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PaperclipPerfector  11mo ago (text post)   4207 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for May 19, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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How much is Biden's 2021 Afghanistan withdrawal going to hurt him during the up-coming election? Will Republicans be able to make it a salient enough issue to convince swing-voters to change their votes (or at least not to vote D)? I remember disagreeing with a friend about this at the time, arguing that no one would care by 2024, while he passionately believed that it would still haunt him. Who does it look like was closer to being right?

On its own, it won't hurt Biden, but it might as one element in a pattern. "Here are three times Biden's incompetence...."

But on its own, it runs into the problem that a lot of people agree with withdrawing from Afghanistan. So even if it docks points for execution, he gains from making the call. "Yes, the withdrawal didn't go perfectly, but he was only one who made the hard and correct decision".

There's also the part where the execution is quite explicitly not the President's job, and that framing a withdrawal order as something that required presidential micromanagement to not completely fuck up raises some extremely serious questions about the competence and professionalism of our military brass. I'm pretty sure the withdrawal fracas petered out the way it did because actually litigating the question would burn a whole lot of people, none of whom are named "Biden".

Yes, that's true.

I think that for the withdrawal to hurt Biden, there would need to be some proof of executive micromanaging, like overruling defence plans or imposing artificial restrictions on how the withdrawal was conducted.

Which probably didn't happen, other than maybe imposing a timeline over defence foot-dragging. (Though it might have, and both sides are keeping quiet to avoid burning each other.)

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