Don Antonio Magino

I don’t know, but according to the Dutch Chief of Defence Mart de Kruif, it would trigger article 5 against the attacking NATO member:

If Trump indeed decides to militarily attack Greenland and thus NATO partner Denmark, Article 5 of the NATO charter would come into force. Under that article, an attack on one is an attack on all ‘and you are at war with all other NATO countries’. According to De Kruif, that would mean that the European part of NATO and Canada would be at war with the United States. ‘That would be a bizarre situation, I don’t think it would come to that either.’

I’ve read before that there has been a law passed disallowing the American president to decide to leave NATO. The republicans (having a majority) would have to vote in favour of leaving NATO in the American parliament. I’m not sure how unlikely that is, but the US republicans getting rid of NATO would be very interesting…

But the US don’t need to leave NATO to destroy it. All Trump needs to do is say the US won’t come to the assistance of NATO partners in the event of an attack. NATO could die in irrelevance instead.

Trump has always said he hates the EU. Now he’s behaving in a hostile manner to the EU. That’s no surprise, and you don’t need to be a Russian spy to hate the EU, anyway.

Honestly, you don’t need the whole ‘Trump is literally a Russian spy!’ schtick to be aware of the danger that Trump could align the US (by their own volition) with Russia. But, Trump being a loose cannon, we have no idea what will happen in the so-called peace negotiations with Russia. Though it’s unlikely to be good news for the Ukrainians, at this point.

What is clear is that Trump has a thing for authoritarian leaders, unsurprisingly, as he probably sees himself as one as well.

I wouldn’t say so at the moment. Looking it up a bit, this seems to have been a motion essentially requesting the government to look into alternatives. But this is also what the expert said in the article:

Bert Hubert, a Dutch technology expert who has advocated for reducing dependency on the U.S., said: “This is only the first step in potentially doing something.”

Honestly, our current cabinet is in such a bad state (not that it’s been in a good state at any point of its existence), I don’t expect them go get anything done.

He’s not very vocally pro-Trump at the moment. To be honest, the whole Trump-situation is his worst nightmare as, firstly, Trump’s idiocy has changed the political debate in the Netherlands from revolving around Wilders’ favourite topic (immigration) to national defence, and secondly, in this new debate he’s at a disadvantage as he’s been openly pro-Trump, and also openly pro-Putin.

But Vincent is correct that Wilders is a one-issue party. On other issues than migration, the PVV pretty much just goes along with the right-wing liberal VVD.

This is what the extreme right means by „free speech”.

Orbán has apparently also been striking a much more hostile tone:

‘Spring cleaning’

On 15 March, a bank holiday when Hungarians commemorate their freedom struggle against the Habsburgs in the 19th century, Orbán thus addressed a crowd in Budapest: ‘The bedbugs have survived the winter. We dismantle the financial apparatus that used corrupt dollars to buy politicians, judges, journalists, fake NGOs and political activists. We let the entire shadow army flee. (…) They have been here too long. They have survived too much.’

He called for a ‘spring cleaning before Easter’.

This rhetoric is also new to Orbán, says Zsuzsanna Végh, who researches Hungary for the Berlin-based think tank GMF. ‘He did not use such dehumanising language before - previously, for instance, he called dissenters “enemies of the nation”.’

Fascist Arrow Cross movement

Observant Hungarian critics noted that Ferenc Szálasi, leader of the fascist Arrow Cross movement, used the same words when talking about Jews in the 1940s.

The radical language and the ban on the Pride, according to Végh ‘extremely undemocratic and a curtailment of the right to association and freedom of expression’, cannot be separated from the parliamentary elections due in spring 2026.

Orbán faces a new challenger, the conservative Péter Magyar, whose Tisza party has surpassed ruling Fidesz in the polls. While Orbán orated about vermin, Magyar got tens of thousands of Hungarians elsewhere in the capital to demonstrate against the government. Hungary’s economy is also in the doldrums.

Végh sees a ‘confluence’ of the ‘attack on media, NGOs and judges’ and the fuelling of the ‘culture war’. Orbán is thus courting the electorate of the far-right, represented in Hungary by the Mi Hazánk (Our Fatherland) party.

Ah, alright.

There’s really no way to know. It seems likely to me he’d have chosen an isolationist stance, but yeah, no way to know.

I’d rather speak German than American, that’s for sure.

Well, it’s not like the US had any kind of alliance with any European state at that point. And Europe pretty much was just ‘Far-away-istan’ (as we say in Dutch) for Americans.

Much of white America has German ancestry. Many just anglicised their names after either World War (eg. Schmidt > Smith; Fischer > Fisher).

I’m not sure what you’re implying, anyway.

Yes, I’m far-right. Whatever.

Considering you’re not giving any actual evidence for much of what you’re writing, that’s speculation as far as I’m concerned as well.

