USA Politics

The situation isn't helped by the fact that the US continues to aid PYD/YPG in Syria while it's engaged in a conflict with Turkey as it's perceived as a national threat by Turkey due to its relations with the PKK. So the "supporting the opposition" line becomes a bit more troublesome in that regard, not due to the actual substance of what Biden says but due to its perception in the political environment he's talking about. Erdoğan is already lumping the opposition together with the Gülenists who attempted the coup in 2016 and the PKK - and common US-backing is the "glue" that holds that asinine argument together for the susceptible folks.
 
Biden is just continuing the practice. People romanticize democrats now, because of that idiot in the White House. They might be less divisive in internal American context, but their impact around the world, 8 years of Obama administration, was as cancerous as 8 years of republicans before them. Wars on multiple continents. U.S. Army dragged into destabilizing countries and regions for god knows what exact purpose.
 
Zare said:
Wars on multiple continents. U.S. Army dragged into destabilizing countries and regions for god knows what exact purpose.
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And that's just the war side of things. You also have all the financial and arms aid provided to morally dubious people across the globe, alliances formed with shady politicians, coup d'etats sponsored so and so forth.
 
Yes exactly, war comes usually as culmination of the things you mention.
 
The Flash said:
And that's just the war side of things. You also have all the financial and arms aid provided to morally dubious people across the globe, alliances formed with shady politicians, coup d'etats sponsored so and so forth.
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No wonder Dennis Wilcock brought down the twin towers!

Yes, I cop to all of the above on behalf of the U.S. Some of it was indefensible, some of it was well-intentioned but didn’t pan out well, some of it was pure negotiation to achieve strategic goals, and some of it was W trying to bring about the rapture. Sorry about that last one in particular.

My only counterpoint is this — since it’s really the wild west at the international level, with only token international laws and enforcement, and the countries and alliances with the most ability to project their power are the ones who are going to have the most influence on the course of humanity, wouldn’t you rather have countries like the (pre-Trump) United States being the ones projecting their influence, or would you prefer to cede the stage to the Russias and Chinas of the world? China is actively pushing their military and intelligence operations into Africa, deploying their stolen-IP spyware phones into any European country that will take them, and trying to insert themselves into as much foreign communication infrastructure as possible. They already use big data to maintain totalitarian control of their people, and they want to take that model worldwide. Putin appears to be trying to get the old Soviet band back together again one Crimea at a time, while successfully screwing with high-profile foreign elections to try to get positive policy outcomes for Russia. They are both making tangible progress on their strategic goals. Shouldn’t the west be assertively standing up to them and countering those moves?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not an American exceptionalist. I’d be perfectly content to have Canada or the U.K. or any sane democratic power projecting that influence. I’d prefer to do it as a robust alliance of countries with shared values, of course. And yes, it would be nice to keep as many of those strategic calls as ethical as possible, but sometimes the sausage has to get made, and that’s never pretty.
 
Jer said:
My only counterpoint is this — since it’s really the wild west at the international level, with only token international laws and enforcement, and the countries and alliances with the most ability to project their power are the ones who are going to have the most influence on the course of humanity, wouldn’t you rather have countries like the (pre-Trump) United States being the ones projecting their influence, or would you prefer to cede the stage to the Russias and Chinas of the world?
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This is where my train of thoughts always ends on this issue. Of course I'd prefer US dominance over that of Russia or China. The US is the devil I know, and while they are responsible for some spectacular injustice in the world, for a western European they are the most comfortable hegemon. Even with Trump, it's still mostly a democracy and we still share our values. I wouldn't trust Europe to become a global superpower in it's own right any time soon, and the US are the one global partner we can still hope would recognise us as equals in the grand scheme of things.
 
The lesser of two evils thing is something I recognize as well. My sentiment isn't an anti-American one, or a full commitment to anti-interventionism either. I do, however, feel it's necessary not to put all acts of American interventionism in the same basket and argue in favor of that basket or in opposition to that basket. The motives differ and they need to be called out when they aren't justified. I think some strands of American politics are clearly far too trigger-happy when it comes to interventionism, and some strands of American politics are too commonly in the wrong about the motives that lead to acts of interventionism.

