Yea yea I know, not all contradictions imply a fundamental error.
This line is currently in popular usage by online liberals who are forced to work through their 
as China ascends, as DPRK approaches normalization, as Iran demonstrates its regional force, as Ukraine inevitably loses, as the US murders and still loses, as Sahel states inch toward sovereignty. These contradictions are becoming more striking and difficult to hand-wave. And in the first phase of this dissonance, the reflex is to allow the dissonance no matter how deafening.
vacillate? or did i just learn a new word?
It is vacillate (to go back and forth)! I think that would be vassalize (to become a vassal).
Which technically speaking, both are true, so this is how jargon is created. To “Vassalate” is to be subject to something and change as that thing changes. Not that I plan on introducing this term into the discourse.