I’m from Buenos Aires and I say kill them all.
If this place goes unironically pro-Trump I’m out.
The “maybe Trump is actually better on imperialism” bit has gotten out of control, too. He tried to coup Venezuela and Bolivia (and Bolivia isn’t out of the woods yet), rolled back some meaningful progress on Cuba, and went from a serious diplomatic agreement with Iran to exchanging acts of war with them. His incompetence and boredom in this area is at least offset by his willingness to pick fights with anyone and the ability of his handlers to talk him into stuff he doesn’t really care about. He’s also revived the careers of a ton of Bush-era war criminals who are responsible for two full-scale invasions (far more damaging than any coup) and the rapid expansion/entrenchment of U.S. assassination and torture programs. Democrats, for as shitty as they are on imperialism, haven’t been responsible for a full-scale invasion since Vietnam. Over the same period Republicans have invaded Grenada, Panama, Iraq (twice), and Afghanistan. Buying the line that Democrats are the real hawks here is a straight-up chud talking point.
And that doesn’t even touch climate change – even half-assed action from a Democratic administration might mitigate some of the coming effects on the Global South. The fact that Biden is shit doesn’t make Trump any less shit.
He tried to coup Venezuela and Bolivia
Operation Gideon was a hilariously ill-planned failure, and if you’re referring to the successful (for a time) 2019 coup in Bolivia, that was mostly the fault of the OAS and the conservatives in the country. The Trump administration, from what I can gather, performed no differently with Bolivia than any other previous US leadership would. It voiced support for the findings of the OAS and denounced Morales as a dictator.
His incompetence and boredom in this area is at least offset by his willingness to pick fights with anyone and the ability of his handlers to talk him into stuff he doesn’t really care about
I would disagree with that, but it’s hard to prove either way conclusively. Even so, that irrationality and hostility further isolates America on the world stage, and can only hasten the decline of empire.
Democrats, for as shitty as they are on imperialism, haven’t been responsible for a full-scale invasion since Vietnam. Over the same time period Republicans have invaded Grenada, Panama, Iraq (twice), and Afghanistan.
All of those invasions were carried out with varying degrees of bipartisan support, and to say that the Democrats would have acted significantly differently were they in control of the presidency is naïve. Additionally, more US troops were sent to Libya in 2011 than were sent to Grenada in 1983, so if Grenada qualifies as a “full-scale” invasion then Libya should as well.
the successful (for a time) 2019 coup in Bolivia, that was mostly the fault of the OAS and the conservatives in the country
Don’t count your chickens before they hatch, the OAS is heavily influenced by the U.S., and even the most cursory reading of Latin American history should lead you to the default assumption that the U.S. is behind any right-wing coup.
that irrationality and hostility further isolates America on the world stage, and can only hasten the decline of empire.
This isn’t a bad point, but I’m skeptical of it as the U.S. has the ability and willingness to act unilaterally.
to say that the Democrats would have acted significantly differently were they in control of the presidency is naïve
I don’t think Democrats would have fabricated the 2003 invasion of Iraq out of thin air. Clinton had all the opportunities in the world to do that in the 1990s and didn’t, and Obama never did anything of that magnitude either. And “the Democrats would have done the same thing” is speculative while “the Democrats didn’t do anything similar” is historical record.
That’s good material on Biden’s role in propagandizing for the Iraq War. However, this conclusion:
I think Biden will be far more aggressive than Obama on Foreign Policy.
Assumes that Biden is the same now as he was in 2003, and that the country’s appetite for war is the same as it was in 2003. I think both are significantly more gun shy, at least of full-scale invasions.
And that doesn’t even touch climate change – even half-assed action from a Democratic administration might mitigate some of the coming effects on the Global South. The fact that Biden is shit doesn’t make Trump any less shit.
Key word ‘might’
Might as well also throw in that they might do something about healthcare…
Yes, “might” means might. But it’s counterproductive to conflate Democrats doing half-assed things with Democrats never doing anything, ever. Obamacare was a half-assed healthcare solution, but there are still millions of people who have healthcare today because of it.
We can’t dunk on libs so much we fool ourselves into thinking they’re worse than Republicans.
