Their key insight is that you don't have to manufacture consent when so many voters just love the guy in the White House and will stand by him no matter what.

Why waste time convincing anybody of anything, when support for the war will just converge on the president's approval rating anyway?

It certainly appears to be a cult of personality. If he had a massive stroke tomorrow, or one of his secret service detail took him out, could anyone around him pick up the baton and get that same level of support?

The facts are that this administration removed most of the top generals in the pentagon a year ago[0]. Notice the pattern in other areas of the administration when the opportunity for new appointments is created: Loyalty over competence and experience in almost every case. There are a few exceptions, but most were from His first term (Jpowell).

[0]https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/21/cq-brown-trump-fire...

It was certainly notable that so many HNers seemed absolutely certain that the Kurds would come to the USA's aid, ignoring the fact that America had facilitated the one-sided ceasefire imposed on Rojava just weeks before.

A few more sceptical voices brought this up, and were told repeatedly that it didn't matter because the Kurds in Syria and Turkey are very different from those in Iraq & Iran.

And there's certainly something in that - but it ignored the clunkingly obvious point that, if America had been thinking at all strategically, a bit more support of Rojava and would have demonstrated to all Kurds that "looking west" would be rewarded.

It has to be hard for Americans to realise that their government has pissed so much of the world off so badly. I suspect we'll see further such errors in analysis and response before the new reality fully sinks in.

Possibly they think they can make up what they lost in good will and cooperation with blackmail and pressure. It is doubtful it will work as reliably as in the past, though (second order effects even left aside).

> It has to be hard for Americans to realise that their government has pissed so much of the world off so badly.

It is not hard, at all, for roughly 1/3 of Americans to understand this. Another 1/3 don't think it, or anything past their TikTok feed, matters. The last 1/3 thought Team America was a documentary.

> It is not hard, at all, for roughly 1/3 of Americans to understand this.

Sorry, but I don't think they do understand.

America has managed to piss off Canada FFS. And lets be honest, you've got to work really hard to piss off the Canadians.

Frankly, Americans (former) allies have seen the American people VOTE for Trump. Twice. Even if Trump goes tomorrow, the (former) allies know what a significant proportion of the US people want in a leader, and so may be in store at the next election.

I can't speak for anyone else, but the depth of our self-disgrace is pretty damned obvious. (What I can or should do personally is less obvious.)

Having elected Donald Trump twice - atop all our other failings - is a giant screaming proclamation that the United States is unfit for, and undeserving of, continued existence as a state or government. The responsible thing to do is to hold a Constitutional Convention and dissolve the damned thing, and then the individual states can figure out how they ought to go forward from there. (I don't think current U.S. States are anything like perfect but they're what we have left once the United States government is gone.)

> Sorry, but I don't think they do understand.

Sorry, but 1/3 of the country is deeply, keenly aware of what an absolute fucking disgrace the last year and two months have been for us on an international stage. There's no delusion, here, that Canadians are excited about being threatened with an invasion, in spite of your silly black/white post.

You're not. Really you don't understand the impact Trump has had.

Since 1945 America was a solid partner that could be mutually trusted by us all. That trust has been lost for good. There is simply no coming back from that.

_That_ is what you do not understand.

> _That_ is what you do not understand.

My man, you are arguing with someone who fucking understands that. I get you think America is entirely dudes coal-rolling their pickup trucks in Bumfuck Texas because you're angry and you want to call us stupid. And sure, some of us are. But repeatedly telling someone "YOU DON'T GET IT" when they repeatedly demonstrate getting it is supremely childish.

A fair number of people, especially on this site, have like, traveled. Talk to people in other countries. Read the news. Etc. I get your angry and you're lashing out, but good god.

> because you're angry and you want to call us stupid

Please keep the tone civil. I said nor implied no such thing.

Rather, a significant number of posts on HN believe there will be change back to 'normality' when Trump is no longer president. Yet the world has now changed and what is normal has shifted. Maybe you understand that, but many very clearly do not comprehend the gravitas.

Turkey- a key US ally- will never allow the formation of an independent Kurdish nation near their borders.

Sure, and the question really came down to how much autonomy they'd end up getting within an integrated Syria. The answer turns out to be "not much".

And to make matters worse, Trump didn't even make an attempt to let them down gently - saying "the Kurds were paid tremendous amounts of money, were given oil and other things. So they were doing it for themselves more so than they were doing it for us"...

...and then, 4 weeks later, expected their Iraqi and Iranian cousins to ride to the USA's aid!

Maybe it's time for us to decide who our allies are more carefully.

I will never forgive Saudi Arabia for the content of the 28 pages. Those who did 9/11 on us remain unpunished because geopolitics demands that we keep good relations with their "royal family".

I'd be happy to abandon whatever "alliance" we have with Turkey/Hungry, and a few other states that have shown evidence that they don't like democracy and are hostile to it.

> so many HNers seemed absolutely certain that the Kurds would come to the USA's aid

I must have missed those, but I would expect HN to be able to count. There really are not a lot of Kurds.

Also the Kurds are very much aware how quickly the US abandoned them in Syria where they joined the fight on ISIS and now are left as a gift to new Syrian regime.

I had a gut feeling the US wasn't serious about the Kurd uprising in Iran when they failed to take PJAK off the terrorist list (Treasury one, not the DoS one), which is necessary to fund them.

Not forgetting Trump personally ordering the withdrawal of all US forces in Northern Syria in his first term, on a weekend so none of the generals were around to talk him out of it.

This resulted in the Turks moving in, massacring all the Kurds they could find, and a few thousand ISIS prisoners (including 60 'high value targets') escaping as the Kurds guarding them fled for their lives.

However Trump said this didn't pose any threat to the US because "They’re going to be escaping to Europe.”

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/trumps-syria-withdrawal-i...

I mean, I assumed that any group of people stupid enough to be betrayed by the department of state twice would be first in line to get betrayed a third and fourth time.

It hardly seemed an unreasonable assumption.