Dana S. Trif

CfP Edited Volume under contract (Palgrave,2026): Materiality and Foreign Policy: Sea, Land, and Outer Space
Looking for one more land-focused chapter!!! Submission of abstract: July 15! #Materiality #ForeignPolicyAnalysis

Spectacular view of 100,000 people attending the #HandsOff march in NYC

The Real Reason Trump Berated Zelensky He simply likes Vladimir Putin better.

“Trump and Vance appear to have entered the meeting with the intention of berating Zelensky and drawing him into an argument as a pretext for the diplomatic break,” Jonathan Chait writes: theatln.tc/ejdvMpQT

The Putinization of America Trump’s deference to the Russian dictator has become full-blown imitation.

"We may never know why Trump is so perversely loyal to Putin," and "we don't know exactly why Musk went all in for Trump and Russia," Garry Kasparov writes. "But the urgency of their actions I do understand, and it's a dire warning":

Germany election: Merz says it’s ‘five to midnight’ for Europe Leader of victorious conservative alliance says continent must build defence capability as US moves towards ‘America alone’ motto The man expected to be Germany’s next chancellor has said Europe must act swiftly to increase its defence capability in the…

Germany election: Merz says it’s ‘five to midnight’ for Europe

Go, Germany! Musk‘s campaign for the AfD seems to have backfired. Not the neoNazis, but the far-left Die Linke got a bumb in votes! Exist polls Der Spiegel.
#Germanelections#Musk

When Should the Majority Rule? | Journal of Democracy With illiberal forces ascendant across the globe, protecting individual liberties and the democratic process is crucial. But when institutions empower minority groups over the majority…

"Countermajoritarian institutions...are democracy-subverting when they prevent electoral majorities from winning power and block legislative majorities from regular lawmaking."

www.journalofdemocra...

This is a new level of madness. I don't know how it can be stopped

🇺🇸 CNN poll shows just 8% of Americans view Russia positively—on par with those who think the moon landing was fake. 61% see Russia as an enemy, and only 4% as a partner. Only 9% like Putin, with the same percentage believing the Earth is flat. 52% support Ukraine using U.S. weapons in Russia.

JD Vance is throwing his political weight behind a 62-year-old Romanian politician who was virtually unknown before a massive TikTok campaign in November (for which he allegedly paid no money), who denies the Moon landing and claims to have met aliens. Well done, JD! #Vance#Romania

This is official (Office of Romania’s President): One of the ‘deals’ requested by the Russians in Riyadh is the withdrawal of NATO guarantees from Eastern Europe. Did NATO lose any war? Why is the US bent on ensuring Russia, now a weaker nation, a bigger say in global politics? #Russia#Ukraine

Elon Musk lends his support to a man who literally says that, if he is elected, ‘there will be no more political parties’ in Romania. This is dictatorship, and Musk’s interference is one in favour of dictatorship! #democracyindanger

Trump administration pressures Romania to lift restrictions on Andrew Tate Tristan and Andrew Tate have been charged with sexual misconduct, organised crime and money laundering

One would think that the Trump Administration has enough on its plate. Well, apparently not…that, or the Tate brothers and the judicial proceedings against them in Romania are as important as Ukraine, Gaza, and the destruction of the so-called ‘deep state’: www.ft.com/content/3f95...

Guess who is meddling again in Romania’s upcoming Presidential elections? Nawfal should take his own advice and stop commenting on issues he clearly has no clue about…

YouTube video by EU Debates | eudebates.tv Germany's Pistorius SLAMS US JD Vance's Controversial Remarks at Munich Security Conference 2025!

