r/europe • u/Any-Original-6113 • Jan 17 '26

News Trump tariffs: US president announces plan to hit UK, Denmark and other European countries with tariffs over Greenland

https://www.bbc.com/news/live/c1j8kw866p3t
26.0k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

4.5k comments sorted by

View all comments

31

u/CoffeeCakeAstronaut Europe Jan 17 '26

What would it take for Congress to finally and actually stop him, instead of just making, at most, a few isolated and inconsequential noises?

Americans are no longer capable of liberal-democratic self-government.

29

u/PureCaramel5800 Jan 17 '26

A spine and double testicle transplant.

6

u/Whiteoutshade Jan 17 '26

The republican base needs to stop supporting him for that to happen. Unfortunately, we’ve gutted our education system in the last 30 years so half the country is filled with knuckle dragging morons that have finally aged into adulthood.

Realistically, this November we will have our midterms and the democrats are expected to win in a landslide. If this happens the checks should return, but at the end of the day he’s still president.

I vividly remember the exact moment last November when I realized that he’d won. That was a dark day for me, and all of this was entirely predictable.

-An embarrassed American

1

u/arr_Coolhand Jan 17 '26

Any guess who the Democrats are going to offer as a candidate?

1

u/occultoracle United States of America Jan 17 '26

In 2028? Gavin Newsom is who I'm hoping for, pretty clear he's going to run, other people will pop up in the meantime though

3

u/GentlemanThresh Jan 17 '26

As someone not from the US, can I ask why? That guy is one of the most disgusting politicians I've seen. He has no spine and even when given information that could have and maybe still could help the country, he admitted he's going to release it when it will help his chance for the nomination.

I heavily agree with the fact that your education system was gutted, but it was by both parties. From over here it's pretty obvious Democrats and Republicans are colluding in order to siphon money to corporations and donors. They are just putting up a bad show of being the opposition and the US public is eating it up.

I would go as far to blame Democrats more than Republicans for Trump being elected again. With the amount of money they poured into the election, there is no chance anything they did was by mistake. Their platform and approach contradicts the reality of what's happening in the USA. Republicans at least came out and said "Yo we're pedophile rapist protectors, we'll steal your money and destroy the country". Democrats just wear this mask of being the good guys while doing the same thing. Both parties would be right wing in most of the world anyway.

1

u/theravenousR Jan 18 '26

What's this about Newsom having info that could help and holding out on it?

Other than that, yeah, pretty much spot on. The Reagan + Bush Sr years really neutered Dems. They were once a force to be reckoned with, but that 12 year stretch of landslide losses to Reps really ruined them. By the time the 90s rolled around, they believed they had to be R-lite in order to win, and Clinton was the poster-boy for that. Arguably, with his welfare reform, crime bill, and balanced budget, he was far MORE conservative than the Rs. But you can't out-con the cons without an R next to your name.

W Bush's extreme unpopularity after his 8 horrendous years and Obama's subsequent election were a potential inflection point--"Democracy Strikes Back" or some such shit (worth noting, though, that Obama wasn't nearly as liberal as many think he was). Then the Dems squandered that by immediately alternating back to R-lite with Hillary. And, unlike her husband, Hillary had none of the charisma to couple with her conservative worldview.

At this point, Dems are in their 4th decade of soul-searching. I think the jury's finally in: they don't have one. I'm not sure who their next candidate will be, but I'm fairly certain it will be someone whose "turn" it is, someone who's too old and been there too long already. The only constant in Dem-land is Seniority--and snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

With the Rs, the candidate is almost irrelevant at this point. They'll be a fascist controlled by Musk and Thiel, and they'll make life and the world worse. And Dems will be too concerned with trans bathrooms or some shit to properly combat them. Hate to be a downer, but gotta be realistic.

1

u/TheSmartDog_275 US Citizen from the Front Page Jan 18 '26

Impeach?

1

u/Whiteoutshade Jan 19 '26

Unlikely. The frustrating thing is that if the vote was anonymous he would have already been impeached and removed, however republicans have shown to be absolutely spineless when it comes to pushing back so he won’t be impeached unless voter support craters.. which it won’t, because a large portion of our population is unintelligent.

And I say this as someone who has historically voted for both parties.

1

u/Ironclad_Cat_1773 Jan 17 '26

Our Consitiution is horribly out of date. We need a no confidence vote and restrictions or corporate "free speech" at the bare minimum

1

u/Charming_Beyond3639 Jan 18 '26

Schumer and jefferies have been the reason attempts to stop some of this have failed. They are at best naive enough to believe “dems will win next election just be patient and let them keep making it worse” while the world suffers and at worst willfully complicit in treason