I trust Trump about as far as I can throw him, and at the end of the day it’s really the Pentagon calling the shots here not the POTUS.

But dudes clearly speaking to a public sentiment here.

    • Diuretic_Materialism [he/him]@hexbear.netOP
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      Trump is the nominal antiwar position

      Trump isn’t anti-war, or at least I don’t trust him to be actually anti-war. He’s anti-this-war, but his administration did plenty of hawkish shit towards Iran and Venezuela. I’m not even confident he’ll actually do anything to deescalate in Ukraine, I think it’s all bluster.

      • PolandIsAStateOfMind
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        At this point basically every influental politician in US is just Holden Bloodfeast

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          Trump’s actions are often just attempts to satisfy his ego through positive media and supporter reaction. The issue with Iran if you recall is that his main supporter at the time, Fox news had a mixed reaction, with Tucker Carlson being extremely critical, something obviously like hell freezing over.

          You can go and check back on the entire Carlson arc back then but here for example Fox’s Tucker Carlson slammed conservatives for pushing Trump to go to war: ‘About 20 minutes ago we were denouncing these very people as the deep state’

          His base didn’t particularly like that idea, he was MAGA and isolationist and yet he was about to put the US into a war with a nobody-country that wasn’t a threat at the time. It wasn’t Bush post 9/11 even though he thought that was an easy win.

          As soon as the base consolidated into the neutral/negative camp which he didn’t expect, he backed off. Right now his base is very much positive towards ending “Biden’s war” so he is very likely to do it.

          But his base also doesn’t like China so that will be the next target.

        • Diuretic_Materialism [he/him]@hexbear.netOP
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          At the very least, you can still argue that Trump was duped by his advisors into thinking that assassinating a “rogue general” can solve the Iran problem.

          Thing is, if that’s the case he can probably be duped again.

          After Soleimani was killed and a war was nearly started with Iran in January 2020, there was still an “oh shit” moment from the Trump government and they quickly walked back and prevented a war from being escalated.

          Is that because he’s genuinely anti-war or cuz some Brass at the Pentagon thought it wasn’t an opportune time to start shit with Iran and told him to cool it?

          Really at the end of the day I don’t think it matters, the PSL could win this Presidential race and it wouldn’t change a thing foreign policy wise (and probably not much domestically either), those aren’t decisions any elected leader has any meaningful sway over.

          • MarxMadness
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            the PSL could win this Presidential race and it wouldn’t change a thing foreign policy wise

            I do think a dedicated, sophisticated anti-imperialist could change things from the office of the president. The problem is the best we’ll ever get from Democrats is “I oppose this war and this war only, and we totally could have won and had the best intentions but my opponent, our local puppet, or both tragically mismanaged it.”

              • MarxMadness
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                Avoiding that would be a huge part of the challenge. The possibility also highlights the need to have deeper political support. At least the VP needs to be on the same page; one unicorn candidate probably wouldn’t get it done.

                • Diuretic_Materialism [he/him]@hexbear.netOP
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                  There’d really be not point unless the PSL was strong enough to form its own institutions and armed groups to combat any coup attempts.

                  If the PSL candidate won by some miraculous fluke, like a bunch of people protest voting or something, they probably wouldn’t even need to wait to get JFKed, the Supreme Court could probably just pull some bullshit out their ass to nullify their victory.

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              In doing so, they’ve signed the death warrant for their own credibility as an ally.

              You aligned with the US/NATO explicitly because they were a big, strong military and economic partner, who could provide deterrence, and if that failed, prevent you from losing the war.

              This alliance will deliver Ukraine less-than-zero benefit: they’ll still lose the war, but being propped up and egged on means it will take longer, be bloodier and more destructive, and leave them with more debt.

              Perhaps the “deterrence” factor was limited because they weren’t Core NATO and there was no Article 5 trigger risk. It still suggests there’s no value in cozying up to the institution if you can’t qualify for full membership, and even then, would they really pull out all the stops for a new member of low value?

          • ThomasMuentzner [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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            Is that because he’s genuinely anti-war or cuz some Brass at the Pentagon thought it wasn’t an opportune time to start shit with Iran and told him to cool it?

