It is possible for a person to believe that both Joe and Paul, broadly speaking, do nasty things. On one hand, they have dealt with Joe for a long time and, wh

It is possible for a person to believe that both Joe and Paul, broadly speaking, do nasty things. On one hand, they have dealt with Joe for a long time and, while the relationship is far from perfect, they and Joe have a sort of understanding and Joe takes their opinions into account, in part with all the opinions of other stakeholders, when they're very insistent about it. On the other hand, Paul in recent memory has committed truly unspeakable atrocities against masses of even his nominal stakeholders--and this hypothetical person may not even have the 'favor' of being one. Paul is obviously much more hostile to his stakeholders (Great Leap Forward, June 4/Tiananmen, Xinjiang concentration camps, Falun Gong genocide, ubiquitous hyper surveillance, etc. etc.). Paul has recently become much more rich and powerful, and has started asserting that power in ways that would totally violate the understanding between our person and Joe. At the same time, Paul has been asserting his power in other person-gangster relationships, dictating terms and helping those gangsters better oppress their own stakeholders. Are you even the tiniest bit skeptical about whether our person's interests best lie in a maximally adversarial relationship with Paul vs. with Joe? Our person may very much want a better relationship with Joe. If they see Paul as a bigger threat, though, then it makes perfect sense to focus on confronting Paul.