2024 General Election Thread

"Inferred" is a cute term for "made up". Literally none of it is true and about as convincing as the proposition that all of your political opponents are Russian spies. But I suppose my direct assertions as to my views are less important as to what you feel is "convincing".

So, let's see.
No, I don't want Trump to win. The ideal outcome is that Harris shifts position due to this pressure.
No, it's not clear that Trump would be worse on the world stage. Biden has been an utter disaster which it would be difficult to surpass, and Trump is unpredictable.
No, I don't think that Trump would be better domestically. That's ridiculous. Compared to other recent administrations, the Biden one has been fairly positive on that front.
No, foreign interference in your elections are not welcome. But your claims in this regard are unconvincing and your objections to the practice are unprincipled.
No, a civil war in the US would be incredibly bad for everyone.

Of course, these are pretty much the same things I said in the post you linked to, but you chose to misrepresent me anyway.

On the "Jill Stein is a Russian asset!" shit, much of this is based on her being pictured at a table with Putin at an event in Russia. Stein was there to make a speech against militarism and criticised both Russia and the US. He was there afterwards to make another speech and apparently he and a couple of others sat at her table for five minutes, during which time no words were exchanged with her due to the lack of translators. The event was actually investigated by the Senate Intelligence Committee and no wrongdoing was found.

But I'm sure that drawing far-reaching conclusions based on this kind of flimsy triangulation is perfectly fine and nothing to do with simply wanting to exclude political opponents.

Meanwhile, the average bribe taken by sitting members from of Congress totals in the millions of dollars, and not a whimper about how that distorts democracy.

Let's see.

Russia has amplified Jill Stein with their social media bots and trolls in order to hurt democratic candidates.

Russia has had Stein on many time on Russia Today, Russia state propaganda.

Stein famously met with Putin along with Flynn in Moscow. What was the reason? Celebrating the 10th anniversary of that propaganda network, RT.

Stein has done joint fundraising events with leftist activists that have been federally charged as agents of Russia.

Stein has stated repeatedly that the US and NATO are the ones responsible for Russia's invasion of Ukraine - which is an overt Kremlin talking point to justify their attacks on Ukraine.

Stein is a useful idiot, and is more than willing to hurt the US and the West in general in order to gain power.

I think the only reason you feel that way about Biden, vis a vis foreign policy, is because you disagree with him on much of it.
For someone who doesn't view NATO in negative terms, he's much much better than Trump.
But even taking away the NATO question, he's incomparable better because he's not alternating between threatening nuclear war with N. Korea and writing love letters to Kim Jong Un. He's not openly siding against his own intelligence agency in favor of Putin. He's not moving the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. Those Michigan Muslim groups that endorsed Jill Stein? They're fucking stupid if they think Trump will be better for Palestinians.
To everyone stumping for Stein on democratic principles - Save it for when we're not facing an existential crisis as a country. I'm all for voting 3rd party, I've done it many times, but not when a literal megalomaniac is trying to get the office. I made that mistake in 2016. Never again.

Obviously. Someone who agrees with his goal of maintaining American dominance through violence may think he's doing a great job.

Is that his goal?
Because, under his term, we've downsized our overseas presence to its lowest levels in years.
And you know who didn't complain about "American dominance through violence"? The Afghani women who were allowed to finally have an Education, wear what they wanted, own beauty parlors, etc.
Guess what state they are in now?
You can complain about US foreign policy, but the end goal is equality and freedom around the world. Yes, we fucked things up with the Shah and banana republics, but nowadays? It's a lot different than it was in the 80's.
NATO has never invaded a country without cause, by the way, like Russia has. I'd say that qualifies as a defensive organization.

Are you aware of how many countries the United States has attacked? And how many dictatorships it props up? Because if you were, you wouldn't be regurgitating this sort of propaganda.

The long-term goal, which Biden is fully bought into and which he's been pursuing with extreme abandon, is ensuring that world markets are open and controlled in such a way that American capital can exploit them. Historically this has been achieved by various means, including with economic levers but as American economic power diminishes (in a relative sense) increasingly there is a resort to cruder means, including force and the threat thereof.

Much of this is essentially the same as what the British were doing before the US rose to dominance, and nobody has any problem recognising that. But of course when considering the present, people want to live in a happy-ever-after fantasy world about promoting equality and freedom while existing in a permanent war economy, confronting an ever-replenishing parade of Hitler clones.

Okay, but, what is your evidence for that? As I've pointed out to my rhetoric class, no opinion is wrong if you can back it up. I've already pointed out that we've had a dramatic drawback on military presence overseas. What evidence do you have to back up what you're saying? And since we're talking specifically about Biden V. Trump, can you point to anything from the past 8 years?

