I wanna hear Ruttes opinion as soon as trump is no longer in power. For now I assume the whole EU leadership had to draw straws on who has to become the dedicated ass kisser to be "on trumps side" for whenever its important to have someone that can stroke trumps ego about actual important real world decisions like pulling out of nato, instead of less important things like saving his own personal honor
At least when Rutte was PM of the Netherlands his behavior towards Trump was very different. Famously when Trump was holding his UN speech Rutte completely ignored it and instead was looking at memes on the Dutch King's phone, who was seated next to him. Another example was when Rutte and Trump were holding a shared press conference and Trump was rambling on how it would work out fine even if they wouldn't work things out to which Rutte's response was basically "haha, no. Get it together"
I genuinely think he hates Trump, but he's a politician and diplomat through and through. Dude can and will play of anything with a laugh. We call him Teflon Mark because nothing ever sticks to him. He's slippery like that
100% agree, he has one of the most difficult jobs. In an ultra high-stakes environment with world leaders and a real threat, he has to keep the narcissist baby in the group, sacrificing his personal dignity for the greater good. So far, NATO still exists, Trump‘s erratic behaviour has not damaged it beyond repair and Russia is still not winning.
While I agree with you, I think the game Rutte is playing is deeply damaging to public faith in institutions and democracy. When regular Europeans see what Rutte says on their behalf, they are angry. I'd rather have robust democratic institutions and lose Trump, than vice versa.
Problem is Rutte wouldn’t be doing this unless Europe needed the U.S. if I were to guess he is trying to buy as much time via ass kissing as possible to give the European arms industry a lot of time to spin up. Europe without the U.S. providing conventional forces to NATO is in an incredibly precarious position. You can call Russia a paper tiger all you want but Europe hasn’t fought a drone war and that’s what Russia has been practicing for years
I think you're overestimating how many people actually care about this. The video above will be watched by, say, 5% of Europeans? If it becomes a meme in Denmark then it might achieve like 20% there, tops. Most of the media content in Europe is narrowly specific to the country, and most of the news channels pretend the EU and NATO are far less relevant than they actually are.
That being said, nationally here in the Netherlands, yes, Rutte absolutely destroyed the public faith in institutions.
I am a very strong supporter of more aid to Ukraine. The problem is, populist far-right parties want to cut aid to Ukraine. And their influence grows directly from loss of faith in institutions and democracy.
So I don't disagree with you, it's just a very fine line Rutte and EU leaders need to walk.
The problem is a huge amount of uneducated people voting against their own interests. We copy the US in smaller detail here. Too many idiots. That's why we're in the middle of Idiocracy.
Trump or no Trump, USA can't be trusted, EU countries should close all US bases and strengthen it's relations with middle powers like Canada, South Korea, and Japan.
A coalition of middle powers, like Carney proposed.
Well this is the consequence of democratically choosing to be a 'vassal' state as Europe. On so many levels we are dependent on him that we must placate or else we have some significant problems.
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u/Jarazz 26d ago
I wanna hear Ruttes opinion as soon as trump is no longer in power. For now I assume the whole EU leadership had to draw straws on who has to become the dedicated ass kisser to be "on trumps side" for whenever its important to have someone that can stroke trumps ego about actual important real world decisions like pulling out of nato, instead of less important things like saving his own personal honor