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PaperclipPerfector  11mo ago (text post)   31006 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 15, 2023

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Having read about that now it seems fairly small fry. Leaving under 8-900 troops where they led Trump to believe it was below 4-500. They still probably shouldn't have done it but hardly a grave subversion of democracy.

The dude that posted a bunch of classified documents on Discord doesn't seem like big deal to me either, in the grand scheme of things, but somehow the whole system came down on him like a tonne of bricks.

I don't think so. Successful apparent 'deep state hindrance' of an otherwise competent politician would be genuine cause for concern, whereas there is plenty of other evidence to indicate that Trump was just an idiot.

If someone's hindered at every step, won't he look like an idiot no matter what? How do you tell whether or not he's actually competent?

Well in all of his other affairs/experience as a politician/legislator/governor (as in someone who governs, not literally a 'governor'). In fairness though on some skim re-reading it doesn't seem that on Afghanistan there was that much thwarting. After all he got it done in the end.

After all he got it done in the end.

I thought that was a joint Trump-Biden thing? Trump started the retreat, but Biden saw it through to the end, and going purely on memory, he surprised everyone with that move. It does show the establishment isn't omnipotent, but also that a lot of stars have to align for the common people to get their way.

Yeah I suppose there was the possibility of extension of presence/disregarding of the agreement but seems unlikely. As to the stars needing to align for the 'common people' to get their way; I'm not sure this is a useful statement generally because very rarely are the 'common' people so united as to say reasonably that they speak with one voice. On Afghanistan, I suspect your average American did not see it as a particularly important issue either way by the Trump era.

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