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It's not the fact that it's the first term, it's that Russia's actions don't follow a predictable clock. Blaming Biden for Ukraine being invaded is almost as bad as blaming Trump for COVID happening under his watch. Russia is the primary determinant of how Russia acts. Maybe Biden withdrawing from Afghanistan slightly helped goad Russia to invade, and maybe Trump's threats might have had some small impact, but they were not the primary determinants by any means.
Not at all. If the debt explodes to 99% of bankruptcy during one leader's term, and the bankruptcy happens under his successor, would we say the first leader was great and only the second one was the issue? Obviously not. The first guy set the powder and lit the fuse, it doesn't really matter if the bomb only went off when he wasn't in charge.
While it's true to some degree that we can't know with perfect accuracy unless we had a time machine that let us rerun the presidency with the alt candidate, some actions are clearer than others, e.g. I doubt if Biden had another term that we'd have a tariff-induced market crash. Maybe Biden could have caused a crash in another way, but Trump owns his own stupid actions in this universe.
I would say Russia is actually relatively reactive on the international stage. However, I don't think Afghanistan had much to do with Russia's invasion of Ukraine, I think that the Biden administration's non-erratic approach to Ukraine policy is more to blame. As we have seen, it was incapable of deterrence.
If you don't think that Trump's threats (which were effectively an informal security guarantee of Ukraine) have any impact, then it seems to me that Ukraine's continual asking for NATO membership or security guarantees is pointless, since "Russia is the primary determinant of how Russia acts" and they will invade Ukraine regardless of security guarantees. (Put in that light, it kinda seems like NATO is pointless.) Is this your position?
Right, but in your telling, not his smart ones. Deterring Russia is not to his credit, but the stock market crash is.
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Funny, because I do blame both of them for those things.
For Biden: what the fuck else do you think Hunter was doing there? The Ds have been angling for that war for years and have been playing stupid games in Ukraine even back when he was VP.
For Trump: massive partisan riots broke out and weren't controlled. Law and order gave way to burn, loot, murder in literally every major city and he did what, hold a Bible upside down? And the money printing began under him- the Ds continued it, sure, but that was a bad move from the get-go.
The point is you should blame them for the response they had to the event, not the fact that the event happened under their watch. There's not much evidence to say that Biden instigated Russia to invade, and its obviously ludicrous to insinuate that Trump caused COVID.
Hunter was in Ukraine being corrupt. I've not seen any compelling evidence saying he was there to goad Russia to invade.
BLM riots breaking out during Trump's term isn't really Trump's fault. He might have instigated it to some small degree, but it was primarily caused by the high point of woke mania. I agree Trump didn't really respond to it (nor COVID more broadly) well, but that's a separate discussion
If they had the means and opportunity to prevent "the event", it is perfectly reasonable to blame them for the event happening under their watch. Putin is not, in fact, a implacable force of nature.
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