United States Politics Thread 46

[Moose-tache]

Agreed completely. At the same time, one might be more critical of people "on one's own side" rather than people at the opposite end of the spectrum because you believe that they actually are worth arguing with, that they might actually listen, that they can actually be brought over to one's own positions, while the people at the opposite end of the spectrum are beyond reasoning with, beyond even speaking with, much the less actually being potential converts. This is why I tend to criticize people on the left more than people on the right - people on the left still can be spoken to and reasoned with, whereas people on the right in many cases are beyond the pale of any kind of discussion, and there is no point in attempting to bring them over to one's views.

Depends. A Republican is never going to vote for Kamala Harris, but that's not the only kind of "converting" you can do. Not actively being terrible is within reach of every conservative, and while they won't listen to Polly Pinko as she drones about the means of production, they will absolutely listen to a moderate who explains to them that they shouldn't beat up trans people. Right now I think converting conservatives to liberals is a much lower priority than converting current conservatives from mouth-frothing crazy people obsessed with border walls and dying of plague back into normal, non-crazy conservatives who just like low taxes, culdesacs, and reading books about old ships.

[Travis B.]

Depends. A Republican is never going to vote for Kamala Harris, but that's not the only kind of "converting" you can do. Not actively being terrible is within reach of every conservative, and while they won't listen to Polly Pinko as she drones about the means of production, they will absolutely listen to a moderate who explains to them that they shouldn't beat up trans people. Right now I think converting conservatives to liberals is a much lower priority than converting current conservatives from mouth-frothing crazy people obsessed with border walls and dying of plague back into normal, non-crazy conservatives who just like low taxes, culdesacs, and reading books about old ships.

There are conservatives I know who I can speak with, even though I'm probably not going to convert them to my views - but the thing is that they are already the normal, non-crazy kinds of conservatives (even if they worry that vaccines will change their DNA); the mouth-frothing, crazy people on the other hand are likely too far gone for any kind of reasonable discussion.

[Moose-tache]

Depends. A Republican is never going to vote for Kamala Harris, but that's not the only kind of "converting" you can do. Not actively being terrible is within reach of every conservative, and while they won't listen to Polly Pinko as she drones about the means of production, they will absolutely listen to a moderate who explains to them that they shouldn't beat up trans people. Right now I think converting conservatives to liberals is a much lower priority than converting current conservatives from mouth-frothing crazy people obsessed with border walls and dying of plague back into normal, non-crazy conservatives who just like low taxes, culdesacs, and reading books about old ships.

There are conservatives I know who I can speak with, even though I'm probably not going to convert them to my views - but the thing is that they are already the normal, non-crazy kinds of conservatives (even if they worry that vaccines will change their DNA); the mouth-frothing, crazy people on the other hand are likely too far gone for any kind of reasonable discussion.

What consistutes "reasonable discussion?" There are plenty of people the mouth-frothers will listen to, and plenty of examples of mouth-frothers becoming less foamy. State-level Republican parties are great examples of this. In many states, state Republican leadership has been very successful at quashing reactionary ideas. In Georgia (a state where I spent a good deal of time), until Trump came along and convinced them to lose their ever-loving minds, the GOP had no problem preventing religious extremism from finding purchase in the government because it was bad for business. Sure they had no love for the gays and didn't care what happened to them, but they didn't want Apple or 3M or whoever to see them do anything anti-gay. They were the first line of defense against crazy people. Now, of course, that's changed, but in some states it's probably still the case. A better class of Republican leadership can go a long way toward preventing far-right extremism.

[HourouMusuko]

So what do you all make of this disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan? I'm hearing Trump and many of his supporters say that he "would've handled it better" but that sounds like bloviating to me. Apart from U.S. forces remaining there indefinitely, what could've been done to prevent the Taliban from so rapidly retaking the country?

[Karch]

It was disastrous, yes, but that's because it should've been done way earlier - the options now were either disaster (withdrawal) or more disaster (continued occupation), and it's pretty obvious which one is better.

[zompist]

So what do you all make of this disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan? I'm hearing Trump and many of his supporters say that he "would've handled it better" but that sounds like bloviating to me.

This is a rare example of completely bipartisan idiocy. Trump negotiated a withdrawal by May 1; of course he can pretend that he would have done better, but he had four years to prepare the Afghan army and negotiate with the Taliban, and he accomplished nothing. Neither did Biden, or Obama, or Bush, over twenty years. If you can't do your nation-building in 20 years, another few months of years or decades won't help.

Apart from U.S. forces remaining there indefinitely, what could've been done to prevent the Taliban from so rapidly retaking the country?

Be a different country? The US always thinks it can do nation-building in other people's countries, and it always fucks up in just this way. The only thing the US learned from Vietnam was to have a volunteer army. It's not much consolation that the USSR and Britain also failed badly in Afghanistan.

I've been reading about a few of our mistakes-- on the military side, some big ones were a) rotating officers out after a year, so no one developed relationships (in a region that runs on relationships) or expertise; b) allowing unbelievable corruption; c) concentrating on providing equipment rather than building an effective army; d) lying to four administrations that everything was doing great; e) failing to understand the Taliban's strengths, much less counter them.

[HourouMusuko]

I just find it hard to believe what I'm reading about the Biden administration's shock at what's happening. How could they have expected anything different? It's clear much of the White House is surprised--this is a political nightmare for Biden, who ran in part on his foreign policy experience--but have they truly been underestimating the Taliban to this extent (and overestimating the Afghan army)? You'd think there could've been a way to withdraw that wasn't such a disaster. No one wanted this, even those who have been adamant that leaving Afghanistan is paramount. But there is a part of me that thinks this is probably the best outcome we could've hoped for.

