Dirt_Possum [she/her, undecided]

The liberals just think that there are inherently evil people like story book villains who have to play the role by throwing a wrench in what would otherwise be a perfectly peaceful and happy capitalist world order since that’s what antagonists do. It’s a form of Great Man Theory; everything would be fine if it weren’t for the bad guys, in this case Putin, who just want to take over for the sake of their own personal vanity. There doesn’t need to be any reasons for the war beyond that for liberals. It’s only materialists who have to worry about looking for material causes of things.

Oh but it is in question. Just ask literally any lib in the fediverse. The Narrative tells us that all of that was just part of how Ukraine is democratic, unlike the totalitarian Russia. If it was a coup, then it was a coup that the wholesome Ukrainian people (none of them Nazis) all wanted. Only the tankies, having fallen for the Russian Disinformation and become Russian bots themselves believe that it was a actual “coup,” so we always have to put it in scare quotes and snicker about how easily misled the authoritarian tankies are. Have you been living under a rock or something, tankie?

Edit: Seriously though, articles like this are taken by the liberals as more evidence that the coup didn’t happen, you know, because the evil Voldemort Putler said it. That’s literally what the scare quotes are about. The article is reinforcing the false idea that the coup is just Russian disinformation, relying on the fact that they’ve already made everyone believe that Putin is the villain antagonist of the story they’ve crafted. They’re expecting everyone reading to roll their eyes at the “dictator” and say to themselves the same kind of foolish thing bobzer@lemmy.zip said below, casting doubt on the fact that the coup happened.

I don’t know that it’s “suggesting” anything other than that if you believe the NATO aka US state department narrative about anything regarding the conflict, then at best you’re a credulous rube, and at worst a bootlicking neo-nazi.

The irony of these people who are just utterly saturated by western imperialist propaganda (which they refuse to acknowledge) while calling everything even slightly critical of the NATO narrative “rUsSiAn DiSiNfOrMaTiOn” will never cease to amaze and disappoint me.

bc of organized disinformation campaign to kill their people and steal their land

Yeah, NATO truly is evil like that. Fortunately Russia is liberating town after town on the daily now.

He’s doing a reenactment.

historically verified methods?

Aren’t guns and explosives are pretty damn historically verified? It’s the ever increasing technology imbalance especially of modern times that makes them more easily tracked and thwarted than they used to be. I’m sincerely curious what you mean by historically verified methods if not guns and explosives. Knives? Swords? Those may not be as readily controlled as guns and explosives, but they’ve got a lot of other things going against them in terms of efficacy. (edit:) Poison? It would be interesting to see that make a comeback as a common method for political assassination for sure.

There is an obvious solution to all this:

Not sure I’d call it historically verified yet though.

One characteristic of the European politics is that it’s slow. Painfully slow.

The glacial pace of European politics helps prove my point. The fact that the pace is slightly quickening may or may not be because of Trump - like I said, I certainly wouldn’t argue against his undeniable increasing of the already rapidly deteriorating global image of the US as being trustworthy, but the whole point is that that deterioration was already happening when he got into office. Your original position is that it was not, that the Europeans feeling that the US cannot be trusted anymore and that the image of the dollar’s supremacy was waning, that all of that rests entirely on the shoulder of the Republicans when that is just demonstrably not true.

That said, you are free to think that with Biden it was all the same (or even worse).

You’re shifting the goalposts a bit there, since I never claimed it was “the same” only that it was already clearly well underway, which I have maintained throughout. Yes, I am free to recognize the objective reality of the situation, just as you are free to, for whatever odd reason, push against it to mistakenly insist that Trump is some sudden and unique outlier in the collapse of US image and power projection when that has demonstrably been going on since before him and will continue after, even if he is ramping up the rate of deterioration.

Europeans may be a bit slow on the uptake, considering much of Europe is still imperial core and it’s all still the global north, but just because European liberals have been struggling to let go of the propaganda that the U.S. is a benevolent force for “order” in the world doesn’t mean that it is suddenly Trump alone that has irrevocably damaged U.S. soft power as well as a positive image of the U.S. in Europe.

and the nonsense of vaccines and Medicare

More examples of issues that were major in the “discourse” under Biden (and earlier). Come on.

Some people and companies are actively seeking alternatives to American products, we are talking about an European tech stack for the first time, a multi billion program just started to replace US in defence, there are funds specifically designed to attract American scientists, the EU is coming for startups too, and intense chats with Canada, China and others try to replace the US market.