I’m not downplaying anything, I’m saying I’m not buying an oft-repeated narrative, and I’m still not buying it. And, in any case, I don’t expect you to apologise, I expect people I’m responding to in a polite manner to be vaguely polite back. I’ve not doubted your intellectual capabilities just for disagreeing with me.

Polish your Critical Thinking Skills, and hone your Google-Fu. You need to do more research.

You need to talk to people in a less condescending manner. I explicitly asked for more information (‘feel free to make the case’) and laid out an alternative explanation, there’s nothing ‘uncritical’ about that. I haven’t a clue what ‘Google-Fu’ is supposed to mean. I get my information from reputable Dutch and German newspapers.

How can you call this a coincidence?

You’re putting words in my mouth, but I will believe current developments in the US are the result of the Russians if a causative relationship has been established.

Again, I don’t doubt these are the aims of the Russian government, but Russian campaigns are probably fuelling processes that were going on in the US anyway. In the Netherlands, Russians don’t really need to do anything as indigenous racist elements like Wilders have it easy enough as is to harnass these underlying discomforts with ‘the other’, whatever form they may take. Attacks against Turkish immigrants (‘guest workers’) happened in the seventies, there always was an underlying current.

This is all of a completely different order than the claim I’ve been hearing often, that Trump is a literal Putin agent, and I don’t buy it. The agent Krasnov claim came from one guy, as far as I know. Not very convincing, but this what I was actually referring to when I said ‘feel free to make a case’, as I haven’t found this to be very convincing - and I especially haven’t seen convincing evidence.

We saw how he was a supplicant to Putin during his first term, and we know Trump and Musk were both in close contact with Putin during the Biden years. We know that nearly everyone in Trump’s orbit during his first term (Flynn, Manafort, et al) were so involved with the Russians that many went to prison for what essentially amounts to treason. All of that, and much more, and you still think Trump’s connections to Putin/Russia are doubtful?

I didn’t, as I’m Dutch and I dislike following American news. I’ve heard it indeed seems to be the case that Russian narratives work well in the Trump camp. Still, I’m quite sure that if Russia starts following a foreign policy that isn’t compatible with what the Trump camp wants, they’ll drop them as quickly as they did Europe.

I look at Trump barely being able to utter a coherent English sentence, and I doubt he could control even himself.

To be honest, the entire idea that you could use a loose cannon like Trump as an agent is pretty stupid by itself. The man doesn’t have a clue in the morning what he’ll be saying in the evening. The ‘evidence’ is one guy, as far as I’ve gathered, but feel free to make the case.

Outside of ‘the evil Russians rule the world’, there are plenty of reasons for the way Trump is acting. I think what we’re seeing is more a return (or an attempted return, anyway) of 19th/early 20th century thinking in spheres of influence, where Trump thinks it’s alright that Russia ‘gets’ Ukraine as part of its sphere of influence, if America gets Canada and Greenland. Whether it’ll actually work this way is another question, of course (I have doubts that it will). We don’t know how Trumps presidency will develop in the end, though. I wouldn’t be surprised if Trump actually will end up getting mad at Putin if he doesn’t play by his rules.

Note that I’m not denying Russia attempts to disrupt western political processes, just that they are so murderously successful to even have an American president as their puppet. That the US has elected such an idiot president, is entirely their own fault (as is Wilders in the Netherlands).

That’s pretty much my view. The extreme right in Europe and the US also forms a collaborative network itself, though, with events like CPAC. I’d be more afraid of the US than of Russia, honestly.

If you think everything that’s happening in Europe and the US is perpetrated by the Russians, that’s honestly more of an easy way of pretending an ‘other’ outside of the country is responsible, not anyone in the country itself.

Wilders, despite also supporting Russia, is a 100% Dutch phenomenon (starting with Fortuyn at least). These types will use any power they have to attain as much power as they can get; in the Netherlands (with the Dutch electoral system), that’s a bit more difficult than in Hungary. To attain more power, it’s a good idea to have some scapegoat you can make people scared of and rail against constantly: muslims, asylum seekers, recently trans folks. You don’t need ‘Russia’ to explain these authoritarian attacks on minorities.

It’s a form of scapegoating itself, actually, despite there still actually being truth to Russian disinformation and destabilisation campaigns, of course. At the same time, it overinflates Russian abilities, though Romania is worrying.

I disagree with the ‘Russian conspiracy’ nonsense anyway, especially when it comes to Trump. I suppose that makes me ‘a complete idiot’.

Ich glaube die Nordkoreaner machen das im Untergrund. Also, irgendwo ne Höhle graben, das wird schon!

Aber es gibt in Deutschland doch auch noch diese riesigen Flächen wo Braunkohle gewonnen wurde? :p

Ethnische Säuberung ist einfach nur ‘völlig neu […] denken’. Das stimmt ja auch, wenn Israel es macht wird aus Vertreibung wie von Zauberhand ‘Umsiedlung’. Da hat einer wirklich Lehre gezogen aus der NS-Zeit.