Rayvin

He's attempting to strongarm Ukraine - no one died I don't think? Probably also by design. Would have looked bad if several hundred people had died over it so Russia very considerately hit relatively unmanned areas. I honestly think we should be letting Ukraine fire missiles into Russia.

We have to stop rushing him back from injury ffs, it's ridiculous.

I thought the supreme court was already leaning republican though... so one of the republican ones rebelled?

That is really interesting - but makes me wonder if we're living in the moment when people in the future look back to and ask 'why didn't they do something to stop it before these guys had all the private militaries' and so on. Really is fascinating stuff. Essentially each cryptobro becomes his own sovereign.

Unsure about that one... What the EU can't do is quickly become that, but it's not as if it doesn't have the economic clout to do so. There is a reason that some of us have been advocating closer and closer ties with them, and it's not because we just enjoy visa free holidays. Strategically it makes a lot of sense and would make the collective a counterbalance to US or Chinese power in a way that clearly individual nation states in their own right can never be. The problem is that we're overrun by our own pack of (IMO) traitors voting against European interests at every occasion in favour of petty parochial nonsense. What is happening to Ukraine should be a good example of why nation states like the UK can't go it alone. The super powers, if they ever want to, can crush us. Where is our sovereignty god then? £800bn on rearming is not nothing, It's equivalent to US yearly military spend (although they also have to fund their various far flung bases and outposts, so in a consolidated Europe this figure is more powerful). Europe doesn't have to replace the US as a world police force, it just has to be compact and vicious enough to defend itself and its borders. It is absolutely capable of doing that. Diplomacy with Canada and East Asian democratic powers is a significant next step beyond that as the US plunges into isolationism. Ironically, all of this should be music to Trump's ears - but apparently he's throwing tantrums because he's meant to be centre stage and Europe wasn't supposed to be trying to find alternative answers.

Yep I agree fully on that too, I just wondered if on a technical level (i.e. within the games themselves) there was any recurring tactical deficiency or issue?

At the heart of it, what is going 'wrong' for the side at the moment? Do we defend poorly, are we low energy, is it individual errors, complacency? Have other teams just worked us out?

Tell you what mind, between Trump setting fire to the Western world and NUFC nosediving I'm finding it hard to remain emotionally invested in any of it Just gonna bury my head in work for a week or so I think.

Is that real...?

I feel like Starmer needs to leave the door open so someone on the EU side can continue talking to Trump if all other avenues shut. Of course it also suits him/us since we avoid tariffs that bit longer, but even so. The EU taking a lead on the rest of this is fine for now IMO. So it'll be pragmatism over principle ultimately, but that does mean he's not going to really 'lead' on the European front, so we're looking to France and Germany I suppose.

There are no words. There are just no fucking words. Get the US out of our politics, this is a fucking clown show. Drop the dollar, work on our own continent and our own problems. Ban twitter. Some of the most shameful stuff I've ever seen.

Where are these Reform voters coming from? Is it the red wall? I'm going to be fucking pissed if it is, since Labour supposedly abandoned all of their principles to seduce the fuckers. It doesn't look like it's coming from the Tories.

Yeah not gonna be too upset about that, 2-0 is nothing compared to the batterings we've had there over the years.

Is Botman injured again ffs? What is going on with him, do we keep rushing him back or something? So tired of losing to Liverpool, it always feels completely inevitable.

Agreed, big moment. At least we don't have the Tories in power for it.

Agree with Rents but I think the reality is that we have to surrender the initiative due to the US dropping the ball. Europe needs to consolidate and stabilise, and back itself to emerge stronger on the other side of that. We need to transition from a benign power to an active one. And who knows, maybe China will achieve more in the developing world than we did.

It is also what Trump wanted though. I don't quite know how I feel about all this - departing the US umbrella of security and the transatlantic alliance feels like a good thing but Trump is getting everything he seems to want here.

Agree completely, this is what the EU needed and what the AFD's failure permits. It's a good outcome, even if we have to run with the German Tories to get there. At least their conservatives still stand for some of the more reliable tenets of conservatism like national defense.

There is no chance Howe does this though, he wants to win every game. IMO we go in all guns blazing and if we get hammered then we use it as motivation for next time. If we hold our own, we use it as confidence for next time. No other alternatives.

At least we have time to fight against it now though, and German leadership on the EU stage is guaranteed. I'm taking it as a win honestly. Yes, there's blood in the water but there was anyway. Europe lives to fight another day, and at least now it's on red alert. France is the next big fight - I did not imagine I'd be appreciating Macron at this point in time, but I guess that's what war does. Changes everything.

It is extortion, and there is no defending it. Not only do we need to move away from the US strategically, we also need to shift from their systems and infrastructure. This is going to be a painful few years for Europe as we all come to terms with this, but honestly on the other side of it things might be quite positive with more reliance on homegrown considerations. I mean it's a long shot if we even get there without first tearing ourselves apart from within, but assuming we can stave that off, we might be in a much better position.

At least AfD didn't win. Immigration remains the spectre across all of Europe and as said by many of us a few times now, is an argument we've lost. The problem is though, Labour are actually doing more about it than the Tories were. Biden had higher numbers than Trump... I wonder if that's a pattern in general. That the "left" does far more on this than people give them credit for. If it is, then the single threatening issue is social media. It's not 'informing people', it's radicalising them based on lies. Which again, we all know. No one here isn't aware of that. But what the fuck are we meant to do about it - we can't ban social media as the free speech police will be out in force... so the only option at all, is to start being better at it than the right are. I see no other way personally. I think huge resources should be poured into this tbh.

There will come a moment when he crosses a line that turns even his supporters against him - the question is going to be, how far gone the whole thing is before that happens. Blood in the streets is likely the moment IMO.

Who says I want to win you over though? I'm not here to save you. It's not my job to rescue your hapless soul. I'm just here to commentate on it as your lot burn the world to the ground. The actual left wing haven't been in power in my lifetime, it's just centrists and your guys. Maybe if we actually did have the true left, we'd be doing a lot better for everyone.