“I am a convinced Atlanticist and a friend of America”….but to compare European democracies to authoritarian states - “Ladies and gentlemen, this is not acceptable”
Boris PISTORIUS, German Defense Minister, Munich Security Conference, 14 Feb. 2025

The audacity of Vance scolding Europe for having annulled Romanian election results due to Russian interference, representing a president who violently physically attacked the US system of governance and refused to acknowledge his defeat, still claiming the elections was stolen, is simply disgusting

Will the latest round of anti-far right and anti-Nazis protests (against AfD) change anything in the upcoming German elections? These are the latest poll results (Der Spiegel):

House passes bill that would allow Treasury to target nonprofits it deems to support terrorism The U.S. House passed legislation that would give the Treasury Department unilateral authority to strip the tax-exempt status of nonprofits it claims support terrorism.

When you couple that w/ the draft legislation that was recently passed by the House, empowering the Treasury Department, by fiat, to declare a non-profit a "terrorist-supporting organization," and strip it of its 501(c)(3) status... 20/

apnews.com/article/nonp...

@raskin.house.gov: "Mexico said they were gonna put 10k troops on the border-- they already had 15k troops on the border! ... He just likes a lot of razzle dazzle and noise, but the leaders of the world are laughing at him. And we can recognize what a fraudulent pretense this whole thing was."

The ‘Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly’ of the United States Government Elon Musk’s bureaucratic coup is under way.

"Elon Musk is not the president, but it appears that he—a foreign-born, unelected billionaire who was not confirmed by Congress—is exercising profound influence over the federal government of the United States...It is nothing short of an administrative coup."

www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

pushback works, part infinity +1

www.nytimes.com/2025/02/03/h...

‘We’ve proved that change is possible’ – but Serbia protesters unsure of next move With student-led activists reluctant to engage politically against well-entrenched regime, many are asking: now what? When Serbian protesters took over the town of Novi Sad this weekend and staged a triumphant street festival, occasional chants could be…

‘We’ve proved that change is possible’ – but Serbia protesters unsure of next move

The Logic of Destruction And how to resist it

The logic of the coup that is going on now. And how to resist it.
snyder.substack.com/p/the-logic-...

The Price America Will Pay for Trump’s Tariffs Alienating allies and partners that the U.S. desperately needs means that “America First” will be “America Alone.”

"America First" becomes "America Alone"
from @davidfrum.bsky.social

www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

Rechtsextremer Kandidat Călin Georgescu klagt gegen Annullierung der Präsidentenwahl in Rumänien Călin Georgescu hatte den ersten Wahlgang der rumänischen Präsidentenwahl gewonnen. Wegen massiver Einmischung aus Russland wurde die Wahl aber annulliert. Nun zieht der Rechtsextremist in Europa vor ...

Germany pays attention: Der Spiegel writes about the refusal of the European Court of Human Rights to consider the case brought by Georgescu against the Romanian Constitutional Court’s annulment of Romania’s 1 round of Presidential elections on charges of election interference by a foreign state.

If you are wondering what disgraced conservative influencers like Alex Jones are currently up to, well they interview pro-Russia wannabe politicians from Eastern Europe, who are attacking NATO for presumably preparing to launch a Third World War against Russia…#democracyInDanger

#ToxicNarratives: if you did not know, you heard it first here. Georgescu, Romania’s wannabe pro-Russian presidential candidate, claims that NATO will attack Russia from its military base in Southern Romania. Never mind the base itself is small to at best middle-size #UkraineWar

History Will Judge the Complicit Why have Republican leaders abandoned their principles in support of an immoral and dangerous president?

In 2020, I asked why so many Republicans had abandoned the values they had previously held. Still relevant.

www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...

Kallas Says Europe Should Increase Pressure On Moscow In Push To End War EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said Kyiv and its partners should continue to apply pressure on Russia to improve Ukraine’s position in any eventual negotiations to end the war.

The European Union has a new hawk (and it’s a woman!:): the Union’s High Rep for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy is known to be an Iron Lady. She is also advocating putting more pressure on Moscow ahead of potential peace talks. “We are stronger”, she claims, both economically and militarily.

Like really bad news: Putin adviser Patrushev, in an interview today for Komsomolskaia Pravda includes Romania on a list with Hungary, Slovakia and Austria as countries that ‘understand’ stability and a balanced attitude towards Russia
#UkraineWar