Its arguably a more politically savy or aware answer…but I will never give Trump credit for being “right”.
When someone like Chomsky points out the human rights abuses or general non-innocence of the United States he does it as a way to frame criticism of the united states and as a way to highlight that we like to judge our enemies by their actions and ourselves by our stated intentions.
Trump, in this clip, does the inverse and uses the sins of the united states to do apologetics for Putin and in the process normalizes both.
Yeah. But from a centrist standpoint, it’s shocking to even imagine that America is anything but innocent. So I’d say Trump is still more “technically correct” than Biden.
Sure…but to use a timely example this feels like pedantic nerds bitching online today over whether Whedon or Snyder’s cut of Justice league is better. Better is relative. The most correct take is they both missed the mark by a huge margin and are complete dogshit for similar and different reasons.
Who is giving credit to Trump? We are recognizing new rhetorical tools to convince people that America is bad. Trump is not an anomaly, he is America distilled, and the Dems have allowed his kind to spawn under a regime of economic austerity and imperialism. It is very hard for insulated liberals to pretend that things are okay in this country, and this is not because Trump agrees, i think he strongly disagrees, but reveals where we are really at and it is hard to ignore this.
The tweet is about giving trump credit, lol.
Your post highlights exactly my issue with trump’s words. There is a subtle but important rhetorical distinction at play in what he says that shifts everything and is important to recognize.
Trump essentially turns what should be critiques and contradictions in US foreign policy on its head to basically say “So putin kills people. So what? We kill people all the the time and I don’t know if you know this; we’re fucking awesome!”
I agree and it is doubly blameworthy. This in turn could become recognized as indefensible. Maybe not, maybe I am too hopeful, but there is no facade of “well it’s for the good of the world/somebody else.” It is outright evil and I am hopeful that Americans can come to see that.
Above all else, Trump made liberals uncomfortable that maybe the status quo was bad. Biden lulled them back to sleep.
Trump did more to heighten the contradictions than anyone else in my lifetime
Trump = accelerationist (heightens contradictions)
Biden = decelerationist (harm reduction)
There’s a genuine argument to be had about which is worse (i.e., Bernie was closer to winning in 2020 than he was in 2016 because people were getting tired of rich people like Trump fucking over the working class - Obama and co. had to actively interfere in the 2020 election to stop socialism from winning, while in 2016 they just had to sit back and let the media/complacency do its thing).
It’s just base tribalism, tho. Trump’s, like, “I need to spin this because I’m pretty sure I was told that Putin’s on my team”.
Same asshole cannot get his dick out fast enough to give the Boys In Blue a twenty-one stroke salute.
Both of their answers are shit. Trump’s answer is simply “Everyone’s doing it so it’s fine”.
Trump’s answer is also honest. It is the actual justification for imperialism. Liberals are forced to say “when Americans do it, it’s still wrong” and the Dems are revealed as hypocrites.
Conservatives: “Hell yeah America is evil and that is cool and good.”
Leftists: “America is evil and it is evil so we must stop.”
Liberals: waves hands, puff of smoke “Nothing bad is happening! Look the other way!”
Trump’s answer is also honest.
It’s cavalier. Tacitly endorsing the horror show of Realpolitik.
Biden pretends at America being above at all and leans into the idealistic Exceptionalism.
But neither seem to think what we do is actually wrong.
Of course what Trump is doing is extremely immoral and evil, but the confession that he and America truly don’t care is the honest representation of the Great Satan. I would say he openly endorses things, not tacitly, and this presents America as an easier thing to blame and hold accountable than the liberal version of history full of diversions and justifications. Trump said “we’re still in Syria to take the oil!” because a crumbling empire no longer even cares to disguise the truth and this can contribute to its collapse if libs learn that there is no acceptable version of neoliberal capitalism.
Liberals hated Trump for saying the quiet part out loud.
