Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
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Surely the question is whether those political goals are aligned with the country's. The claim is that Biden was furthering the US's political goals while Trump was furthering Trump's political goals. Needless to say, there's some room for interpretation on exactly which political goals are in favor of the US vs. only the president, but that distinction is essential to determining whether an act is corrupt. That fuzziness is a contributing factor to why corruption is often just an accusation against political opponents purely in the realm of public opinion and not actually tried in a court of law.
Are you implying there's some objective definition of "the country's goals", distinct from its democratically elected leadership? Where does that definition come from?
Of course, the partisans always claim they are just worrying for the country and the other guy is only worrying for himself. This is regular political rhetoric and there's no reason to attribute any substance to it.
Sure, but where that distinction would come from? There's no some magical divine oracle that you can go and ask for "what are the interests of the US" outside of existing democratic procedures, i.e. electing the representatives that would represent those interests. Some people claiming they have exclusive right to represent these interests, outside of the usual processes, are just some people lying.
... yes? Sorry, I'm not even seeing how there could possibly be disagreement on that point unless you completely do not believe in the concepts of corruption or embezzlement.
"yes" is not an answer to the question "Where does that definition come from?" If you believe there are some objective "country goals", you should explain who is entitled to set them and how. I mean, "country" can't speak to us and tell us what the goals are. So what is the mechanism by which we know what are the objective "country goals"? How would one make sure, for example, that investigating corruption by somebody named "Donald Trump" aligns with "country goals", but investigating corruption by somebody named "Hunter Biden" contradicts them? Please describe the decision chain here that allows to make an objective decision not reducible to political power balance between competing partisan fractions.
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How is getting a prosecutor fired to stop the Ukrainian government from looking into supported accusations of corruption at a Ukrainian company who was giving no-show jobs with million dollar+ salaries to American politicians' kids in the US's interest?
you know I never once saw any regime media ask that above question despite that question being fundamental for why Donald Trump wanted the Ukrainians to look at it in the first place
it was always framed at quid pro quo was inherently bad and the implication being if there was any condition on the military aid then it was bad and Trump was guilty
If you have any examples of regime media asking the question, "Is it in America's interest to look into whether a former vice president and possible future political candidate was engaged in corruption which he used his office to cover up?" it would really change my worldview.
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