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PaperclipPerfector  19d ago (text post)   28161 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 2, 2024

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A lot of Biden's decisions seem to treat this as an issue of balancing domestic messaging, without considering if parties other than US citizens are seeing and/or being emboldened by the ambivalence.

Edit: "America's" to "Biden's"

without considering if parties other than US citizens are seeing and/or being emboldened by the ambivalence.

I think there a lot of mid-wits in think-tanks who view the US managerial class as the only people in the world capable of exercising agency.

Meanwhile a cynic might suggest that emboldening certain parties is the intent.

I’m absolutely convinced they are. The entire thing sounds like a parent desperately trying to get a kid to behave by making threats that they’ll punish them in some vaguely unspecified way. “Behave or else” only really works when there’s an actual “or else” and the other party has reason to believe that you have the will and power to actually do that. Biden has neither, and I don’t think anyone actually believes he does. He doesn’t have control of congress and would thus have a lot of trouble getting any policy changes to happen. Congress isn’t going to agree to withhold weapons. They’re going to Scream bloody murder if he even suggests sanctions. Even supporting the ICC thing is a non starter. We know this, Biden knows this, Netanyahu knows this. And so not only is there no reason to stop, but if he wants to prove he’s not beholden to American dictates, he’d be wise to double down and do more of what he’s been doing. Why would he agree to stop?

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