Trump was a wild card, but ultimately signaled he wasn't fond of regime change wars prior to and throughout his presidency. His instinct was to reduce American military presence abroad to the point where the Pentagon just lied to him. Funny, the military lied to a undermine a democratically elected president and ended civilian control of the military. My beliefs are the Pentagon is fully willing and able to operate against the will of elected officials in order to undermine anti-war policy. I also think Trump would not have been permitted to survive a second term.

Now look at Biden. Biden comes from the administration that had Gaddafi murdered. That completely finished the work of George W. Bush and destabilized entire global regions. Even though Biden is fond of regime change, funding civil wars, etc, it doesn't matter. Biden is clearly not in charge, establishment Washington is permitted to steer the ship all they want due to the president's declining mental state. The Pentagon and CIA are free to act, and be he puppet or senile, they "leader" publicly gives his blessing.

Putin should first strike America. America is diseased. Better a radioactive ruin than what we are now.

im personally not sure the last time we had a potus who was truly on top of the military, maybe GHWB, with his background and somehow getting in and out of Iraq fast as hell without rebuilding. but since Halliburton sat in the situation room its gotten markedly worse.

i struck off what i disagreed with. the rest is broadly agreed. I was not going to reply but alot of what you said is very relevant. Trump was a curveball and acted completely differently from all previous US presidents.

This post was edited by ferdia on Mar 29 2022 09:30am

not too different from Andrew Jackson.

I will rephrase

Trump was a curveball and acted completely differently from all previous US presidents since Kennedy.

i dont know enought about Andrew Jackson, but wiki has him as expansionist whereas Trump was isolationist (in my view).

This post was edited by ferdia on Mar 29 2022 09:39am

Rip JFK. He prevented WW3 and got shot or am I wrong?

Well he was shot as far as I know! I would not say he prevented WW3, I would say he prevented Russian expansion which was heavily underway at the time and future american presidents took up that work. Trump stopped that work, Biden then kick-started it.

This post was edited by ferdia on Mar 29 2022 09:56am

Andrew Jackson's highlight reel in comparison to Trump would be:

1. elected as a man of the people, seen as an alternative to the political elites running washington
2. tried to create domestic industry strongholds through a system of tariffs
3. created the trail of tears and moved indians onto reservations en masse
4. famously ignored advisors and was quick to insult disagreement inside of his White House
5. challenged people to duels and was famously egotistical about his bravado


there's a reason that Trump changed the picture in his office to Jackson, he idolized him.

This post was edited by thesnipa on Mar 29 2022 09:58am

To the first point, it was only about a year into his term, iirc, that Trump's administration published the formal Trump doctrine for foreign policy. And it was pretty blunt and explicit about reducing American military interventionalism while stepping up American economic interventionalism. It said economic security is national security. And that's what Trump had been saying since before I was born, I think. I remember he was loudly declaring it against the Japanese in the 80s and 90s, that they were eating our lunch and the answer wasn't rockets and battleships, it was tariffs and subsidies. Trump had no interest in all that geopolitically destabilizing regime change nonsense and is joined by Ford and Carter in being the only presidents not to load us into any new wars during his term, and that's generously giving Carter a pass on Operation Eagle Claw

xD ok this made me giggle. yes i agree with you.