONLY actual alternative. The only democratic way to stop Trump was by voting for and fully supporting and helping Kamala Harris.
But Americans especially including beholder, Vicar, Jill Stein, Arab-Americans chose NOT to do that.- and we all now suffer because of them.
@58 StevoR
Fascinating. What do Arab-Americans deserve, StevoR? Give me a little more detail.
beholder @59: Well, you deserve a kick in the arse for that butchering of StevoR’s sentence.
@ ^ Rob Grigjanis : Agreed. Thanks.
@ Trump voter and supporter beholder : I’lll give you all the detail you gave me the many times I raised the obvious points against what you chose to do in voting and supporting Trump over Kamala Harris and thus Fascism and demented tyranny over voting for the only actual alternative in the USoA’s horrible binary political system – which I stated badly needs reforming but too late to do that this past election.
You beholder, need to explain to ALL of us now that you have won and got Trump into unchecked power how this is going to actually work and be better than the alternative had Kamala Harris won. You reckon things are looking better for Gaza and the Palestinians generally now? How’s it working out for you and them and everyone else so far?
@ 60 Grigjanis
Oh fuck off. We can all see what StevoR wrote and it is explicitly blaming “Arab-Americans” for Trump and obviously implying they deserve genocide:
Is that sufficiently unbutchered for you mate?
Grigjanis/StevoR logic:
Okay, you’ve got two choices. We can poke your eyes out with an ice pick, or with a red hot poker. Which do you want?
I don’t want my eyes poked out!
You’re not listening to me. Ice pick or red hot poker? Pick one.
An ice pick seems horrifying. A red hot poker seems even more horrifying.
So you want the ice pick?
No, I just don’t want the red hot poker.
I need to hear you say, “I want the ice pick”.
But I don’t want the ice pick.
Red hot poker it is then. Remember – we gave you an option not to have the red hot poker and you turned it down. So now you get the red hot poker “and worse”.
Aaaaiiiyyyy.*burn, sizzle*
Stop whining, this was your choice so you deserve it – and worse.
Silentbob, so… identical outcomes between electing Trump and electing Harris.
Same either way.
(Harris is the ice-pick, in your tortured allegory, no?)
I reckon more like pepper spray versus sulphuric acid in the eyes, for mine.
—
Also, what you impute to Rob is utterly without warrant.
John @64: Meh. Sb being Sb. His reading comprehension is on a par with his maths skills.
@62 -63. Silentbob : To be clear in my view NOBODY, no group of human beings EVER deserves genocide.
However, Vicar, Beholder and the rest of the Purity Disunity mob that not only didn’t unify behind and support but actively undermined and attacked Kamala Harris and the Democratic party thereby helping Trump into power just guaranteed the world far MORE and far WORSE genocide through their self-destructive, willfully ignorant counter-productive choices that have now put the extreme Trumpian reichwing into unchecked power at the expense of everyone else on this globe.
To equate the Democratic party and Kamala Harris with Donald Trump and his blatantly corrupt Christianist neo-Konfederate fascists is simply absurd and utterly wrong.
If you wanted to get specific to one issue – and you should NOT – when it comes to Gaza alone, the Biden-Harris camp was working for a ceasefire and trying and hoping to end the genocide whereas the Trump camp is cheering on and 100% behind Netanyahu-Smotrich & Itamar ben Gvir’s genocidal program and will give them full backing for everything rtaher than trying to restrain or criticise them in any way whatsoever.
The Democratic party are certainly NOT perfect and flawed and have their issues but those issues pale into nothing compared with Trump and the Repugs blatant bigotry and actual fucking fascism.
If we want to use your analogy accurately tts actually like comparing getting a red-hot poker through the eye versus a bit of shampoo or onion in the eye.
Unforgiveably egged on by Vicar, Beholder and some others, the USA voters chose the red-hot poker and actual fucking Trumpists fascism.
At which point Democracy in the USA died. With so many implications for the rest of us now too.
Emphasis added for the hard of thinking here like the tankie trolls mentioned by name above.