I am biased, but I wouldn't count out Ukraine just yet.

China's engagment in Africa is just as neocolonial as Western engagement if not more.

Why is Lemmy so full of degenerate LARPers ?

Signing off on russians demands in not a plan.

While this is true, with the US, their geopolitical ambitions have sometimes aligned with positive developments (Germany, Japan, the Baltic nations and Poland in relatively more recent times). The same cannot be said for say Russia or China.

While this is true, I wouldn't discount the disastrous "escalation management" approach pursued by Biden's administration.

I understand the logic in a superficial sense, but it at least partially stems from ignorance about how russians think and how to deal with them. In a geo-political sense, they are not capable of good faith actions and they only respect brute force and strength. You would be challenged to find a single noteable example of genuine good faith actions from the russians in all of their history.

We will almost certainly see more bad news in context of global democracy and rise authoritarianism/plutocracy. Unfortunately, it seems that the US is entering a permanent oligarch-fueled "bread and circuses" phase (Big Macs and iPhones for the modern equivalent?).

No real plan, submit to russian demands.

I am Ukrainian. So let's just say you won't convince me of the uncle Stalin coming to liberate eastern Europe BS narrative. I would like to invite you and your family to try and speak Ukrainian in the occupied territories.

A strong majority of russian are genocidal imperialists. Not because of any inherent qualities, it's the choices they make.

I will just add that the russians should take ownership of the outcomes in their history (not just 1996 election, but more generally). They are not children and they need to take responsibility without looking for scapegoats as they always do.

Why do you think they are being fooled? If anything I think one of the appeal of Trump is the fact that he owns his corruption and shadiness.

I think your confidence in this is exactly why it can happen.

This is not some sort of secret knowledge, the topic of democracies sliding into de facto authoritarianism is a well researched topic.

And the mode by which this happens is often slow and steady, largely driven by complacency and corruption.

That's not necessarily true. Russia holds elections as well, doesn't mean they are free and fair.

It's pretty naive to think that the US cannot become a de facto non-democratic state.

Historically that's not necessarily the case. Authoritarians who come to power via somewhat democratic means in their first terms to be much more mild relative to subsequent terms where they solidify their hold on institutions.

One notable example would be Putin's first term (which is largely seen to be a fair win) or even when Medvedev was ordered to warm the seat. It always only gets worse, at least from historical examples.

The bigger question is whether the US opposition has any willingness to fight, which I don't believe to be the case.