tweet in which jon points out the obvious and libs get mad
excerpt from a Lib:
Jon gives his best impression of a 14 year old tankie in this video.
The following is true simultaneously:
- It is appropriate to critique US foreign policy, it's actually necessary in a free society.
- Some bad actions are worse than others. Iraq wasn't annexed into the 51st state, as opposed to Crimea, Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia.
- Not all foreign policy decisions are zero sum, it's possible for both parties to derive a benefit from an agreement (US and Philippines for example).
what a great deal
i receive Military bases and access to your natural resources
you received: a US backed dictatorship
- The world does not revolve around the US, people in the Kremlin have agency.
- The Russian invasion of Ukraine and PRC threats of a Taiwan invasion are not about US foreign policy, they are a response to internal Russian and PRC pressures.
- Not every policy decision is based on trade and natural resources, those some of the variables in a long list of strategic considerations.
Is there anyone with as big a mainstream audience as Stewart expressing even a little bit of this rhetoric?
Yeah its not a huge jump from this kind of "we're hypocrites, only doing things in our self interest" to "are we the baddies?"
I disagree tbh. I'd say the entire point of framing things the way Stewart does is to prevent further consideration. Stewart very clearly "both sides" the aggression in a way that dismisses the reality of the US's position as The Oppressor of the world. We know how these arguments play out long term, with Rallies to Restore Sanity type bullshit and Stewart himself giving awards to NeoNazis at Disney 10 years later.