I call this kind of argument "ignited gas burner cools the water". The water boils, so evaporation increases, so evaporative cooling increases, which cools the water.

Edit: I mean: most of the bad stuff creates secondary effects which work the opposite way and can be considered good.

I like your phrasing better than mine, which apes the dril tweet, paraphrased, "drunk driving kills people but also helps people get to work on time"

there is the concept of creative destruction in history and economics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_destruction

I don't think helping to make the world a more dangerous, unstable place is a good trade for that.

I don't think it's fair to say that Europeans started. Danes always bought US hardware over European arms, went to war when US called and lost soldiers. Now they are threatened with imperial invasion and called a 'bad ally' by their 'ally'. This was one of the most pro-US countries in the world.

Europeans absolutely agree with your statement. So do Canada and Mexico.

Alas, the US declared Ukraine's president a dictator, is literally talking about annexing its allied neighbors, and launched a trade war against them and the EU.

The EU has been very explicit about wanting to maintain good relations with the US but the US unilaterally decided to treat its allies as enemies (except for Israel) and instead cozy up to Putin. Canada, Mexico and the EU have been extremely consistent and very measured in their responses.

If you don't want allies to turn into enemies, I'm sorry but you need a regime change. Unless you are literally asking for the rest of the world to join forces and invade the US to depose the government, I don't know what you expect us to do. This is on you, not us.

By the way, allegedly Trump is working on an EO that would declare fentanyl a WMD, which would legally justify military strikes in Canada and Mexico. I'm not saying the US is going to do that but given that Trump refuses to acknowledge the Canadian president and instead consistently refers to him as a "governor", and keeps insisting that Canada should be part of the United States and that the border is illegitimate - I'm sorry but this scenario is beginning to sound increasingly more plausible, especially once the tariffs on imports from Canada (e.g. fertilizer) will start to directly affect Americans and Trump will need someone to blame for the damage he caused. This isn't conduct appropriate for an "ally".

Frankly us Europeans (similarily: Canadians) have no choice. Trump demonsttated quite clearly that if you're down he will squeeze every last drop out of even his closest allies — just look at how he treated Ukraine.

So the choice is to be at the whim of a despotic tyrant from abroad or do your own thing. I guess there aren't many populations out there who'd prefer the former.

But I also see it as a chance. Europe is the biggest single market in the world and got a lot going for itself. Becoming less reliant on US security guarantees and other things the US provides was overdue. Trumps predecessors understood that keeping European potential moderated by ultimately ensured US influence within Europe remained strong.

So as much as I hate to witness what my American friends do to themselves, it feels like Europe is waking up, finally.

it's not just trump. did we forget the US was evesdropping on everyones communications years before trump? trump was just the last straw.

I did never forget this, which is why I said "finally" Europe woke up. It should have woken up years ago.

well, that is for the americans to sort out their issues. clearly they have a lot of them.

It isn’t but unfortunately it’s what Trump is doing on purpose.