But GDP of Russia is something like 5 times higher per capita than your vassal.

Without Western help, Russia would have exhausted Ukraine's ammunition eventually just like Stalin exhausted the Finns ammunition and eventually won the Winter War. Russia started the war with a bad military doctrine left over from the USSR, and has been slow to learn. While Ukraine's doctrine is also Soviet, the Soviets were in general a lot more competent at defending (it's easier) than attacking. Thus, the overall net advantage has been in Ukraine's favor.

Ukraine's combat deaths have been consistently lower than Russia's by all accounts except for Russia's official government claims.

I'm surprised you don't know the real reason the Spanish prevailed over the Aztecs. It had nothing to do with technology, except perhaps their armor.

I do actually know all about that conflict. If you're referring to Aztec's tributary vassals who revolted and joined the Spanish, yes, they played a role, but they were by and large cowards. It was the Spanish men themselves who formed the tip of the spear and did the brunt of the fighting. Could the Spanish have done it completely alone? Probably not, but they were the decisive element that brought down the Aztecs, and they engaged in many battles where they were grossly outnumbered and yet they'd win. This was thanks to a combination of training and doctrine, steel armor and weapons (not just guns, but swords, the Aztecs didn't even have steel), and having superior leadership and strategy.

Won't this lead to CRAZY amounts of fragmentation? Oh, we're a county here in the middle of blue, but we're red. How do we cross to red?

Engulfed areas could not defect, only border areas. Austin Texas can't say "I want to join blue" even though they're 90%+ libtards, because they're thousands of miles from the other blues. But Upstate New York all being red? Sure they could switch sides en masse. The Blues only really control the big cities. The liberal Northeast is basically a giant mega-city from roughly DC up to roughly Boston. That would all be Blue. But it's surrounded by red country. If two Blue cities were close enough to dominate a red area in between them, they would, but if they're too far apart and the red area in between is too large and populated to dominate and control, then the reds assert themselves.

Of course there would be a substantial blue minority within the red country, but they'd have no power outside of their cities, and those cities would have less autonomy to do dumb blue shit since the states would exert more control.

Trump could get nothing done, because he stood against those who actually wield power. I hope DeSantis would be able to evade them, but I am not optimistic. Neither am I sure that he is not just another establishment type pretending to be a Trumpist. He just seems too good to be true.

You win by being popular, like Reagan. If anyone can pull that off, it's DeSantis. He has clearly communicated that he will fight for the Right as opposed to be a squishy weakling. He has also been smart enough to not overstep and get wrecked, like many republicans did by foolishly trying to ban abortion outright. Florida smartly only reduced it to 15 weeks, a popular compromise solution that took the issue away from Democrats. Politics is all about how to maneuver to maximize what you can get without provoking a backlash. Trump couldn't do that. DeSantis so far has been able to.

But that was after he tried putting his cleaning lady on the Supreme Court.

He tried and his base, including me, slapped him down right away, and he immediately backed down. That woman was an idiot. I heard her give the graduation speech at my ex girlfriend's law school and I was shocked by how much she sounded like a retarded politician and not a judge. I remembered thinking she was an affirmative action hire.

Republicans are overeager to promote anyone who isn't a straight white male, thinking it's "tactical" to undermine the Democrat IDPOL argument, when in reality it is playing right into IDPOL and capitulating to it. Sometimes we get VERY LUCKY, like with Clarence Thomas. Most of the time, the Republican AA hires are clowns. Many are worse than clowns: they're grifters.