• zifnab25 [he/him, any]@hexbear.net
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    8 months ago

    The nicest thing you can say about Donald Trump is that he’s completely mercenary.

    He’ll turn on a dime if he sees advantage in a position and there’s nobody he won’t stab in the back given half an opportunity.

    Biden is a fixture of US Foreign Policy. Trump is a Wild Card.

      • zifnab25 [he/him, any]@hexbear.net
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        8 months ago

        Trump is very much a fixture of the faction that backs him.

        The fixture that backs him is largely scammers and rubes, stacked one on top of the other, in an oversized shit sandwich.

        Trump can glad-hand Kim Jung Un and his base will clap. He can bomb Korea and they’ll clap. It’s pure cult of personality.

        He’ll just do what his donors or base wants.

        Donor focus is more a Biden thing. Trump does what he thinks will feed of popular base, and the donors follow him.

        It’s what really separates an insider from a populist.

        • Pluto [he/him, he/him]@hexbear.net
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          8 months ago

          Trump literlaly started a crisis with the DPRK and coup’d Bolivia while I was in the country lol

          A fascist uprising at that.

          “Donor focus”

          is more of a Trump thing and he gets the most donors and the largest and most right-wing ones too.

          • zifnab25 [he/him, any]@hexbear.net
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            8 months ago

            Trump literlaly started a crisis with the DPRK

            We’d been in and out of crisis with the DPRK all during the Obama era, thanks to their restart of nuclear testing and long range missile testing. That’s in no small part thanks to Obama inheriting Bush Era Pentagon officials, rather than shitcanning them on day one.

            and coup’d Bolivia

            The MAS party resigned itself out of office and handed the keys to a Social Democrat. Possibly the stupidest thing a party leadership has done since Allende appointed Pinochet as General Chief of Staff of the Army. That wasn’t Trump’s magic fingers, it was an own-goal by Bolivian national government which the US pounced on in their moment of weakness.

            he gets the most donors and the largest and most right-wing ones too

            He’s been far less successful at fundraising than his predecessors, in large part thanks to Citizen’s United fracturing the old PAC coalitions and letting every billionaire run around doing his or her own pet project. But he’s brought in a ton of new voters that guys like Romney and McCain failed to engage.

            • Pluto [he/him, he/him]@hexbear.net
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              8 months ago

              “We’d been in and out of crisis with the DPRK all during the Obama era”

              And Trump did the same lol

              “The MAS party resigned itself out of office”

              No, it was forced to resign by the military. I saw guards outside the palace. Get outta here.

              “He’s been far less successful at fundraising than his predecessor”

              Actually, no, even Sheldon Adelson donated more compared to most candidates.

          • GarbageShoot [he/him]@hexbear.net
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            8 months ago

            “Populism” isn’t a political philosophy, it’s a rhetorical tact, and one that most Republicans and some Democrats take. It’s not to be confused for an idea like “popular rule”.

    • RyanGosling [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      8 months ago

      This isn’t 1991 USSR. He’s not stripping copper out the US and selling it to foreigner investors. He’ll scam, sure, but it’s wild how people on here seem to subscribe to Great Man Theory more than America’s enemies. Even Assad said that it doesn’t matter who the fuck the president is because as long as the institutions retain the same agenda, nothing will change.

      Trump being loud and threatening NATO allies doesn’t do anything to change reality. The people with actual power, the security and military apparatus, will not let it happen. NATO won’t collapse because BRUMPF called Europe freeloaders or shit on American soldiers. It won’t change reality because he pulls out of a war because there are still hundreds of spec ops and CIA goons deep inside the country, and he’ll reroute those soldiers to another war next door.

      The US is having trouble diplomatically because of the inherent racist and profit-driven nature of its ideology, and it came into full swing when COVID was introduced and the invasion of the Ukraine

      • zifnab25 [he/him, any]@hexbear.net
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        8 months ago

        This isn’t 1991 USSR. He’s not stripping copper out the US and selling it to foreigner investors.

        glances at US Steel being sold to Japan

        Maybe not literally. Not yet, anyway. But we’re getting real close.

        Trump being loud and threatening NATO allies doesn’t do anything to change reality.

        It does. It kills initiatives under prior administrations. It alienates the people who have to physically pull the “Yes” lever in other countries. And, frankly, the endless “Trump is Putin’s best friend! Trump is on Russia’s side! Trump ❤️ Putin kissing in a tree!” agitprop is going to have some kind of effect on how people take Trump’s picks for ambassadors and Sec State head when it comes time to do international diplomacy. That, plus his habit of fucking around with state secrets, means you can’t be Olaf Sholtz in Germany and glad-hand the guy who everyone in your country thinks is a hand-puppet for the FSB.

        The US is having trouble diplomatically because of the inherent racist and profit-driven nature of its ideology

        That’s not a problem with France or the UK or Germany or Japan. Not normally. But you have to tack on all the “Fifth Column!” hysteria that’s been building around this campaign. How do you integrate with the Five Eyes network when your main go-betweens with the CIA and NSA are a bunch of Groypers?

    • EelBolshevikism [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      8 months ago

      Any of these honestly shaky benefits are, it is important to keep in mind, counterbalanced by the complete full-pedal commitment towards killing local minorities characteristic of the Republican Party. We need to make it very clear that the Republican Party is the “bad cop” and the Democratic Party is the “good cop” and the choice to not vote is a conscious protest of that.

      Do not vote for the bad cop, please.

      • zifnab25 [he/him, any]@hexbear.net
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        8 months ago

        the complete full-pedal commitment towards killing local minorities characteristic of the Republican Party

        My city of Houston has had Democrats at national and local governments all firmly committed to dumping as much money and manpower as possible into the Republican-controlled police forces inflicting these harms upon their constituents. The current mayor is entirely in bed with the GOP police establishment. His singular claim to fame during his legislative tenure was stripping death row victims of their last meals. “Ah, but Trump will be worse” constantly overlooks the persistent harms inflicted by compliant Democrats.

        Do not vote for the bad cop, please.

        I can’t vote for the “good” cop either. They’re both working to the same effect.

        • EelBolshevikism [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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          8 months ago

          I can’t vote for the “good” cop either. They’re both working to the same effect.

          Which I never advocated for. Are you trying to vote-shame me into voting for Trump instead of Uncommited?

          Otherwise I agree the Democrats are also ridiculously ghoulish. They have to be as a neoliberal billionaire ghoul party. They only barely count as the “good cop” because they’re not actively TRYING to overturn stuff like Roe v Wade (of course, they are very conveniently letting it happen anyways) . And of course they’re still doing all of the horrific shit that’s neccessary to maintain a fascist neoliberal state built on the back of racial segregation and murder.

            • EelBolshevikism [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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              8 months ago

              That’s unhinged as fuck. Trump is not actually better than Biden. They’re both terrible candidates in every way.

              If this is trying to dunk on me because you think I’m a bad-faith lib arguing to ‘vote blue no matter who’ (no, I think those libs are just as annoying as you do), please understand that I literally cannot understand sarcasm over the internet.

              There are more than two choices here. You don’t have to vote for the red genocidal maniac over the blue genocidal maniac.

      • silent_water [she/her]@hexbear.net
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        8 months ago

        anyone posting agitprop for voting for the Rs deserves an instant ban for fascism. I would be shocked if they don’t immediately receive one. I’m pretty sure what people are saying here is that they’re ambivalent to who wins the election and contrasting the harms of the Biden administration with the harms of a second Trump admin. it’s not an endorsement, it’s just analysis.