            16 or so ballisic missiles pounded the Al Assad Airforcebase and did “Only Braindamage + some later death” to some 100 soldiers… while the USA had Nothing to respond ,even just verbally to respond with some stupid" Though talk" at this moment would have forced Iran to preempty flatten all the Other bases they have there (they nervously shoot down a hole airliner, so they where extremly on edge) … So Imagine there was a collective experiance of “Oh Fuck oh Fuck+ we are Powerless” in the Command center or whatever… Thats some experiance that produces wisedom

        • PolandIsAStateOfMind
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          After Soleimani was killed and a war was nearly started with Iran in January 2020, there was still an “oh shit” moment from the Trump government and they quickly walked back and prevented a war from being escalated.

          You got the order wrong, they first backed off from war around september 2019, and then assassinated Soleimani as a last word and consolation prize for hawks. The actual reason they backed off was that Iran demonstrated both will and ability to defend itself by series of force shows and shooting down the best US drone with old Soviet missile - which also shown pentagon bonzos that the war might be way harder than they though.

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        Yeah, he’s anti this war because he thinks it’s time to cash in and start the next war.

  • WhatDoYouMeanPodcast [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    The problem with Trump is not that he can’t read the room. On the contrary, that’s part of the problem. The room is filled with transphobic, military thumping, chauvinist, xenophobic, treat gobbling bullshit.

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    Love when every Republican president for the past fifty years is ideologically to biden’s left

    edit: they’re right, Bush is the only exception (and still to Biden’s left on border and immigration policy)

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    I trust Trump about as far as I can throw him… But dudes clearly speaking to a public sentiment here.

    Reiterating all this (that Trump doesn’t really care, won’t have total control of foreign policy, and this is mostly a play to popular sentiment), there’s a lesson here in how to present ideas so that people agree with them.

    Talking about a single issue and giving a humanist position on it will beat an ideological position that necessarily (because it’s your whole ideology!) invokes other issues. Trump could have given an eloquent anti-imperialist take (lmao) and it would not have played as well. But “we need to stop all this killing?” Who’s going to disagree with that? It reveals all the NATO freaks as the monsters they are for playing geopolitics with people’s lives. Same as if you talk about healthcare in terms of “the richest country in the world shouldn’t have people choosing between medicine and rent” instead of starting with the ideological basis for that belief.

    Not to say you should never get into ideology, just that the humanist justification for positions should be at the forefront, because it keeps the discussion focused and is harder to oppose. It does help to think about how best to present these ideas; that’s a lot of what politics is.

    • IzyaKatzmann [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      fair points, whats a realistic anti-imperialist take that trump could have do you think? after the debate i can only imagine him taking swipes at #46

      • MarxMadness
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        There’s a long-standing thread of American thought that would get you a long ways towards anti-imperialism: “we shouldn’t send troops to die in a country most Americans can’t find on a map.” Could get a little farther with “we should not be paying for death and destruction across the globe.”

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    Trump was already president and his foreign policy was pretty bad. He threw Rojavah to Turkey and was trying hard to start a war with Iran, assassinated Soleimani, and people just forgot about that when the pandemic started. He tried to coup Venezuela for guaido, remember that pathetic boat thing where they all got caught immediately? Remember the Bolivian coup that Amerikkka was almost certainly involved in?

  • CommCat [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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    Biden and any other POTUS runs US Imperialism by the playbook. Trump will not change US Imperialism, but he does disrupt it and panics the deep state (Industrialists and the MIC), I don’t think any other POTUS would’ve gone to the DPRK

    • MarxMadness
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      The DPRK meeting is a perfect embodiment of the “upside” to Trump’s foreign policy: noisy, not anything a regular president would do, and ultimately did not change the status quo even slightly.

      And of course the downside is getting us closer to war with Iran (twice, I believe) than we’ve been in decades.

      • PolandIsAStateOfMind
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        and ultimately did not change the status quo even slightly.

        It did actually, or was on the course to. After this visit Kim announced they are toning down the military expenses to focus on civil development. But when Biden became president and OcK elected even more fascist govt than usual the provocations increased greatly and as an effect DPRK had to get way closer to Russia that anytime before, they even officially entered military defensive pact now.

      • Hohsia [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        Genuinely curious how you injected race into a completely innocuous point where I made no claims about race whatsoever. This honestly reads like concern trolling

      • Hohsia [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        You’re projecting what you want to be true. Monkeys behave by instinctively reacting to the leader lmfao this is actually a great example of the reasons why leftists continually have infighting and fail, you hyper focus on a minute aspect of something completely unrelated to the point

        And the people who instinctively upvote this virtue signaling bullshit? Lmfao no different

        • Diuretic_Materialism [he/him]@hexbear.netOP
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          Lol I don’t WANT it to be true that historically black people have been compared to monkeys to paint them as undeveloped and savage. To me it’s in the same vain as people calling Russians “orks”.

