this post was submitted on 31 Jan 2024
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[–] quarrk@hexbear.net 18 points 9 months ago (2 children)

It’s a mixed bag. Trump would be worse for marginalized Americans. He’s going to start controversies over shit like non-cis people using public bathrooms just to distract from whatever grift he is doing at the moment. Not to say Biden is great on that but there is a difference there.

Foreign policy-wise, Trump is more likely to do something insane like randomly bombing Iran one day due to neocons like John Bolton whispering in his ear. Biden also has people influencing him but he has a basic understanding of where the red lines are.

Though, if Trump did bomb Iran, that could actually be “better” (scare quotes doing some heavy lifting here) if it means that America is unmistakably perceived as the baddie and the world unites against America, no more plausible deniability for countries like Saudi Arabia and India to remain on good terms with the US. So in that apocalyptic sense it would be better to let Trump fuck up America’s political relations than to allow Biden to carefully maintain them.

[–] ClimateChangeAnxiety@hexbear.net 37 points 9 months ago (4 children)

Foreign policy-wise, Trump is more likely to do something insane like randomly bombing Iran one day due to neocons like John Bolton whispering in his ear. Biden also has people influencing him but he has a basic understanding of where the red lines are.

I don’t know why people think Trump is more unstable than Biden on this stuff. Trump didn’t start any wars. Biden has bombed how many new countries in the last couple months? And is now hurtling towards war with Iran?

This isn’t to say Trump is stable or peaceful or anything, he did randomly decide to bomb Soleimani, but Biden has really been trying to prove that actually Trump is only 99% Hitler, I’m 100% Hitler, Jack.

[–] BurgerPunk@hexbear.net 27 points 9 months ago

he did randomly decide to bomb Soleimani, but Biden

The pentagon ghouls decided to propose it to him hoping he would do it and start an open war with Iran (as opposed to the quiet quasi-war we have with them now)

No president is coming up with these things to do. They just rubber stamp.

[–] GaveUp@hexbear.net 22 points 9 months ago

but he has a basic understanding of where the red lines are.

Which he then will strategically cross when calculated to be advantageous

Like Ukraine

[–] LeninsBeard@hexbear.net 10 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I mean, Nikki Haley just called to assassinate multiple Iranian leaders while Biden is at least saying let's maybe not start WW3. I have a feeling Trump would lean more towards the former given his track record.

I feel like the whole "Biden started multiple wars" is just repackaged great man theory. The two main wars that started under Biden's watch are Russia-Ukraine and the Israeli genocide. Russia-Ukraine was untenable considering Ukraine never planned to abide by Minsk 2 and everything going on in the middle east, including the bombings, are a result of the Israeli agression in response to the Al Aqsa Flood.

We can get past that and ask who would have a worse response to these, and I think you can argue that the Democrats posing as the "reasonable option" gives them more leeway in the public eye to get away with these atrocities but "Biden started multiple wars" just seems like facile analysis that threatens to give people an idealist understanding of these conflicts.

[–] Kaplya@hexbear.net 29 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

You have massively downplayed the role of the Biden administration in starting the Ukraine war.

Zelensky was elected in 2019 as the president that was supposed to bridge the feud between ethnic Ukrainians and Russians, and he was overwhelmingly supported by the eastern Ukraine regions where ethnic Russians are the majority. He changed his tune completely after his meeting with the newly elected Biden in early 2021. Nobody knows what was exactly being said but it was pretty clear that the Biden administration had every intention of ramping up the tension in Ukraine.

This was what was causing Russia to sound the alarm. That’s why we had the US-Russia Summit in June 2021. The Russians prepared hundreds of pages of proposal, stated very clearly what their red lines are, and proposed multiple ways of resolving their security concerns. They were willing to compromise. It was Russia’s saying “we’re not joking and we’re taking this very seriously. We want to de-escalate.” This was straight up ignored by the side of the US.

Instead of ramping down the tension, the Biden administration shipped Stingers and Javelins to Ukraine in August 2021, merely 2 months after Russia asked them to take this seriously. This was followed by a 2nd shipment in December 2021. Russia invaded Ukraine 2 months after that.

So much happened in 2021 (and I am really condensing everything here) you cannot just say that the Biden administration didn’t have anything to do with it. It was a very deliberate strategic policy to provoke Russia into a war (the ultimate goal being, of course, to subjugate the EU to American capital).

[–] LeninsBeard@hexbear.net 11 points 9 months ago

All fair points. I have my doubts about Zelensky remaining in office as an anti war candidate but the Biden admin definitely at best accelerated that timeline. More so just frustrated with how often the dunk culture can impede serious analysis.

[–] PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmygrad.ml 9 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

he did randomly decide to bomb Soleimani

It wasn't random. It was to appease the more bloodthirsty morons in Washington, who got angry when the impending war with Iran got scrapped because Iran proven they are able and willing to defend themselves. Remember how Trump and Pentagon were like 11.59 on war clock and suddenly stopped and shut up about it after Iran shot down that super drone with old Soviet missile? Right after that they even sacked Bolton which lead him to publish hilarious book where he accuse Trump of being the most sane guy in entire Rep party.

But the hawks needed to get the last word so they at least murdered Soleimani, as a treat. Some people maybe believed it will trigger the war anyway, but Iran is more restrained than them so it didn't.

[–] Egon@hexbear.net 4 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Didn't trump fire Bolton for being a war hawk? Trump is an isolationist, he showed he wasn't interested (or capable) of foreign intervention. No support from the rest of the imperial core, not subtle or patient enough to pull of coupe guaido-despair not sneaky enough to motivate the American people to nuke Iran and not understanding of the machine of capital to realise why they had troops in Afghanistan

I seriously cannot understand how one can look at the general global reproachment between nations that happened under Trump, because he withdrew the heavy hand of the US empire. Did he do it because he's a nice guy? No he did it because he's a racist who doesn't wanna waste money on all those dirty foreigners and he doesn't understand how the presence of the US is necessary.
He sincerely believes the propaganda we get told (Kim Jong Un is crazy, the people of Venezuela are rising up against oppresive government all on their own, were only in Afghanistan to help the local government)