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Counterargument: squabbling about "blue team vs red team" is legitimate domestic politics about issues important to voters. You're just upset because what you
by ajross 8mo ago
Counterargument: squabbling about "blue team vs red team" is legitimate domestic politics about issues important to voters. You're just upset because what you think the "the whole game" is about is a rare area of general agreement[1] and you happen to be on the "other side".
To wit: when you disagree with everyone, it looks like they're conspiring against you to control the masses, yada yada yada. They're not, you're just in a small minority (or an epistemological prison).
[1] Hardly surprising, since international geopolitics is exactly where you'd expect their interests to align.
- throwaw12 8mo agored team was against endless wars in Middle East, red team specifically elected Trump to be America first and to stop all wars. if it was indeed about domestic policies, why promises were not held given to the "team"?
- ajross 8mo agoSorry, no. The republican party of the last three-quarter-century has been consistently and reliably pro-American-exceptionalism. That the republican power structures backed a candidate who claimed not to believe these things is interesting, but it happened because they believed, CORRECTLY, that he was lying about this.[1] There has been no significant realignment of US geopolitical positioning between the parties, nor should you expect there to have been. That you thought there was is, to be blunt, on you. You followed a charlatan and got burned. You should have known better after you got burned the first time. [1] Again, hardly surprising. He lies about everything.
- stackbutterflow 8mo agoSometimes the divide feels like it's between people who vote based on what people say and people who vote based on the actions and track records of the candidates.
- dmix 8mo agoEven back in 2016 when Trump criticized prior wars he always said he would have done it better and without warning. Not exactly a pacifist position. > Trump was not a conventional anti-war candidate. His message was a variation of the “peace through strength” ideology of the right, plus Richard Nixon’s “madman theory”: a belief that the more other countries fear the retribution of the United States, the less likely war would be. - The Nation If anything he's anti-invasion because he doesn't actually care about the countries, he only cares about American interests which is projecting power, scaring off adversaries, and isolationism.
- gravisultra 8mo agoHow my tax dollars are spent is a domestic issue. As is not implicating me in war crimes. > They're not, you're just in a small minority The majority do not support this war, nor do they support Israel. Our politicians refusing to listen to the electorate is also a domestic issue. As are the many attempts that Israel has made to strip us of our fundamental rights.
- ajross 8mo agoFor clarity, I'm not saying the minority position is "wrong". I'm saying that holding a minority position is not a priori evidence that Deep State Illuminati Elite Power Centers are conspiring against you. They're not. You're just weird.
- gravisultra 8mo agoI'm talking about the majority position, not minority.
- ajross 8mo agoSo, no, you're not. Or you're misunderstanding how this works. "Stop the war in Iran" is a majority position in polls. People don't vote on that, because people don't care about the war in Iran. Instead, wars at the ballot box are fought over which ethnicity needs to be the target of state violence, or whether or not it's a good thing for citizens to have health care. And those wars are serious, and hard-fought, and occasionally slip off the edge into non-democratic authoritarianism. But voters don't care about Iran. So Iran policy is dominated by the interests of non-voting/non-democratic power structures like US business interests and geopolitical long-term desires. And on these issues, those power structures show marked agreement. So that's what we do, modulo tactical considerations (e.g. the Obama administration pursued a policy of containment and treaty engagement out of conservatism, where Trump installed a bunch of trigger happy cowboys who want to watch bombs on TV; but both viewed Iran as an enemy to be opposed, and for the same reasons). So I repeat: to you, if you happen to view Iran policy as extremely important, it must feel like The System is conspiring against you to manipulate public opinion. But it's not. It's operating as designed, and 100% democratically. You are just in a minority, and this is what being in a minority feels like.