It sounds like you're hearing this for the first time. Is this kind of perspective a new one to you?

They've encircled the globe with military bases and client states. (It's not hard to find the maps of these.) These are focused on two things - firstly key regions such as the middle east which have resources and choke points for transport. Secondly, on potential challengers to their dominance, such as China, Russia and Iran - who aren't under their control. (These aren't necessarily nice places but then neither is Saudi Arabia or Egypt whose governments they support.)
In the recent past, we've seen Biden seek to escalate confrontation with all three of those mentioned, with already disastrous results for some and potentially even worse outcomes if the policies persist.

The US share of the world economy was fully 50% after World War II giving them enormous leverage over everyone else. That (including the dominance of the dollar and the huge surplus) allowed the furthering of globalisation in the service of their big business as countries voluntarily opened their markets on their terms. But as the global south industrialises, that 50% has now declined to around 25% and the world now has emerging alternatives.

There's lots of places you can read about this, some of which I can recommend.

No, it is not a new perspective.
I'm curious who you would classify as a "client state" of the USA. I can think of some for Russia, and Iran, and China, but not for the US.
You mention Saudi Arabia. Aside from the fact that the American public has been pushing back against our ties with the Saudis since 9/11, it was Trump who had the strongest ties with the Saudis, and still does. Not Biden.
As for Egypt?

As for escalating conflicts, in what way has Biden sought to escalate conflict with Russia, Iran, and China? Defending Ukraine with military aid?

Someone's jealous of Pax Americana. Come on over, join the winning team.

Google tells me that a client state is one "that is economically, politically, and militarily subordinated to a more powerful controlling state". That seems about right to me, though the degree of control may not be absolute.
And I'm not absolving Trump. He largely went with the program. Both Saudi Arabia and Egypt recieve large amounts of money and other support from the US, which are decisive in keeping their governments (who aren't particularly popular and might be overthrown) in power. That hasn't stopped under Biden.
The most important client state is obviously Israel.

$130 million is a tiny proportion of their payments to Egypt and they've more recently reversed that decision in the context of getting Egypt to do their bidding over Gaza, completely at odds with what the people of Egypt would like their government to do. Which kind of demonstrates the point.

Are you living in a cave with your head in the sand? I don't have time for a longer post right now but I believe we've covered a lot of this in other threads, including the Israel-Gaza one and the Ukraine one. (The invasion of Ukraine was unjustified but it did not come out of nowhere.)

Colbert was going to take the day off but had to come in to interview Harris, Howard Stern was going to take the day off, but had to come in to interview her, after his bed time... When Harris says she's going to help Americans get to work, she's not fucking around!

Colbert takes more time off each year than I think I have in a decade.

You can fuck right off with that mealy-mouthed bullshit, comrade.

Ukraine shouldn't have worn that dress.

Of course, that goes hand in hand with the rape apologetics and genocide denial.

"But" implies there is, in fact, a justification.

If you mean "there's a justification, but not a good enough one to excuse Russia's actions", then you mean "there is no justification".

Because I have reasons I'd like to smack some folks' heads into the nearest wall until they stop twitching.

None of those are enough I expect them to work in a court of law, and they shouldn't.

The only reason to mention justifications or equivocate like you do above is if you do, in fact, think the justifications are good enough.

Wow.

No, it doesn't. That's semantic nonsense, and this entire objection is an attempt to shut down any attempt to analyse the situation beyond the use of comic-book logic.

He was unjustified in stabbing me, but it was his friend who had given him the knife.
They were unjustified in setting fire to the house, but the matches had been left out.

There's no way you'd parse those sentences as containing a justification. It's just this one. And I hate to break it to you, but more that one party can be guilty of doing bad things in any situation.

I'm curious what Ukraine did that was bad.
What did they do to deserve having Crimea annexed?

So you think the Russian war crimes were somehow provoked?

It'd be nice if people would stop trying to put words in my mouth. The real ones are right there.

Nobody should be putting words in your mouth, but you're a goddamn coward that insists on saying awful things in a roundabout way to avoid having to defend them.

Well, Ukrainian terrorists did cross into Russian territory and murdered hundreds of people and abducted hundreds more, so...wait.

I say what I mean, not what's convenient for you to caricature.

Is "convenient" the right term for "don't need to put any fucking effort in anyway because the real thing is enough"?

Can't decide who's the worst leftist.... @RickDeckard or @Diacanu

If the real thing were enough, then the misrepresentation wouldn't be necessary.

Also, you must make a great history student.
No, I refuse to learn about the antecedent causes of World War I. The Kaiser was just a cunt!
Who cares about the French Revolution? Old Boney had no excuse to attack Austria! Stop trying to justify it!

https://bsky.app/profile/russec.info/post/3l644vktfox25