this post was submitted on 14 Feb 2024
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What is clear, however, is that Trump — who ostensibly spent four years as president of the United States — has little clue about what NATO is or what NATO does. And when he spoke on the subject at a rally in South Carolina over the weekend, what he said was less a cogent discussion of foreign policy than it was gibberish — the kind of outrageous nonsense that flows without interruption from an empty and unreflective mind.

“One of the presidents of a big country stood up and said, ‘Well, sir, if we don’t pay, and we’re attacked by Russia, will you protect us?’” Trump said, recalling an implausible conversation with an unnamed, presumably European head of state. “‘You didn’t pay? You’re delinquent?’” Trump recounted responding. “‘No, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. You gotta pay. You gotta pay your bills.’”

The former president’s message was clear: If NATO members do not pay up, then he will leave them to the mercy of a continental aggressor who has already plunged one European country into death, destruction and devastation.

Except NATO isn’t a mafia protection racket. NATO, in case anyone needs to be reminded, is a mutual defense organization, formed by treaty in 1949 as tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union hardened into conflict. “The parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all,” states Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty.

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[–] teft@lemmy.world 146 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

You gotta pay. You gotta pay your bills.’”

Boy, that's rich coming from Il Douche.

[–] Aldehyde@kbin.social 71 points 1 year ago (1 children)

From somebody being sued by their former attorney for not paying their bills

[–] Theprogressivist@lemmy.world 40 points 1 year ago (1 children)

From somebody who was sued for not paying his contractors.

[–] 7u5k3n@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago

Doesn't he owe a bunch of cops money from like 2016 still?

[–] Badeendje@lemmy.world 98 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The only time the mutual defence treaty was triggered is because the US was attacked and all countries in NATO stepped up to the plate.

[–] admiralteal@kbin.social 85 points 1 year ago (9 children)

Not just stepped up to the plate, but went pretty much all-in on a COMPLETELY pointless invasion against what was almost certainly the wrong country.

That's how committed they were to NATO.

[–] dariusj18@lemmy.world 29 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I am assuming you mean the Iraq war, but that was not a NATO operation, it just happened to have many NATO allies providing support, not all of them.

[–] noride@lemm.ee 23 points 1 year ago (1 children)

To your point, it was called the "Coalition of the willing". Article 5 was not invoked.

[–] SuperIce@lemmy.world 22 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] njm1314@lemmy.world 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] saltesc@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Kind of, but not really. NATO did operations to ensure US's immediate security against further terrost attacks. Once the US affirmed it had it's shit together, NATO pulled out. Any countries that stuck around for the counter-attack wars (like Afghanistan and Iraq) did so under different banners. NATO does not encroach or encourage war, it exists to prevent it and will do what's necessary up to the point a nation is deemed safe again.

It circles the injured sheep and fights off the wolf. Once this is done, it doesn't then hunt down the fleeing wolf. This works very well because other animals aren't scared of NATO controlling the lands, but the wolves are also scared of trying to attack that herd.

Similarly, if everything went wrong for the US in Afghanistan, NATO wouldn't help. If the US retreated and started getting attacked in its homeland, NATO would.

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[–] jantin@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

And the attack was done by rogue non-state actors. Europe agreed to go burn a whole district because a thug who lived roughly there punched USA in the face. Now Europe faces an entire mafia from another town and Trump says "should've bought better gear, bye suckers".

[–] ImplyingImplications@lemmy.ca 82 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The guy currently on trial for racketeering is asking people for protection money or something bad will happen to them? Who would have thought!

[–] CitizenKong@lemmy.world 17 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Also "you have to pay your bills, unlike me who literally NEVER pays ANY bills." I mean, if there is one consistent element in Trump's character for the decades he's doing business is that he's constantly stiffing people.

[–] BestBouclettes@jlai.lu 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Dude's a mob boss, everyone around him has taken the fall and he's still there. That's insane.

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[–] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 54 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Can't lose what you never had. Its laughable to pretend that Trump ever had a clue as to what NATO is or does.

[–] mojofrododojo@lemmy.world 37 points 1 year ago (1 children)

He doesn't understand OUR military, how is he going to comprehend the utility of a trans-national mutual defense accord?

I'm frankly amazed he doesn't choke on his food, he's so fucking stupid.

[–] Igloojoe@lemm.ee 18 points 1 year ago

If Putin doesn't like it, then Trump doesn't like it. He probably doesn't even know why.

[–] CynicRaven@lemmy.world 54 points 1 year ago (2 children)

"One of the presidents of a big country stood up and said, 'Well, sir,

Imma stop it right there. It's always possible that someone, out of a general professional attitude or decorum, used that 'sir' wording, but I'll be damned if I've heard Trump use that word in a context that doesn't sound like he's just making some bullshit up.

I mean, he pretty much always sounds like he's making some shit up, but my point stands!

[–] blazeknave@lemmy.world 15 points 1 year ago

This is some LinkedIn "then everyone clapped and it turned out the wolf I saved was the hiring manager all along and they made me CEO" type shit

[–] Hominine@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

Sorry, we were looking for "big country."

[–] thisbenzingring@lemmy.sdf.org 47 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You gotta pay your bills.

