You keep blaming trump as if I disagree with that. You are also taking the pov of his base while I am taking the pov of liberals. The conservatives will sink lower and lower, the libs have to decide to take responsibility and move left. We need no details of our aggression in Syria to understand how liberals might see America after Trump. Can they really believe that Trump's Hobbesian justification of murder is much different from Biden's, who has not made any indication to change our occupation in Syria that began when he was vice president? Or lift Trump's sanctions on Iran? My thesis is that The Cruelty Is The Point is also what humanitarian imperialism is. There is no significant distinction between R and D imperialism, and Trump's undressing of this rhetoric might make liberals confront this.
You keep blaming trump as if I disagree with that.
I think you're reading his statement as a confession, rather than a dismissal. Like he's forcing liberals to realize America does bad things, when he's not doing that at all (because they all think he's a cynical liar). Instead he's mollifying conservatives who think these giant state police bureaucracies are Big Government Overreach by insisting we need them to compete with all the other Big Government Foreign Countries.
This undermines the Ron Paul / Pat Buchanan conservative branch that insist all this foreign interventionism is bad. It doesn't scratch a liberal, who dismisses everything Trump says as a Russian PsyOp to Destroy America anyway.
Can they really believe that Trump’s Hobbesian justification of murder is much different from Biden’s, who has not made any indication to change our occupation in Syria that began when he was vice president?
Absolutely! Because Trump is Bad and Biden is Good.
Or lift Trump’s sanctions on Iran?
Double absolutely! Because Iran is Bad and Biden is Good.
There is no significant distinction between R and D imperialism
There's plenty of rhetorical distinction. Biden will insist he's helping foreigners while Trump will revel in hurting them. And people will argue over whether helping or hurting foreigners is the right policy while the Deep State keeps on keeping on.
You might be right. I am an optimist. But recall Iraq, when Bush had to pretend he was liberating Iraqis. Now, they don't even try. It is too easy to read this as a worsening situation - what about it would be worse? Arguably, the same military outcome would happen regardless of how they talked about it, so wouldn't we prefer this obscene honesty about who we are? Would we rather be kept in the dark, have nothing change and no one learn? Trump advertised himself as an "isolationist;" a lie but imo an improvement from the jihadist neocons. They might have realized that dying for an oil company is bad. I am hoping for a similar improvement from liberals, to realize that Trump did not spring from Zeus' forehead, he was bred in a neoliberal laboratory that the Dems have a responsibility in creating.
You keep blaming trump as if I disagree with that. You are also taking the pov of his base while I am taking the pov of liberals. The conservatives will sink lower and lower, the libs have to decide to take responsibility and move left. We need no details of our aggression in Syria to understand how liberals might see America after Trump. Can they really believe that Trump's Hobbesian justification of murder is much different from Biden's, who has not made any indication to change our occupation in Syria that began when he was vice president? Or lift Trump's sanctions on Iran? My thesis is that The Cruelty Is The Point is also what humanitarian imperialism is. There is no significant distinction between R and D imperialism, and Trump's undressing of this rhetoric might make liberals confront this.
I think you're reading his statement as a confession, rather than a dismissal. Like he's forcing liberals to realize America does bad things, when he's not doing that at all (because they all think he's a cynical liar). Instead he's mollifying conservatives who think these giant state police bureaucracies are Big Government Overreach by insisting we need them to compete with all the other Big Government Foreign Countries.
This undermines the Ron Paul / Pat Buchanan conservative branch that insist all this foreign interventionism is bad. It doesn't scratch a liberal, who dismisses everything Trump says as a Russian PsyOp to Destroy America anyway.
Absolutely! Because Trump is Bad and Biden is Good.
Double absolutely! Because Iran is Bad and Biden is Good.
There's plenty of rhetorical distinction. Biden will insist he's helping foreigners while Trump will revel in hurting them. And people will argue over whether helping or hurting foreigners is the right policy while the Deep State keeps on keeping on.
You might be right. I am an optimist. But recall Iraq, when Bush had to pretend he was liberating Iraqis. Now, they don't even try. It is too easy to read this as a worsening situation - what about it would be worse? Arguably, the same military outcome would happen regardless of how they talked about it, so wouldn't we prefer this obscene honesty about who we are? Would we rather be kept in the dark, have nothing change and no one learn? Trump advertised himself as an "isolationist;" a lie but imo an improvement from the jihadist neocons. They might have realized that dying for an oil company is bad. I am hoping for a similar improvement from liberals, to realize that Trump did not spring from Zeus' forehead, he was bred in a neoliberal laboratory that the Dems have a responsibility in creating.