I trust Trump about as far as I can throw him, and at the end of the day it’s really the Pentagon calling the shots here not the POTUS.
But dudes clearly speaking to a public sentiment here.
Biden and the Dems are so bloodthirsty that Trump is the nominal antiwar position. I hate this fucking place
Trump is the nominal antiwar position
Trump isn’t anti-war, or at least I don’t trust him to be actually anti-war. He’s anti-this-war, but his administration did plenty of hawkish shit towards Iran and Venezuela. I’m not even confident he’ll actually do anything to deescalate in Ukraine, I think it’s all bluster.
one of the few things I’m willing to give Biden credit for - he stopped the drone strikes
Trump’s actions are often just attempts to satisfy his ego through positive media and supporter reaction. The issue with Iran if you recall is that his main supporter at the time, Fox news had a mixed reaction, with Tucker Carlson being extremely critical, something obviously like hell freezing over.
You can go and check back on the entire Carlson arc back then but here for example Fox’s Tucker Carlson slammed conservatives for pushing Trump to go to war: ‘About 20 minutes ago we were denouncing these very people as the deep state’
His base didn’t particularly like that idea, he was MAGA and isolationist and yet he was about to put the US into a war with a nobody-country that wasn’t a threat at the time. It wasn’t Bush post 9/11 even though he thought that was an easy win.
As soon as the base consolidated into the neutral/negative camp which he didn’t expect, he backed off. Right now his base is very much positive towards ending “Biden’s war” so he is very likely to do it.
But his base also doesn’t like China so that will be the next target.
At the very least, you can still argue that Trump was duped by his advisors into thinking that assassinating a “rogue general” can solve the Iran problem.
Thing is, if that’s the case he can probably be duped again.
After Soleimani was killed and a war was nearly started with Iran in January 2020, there was still an “oh shit” moment from the Trump government and they quickly walked back and prevented a war from being escalated.
Is that because he’s genuinely anti-war or cuz some Brass at the Pentagon thought it wasn’t an opportune time to start shit with Iran and told him to cool it?
Really at the end of the day I don’t think it matters, the PSL could win this Presidential race and it wouldn’t change a thing foreign policy wise (and probably not much domestically either), those aren’t decisions any elected leader has any meaningful sway over.
After Soleimani was killed and a war was nearly started with Iran in January 2020, there was still an “oh shit” moment from the Trump government and they quickly walked back and prevented a war from being escalated.
You got the order wrong, they first backed off from war around september 2019, and then assassinated Soleimani as a last word and consolation prize for hawks. The actual reason they backed off was that Iran demonstrated both will and ability to defend itself by series of force shows and shooting down the best US drone with old Soviet missile - which also shown pentagon bonzos that the war might be way harder than they though.
The problem with Trump is not that he can’t read the room. On the contrary, that’s part of the problem. The room is filled with transphobic, military thumping, chauvinist, xenophobic, treat gobbling bullshit.
Gee, why doesn’t he feel the same about Palestine?
Love when every Republican president for the past fifty years is ideologically to biden’s left
edit: they’re right, Bush is the only exception (and still to Biden’s left on border and immigration policy)
every Republican president for the past fifty years is ideologically to biden’s left
Lets not overstate things, was a fucking monster, probably worse than Trump and Biden.
I trust Trump about as far as I can throw him… But dudes clearly speaking to a public sentiment here.
Reiterating all this (that Trump doesn’t really care, won’t have total control of foreign policy, and this is mostly a play to popular sentiment), there’s a lesson here in how to present ideas so that people agree with them.
Talking about a single issue and giving a humanist position on it will beat an ideological position that necessarily (because it’s your whole ideology!) invokes other issues. Trump could have given an eloquent anti-imperialist take (lmao) and it would not have played as well. But “we need to stop all this killing?” Who’s going to disagree with that? It reveals all the NATO freaks as the monsters they are for playing geopolitics with people’s lives. Same as if you talk about healthcare in terms of “the richest country in the world shouldn’t have people choosing between medicine and rent” instead of starting with the ideological basis for that belief.
Not to say you should never get into ideology, just that the humanist justification for positions should be at the forefront, because it keeps the discussion focused and is harder to oppose. It does help to think about how best to present these ideas; that’s a lot of what politics is.
fair points, whats a realistic anti-imperialist take that trump could have do you think? after the debate i can only imagine him taking swipes at #46
You get anti-imperialist when you need to explain why the war is happening.
There’s a long-standing thread of American thought that would get you a long ways towards anti-imperialism: “we shouldn’t send troops to die in a country most Americans can’t find on a map.” Could get a little farther with “we should not be paying for death and destruction across the globe.”
