When the U.S. government imposed sanctions on the International Criminal Court (ICC) in early 2025, the consequences were far-reaching yet quickly enforced.
The restrictions cut off the ICC chief prosecutor’s access to Microsoft services, including email, followed by a freezing of his personal and institutional bank accounts in affected jurisdictions.
While this was happening, the Dutch government was watching, coming to the bitter realization that access to essential services depended on decisions made in the U.S.
Hence, their response to this is DAWO, short for Digitaal Autonome Werkomgeving Overheid, or Digital Autonomous Work Environment for Government in English.
It is a framework that looks to tackle the government’s digital stack, covering the OS, an office suite, collaboration apps, cloud services, IT management tools, and AI, with all of it being built around a NixOS foundation.
I definitely think Musk wants to rig elections as much as he can, but he probably tries to do it just about within the law, so he can sell himself as a moral fighter for whatever crap he thinks he’s fighting for (enriching himself, of course).
I guess my general point was that lots of Americans did seem to vote for Trump in 2024, even if many of those now seem to regret their vote, given Trump’s current approval ratings. I hope that a better US president will be elected in 2028. But I think Europe should aim for as much autonomy as possible, regardless of how 2028 turns out, so that friendship with the US becomes a choice rather than an obligation.
October 2024 interview with Tucker Carlson. He said, in the context of a Trump loss: “I’m fucked,” then asked, “How long do you think my prison sentence is going to be? … Will I see my children?”
I wouldn’t be too sure he did anything within the law.
Maybe there is more manipulation in US elections than I’m aware of, I don’t know. Anyway, I do think it would be good if the US and Europe could be strong friends, but I don’t think that should happen while politicians such as the MAGA cabal are in control of America. I remember when Trump complained about apparent “foreign interference” of Brits in the 2024 US presidential election, only for Trump’s vice president to then actively campaign for a European political candidate, Viktor Orban.
Yes probably many Americans want to be friends with Europe so it’s a shame that the Americans who don’t like Europe are currently running America
The weirdest thing and the most surreal thing about this is that Trump never won more than 50% of the vote. The closest he ever came was 49.8%. He just never won it. And what we have here is something called the Electoral College that actually chooses who the President is based on, loosely based on, what votes the President gets. It’s more complex than I care to explain here, but my point is, half the people in the country, well more than half. Never wanted him to be president, ever.
Of the half that did, or supposedly did, because I still don’t believe that last vote was fully legitimate. Even many of those, at this point, do not want him to be president, because of the way he’s destroyed U.S. soft power, and weakened the U.S. military by engaging in a meaningless war, that’s even illegal, and yet it still proceeds.
I wholly believe historians will see what he has done as an intentional dismantling of the country.
And yet, to your point, we like Europe, like more than half of us, by a lot, like Europe, and yet, short of engaging physically, we cannot do anything about him being in power. They’ve already shown that they don’t care about what kind of riots are happening, or what kind of civil unrest.