Imagine having coherent politics and recognizing that Putin knows that Biden is more stable than Trump and would be less likely to escalate the war in Ukraine...

...Instead of having to be like "is he playing mindgames? Is this him trolling us? He says he wants blue team to win in 2024, but we are blue team and we hate him!"

[–] dvoraqs@lemmy.world 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Trump seems like he is more likely to dismiss the war or help the Russian side by weakening NATO. Why would Biden be preferable to Russia if he is going to continue trying to supply Ukraine?

[–] OurToothbrush@lemmy.ml 4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

The thing is Trump would either weaken nato by insisting on member nations upping their military expenditures or escalate the war.

In the first case NATO doesn't need to weaken for Russia to accomplish its immediate objectives, it is weak enough already.

In the latter case nukes might fly.

It makes sense for Putin to want Biden to stay president, there would be no additional winning and major risk with a Trump presidency.

[–] abbenm@lemmy.ml 5 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

or escalate the war.

This seems to run contrary to everything I've read about Trump's position. The first half of what you said is at least somewhat accurate. But the second half is contradicted by numerous reports from Trump that his approach would have been to "take a deal" and get out, implicitly with substantial land concessions from Ukraine. And then there's the fact that both of them have profess to having positive relationships with one another and admiring one another.

[–] OurToothbrush@lemmy.ml 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Trump did a random missile strike on an Iranian general, he can unpredictably escalate stuff.

But the second half is contradicted by numerous reports from Trump that his approach would have been to “take a deal” and get out.

Okay but do you think he'd actually follow through, and do you think that a negotiated end to the war would be a bad thing?

[–] PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmy.ml 7 points 10 months ago

Trump did a random missile strike on an Iranian general

It wasn't random. It was to appeal the warhawks in republican party. If you remember how it went, they were ramping up rhetorics and manufacturing consent for war with Iran, but that stopped really abruptly, like cut with knife. I don't know what was the real reason or their combination, it might be that the manufacturing consent was not working as intended, maybe ithey pushed too fast, maybe Pentagon wasn't ready, maybe because Iran shot down their most modern drone with old Soviet missile using domestically manufactured radar proving their deffensive capabilities were more significant than what Pentagon assumed. Anyway, the ramping to war stopped so suddenly that even the leading warhawk that is John Bolton was surprised and he even got sacked from WH which prompted him to publish book where he accuse Trump of being less warhawk than himself and many rep senators.

So Soleimani was assassinated to appease the warhawks and because US have to have last word.

[–] abbenm@lemmy.ml -2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

He says he wants blue team to win in 2024, but we are blue team and we hate him!

Well we're off to an awfully bad start because this is about the shallowest bad faith caricature I could possibly imagine. Let's put it this way:

Putin absolutely has a propaganda strategy aimed toward the west that utilizes a number of tools and messaging strategies
Among the strategies reported on, one has been to escalate existing divisions within the United States, with one example reported on being creating opposing conservative and liberal events and scheduling them at the same location
Purin preferred Trump for his first term
Putin preferring Biden can be politically damaging to Biden in the context of domestic politics
a Trump victory could prove exceptionally destabilizing to domestic politics in the United States

I'm not even 100% saying I'm right, but every step of this is perfectly reasonable, it doesn't rely on any outlandish assumptions, and communication about this isn't helped by mocking people with bad faith caricatures and performative incredulity.

[–] OurToothbrush@lemmy.ml 3 points 10 months ago

complains of caricature
demonstrates the caricature