• OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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      14 hours ago

      You can say that about any politician who supports improving relations with any country.

      If Nixon was a Chinese asset, how would his behavior look different? If Jefferson was a French asset, how would his behavior look different?

      Or really anyone who supports policies that benefit someone else, like, perhaps the Civil War benefitted Mexico or someone by weakening the US with internal strife so then, what, should we conclude that the abolitionist movement was driven by Mexican assets? Should we assume that people who protested the Vietnam War were Soviet assets? Should we assume that people protesting the Iran War are Iranian assets? It’s ridiculous.

      The question isn’t whether someone’s actions are consistent with some hidden motives or conspiracy theory, but whether they’re consistent with things that are already out in the open. It isn’t really necessary to come up with these speculations to explain why Trump does things when his motivations are explainable through things that are factual and plain to see.

      Also, if he were a Russian asset, he probably wouldn’t have armed Ukraine in his first term.

      • nieminen@lemmy.world
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        13 hours ago

        I’m going to disagree slightly with your comparisons. Trump is openly admiring Putin and his policies, doing business with him directly and not through diplomats or proper house procedures. Actively weakening the US to the benefit of only our “adversaries”, especially Russia.

        If you laid down proof that Nixon or Jefferson were literal assets, I’d still be surprised. If you did the same for trump, I’d say “what else is new”.

        He repeatedly and transparently spreads Russian propaganda on his shitty xitter clone when he’s not busy posting ai slop and treasonous garbage.

        • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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          13 hours ago

          If you laid down proof that Nixon or Jefferson were literal assets, I’d still be surprised. If you did the same for trump, I’d say “what else is new”.

          That’s literally just your opinion. There are plenty of people on the right who “wouldn’t be surprised,” if it turned out that, for example, BLM protests were funded by China or someone. Because in their opinion, they went against the national interest, and in their opinion, there wasn’t a legitimate grievance for them to be organic.

          I don’t think there’s ever been a labor movement or an anti-war movement in any time in any country that wasn’t accused of being foreign assets. Because things like striking for higher wages causes economic disruption which benefits the enemy, and being a conscientious objector reduces the potential strength of the military and benefits the enemy. But there’s simpler explanations which are that people oppose war because war sucks and want higher wages because money can be exchanged for goods and services. This demonstrates that the logic is flawed.

          Trump is openly admiring Putin and his policies

          That doesn’t indicate that he’s a Russian asset, at best it indicates that he’s a Russophile. It is possible for a person to support Putin and his policies without coercion being involved, is it not? There are people out there who support all sorts of things, many of them, very bad things. But supporting a bad thing doesn’t mean they’re secretly being controlled by some foreign puppetmaster. It means that they disagree with me, either in terms of what effects the policies will produce or in terms of whether they value those effects positively or negatively.

          I don’t understand why it’s so difficult for y’all to understand that some people just think differently from you and have different perspectives. Or maybe you do understand and this whole “Russian asset” thing is performative, I can’t really tell.