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You realize that what you’re describing is marketing right? Maybe the man will surprise me, but I don’t see actions that live up to the hype. He hasn’t cleaned up Washington, he didn’t fix the border problems, he might have gotten lucky that no major wars broke out on his watch, but I didn’t think he was the cause of it. So what I’m left with is an incompetent ruler with excellent branding. Take away the branding, the hats, the merch, the big talk, and he’s really not that much different from GW Bush or Bill Clinton.
Wars aren't an act of God that just happen, the last dozen major wars America has participated in were all designed by politicians. Is Trump "lucky" that he didn't decide to decapitate Gaddafi? Maybe he got lucky that he didn't invade Iraq?
I'm watching the Joe Rogan interview right now and it's fascinating -- Trump talking about political deals, environmental impact, construction, entering the White House, tariffs and the economy, etc. etc. -- and then I go on The Motte and some guy says that Trump is obviously incompetent because he didn't do whatever it is you're personally in favor of.
That's half the point, right? That Trump is a 90's Democrat and the left went crazy and so he became a Republican. But that's also a silly self-limiting frame, because Trump is obviously better than both GW Bush and Clinton. (Ruby Ridge, "Read my lips," etc.)
Wars aren’t an act of God, but at the same time, a lot of the decisions about when to start one hinge more on conditions like military readiness, weather conditions, and the time needed to build up troops and material to carry forward an invasion. China isn’t stay out of Taiwan because Biden is a badass. They simply don’t yet have the assets in place to successfully invade Taiwan.
Biden, to his credit, also didn't start any wars, probably because he is genuinely upset over the pointless loss of his son. That doesn't mean Biden was lucky or had marketing, it means he resisted the strong temptations of the MIC to manufacture new excuses to go to war. Which is Trump's credit! Every prior president going back 40 years started a new war, until Trump. It's not as though we have a sudden shortage of conflicts over which we could have gone to war.
The Biden administration had a significant hand in both creating the conditions for the Ukrainian conflict as well as sustaining it after the fact. If that doesn't count as "starting a war" I'm not sure what does.
I guess you could call it a "police action", which humorously is exactly what the Russians did this time around. Might as well be the Russians' Korean War, honestly.
(Also, why send Hunter to Ukraine in the first place? Getting [them] ready for that war was his fucking job.)
I think the Biden admin gets a lot of (bad) credit for the Ukrainian situation, but I will grant that it's a different category from the kinds of conflicts US presidents have gotten involved in until now. (For one, putting American soldiers in forever wars is extremely unpopular, there's some part of the body politic that thinks it's a great deal for us to only have to fight by proxy.)
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