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Comment by aazaa | Hacker News Reader

> The thing that will sit deep within me for at least the next few years is that, no matter how you slice it, a vote for Trump is complicit acceptance of his divisive and harmful behavior. ...

How many Biden voters would approve of his full-throated support for the Iran and Iraq wars? How many support his current stance against Medicare for All? How many would defend the Obama administration's escalation of the Drone Wars (assuming they're even aware it's going on)?

The bigger question here is how many Americans were voting for the the least terrible option?

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The general antipathy toward Trump though is not based on policy grounds, but rather his whole way of being. His casual disregard for truth and flagrant mendacity, his blinding narcissism, his disdain for international cooperation, etc.

Even if, as a progressive, you find Biden milquetoast and uninspiring, he at least isn’t an embarrassment to the office and to the country.

I expect my leader to do what he thinks is best for the country. I don't expect them to be perfect. Obama wasn't. George wasn't. Clinton wasn't. McCain and Romney wouldn't have been.

But I never doubted for a second that they weren't trying to do their best. Trump, I did, and that's why I voted against him.

I was. I knew none of the other issues mattered. The only thing I cared about was war, and Trump was the first anti-war president. Even then, he didn't reduce drone strikes, but he greatly lowered America's war footprint. I wrote about it here:

https://battlepenguin.com/politics/who-will-lead-us-from-war...

In fact he did not. This is yet another lie told to his supporters.

Trump expanded the global War on Terror and drone strikes in particular which are the biggest component of it. It doesn't make sense to exclude drone strikes, they are the largest part of the war.

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/trump-escal...

That's mentioned in the article I wrote/posted. There are two big issues with the drone strikes: it looks like they went down because he classified drone strike information .. and all the information (which I source) give different numbers and different time periods. They is no background to these sources? Are reporters watching drones take off and land? I have a hard time thinking reporters are doing any actual reporting right now.

But yes, it's likely drone strikes have gone up. They went up under Obama. They will go up under Biden. It matters not who is president, we will drone more each year than before. There is no doubt.

He has avoided actual on the ground wars, carpet bombing (Libya) and created historic peace treaties with three nations who now recognize Israel. Obama got a peace prize while he was in active conflicts for his entire presidency and actively bombed 7 nations.

US foreign policy did not meaningfully change under Clinton, Bush, Obama or Trump and I agree will not under Biden. It's probably very hard to change given entrenched interests, and nobody has even tried.

Trump has done nothing to change policy - he kept occupying troops abroad, expanded strikes globally, undertook strikes on Iran and assassinated a top member of that regime illegally in Iraq - we haven't seen the fallout yet.

Also if you're willing to overlook Trump's racism and fascism in favour of a slight change in foreign policy (even if it was real), I'd suggest some introspection at this point.

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