A direct attack would still be a bad idea. If anything, that risks uniting America and getting it to stop punching itself in the dick for a while.

That said, I wouldn’t want to be Taiwan right now. I wouldn’t trust Trump as an ally in the best of times. I sure as fuck wouldn’t want to rely on him committing to a long and arduous fight that doesn’t provide him with an immediate personal benefit, and then actually following through.

I’d almost agree with you if Putin’s invasion of Ukraine had gone the way he wanted and didn’t drag on into a fourth year (time is a blur), wiping out so much of their war fighting forces. Maybe that was the plan had tRump won in 2020, but they couldn’t even lightly cheat to win over his unpopularity back then.

I could almost smell the alternative timeline! Biden winning in 2020, supplying Ukraine with those weapons, may have saved Ukraine and prevented the the worst of the damage Putin and tRump could have inflicted on the world during a second term. As it is, Ukraine depleted Russia’s supply of weapon’s and fighters, Biden depleted tRump’s availability to weapons and ammunition that went to help Ukraine, and both the US and Russia are too crippled to carry out any significant military actions against the world at large. Not saying it was a plan or prophetic of Biden’s administration by any means, but things for civilization outside of the US and Russia could be a lot worse than it is now had tRump not lost in 2020.

38 trillion of debt, Over 100k / US citizen.

Ukraine is a good lesson on how expensive even a limited war is, and how challenging it is to supply missiles and air defense faster than you use them.

Also Trump used the, can’t spare a square argument, for denying tomahawks to Ukraine.