LindavG
Proud Member
CaptainEoLove85;4195850 said:
Yes, this seems to be the main motivation for his supporters as well. If liberals hate it, they love it, even if it means stripping away their health care, poisoning their air and water, defunding the schools their children go to and handing over their money to the top 1%. Instead of defending this administration's policies, most Trump supporters I've seen just gloat about being in power and getting to undo everything the previous President did.
On the other hand, it's not surprising that Trump gets away with these ridiculous claims that the whole world is taking advantage of the US, considering the US media does an awful job at challenging and fact-checking him. When Trump accuses Europe of leeching off the US for security and not paying "their fair share", the media goes along with that narrative entirely, at most adding a note that the US should continue to militarily support Europe regardless. Americans are not exposed to the European perspective on this issue - and that is not to say that the Americans are wrong and the Europeans are right, but hearing the other side of the story might help to put things in context and lower the appeal of a nationalistic "America First" message.
(For a start, it would be helpful if the media clarified that the 2% of GDP in military spending is a non-binding benchmark set for 2024, that countries invest in their own national defense so no one "owes" the US any money, that there are legitimate historical reasons for which European nations are wary of significant military spending by their neighbours, that many European countries have already announced investments in defense and security but this takes time to take effect, that Europeans have a more expansive view of global security which includes UN peacekeeping missions - on which the EU contributed almost 6000 police, military experts and troops compared to a mere 73 by the US, that Europe has given shelter to millions of refugees from the Middle East and North Africa over the past three years, that NATO's Article 5 was only invoked once in history and that was by the US after 9/11, that Europe bears the brunt of the risks and costs of sanctions on Iran and Russia or military action in the ME, that Europe spends way more on international aid than the US, etc. With this in mind, dismissing an entire continent as leeches is not going to go over well -_-).
Or consider Trump's latest speech that said, among other laughable things:
Took me about 2 seconds to find the actual data on countries' contributions to the Green Climate Fund: http://www.greenclimate.fund/partners/contributors/resources-mobilized No, the US is not way ahead of anybody else, in fact it's not even in the top 10 main contributors per capita despite being the world's leading polluter per capita, both historically and currently. So now Trump has announced that the US will not contribute to a global effort to combat climate change, that the US will seek to gain an unfair advantage over responsible nations that do implement environmental regulations even though they're not the worst offenders, and that the US will not provide any financial compensation to mitigate the catastrophic damage they're inflicting on the world (and on poorer nations in particular). And this clown has the gall to accuse others of being a leech -_-
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The other performances as well. One Love Manchester raised $9 million for victims of the attack. 
