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this post was submitted on 28 Aug 2023
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I hate Trump but, in the grand scheme of things, his foreign policy was dogshit for advancing the interests of US power projection and I am of the opinion that he was a real spanner in the works for the imperialist agenda compared to his predecessors.
You might say Trump is strays alarmingly close to fascism and I'd be inclined to agree but I'd also note that what US imperialism inflicts upon the world is much closer to fascism in practice than what Trump is like domestically and that needs to be weighed accordingly, especially given that the US is only one country.
I am not hoping for another Trump presidency. I anticipate that a second term in office for him would allow him to shift further to the right as well, which is a grim prospect.
But at the same time, I'm fairly convinced that America won't advance towards socialism much in the coming few years due to a range of internal and external factors, so I am more concerned with how US foreign policy interferes with other countries and their potential advances towards socialism.
This means that, overall, I would see a Trump win as something that bodes slightly better for the rest of the world than a Hillary or Biden win, for example. (Although admittedly it would suck somewhat more for the people living in America.)
Would I prefer Bernie or West instead? Of course.
So, do I support Trump? No, unequivocally not.
Do I think that another Trump presidency would give some respite to the rest of the world and to allow some breathing room for other countries to move towards socialism compared to someone like Biden? Likely, given his previous presidency.
In an overall sense, from the perspective of "pragmatism" and "harm reduction" (ironically two things that get used as a bludgeon to coerce the radical left into voiting blue, no matter who) I think that Trump would be slightly better from a global perspective in comparison to Biden. But I certainly wouldn't cheer for a Trump victory.
I figure this take is going to ruffle some feathers but a slightly shittier situation for the US under Trump doesn't even come close to comparing to the atrocities that US inflicted on Libya, for example, and Libyans are just as important in my consideration as Americans are. That's going to be a bitter pill for some people to swallow.
Ideally Trump would be locked up, and so would Obama and Biden and Kissenger and Bush and Jimmy Carter... but that's not on the cards, aside from Trump (lol.) I would consider a Trump win over Biden/Harris to be slightly less awful overall.
But this is like asking me if I'd rather eat a piece of shit or the equivalent volume of diarrhoea; both are absolutely awful and I'd prefer neither but one is slightly but notably less awful than the other. That doesn't mean it's not a shit option though.
Protectionism is different from hawkishness. If he were hawkish he'd be calling for heightened US carrier presence in the South China Sea and calling Taiwan independent. He just wants to keep manufacturing jobs in the US - I doubt he'd sound any different if those jobs were going to Kenya or Turkey or Ireland or any other country. And it's not like it isn't a policy without it's own problems - ask any third world Maoist about labor aristocracy and they'll tell you - but just because it sometimes lines up with hawkishness doesn't make it the same thing.
"He has also stated that countries that export armaments to China should be sanctioned and violators should be punished
Bernie supports an arms embargo against China that includes:
Denying participation in cooperative research and development
Prohibiting ownership and control of any business registered as a manufacturer or exporter of defense articles or services
Revoking all licenses relative to dual-use goods or technology
Prohibiting participation in any foreign military sales"
https://feelthebern.org/bernie-sanders-on-china/
He's said nothing on the American presence surrounding China
Bernie's foreign policy is absolute trash and Parenti was right to break with him over Bernie's support for the destruction of Yugoslavia.
If Bernie managed to get elected and not get couped in the process, then by some miracle he managed to implement the domestic reforms that he envisioned, it would be social democracy at home and some variation of business as usual on the international level.
Still, I think that Bernie would rely upon popular support and that means that imo he'd be more responsive to his voterbase than "Let's vote him in now and push him left after" Biden would be. But who knows?