Official LRC President Joseph R Biden Thread

China is foolish to side with Putin here. We'll see how far Xi Jinping takes that support, but we (the rest of the world) can put China on an island (not Taiwan...see what I did there?) if we need to.

You are too clever by half.

I don't see how China's words and actions in this conflict will have any impact on China's future. Nor do I see how their words or actions will have any impact on the conflict itself.

Unless China went all-in on condemning and isolating Russia (which was never going to happen), this whole thing is a non-event for China.

NYT has a long story detaliing US attempts to get China to push back against the invasion of Ukraine, but it did not work. Instead, China shared info with Russia.

But overall the piece suggests China really doesn't want to throw in with either side. The conventional wisdom seems to be correct right now.

Although one could argue that China staying out of it helps Russia more than it helps the West. We could use their help containing Moscow but that's not going to happen.

nytimes.com

U.S. Officials Repeatedly Urged China to Help Avert War in Ukraine

By Edward Wong

Americans presented Chinese officials with intelligence on Russia’s troop buildup in hopes that President Xi Jinping would step in, but were repeatedly rebuffed.

Link:www.nytimes.com/2022/02/25/us/politics...

Yup.

Not to get on Biden's case too much, but to think that there was any chance that China would side with the US over Russia was terribly naive. Perhaps Biden's reaching out to China was worth a shot but it really had no chance from the beginning.

Monstrous dictators gonna stick together.

yeah but diplomacy is an ahem long march. This was practice, to build relationships with China, tell them they are important, woo them a bit, make them more partners and less enemies. It was the right thing to do, in the long run.

I believe you are right. The only reason though is because this nonsense in Ukraine is not going to be long-lived. It's still foolish for China to side with him though on the off chance it could go longer than expected (or due to any more nonsense in the future). China relies heavily on trade with the West, and many countries already hold their noses when doing business with China.

Speaking on behalf of my friends, carmine9, Bad Wigins, Ghost 1, Ghost 2, Sally, ...

1) The fact that many in Eastern Ukraine and Crimea expressed a desire to be citizens of Russia meant that those areas were really Russian all along. So the Russians have just come in to protect them.

2) The fact that millions of Ukrainians are willing to fight to the death to prevent them from being swallowed up by Russia means that Ukraine was never a real country and has always been part of Russia all along. So the Russians have just come in to protect them (while killing them).

Now all you damned Lefties can go on with your "Putin is an evil tyrant" nonsense.

As of this week, It's closer to 7 out of 10 Americans disapprove of how Biden is handling his presidency.

cnn.com

CNN Poll: Most Biden detractors say he's done nothing they like since becoming president

Jennifer Agiesta and Ariel Edwards-Levy, CNN

Nearly 6 in 10 Americans disapprove of how Joe Biden is handling his presidency, with most of that group saying there's literally nothing Biden has done since taking office that they approve of. The finding, from a CNN Poll c...

Link:www.cnn.com/2022/02/10/politics/cnn-po...

Lets go Brandon!

#FJB

Biden is getting tough with Putin.

this episode, unless it ends in war outside Ukraine, will be in the history books as one of the biggest successes of post WW2 western diplomacy. Biden and Macron have brought the West together, binding over sores, and leaving NATO and the transatlantic alliance very snug.

And Finland will probably join NATO, unless Putin is overthrown.

I mean even Hungary and Turkey are pledging allegiance to the West now. There are no cracks in the West.

Trump would have been tweeting through this whole thing, undermining everyone and insisting that only Trump be talked about ever, no matter how stupid and counterproductive Spanks was being. Trump would not have accepted anyone being in the headlines but Trump and Putin, and that would have broken the West.

Bad Wigins and carmine9, the only ones who have defended Putin here, are left-wing.

those two are trolls just trying to get people angry. Their only wing is their serious trolling habit.

solid twitter thread here on how US conservatives feel more at home with Putin's white authoritarian 'christian' leadership than with Biden. Scary stuff, but this will bounce through US politics for decades.

it's not about ukraine....US conservatives don't really care about Ukraine. it's about Putin fighting the libs and 'wokism.'

Note that US 'conservatives' are more than happy to not worry about Putin killing journalists and arresting political foes and rigging elections. They'd be ok with that if it ended abortion and transgenders and gay marriage and Mexican immigrants.

Worth a few minutes.

Hungary and Turkey are both NATO members.

yeah exactly and they have used that bit of protection and acceptance to chisel away at the standard post-war political setup. They aren't doing that now even though they could get a ton of headlines and attention if they did.

Put another way, Turkey has always played off East vs West. In the cold war they were the hot girl both sides wanted. It's in their political DNA to take advantage of that and get stuff. But none of that is happening now even though they could get some sweet trade deals from Russia or China if they wanted. At least I'm not aware of it.

Hungary is a little different because its DNA has a Russian invasion just 60 years ago. but still - Orban really wants to move the center of Europe away from Macron/Biden to LePen/Orban/Trump. I don't think he's doing it.

waaaaaaayyyyyyy over-complicating it.

Remember how everything was Trump's fault the past four years, even the few rare things that weren't?

Same thing here.

Russia invades? Sleepy man bad.

They don't invade? Sleepy man still somehow bad.

Literally anything happens, or doesn't happen? Sleepy man bad.

Been par for the course since at least the Clinton administration.

I dunno - these right wingers are coming out and saying that they feel more comfy with putin because he's on their side in the culture wars. Clear as a bell.

But sure, the more aware people want Biden to fail in Ukraine for political purposes. But the real evangelical base of trumpism....they are culture warriors and feel that their existence is under threat by Joe Biden and his forces. They'll take help from Vladimir if he is offering it. And clearly he is. Russian trollbanks feed the rubes tons of memes every minute of the day to rile them up. Russians working hard for Trump 24/7.

Oh look, guess who wants to hurt big social media!

Trumpists and Putinists.

It just HAS to be a coincidence.

MOSCOW — The Russian government said it was partially limiting access to Facebook for restricting some pro-Kremlin news media accounts, a move that could make it harder for Russians to share their anger over their country’s invasion of Ukraine.