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Goodguy  2d ago (text post)   Edited 2d ago   9143 thread views

Midterms Megathread

Cause otherwise midterms discussion will be scattered around a bunch of separate Culture War thread posts. And it's nice to have more off-the-cuff rapid reactions in a dedicated megathread.

The first thing I've noticed so far: if the exit polls are correct, Americans are very pessimistic about AI.

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Who knew that starting a stupid pointless war in Iraq and enacting stupid pointless tariffs, both massively raising prices for Americans, would be so unpopular?

Tariffs were dumb but Iran is in another universe when it comes to mistakes. Hopefully now all Iran War cheerleaders here will admit they were wrong. Iran has to be laughing at Trump right now.

I think it's likely the Iran war was necessary for the future stability of the world, but that Trump did not do what he needed to get the American people's buy in. He needed a single solid pitch for it and then stick to it for the duration. But instead he kept changing his tune.

The American people would not have been entirely opposed to a message like, "The USA has messed up on Iran for decades now. Obama's deal with Iran put them in a stronger position than ever. We have tried surgically removing their ability to build a nuclear bomb but were unable to do so. Here are the indicators that they are building a bomb and here is the intelligence that they would use it on US soil.

"To combat this, we need to either set back their industrial capacity to the point where they cannot economically complete a bomb, or destabilize the regime to the point where they can no longer politically make a bomb.

"This will require sacrifice from the American people - our blood, our treasure, a slimmer wallet for the duration of the war. But we are not a fearful people. We are not afraid of sacrifices to make a better world for our children. Every one of our ancestors that came here braved harsh conditions, deprivation, and uncertainty in the hope that they were building a better world for their children. We can do no better, and we choose to do no worse."

The execution of the war was pretty good, only thing I would change there is I wish they started the blockade sooner.

You can do the right thing and have it be politically unpopular. That's actually more likely than something being politically popular and it being the right thing.

here is the intelligence that they would use it on US soil.

The intelligence would have to be fabricated because that is ludicrous. Iran seeks nukes primarily for self-defence against Israel. If the US were to simply back out of the Middle East, that would be a major boon to world stability. If Iran were to get nukes, that would be a major boon to world stability, because suddenly you'd have MAD and neither side would start a large-scale war. What does not benefit world stability is starting a large-scale war and disrupting one of the most important shipping corridors in the world.

Iran seeks nukes primarily for self-defence against Israel.

This is ludicrous. Iran is continuously attacking Israel by proxy because its leadership has a belief that they cannot be allowed to be there, being Jewish. Israel in response fights the proxies and assassinates targets inside Iran. A nuke does not improve Iran's position at all. Having nuclear weapons doesn't prevent Israel from getting attacked on all sides constantly.

Iran's IRGC leadership are literally insane cultists who want to hasten a massive war in order to bring their prophet back. Most Iranians aren't, but the small percentage who are gained power decades ago and now that is a reality the rest of the world has to deal with.

He made no attempt to sell it because nobody wanted it. He thought it could be done quickly (his only long shot chance of truly winning) because he is an idiot and now he and his cabinet are screwed. Iran is still around and nothing long term was accomplished. If you are guaranteed to fail then you shouldn’t do something. Luckily there’s a good chance a lot of these people will go to prison now.

"Nobody wanted it."

Would you prefer Nuclear winter in the next ten years over this Iran war? It really depends on the alternatives being discussed.

The people who support the war genuinely believe that Iran was on a path towards getting nukes and had a will to use them against the Great Satan. If that is the case, then the Iran war is something everybody wants. They just had to make that case but they failed.

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