[zompist]

I just find it hard to believe what I'm reading about the Biden administration's shock at what's happening. How could they have expected anything different? It's clear much of the White House is surprised--this is a political nightmare for Biden, who ran in part on his foreign policy experience--but have they truly been underestimating the Taliban to this extent (and overestimating the Afghan army)?

Here's an article that explains the "military lying to four administrations" bit.

There was a flurry of articles three days ago that Kabul might fall to the Taliban "in 90 days". The same day, a Pentagon spokesman was insisting "The narrative that in every place, in every way, the Afghan forces are simply folding up and walking away is not accurate." In fact the army did fold up, and Kabul fell without a fight.

Biden should have known better, of course. But Trump, Obama, and Bush made the same mistakes.

Edit: one more telling detail: Trump negotiated the withdrawal directly with the Taliban, with no involvement by the Afghan government. Whatever the fuck Trump thought he was doing, what he did was send a clear signal that the Afghan government had no support. When even the US won't pretend that its "allied government" is real, it's not surprising that Afghans concluded the same.

[Raphael]

There was a flurry of articles three days ago that Kabul might fall to the Taliban "in 90 days".

Apparently, even some of the Taliban themselves bought into that - I saw someone on Twitter posting a screencap of an excerpt from their English-language website that went with the 90 days estimate.

[Linguoboy]

I've been reading about a few of our mistakes-- on the military side, some big ones were a) rotating officers out after a year, so no one developed relationships (in a region that runs on relationships) or expertise; b) allowing unbelievable corruption; c) concentrating on providing equipment rather than building an effective army; d) lying to four administrations that everything was doing great; e) failing to understand the Taliban's strengths, much less counter them.

What, if anything, did the US actually get right about Afghanistan?

[zompist]

What, if anything, did the US actually get right about Afghanistan?

There are probably many things, but they're going to sound pretty lame right now, like saying (as one book I have does) that Poland had the best cavalry in WWII.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

For the sarcastic response, they seem to know where Afghanistan is.

[Moose-tache]

I guess if we're really looking for bones to throw, we could point out that the American-backed government was a less obvious puppet than Karmal, and the American-backed government controlled more than the ~20% that Karmal did. Elections were a good thing, and it's a shame that there won't be any more for a long time. Support for US/UK forces is actually fairly high in the northern part of the country, where non-Pashtun ethnic groups have more ot lose under the Taliban than they do under Western puppet governments, and in urban areas where the Taliban has never been very popular. But that's not enough, obviously. One depressing lesson is that you can't buy local support by not killing people. Karzai and Ghani didn't sweep the countryside executing anyone they didn't like, and I suspect the Americans early on hoped that the rural population would therefore react very differently than they did against the Communists. But alas, it seems that simply being less murderous than the previous foreign-backed puppet does nothing to endear people to you.

The White House has made some limited moves to increase the number of people it takes in from Afghanistan who worked with US forces, but I'm really hoping they step up their refugee program. I know, I know, fat chance considering Joe hasn't even healed all the damage from his predecessor, but I am crossing my fingers that we have another post-Saigon situation, where a million people were admitted over the course of a generation.

[Ares Land]

https://twitter.com/AFP/status/1427332973897166849
"Macron vows EU initiative to protect against migrant flows from Afghanistan"

So about the only thing the guy is concerned about is consequences on immigration. Sigh. You can tell the elections are coming up, right?

[hwhatting]

https://twitter.com/AFP/status/1427332973897166849
"Macron vows EU initiative to protect against migrant flows from Afghanistan"

So about the only thing the guy is concerned about is consequences on immigration. Sigh. You can tell the elections are coming up, right?

It's not only France. Until only a couple of days ago, at a time when provinical capitals were already falling to the Taliban like dominoes, our Interior Ministry didn't see any reason not to repatriate rejected asylum seekers to Afghanistan, and most centrist politicians supported them. They're all scared of the AfD resurging based on scaremongering about a flood of Afghan immigrants.

[Raphael]

So a diehard Trump supporter drove a truck that may or may not contain explosives as closely to the US Capitol as he could, threatened to blow it up, there were a few hours of a standoff and evacuations, and then he was arrested. The reaction of Republican Congressman Mo Brooks of Alabama?

"I understand citizenry anger at dictatorial Socialism and its threat to liberty, freedom and the very fabric of American society. The way to stop Socialism's march is for patriotic Americans to fight back in the 2022 and 2024 elections."

So, yeah, that would-be murderer is basically right, he just went a bit too far.

( https://twitter.com/joshtpm/status/1428434926999904264 )

[Moose-tache]

In a bizarre twist of fate, the UK is somehow doing even worse than the US at evuacuating its Afghan allies: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... protection

[MacAnDàil]

Also, education and civil rights were improving over the past twenty years as far as I can tell. I didn't support Bush at the time, but he sure at least got rid of the Taliban rather than dealing with them like Trump did.

[Raphael]

Apparently the tendency in the last few years where some large corporations, sometimes, no matter how hesitantly, might do some individual things that anger right-wingers, and then right-wing outlets would talk at length about these actions, has started to have an impact:

Since 2019, the share of Republicans who say large corporations have a positive impact on the way things are going in the U.S. has declined 24 percentage points, from 54% to 30%. Democrats have become slightly more positive toward corporations since then; positive views have risen from 23% to 28%. As a result, while there were wide partisan differences in these evaluations two years ago, there is not a significant gap today.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2 ... and-banks/

[Moose-tache]

My question is, what in the living hell is making liberals more friendly toward corporations?