Some people are playing dumb on Twitter about how Trump could possibly be better during this Ukraine situation. They really can’t imagine how. They shrug their shoulders and go well I guess that’s that. This is quite revealing. In very simple terms I will articulate how he could be better on Ukraine. In short, he would care about the things that matter and put energy and intent into them, the main things, the important things, and these are the very things libs are totally blind to and did not even put effort into at all.
How would Trump be better on Ukraine? Well, first I will table the situation leading up to this, out of charitability. Biden got rid of Trump sanctions, and put us in worse energy situation leading up to this. But we will assume, for some reason, his public image and material differences would amount to nothing at all and the same exact event would happen the same way.
How would he handle this better? Well, leading up to the announcement of a “special military operation” Biden was sending very very mixed messages on sanctions. He started by saying if Putin did “small” incursions this would be fine, then when Putin recognized the small breakaway republics they waffled for weirdly long time on if we would do the stronger sanctions over it. They say to speak softly and carry a big stick, but I don’t think they say to mumble incoherently while holding your big stick confusedly and not make it clear if you would use it at all. Although all some would see is *sanction implemented* foreign policy is made up of individuals, in interpersonal terms being this wishy washy is bad. After Putin is invading for real, we have done tougher sanctions, and contemplated tougher sanctions then have ever been done before, contemplated no fly zones and done some things like with sports participation that we didn’t do even to soviets. Despite all of this according to polls, which we should only “““trust””” the magnitude or ballpark of, Americans apparently feel like we weren’t “tough” enough, a possible super majority even. This is a failure of the main important thing in this situation.
Although many on the right are fixating on the reactions to this as if marvel movies have brainwashed people or something, the truth is much more mundane. When people tune into the news or hear about event as IMPORTANT NEWS OBJECT, the news wins the tradeoff even if the public thinks poorly in general of the press like with Trump and corona. Putin has invaded countries before, he has gotten away with it, he has even taken action against Ukraine before. The difference is not marvel movies, the difference is for some reason this is an item of news in any amount at all and all those other invasions were not. Game over. Normie boomers who have never and will never watch a marvel movie and wont watch any of the news have heard Russia has invaded Ukraine as some object, somehow they heard about it, so they disapprove of Russia invading a country. Thats that. The demand for supporting Ukraine exceeds the supply in terms of propaganda for some people, but the inciting incident was not propaganda.
Now that America has heard about it, and knows Russia is a rival of some kind, they want to feel we were tough enough. They do not feel we have been tough enough. We did tougher things then we ever have to Russia before, but to Americans it doesn’t really feel like we did anything. Sanctions, huh??? Didnt we already have those, huh??? They can’t play sports now, huh, I guess thats fine huh??? The problem is if nothing is communicated well enough to everyone, then you have ZERO room to negotiate especially if you are an already very unpopular president on the way down. The exchange rate on tough actions and Americans feeling we did tough enough actions is total absolute disaster, to get to equilibrium point they will have to do a much much tougher mix of things to reach the same point someone else could have done with less.
Enter Donald J Trump, what would Trump have done differently. Lets assume he would have basically same range of things to do in concrete terms. All the other things he could do don’t matter right? Wrong. The difference is instead of a possible super majority of people feeling he was not tough enough, on the same mix of policies or less a super majority would instead feel that he had been. Half the country would side with whatever he did, and enough independents would he would have comfy 60 percent on Ukraine specifically tough enough feeling even while everyone hates him. He would have done some big loud possibly fake thing that would FEEL scary but then do less of a lot of other stuff and immediately be trying to negotiate.
The Biden admin has felt vague, weak, releases statements normal people don’t pay attention to, everything escalates automatically without most hearing about it. Trump would have everyone paying attention to every single tweet the past week, every TOUGHER SANCTION THEN DONE BEFORE is something everyone would hear about. Trump would rightly or wrongly firmly loudly blare over and over again how tough he’s being. Biden when asked directly admitted sanctions were only a deterrent and now that there is invasion his own sanctions won’t do anything, shrugged, and then that was that.
Trump by now would have probably threatened to nuke and openly threatened to destroy Russian economy multiple times while daily constantly begging Putin to cut a deal. Trump would be focused on Putin the person, and making concrete offers of some kind. Trump for better or worse would have looked like he escalated to scary place, maybe too far, and therefore would have room to negotiate down. If he cut some new deal of Ukraine being some kind of neutral zone and succeeded, and lets say he couldn’t go that far, it would be huge diplomatic success and libs would complain he betrayed us for Putin but he is the only person who there could even be a remote chance for some kind of new agreement. The mere fact of offering or thinking up something would be better situation then now. Does it even feel like Biden is tough? Does it even feel like Biden is even trying to negotiate end to this? All people see is a shrug. How many ppl even tuned in to Biden at all? The truth is even though this feels icky to npr mental lightweights Trump has good record of fake symbolic escalation and then backing off.
Fake symbolic big hit that makes us feel tough then very strong attempt to negotiate would be better than what we have now. Now instead we have press releases from bureaucratic mush that normal people can’t pay attention to, no room to back down, and a staff of people who think they are too good to negotiate even with lives on the line. I think people are overly focusing on us during this week when this is a matter of us watching what is up to Ukraine and Russia. Even in terms of futility though, feeling tough enough from your own people is the most important thing, and attempting to negotiate with this leeway you have won is the main thing you should be spending effort on. Lines of communication are important with enemies most of all. To some people there is no possible way America could be convinced anything we did was tough, and no possible point in trying to broker a deal to end violence. To me this is the main job of a politician in a showdown, but to them a shrug is apparently just fine.