Barbarian

You're ok dude. It sounds like this guy/gal has had similar conversations and was frustrated by them. Understandable on both sides.

Military stuff is out of the picture since they established their trade with CCP and NK for rockets

Not all rockets are made equally. The NK rockets, artillery barrels and artillery shells are much worse than they could manufacture with western components. A degradation in quality leading to less accuracy which lessens the battlefield impact is still a positive step.

It also means that China can take advantage of Russia to get much more than it could usually get for their gear. China is not helping Russia out of the goodness of it's heart or some ideological reason. They're taking advantage.

I wonder if sanctions targeting non-consumer products critical to producing them can lead to long pauses

Interesting question. I have no idea. I'm pretty confident all sanctions so far are for gas, oil, and military/dual-use technology.

She was a big champion of Medicare for all in 2020. It is indeed a shame she isn't talking about it now like she did last election. Judging from her 2020 rhetoric though, it is definitely something she would be open to doing if given a cooperative government, I think.

Well, there's not much she can do atm as vice-president. It's very well-known that Biden is very pro-Israeli.

Her rhetoric on the topic as a candidate has been very mixed. She's been improving since she had that meeting with Uncommitted leaders. Hopefully she can have a better plan than "ask nicely for a ceasefire" to present to voters before the election.

Maybe. The point of the sanctions isn't to cause unrest though, as I said, it's to apply pressure to the state. If it happens to cause some unrest, that's an unlikely side-benefit.

Hungary is blocking every single sanction package on Russia. They do not send aid to Ukraine at all and even block aid shipments through Hungary.

All of these are very fair points. My point was that they're happy to publicly call for "peace and an end to the war" while throwing Ukraine under a bus, but simultaneously they're for NATO protecting them against Russia.

They also blocked Swedens NATO membership for ages.

If I'm not mistaken, this wasn't a pro-Russian thing, this was a blackmail NATO allies for concessions in exchange for agreeing thing.

What specifically do you think she should do better on?

None of the Bucharest 9 have. Hungary may make loud noises, but even they were cooperating with this group to increase defence against Russia.

To piggyback on @[email protected], the point of sanctions is to create an extreme economic cost to a state as a bargaining chip. Stop doing the thing we don't like and you get your trade back. Unfortunately, states control the national currency (most of the time), which means anyone who uses that currency also gets hit. There is no way around that.

Politically speaking, a majority of Russians have been utterly disenfranchised from politics, repeating the refrain "I'm not political" like it's a magic spell that will ward off the consequences of their government. Consequently I'm not that sad about them experiencing a bit of economic hardship. Maybe it'll help them realize that politics isn't just for politicians.

He does display more than those traditionally masculine traits. He portrays himself as a protector of the vulnerable and a provider. Making sure women and children are safe and provided for is very traditionally masculine. He has made it a point of his political career to help children, and as an ex-member of the national guard, he can claim that "protector" archetype.

This is not to say that there aren't problems with traditional masculinity, but there's more to it than just family.

They're not actually anti-EU, that'd be AUR. They're more EU-agnostic imho. They're heavily corrupt, regressive, and obsessed with "christian family values" though (as I'm sure you know).

The city watch novels are by far my favourite. Jingo is especially amazing as a lighthearted deconstruction of xenophobia and how it functions, as well as another big theme of modern politics I can't talk about because it's a huge spoiler.