          • Hohsia [he/him]@hexbear.net
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            You are projecting so fucking hard right now, monkeys exist independent of whatever use they had as a tool to dehumanize people in the past. And humans share a common ancestor with monkeys and when they don’t use their brains to think, that primate comes out.

            Anti-intellectualism is quite the hill to die on, especially when veiled in some silly moral posturing

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    Translation: Stop resisting or we will keep killing you.

    A threat.

  • JerkyChew@lemmy.one
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    Read between the lines based on his past behavior. “Getting it settled” means “Just give everything to Putin”. It’s like solving the gay marriage debate by just taking away gay marriage.

    • MarxMadness
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      Any settlement Russia will take is one that will be favorable to Russia, because Russia is winning. They’ve been winning for a while and there’s no likely way that will change. Ukraine will lose some now or lose more later.

      Insisting on even a neutral settlement (much less one that will punish Russia, which is Zelensky’s stance) is not a serious negotiating position. It’d be like Germany in 1917 insisting on a favorable outcome; if you lose a war you don’t get to win the peace.

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        The Western/UA policy always read to me like the highly evolved philosophical and political understanding you’d see in a second-grade classroom.

        It doesn’t matter how impractical it might be, or how much long term resentment it stokes: we have to punish Timmy Putin for stealing Steven’s toy truck reclaiming the Donbass and Crimea because bullying territorial realignment is Inherently Wrong.

        I suspect any non-military attempt to move the line would have been equally rebuffed; any vote to secede would be “rigged”, any buyout offer rejected.

        The West seems to be profoundly terrified of moving lines on the map in the modern era. Look how long it took to deliver South Sudan, and how Somaliland struggles for legitimacy. Their ability to arbitrate the borders is a symbol of their dominance; once they no longer call the shots, everything is on the table, like fixing an Africa and Middle East full of arbitrary caprice, or finally telling the pipsqueaks in Taipei to stuff it.

      • FunkyStuff [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        Putin is a Nazi memorial collector and he knows he can easily get the most impressive collection of statues of SS war criminals if he just takes all of Ukraine’s land.

    • edge [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      What kind of peace deal would you not count as “just give everything to Putin”?

      What kind of peace deal do you think should happen?

      What kind of peace deal do you think is realistically possible at this point?

    • Azarova [they/them]@hexbear.net
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      his butt humper

      Can liberals ever bash Putin without resorting to homophobia? Regardless, Trump wouldn’t have control over that policy anyway, it’s a Pentagon/security state adventure, which is ending in a complete disaster for them even without a president hostile to Project Ukraine.

      • MarxMadness
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        it’s a Pentagon/security state adventure

        Worth noting that the current war has its roots in the 2014 coup in Ukraine, which enjoyed bipartisan support (with John McCain notably traveling to the country). This project then survived the Trump presidency only to mature under Biden.

    • MemesAreTheory [he/him, any]@hexbear.net
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      Casual homophobia, classic lib. Can’t express your point without making it about sexual pathology or slagging off the gays, right? Have you ever had a thought about politics or power and not somehow forced an analogy with a penis involved? Freud was right you twisted little pervert.

      Anyway, go figure Russians are people too so stopping their deaths is a good thing too if you, you know, give a shit about people. And even if we took your point at face value, an end to the war on Russia’s terms - which is all but certain anyway given the trajectory here - will still result in the end of maiming and murder of Ukrainian men on the Frontline and any civilian deaths from infrastructure bombing deeper into the country. The only reason that corrupt little rump state is still feeding bodies into the grinder is because Europe and America would rather sacrifice Ukraine than fight directly (CAN’T fight directly based on industrial output) and are happy to see others die on their behalf. Otherwise peace could have come long ago. But you bloodthirsty dogs believe whatever you’re told and clap along to the slaughter as your social benefits are converted into weapons and shipped across the Atlantic so they can be blown up in some trench in Eastern Ukraine all so that some military contractor can redo their kitchen in Boston. You want to talk about cucked? Look in the fucking mirror you sniveling worm.

    • MarxMadness
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      cucking to Putin

      Imagine you’re some Ukranian conscript who spends their days watching buddies get blown up. I bet your top, #1 priority is whatever interpersonal relationship Trump and Putin have.