This fucking guy... LOL oh man that is something isn't it? The guy famous for never paying his bills says this about a REAL life and death situation... FUCK TRUMP

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[–] ikidd@lemmy.world 38 points 1 year ago (6 children)

How do people not see this as being directed by Putin? Russia is literally the only beneficiary of this "stupidity".

[–] Pan_Ziemniak@midwest.social 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

For the GOP voters? 50+ yrs of highly concentrated, and pointed propaganda.

For the nonvoters? Bc their favorite social media sites (this one included) are full of russian bad faith actors working to make Status Quo Joe seem somehow worse, or, at the very least, more ineffectual, than ronald mcdump.

[–] jkrtn@lemmy.ml 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Just saw a fella here the other day absolutely screeching and livid that Joe "hasn't done anything for Flint." I mean, neither did Donald and also Donald hamstrung the EPA as best he could to make things worse all over the nation.

The dishonesty is so overt. That guy didn't respond to anything, either, so no updates if he is concerned for the EPA or not.

[–] Pan_Ziemniak@midwest.social 10 points 1 year ago

Its all performative. Theres no shortage of 20something yr old leftist idealists that are ripe for the brainwashing. Just discovered The Dunk Tank, which i guess is more of the same.

[–] ghostdoggtv@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The funny thing is, Russia would never actually strike NATO. I don't know what the fuck State or JCS are letting him get away with while DOJ jacks off with reports about the incumbent's mental health, but Trump needs to be gagged and thrown into solitary yesterday.

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[–] z3rOR0ne@lemmy.ml 31 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Trump supporters are more pathetic than the man himself. This is exemplified simply because this demonstration of his ineptitude as well as his various acts of indecency and immorality cannot and will not sway their opinion of the man.

The only way to change their opinion of him is for Trump himself to "go woke" so hard they no longer recognize him as their Cheeto covered Jesus.

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[–] TheDoozer@lemmy.world 27 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Remember in 2016 when Republican types were adamant that Hillary wouldn't be tough enough on Putin, and that Liberals were Communists? And that the Liberals would let Russia do whatever it wanted?

And now those same Republicans are outspoken against helping Ukraine, and want to let Russia just have it. Their preferred candidate wants to dismantle the organization of countries that stands as the United front against Russian expansion. Working deliberately and blatantly toward Putin's interests isn't a problem to them at all.

Back then, I thought that if there was a single (decent) principle they actually stand for, that would have been it. Apparently I was wrong.

[–] thisbenzingring@lemmy.sdf.org 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Kompromat in the form of the RNC's emails that have not been leaked.

[–] assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world 15 points 1 year ago

Emails that WikiLeaks apparently has but said "nah we're not going to release them because there's totes nothing in there trust us".

They could've been neutral and trustworthy. Instead they had an axe to grind against Hillary, and prioritized that over being known for objective truth.

[–] lolcatnip@reddthat.com 7 points 1 year ago

At this point what could possibly be in those emails that their voters wouldn't just dismiss?

[–] Pratai@lemmy.ca 22 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Both sides though, right? I mean… we have one guy wanting to plunge America into absolute chaos by dismantling hundreds of years of progress and ending democracy as we know it just so he can protect his sad little crumbling empire of corruption….

And the other guy is old.

Totally comparable!

[–] Wrench@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago

And the other guy is slightly older

[–] saltesc@lemmy.world 22 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Based on discourse online post the invasion of Ukraine, it seems there's a few Americans that don't know what NATO is/does, nor how it differentiates from how the US conducts its military. For starters, it's anti-militant—kind of the point—unless it has no other viable resort, and it's the threat of that last resort that bolsters the passive-security within NATO. It is safety in numbers and it fails if the herd scatters.

As a result, Article 5 has only needed to be acted upon once and the irony is that it was the US that raised the call for help and the other nations responded.

If Trump has his way, WW3 will kick off, everyone will suffer, and it'll end with the US saying, "Fucking hell. Wow. Let's not let that happen again. We need some sort of agreement to make sure of that."

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[–] ArdMacha@lemmy.world 21 points 1 year ago

He doesn't care, he's doing what Putin tells him. Destabilise the western alliance

[–] dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com 16 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Stop applying Hanlon's Razor to Trump.

It's fucking malice.

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[–] YurkshireLad@lemmy.ca 15 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Whether he knows what it is, is totally irrelevant. All he cares, is that he has something else he can hate on, something which his followers don't understand, so he can show them he's the man who stands up to people. Whether he is standing up to someone or not.

[–] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 17 points 1 year ago

Well, really what it comes down to is that Putin wants Nato dissolved, and Trump is Putin's lil bitch.

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[–] BilboBargains@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago

Trump knows what NATO is. This is rhetoric for his voters.

[–] Kraven_the_Hunter@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I can guarantee you that if it isn't a woman's ass we're talking about, there's no chance he's grasped it.

[–] HawlSera@lemm.ee 7 points 1 year ago

That this point I think he thinks that NATO is what you call TiVo, and that TiVo is still a thing.

[–] GilgameshCatBeard@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Make no mistake…. He has NO CLUE what NATO is.

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