Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[garbon]

I am not sure but also we cannot just ignore such an insult. If you react the worst outcome is that needle doesn't move. If you don't react then the non-movement of the needle is the best possible outcome.

You are right this means this demented fucker gets to live rent fee in our head, but that's a given now until he dies in about 20 years.

Sure but I've been trying to suggest that the size of the reaction is disproprtionate to the triggering event.

I don't see why the BBC needed to run Harry's reaction as the top new story, nor a top section on multiple articles discussing the reactions to his comments.

[Jacob]

Who cares if it's disproportionate? In what way does it matter?

[garbon]

Who cares if it's disproportionate? In what way does it matter?

Why are we drowning ourselves in Trump? And the very minimum time that could be spent productively is not spent in that manner. It also feels like it just reinforces more Trump content being pushed at us.

[garbon]

Andy Burnham seeks permission to stand in MP by-election and says he wants to back government "not undermine it"

[Sheilbh]

Good.

[mongers]

Who cares if it's disproportionate? In what way does it matter?

Why are we drowning ourselves in Trump? And the very minimum time that could be spent productively is not spent in that manner. It also feels like it just reinforces more Trump content being pushed at us.

On a practical level, blanket coverage isn't good for individual's and the nation's mental health.

[Sheilbh]

I get that we are at the end of a very contentious week and hackles are raised but I also think a lot of the reaction overstates the significance of his Afghanistan comment. Let's remind ourselves what he said:

[...]

Is it ugly, is it disrespectful? Certainly. Was he making a considered critique of NATO troops and their sacrifices? I don't think so. I think he was rather continuing with his already established argument that America's allies are dispensible/worthless. Maybe a little bit of an additional stinger thrown in given how he had to climb down from his sabre rattling.

Responding to that by cataloguing casualties and the operations allies participated in strikes me as assuming a level of historical engagement and moral seriousness that simply isn't there with Trump. It is taking his provocative rhetoric and making it more elevated than it actually is. This isn't Trump disrespecting veterans because he's weighed their service and found it wanting, its Trump not really thinking about them at all. 

That's not to downplay how people, especially veterans, might feel or suggest they should toughen up. Far from that as I hate the idea of society becoming enured to Trumpian behaviour and accepting it as normal. But after having spent the last couple weeks rightfully indignant about Trump on Greenland it all feels a little 'surprised pikachu' to get all lathered up again about rhetoric in a Fox News interview. Are we just going to be angry forever?

I don't know if this will stick those individuals who have still been Trump-inclined in Europe. He has said many morally repugnant things which have been accepted. I'm not sure this 'incident' will have the heft to enter into people's long term memory. And these are people that were already 'okay' with Trump doing down their militaries.

So I get what you're saying and I kind of agree.

But I wonder if some of this though is also that we are posting on Languish - and I suspect we are vastly more aware of Trump's other remarks than most. I think the UK is America-brained and we live on the American internet. But in the same way as most people don't really pay any attention to politics or the news. Especially with Trump I think a lot of those remarks are basically white noise. It's not that this is worse or more pikachu surprise than anything - it's that it has cut through to a very broad public in a way that most of what Trump says/does doesn't. I think Greenland did in general (see the "leave Greenland alone" heckle at the London NBA game), I think this and the bullying of Zelensky did etc.

I also think in terms of disproportionate coverage, I think that's a fair criticism but I also think part of that is that it's catnip for the British press. Different sections of the press will have different sections to get excited about but you've got an insult to veterans/"our boys", why won't Starmer do a Love, Actually moment and then Prince Harry wading in. That is a story that feels almost designed to engage the pathologies of about 90% of the British press

But also I'm not sure that we should bring to what Trump says the level of historical engagement and moral seriousness that he is bringing. I don't think it is elevating to him to think, engage and take things seriously. I think not doing that can too easily lead to a risk of a glib "nothing matter" nihilism.

I really don't get this bit. Am I missing something about the significance of Davos that puts it symbolically on par with Arlington Cemetery or the Arc de Triomphe?

Fair - and I possibly over-egged that. But a British PM does not matter in the way a US President does. So an off-hand remark by the President has a higher salience to the rest of the world.

Well I think it did move the needle within Europe or at least the UK. Obviously not in America.

But America is not the Brits' fight to save. Trump shitting all over the Union Jack is worth driving home.

Yes. It is difficult to overstate how unpopular Trump is in the UK. I think even a majority of Reform voters disapprove of him. But there was a significant shift in opinion after the Zelensky meeting - because the overwhelming majority of British people are very pro-Ukraine.

It doesn't matter really because we're not American voters - but I think part of why it's been big news is it's not just the sort of story that Rest is Politics listeners care about but is picked up on an Express frontpage too.