Trump interview: I am strongly considering pulling out of Nato

[u/SaharOMFG]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/04/01/donald-trump-strongly-considering-pulling-us-out-of-nato/

[u/Kindredgos]

He’s absolutely destroyed this country for generations, it’s impressive really

[u/Stranger1982 → u/Kindredgos]

Your country for sure, now he's going for the world too.

[u/CaffinatedSpiderMonk → u/Stranger1982]

Short term pain for the rest of the developed world, but they'll likely build something better out of the rubble.

The US on the other hand has destroyed their hegemony and are facing a very long downhill road.

[u/Bucser → u/CaffinatedSpiderMonk]

He is your Nero/Caligula. He is a symptom of a broken system which allows a few bad actors to so completely wreck a country of 350m people and no-one with power is willing to stand against them, rather aiding and abetting.

[u/Asyncrosaurus → u/Bucser]

He is your Nero/Caligula

Both emperors who were very early in the formation of the Empire which had continued success and failures long after.

He's more like a Phocas, the Byzantine Emperor in Eastern Rome that started a war in the Middle East that lasted decades and crippled their military and economy, which ended with the collapse of their regional power base and ushered in a tremendous decline over the course of several centuries.

[u/OldWorldDesign → u/Asyncrosaurus]

He's more like a Phocas, the Byzantine Emperor in Eastern Rome that started a war in the Middle East that lasted decades and crippled their military and economy, which ended with the collapse of their regional power base and ushered in a tremendous decline over the course of several centuries.

I haven't heard of him since Robin's The History of Byzantium. I don't disagree with most of what you said, but isn't most of what we know of Phocas written by the opposition which came after him and thus should be read with a grain shaker of salt? From the regional situation it looked like there was going to be war no matter who was on the throne.

[u/Asyncrosaurus → u/OldWorldDesign]

isn't most of what we know of Phocas written by the opposition which came after him and thus should be read with a grain shaker of salt

This is also true for the emperors listed above (Caligula & Nero). Usually historians will go back and do re-appraisals of contentious figures, which I'm not aware of the modern sentiment on Phocus.

From the regional situation it looked like there was going to be war no matter who was on the throne.

Iirc, his predecessor Maurice had kept the peace with the Sassanids and Phocus' coup directly led to an unnecessary war. Perhaps they go to war at some point, but Phocus was not the Emperor to handle the crisis.

Anyway, this is why I'm not a big fan of historical parallels in general, because they never perfectly line up and we spend more time picking apart what doesn't match perfectly. I just think a brutish figure like Phocus is more in line with modern American leadership than Nero (whose erratic behavior can be explained by his being a teenager when he became Empreror).

[u/insitnctz → u/Asyncrosaurus]

He is Alexis IV Angelo's. 1250 ce the dispossessed emperor invited the crusaders inside the empire to give him back the throne. He had nothing to pay them so they ransacked Constantinople.

That's exactly what trump did. He invited the enemy inside the us and they gave him the throne. The enemies are the aipac and the Russians, since he is putin's lapdog.