Being a Turkish person, the consequences of American interventionism whose consequences I encounter directly are quite radically different than what would be experienced by most people here. The United States was directly involved in multiple coup d'etats in Turkey - and they didn't exactly intend to work for the greater good each of those times. In order to counter possible Soviet influence in Turkey, they aligned themselves with the Islamists and the ultranationalists - funded them, trained them. We are living out the consequences of these actions here in Turkey. Erdoğan came up as a member of an Islamist anti-communist organization that saw the United States as the "savior of Islam" against communists. Later, his rise to power involved his many partnerships with think-tanks in the United States. United States bears more responsibility than anyone else besides the Turkish public that votes for him for the rise of Erdoğan. If the state of secularism in the Republic of Turkey is currently as shaky as it currently is, if it seems to be heading towards being declared an Islamic Republic in the near future, United States bears a lot of responsibility for it.
 
So we talked about age, and I put this together:

1597686056678.png

So pretty much, the age of candidates was hovering in the high 50s/low 60s until the US Civil War, then it cuts down due to the influx of a bunch of famous young men and it sticks around there until Ronald Reagan, really. But the last two elections are real anomalies.
 
Jer I agree with you, but with a caveat.

The military industrial complex isn't going to lose money. Simple example : you make a army of 20 men to take care of 5 thugs. After they've been taken care of, in a fairy tale world, you shrink down your army to less than 15. In a real world, after victory, you employ 5 more men because you have good ratings in the public, and after a while once they start questioning why we need 25 army men with no thugs in sight, you make damn sure that some thugs magically appear.

So the issue is straight up ten thousand times more hard than "we don't need your services anymore". If billions of $ in equipment and personell training are deployed, billions of $ are about to be made. And those about to make it aren't going to just quit.

Good luck defunding a power structure that operates billion $ budgets and a largest army in the world.

The Flash said:
Erdoğan came up as a member of an Islamist anti-communist organization that saw the United States as the "savior of Islam" against communists. Later, his rise to power involved his many partnerships with think-tanks in the United States. United States bears more responsibility than anyone else besides the Turkish public that votes for him for the rise of Erdoğan. If the state of secularism in the Republic of Turkey is currently as shaky as it currently is, if it seems to be heading towards being declared an Islamic Republic in the near future, United States bears a lot of responsibility for it.
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I've read that Erdogan is a direct product of demands from EU liberal camp that wanted more religious freedom and less military in the state affairs. That this was in the 90s and Turkey had to drop some laws where military takes over if Islamists came to power.
 
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Perun said:
Anybody read it? Anybody know how trustworthy or believable it is?
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The Transition Integrity Project is a real group, and a bipartisan one, though the Republican participants are anti-Trump Republicans. The scenarios they ran are mostly plausible, though some of the edge case stuff like Trump resigning one day before inauguration and trusting Pence to pardon him, or Biden trying to argue for D.C. and Puerto Rican statehood and breaking California up into 5 states for greater electoral college representation in exchange for conceding the election, seem completely unrealistic to me.

Blue shift in mail-in ballots is a real thing, and Trump will clearly try to discredit it and claim it’s proof of voter fraud. The best way to counter that argument is with an overwhelming Democratic victory, one so clear that it can be called on election night.
 
Jer said:
though some of the edge case stuff like Trump resigning one day before inauguration and trusting Pence to pardon him, or Biden trying to argue for D.C. and Puerto Rican statehood and breaking California up into 5 states for greater electoral college representation in exchange for conceding the election, seem completely unrealistic to me.
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Yeah, I stumbled over those as well. Overall, the scenarios seemed quite chilling and I wonder if there still is enough time to employ the solution strategies they suggest.
 
There's time, but no political will. The Republicans are doing everything possible to establish questions here, and it's pretty obvious the party will support any moves by Donald Trump to de-legitimize the election.
 
RNC started today and here’s my main takeaway: in January 2025, a woman is going to be sworn in no matter what. 2024 will be Harris v Haley.
 
Mosh said:
RNC started today and here’s my main takeaway: in January 2025, a woman is going to be sworn in no matter what. 2024 will be Harris v Haley.
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Don't be silly.

It'll be Ivanka vs. Kamala.

Btw. I just went to Ivanka's Wikipedia page to see if she'll be old enough for next elections. Turns out she's 38 :o She looks great for her age, just tremendous.
 
The problem is that 2024 will be filled with other candidates trying to be the next Trump, including several Trump family members. Even if Donald himself runs, he will face competition. It will be the opposite of 2016, with the generic republican lane being wide open.
 
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