Democrats, for as shitty as they are on imperialism, haven’t been responsible for a full-scale invasion since Vietnam.
So we just gonna ignore Libya, Syria and Yemen? Literally all in the top five imperial disasters of the 21st century
So we just gonna ignore Libya, Syria and Yemen?
None of those were invasions on the order of Afghanistan or Iraq. Invading and occupying a country is a lot more destructive and kills a lot more people than helping one side in a civil war.
For example, take Libya. The upper range of estimates of the deaths caused by the 2011 fighting are around 25,000, and the figure for the current fighting is less than 10,000. Combine those numbers and assume they undercounted the death toll by a factor of ten. That would be 350,000 deaths, which is significantly less than the 2.4 million Iraqis we’ve killed.
It’s also worth noting that Democrats tried to end our support for Saudi Arabia’s actions in Yemen, but they didn’t have the votes to override Trump’s veto. Democrats do sometimes find themselves in a decent position on military action; Republicans almost never do. Democrats at least occasionally have anti-war sentiment; Republicans fall in line behind whatever imperial excursions the State Department can dream up.
Seriously, nip this shit in the bud. I got no beef with you if you don’t vote and I’ll be the first to say life is gonna continue it’s downward trajectory under biden, but supporting trump to own or dunk on the libs, even in jest, is even more cringy and asinine then making “ironic” pro Nazi jokes.
Edit: more importantly, how pathetic are we if we need fucking TRUMP to own the libs?!?! I say to you one and all, we can own libs just fine on our own!!!
Full agreement here. The site has been waay too comfortable with Trump winning to the point that it gives me the vibes of a pro-republican op
Yeah, totally, we should have a giant VOTE BLUE NO MATTER WHO banner in the home.
Why would you think this place would ever support any bourgeois reactionary? That seems like a pretty irrational fear
I dont think it will, but this post is pretty eyebrow raising. It’s not crazy to think that we might attract some right wingers who will try to grift us into bullshit.
Bolsonaro and hastened climate apocalypse, yes. But all the pink tide happened under Bush and was beaten under Obama, also look at Bolivia and Chile. Just saying…
Look at… What? All I know is that Bolivia was doing perfectly well and then boom, a coup happened under the Trump presidency. I also know that Venezuela almost got fucked too. I also also know that relations with Cuba were getting marginally better and they are shit again. Both parties do the same terrible shit.
And, like, Bush is the weirdest isolationism example ever.
relations with Cuba were getting marginally better and they are shit again. Both parties do the same terrible shit.
This suggests that both parties do not in fact do the same terrible shit. The fact that Democrats do plenty of terrible shit doesn’t take away from the fact that the Obama administration made some real progress with Cuba and Iran (that Trump subsequently undid), or the fact that the last Democratic administration to bring us to the brink of a full-scale war was LBJ.
The last few Democratic administrations have at least occasionally broken from typical imperialism, which matches with the lib interest in compromise and the turbo-lib interest in stuff like international law and institutions. Trump is trying to start another Cold War and has no qualms about all the proxy conflicts that come with it.
I created an account just to say that accerlationism is hands down the dumbest ideology and if you genuinely think like this you are an idiot and a fake leftist.
Accelerationism might be an OK idea if the U.S. left was organized and armed enough to fight off fascism. We’re not anywhere close to that, which makes accelerationism a death wish.
Nah, nor even then, really, tell me one example where accelerationism had worked.
I mean, if you have an organized an armed left, you don’t need no acceleration. Accelerationism is bad, and I only use it as gallows humor.
Kerensky was an accelerationist who continued WW1 to galvanize the Russian public
Just… Don’t…
Cool, but… Like… Idk, I’ve seen things start as shitposts and some people here are already kinda leaning into that idea… So I am kinda worried about this stuff.
Like, this is sour for anyone, and I just kicking shit, I’m no yank and I will get shitted on highly no matter who wins, but we all joke about how Trump will make the empire decline faster, so that’s the reference.
And yeah, maybe you wanna believe Biden is muh damage control or something like that, but I really don’t think so, maybe for some folks in the short term, but I don’t see the diference in the long run.
Famous friends of Latin America, the Republicans. Like Elliot Abrams.