And a lot of this takes longer planning than just the 6 months Trump has been in office again. You may not have been aware of it, but many were (I may not be a European, but I have been speaking with plenty of them especially since February of '22). The U.S. has been advertising the fact that its is tightening its leash on its vassals (you Europeans) for a while now, which in turn is unintentional but unconcealable admission that its empire is struggling. Those with eyes to see it, and there are many, most certainly have been watching since long before Trump. I won’t argue that Trump hasn’t ramped it up in terms of how blatant it is with his overt buffoonery and open fascism (as opposed to the Democrat’s false pretense of not being fascist), but to say it’s something that the Democrats do not share in, or haven’t deeply contributed to just as Trump has, well you’re burying your head in the sand.

I honestly don’t mean offense by this because it is so heavily dependent on what you hear in your MSM, but you and those who think this is new are slow on the uptake when compared to Europeans who closely follow this sort of thing, and Europe on the whole considering its relationship to US imperialism is going to be slow on the uptake compared to the rest of the world. And if we’re talking about the rest of the world beyond Europe already knowing these things, well let me just say: BRICS+. But honestly, if you think that even European leaders didn’t take a major fucking lesson from the blowing up of Nordstream, you’re… well, I guess just living under the same rock most of the population who gets their news from major outlets are living under - still doesn’t change the fact that the absolute dismantling of U.S. soft power and power projection (as “defenders” or as a country with whom deals and promises will be kept) is 100% a bipartisan project.

Really the only thing that needs to be put in the “Democrats only” section is: Lip Service. It sums up every issue they are supposedly “better” on.

No I think slurs are awful

But racist caricatures are just fine and dandy for you. So you’re not just a racist, you’re a hypocrite who likes to pretend you’re not racist. Good to know.

but its just laughably easy to annoy a lot of tankies by pointing out fairly well-evidenced, uncontroversial facts,

What annoys “tankies” is typical white western chauvinist losers who mistake the western “culture” they’ve been brought up in and force-fed propaganda as “uncontroversial facts” that just happen to parrot US state department talking points. Yes, it gets very annoying to have to counter the same cringe bullshit that liberals who fancy themselves as radical say over and over, after being absolutely refuted over and over. You can only explain the basics to a smug 5-year-old so many times before it starts to wear on a person no matter how patient they are. Also, you should know that the people you’re calling “tankies” aren’t just ML’s but also anarchists who have taken the time to educate themselves (rather than “anarchists” who just adopt the term while still adhering to liberalism and carrying water for the systems of oppression they say they’re opposed to).

so its a bit of a hobby of mine.

Jesus, it never ceases to amaze me when some fool literally announces how cringe they are yet think they’re being clever or cool for making the announcement.

The Pooh Bear meme originated in China, amongst Chinese netizens, criticizing Xi.

A racist meme appeared in an evil and authoritarian country that doesn’t tolerate the spread of open racism (so evil and authoritarian!) so they removed and blocked that meme on their web. This meme and the rumors about it being blocked were then picked up by racists in the freedomland country where racism reigns supreme (because people are so free there) and twisted into an absurd lie about a cartoon character being banned in the evil country (which never happened), and used as propaganda (based on a lie) to reinforce the common knowledge that everybody knows: the mean authoritarian country that addresses racism is so evil and authoritarian it bans cartoon characters! So now all the good freedom-enjoyers in freedomland like yourself get to use that racist meme and the lie it’s tied to to make oh so very cogent points about freedom and how bad it is to be authoritarian. You really owned the tankies here, wowzers!

And corruption obviously also exists in China, the CCP is basically constantly crusading against it.

Wow, it must suck to live in an evil authoritarian country that actively works to stamp out corruption instead of endlessly rewarding it like in freedomland USA.

No, that one belongs in the shared space too. It was Biden who literally bombed the infrastructure that made it possible for Germany to meet its energy needs without reliance on buying US oil/lng. Who froze all foreign assets that belonged to Afghanistan, essentially stealing billions of dollars that belonged to the Afghani people? Biden. Who froze all Russian assets and tried to make it illegal on a global scale to do business with “the bad guy” state? Biden. And while you may hate Russia if you’re a typical propagandized westerner, that doesn’t mean most of the rest of the world, particularly global south countries, do as well.

From 3 years ago:

“With Russia losing access to its foreign currency reserves, a message has been sent to all countries that they can’t count on these money stashes to actually be theirs in the event of tension. As such, it may make less and less sense for global reserve managers to hold dollars for safety, given that they could be taken away right when they’re most needed. Russia isn’t the first country to get this lesson in recent months. The Biden administration’s move to seize Afghanistan’s cash assets and prevent their access by the Taliban was another recent signal that reserves can be frozen.”

That was all thanks to the Democrats during the Biden regime. Trump is putting as many nails into that coffin as he can, but we shouldn’t pretend Republicans are the only ones responsible for showing the world that the dollar is dangerous and the US cannot be trusted.