The propaganda line that the use of nukes was somehow humanitarian because it saved a billion people from dying in an invasion is seared into the brains of every american.

Telling them that all the top military officials said it was unnecessary does nothing, telling them that all we needed to do was guarantee they could keep their emperor, WHICH WE DID ANYWAY, does nothing.

japan was bad country, ukraine is good country

In today's update I quoted an article/interview by Jacobin, and it has a great paragraph analyzing Trump but I think broadly applies to most Americans, including most of the people on Reddit:

First, I need to clarify how I see “ideology” per se. On the one hand, we have the common usage in ordinary language, usually referring to some familiar body of political ideas, a readily recognizable program, or a codified body of dominant values and beliefs (e.g., liberalism, conservatism, socialism, etc.). Trump shows little evidence of a coherent ideology in that more restrictive sense, except in the most debased, banalized, and undisciplined set of ways. On the other hand, he does see and read the world through a definite set of lenses, on the basis of assumptions, prejudices, bits and pieces of ideas and rhetoric, fragmentary citations, visceral impulses, and unconscious understandings, whose coherence is certainly available to be reconstructed — as an imaginary relation to his actual conditions of existence, in Louis Althusser’s famous phrase. Trump, of course, has an outlook whose coherence can be found. But this isn’t organized around, or even consciously derived from, any codified core of texts or ideas. It’s the opposite of any formal system of belief. It’s more a matrix of dispositions, a bunch of master tropes centered narcissistically around toxic masculinity, monstrously selfish desires, acquisitiveness and wealth, “America,” violence, success, dominance, loyalty, power, and so forth.

:us-foreign-policy:

It's not fascism, but it absolutely does constitute war crimes. Bombing civilian infrastructure, leaving ordinary people who have nothing to do with the war without the power they require for a lot of survival needs (especially as the weather turns), etc. Russia should be condemned for doing this. Even above the condemnation for "normal" war which is already a hell of a crime.

Of course, it is absolute, inane hypocrisy to excuse or ignore when the U.S. does it (which it does all the fucking time). Or when Ukraine does it, which has persistently since 2014 and has only gotten worse at now (including the bridge). Or to somehow imply those countries haven't done it "as badly" or on as large a scale or whatever.

Some people can hold those contradictory positions because their team is doing it ( or the other team is). At least that is politically consistent if not morally. Others are simply to busy to keep up so they revert to the null of state propaganda because they rightfully recognize futility of trying to change it and the severe consequences for trying to change it or just point out how fucked up America is.