this post was submitted on 31 Oct 2023
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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

America's institutions are resilient, especially the military and security state components, even if the latter often vacillate between amoral and immoral.

They're vulnerable, and under heavy strain, but they aren't so brittle that one man can destroy them singlehandedly.

My point isn't that we have nothing to fear from another Trump presidency, it's that for most of America's security partners, they don't really have any other good alternatives at the moment. So for better, or worse, they'll stick around for as long as it's necessary for them, because America's ability to project power transcends the oval office.

If anyone could change their calculations, it's Trump, but it would because of a situation he caused, or escalated, not just his reelection.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

A standard GOP play is on display here, readers: the classic "Oh it's not that bad, nothing will really change, if you don't vote it'll be just fine."

Things have already changed. Our institutions are not just under strain, in some ways they've already fallen. Our supreme Court is thoroughly compromised. The house is under control by a vocal, crazy minority that just managed to wrest control of speaker of the house who is third in line to the president.

We came incredibly close to a coup stealing an entire branch of the US government, and the second and third are already under minority zealot control.

Vote. The US government is not so resilient that you can just ignore it. In fact, that is directly the plan and goal of the minority party trying to steal permanent control of the government- to trick you into apathy, that it doesn't matter who is in charge because nothing will change

Their past actions prove otherwise. Don't allow yourself to be mislead. Vote. And don't ignore people like the person above me trying to siren call others into a position of comfortable apathy. Call them out on their bullshit. Be polite, it may be inadvertant- perhaps they've not been affected. Or maybe they're trying to talk about something else and are simply accidentally implying that things will just end up fine, like the poster above me. But in the end, regardless of the motivations, it is bullshit all the same. History is littered with the ghosts of once grand countries, and nobody thought they would fall either.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's not what I said, at all.

Also, lol.

Why don't you read through my comment history and tell me again how I'm regurgitating standard GOP drivel.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's not what you said, it's what you implied with what you said.

And yes, you do not lean GOP. But the entire point of that apathy is specifically to target non-GOP voters to keep them from voting- so it would be entirely expected to see that sort of accidental encouragement of apathy from a non-GOP poster, and all the more important to call it out because unlike someone who votes R, you would see the importance of shaking off that false apathy and voting.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

"what you implied"

Maybe you should take a breather, and then come back and reread my comments in this thread.

You're projecting your own meaning or intonations into my words because you've cast a moral judgement on who I am, or what my intent is. Not only were you wrong, but you keep inserting your morality into questions of foreign policy, just like I warned about in my main comment.

In some threads, I'll absolutely insert my political views and opinions, in this thread I have stuck to neutral analysis, mostly on the realities of geopolitics and foreign policy.

More than once I have even said that Trump was a unique threat who could create the conditions that everyone here is chirping about. However, I also made clear that the act of his reelection alone would not be enough for countries like Australia to end their alliance with America.

Now, because I think you mean well, I won't spend the time pointing out the numerous logical fallacies you've used to attack me.

So, if you disagree with anything I've actually said, please share. But please leave out your projections of what you think my secret nefarious intentions really are, or attacks based around logical fallacies.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I think you may also want to consider a breather. I'm not attacking you, I'm not accusing you of nefarious intentions, and I'm not casting judgements.

I'm pointing out that, regardless of if you're advocating it or not, you are inadvertently supporting the idea that voter apathy is acceptable. You're not doing it outright, and that's not what you're trying to do, I get that. You're trying to neutrally state that regardless of what happens, it takes more than one presidential change to cause geopolitical changes on the scale Australia is threatening.

Now, I actually disagree with that point that in general, I feel we've seen our allies distance themselves or even break off with us in Trump's first (and hopefully only) presidency, but that's not actually what we're discussing here anyway and I don't think either of us really care to dig into the weeds there, because it involves a scenario I think both of us hope won't happen.

My point is more that, as someone who cannot read minds, I can't tell if that language is coming in as a complete coincidental accident, it's something you accidentally picked up from GOP propaganda pointed directly at your demographic (which is most likely imo), or you're intentionally spreading it (highly unlikely, given your post history). But regardless of what you're intending to say, what you're actually saying gives a feeling of 'calm down, it's not a big deal, trump winning isn't a huge catastrophe to democracy, it'll be fine, any damage he can cause will be limited.'

And that happens to directly be a piece of GOP propaganda to encourage non-GOP voters not to vote, because voter suppression and low voter turnout helps the GOP.

Again, I'm not saying you're doing it intentionally, or even registering it. I'm not saying it's some nefarious plan, and I'm not blaming you. I'm pointing out that there is unconscious bias in what you're saying. Admittedly I was first trying to point out that bias to anyone reading, which probably looked combative to you, so my bad for that.