Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are veering sharply in how they gear up for Tuesdayâs presidential debate, setting up a showdown that reflects not just two separate visions for the country but two politicians who approach big moments very differently.
The vice president is cloistered in a historic hotel in downtown Pittsburgh where she can focus on honing crisp two-minute answers, per the debateâs rules. Sheâs been working with aides since Thursday and chose a venue that allows the Democratic nominee the option of mingling with swing-state voters.
Trump, the Republican nominee, publicly dismisses the value of studying for the debate. The former president is choosing instead to fill his days with campaign-related events on the premise that heâll know what he needs to do once he steps on the debate stage at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.
âYou can go in with all the strategy you want but you have to sort of feel it out as the debateâs taking place,â he said during a town hall with Fox News host Sean Hannity.
Trump then quoted former boxing great Mike Tyson, who said, âEverybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.â
Iâm not sure reducing military interventions is going to make countries less inclined to trade with the US. Theyâre a part of whatâs pushing more and more middle income countries over to China, when we invade and devastate independent counties, when we seize assets held in our banks, when we put up sanctions and blockades, other countries have to wonder if theyâll be next.
Well, Iâm a communist, so âworking together to defeat communismâ isnât exactly a point in favor in my book.
I have no idea how on Earth youâre making that logical leap with regards to Palestine. The US is actively funding and supplying Israel. Thatâs the sort of thing Iâm saying I want to stop.
As for Ukraine, I just want peace. If that means giving up some territory, thatâs fine with me. Itâs not as if life is that different in Russia compared to Ukraine. If you really care about Ukrainians, get the killing to stop and then spend the money weâre blowing on bombs on actually improving their quality of life. If weâd done that before, maybe the people in eastern Ukraine wouldnât have wanted to split off in the first place.
Iâm fine with foreign aid, so long as itâs going to actually helping people and not to blowing people up to line some executiveâs pockets.
What indication is there exactly that theyâre out to âconquer the world?â When was the last time China was engaged in a major military conflict? When was the last time the US wasnât engaged in a major military conflict? Seems pretty clear which country is more intent on aggressive expansionism.
But thatâs not really how empires fall, anyway. Itâs the declining conditions in the core that you have to watch out for.
Pure fantasy.
Ok my point about Palestine was to prove that I wasnât on Americaâs side in most of its wars. Like Iâm largely in agreement with you on USâs interventions in other countries.
Just not completely. Not if we are counting Ukraine. Ukraine were attacked by Russia, we are trying to help them defend themselves and in the process hopefully put Russia off pulling a stunt like this again. Theyâve had a pretty sharp shock that it wasnât the walkover they thought it would be.
Where America piss me off in regards to the Ukraine though, is this trickling of weapons. Basically America have given Ukraine everything they have asked for⊠just a year after they ask for it. Had they given them everything they have given them now at the start of the war, then Ukraine may well have won this war.
I have no idea what the fuck you are going on about saying Ukraine isnât much different to Russia??? Dude they were fucking invaded they donât want to be part of Russia. They are a democracy - Russia is NOT, they are not similar at all. The Ukrainian people arenât fighting and dying for nothing dude??? If Russia wasnât that different they would have immediately surrendered rather than lose all the lives theyâve lost over this.
In regards to sanctions, we sanction countries that need sanctioning. We sanction North Korea because they openly say they want to destroy America given the chance, so we arenât making it easy for them to fund their nuclear program.
Iâm a socialist. But if youâre somehow saying that STALIN is someone we should have left alone because Russia was communist, like dude have you been on the crack or something cos you appear to have lost your mind.
You say you want peace in Ukraine and giving up territory blah blah. Holy shit. Crimea. 2014. Do you remember that? That was them giving up territory. That was the western world not responding to Russia, not interfering. That has led to their invasion of Ukraine. That literally proved that Russia will not be happy until theyâve restored USSR borders.
Youâre literally promoting appeasement. Do you remember world war 2? The policy of appeasement worked wonderfully there didnât it?
You mentioned China. Have you heard of Taiwan? Taiwan is Chinaâs Ukraine.
The reason China havenât been involved in any major conflicts is literally because of the current situation where we have NATO.
Youâre advocating to get rid of all that. To isolate. If we did that, thatâs when youâll see a major military invasion from China and Russia and whoever fucking else has the means to bully their neighbour.
You clearly havenât thought this through very well. Iâm not really sure Iâm going to be able to get through to you at this point.
The major thing thatâs hit me with your response is the way youâre saying how big shit hasnât happened with Russia and China trying to take over the world. Well for one, Russia have clearly already started with Crimea and then Ukraine. China are eyeing up Taiwan. But yes they arenât going full on world war 3 yet as I say, LITERALLY BECAUSE OF NATO PREVENTING THEM FROM DOING SO. They wouldnât dare invade a NATO country.
You take away NATO and the situation completely changes. So obviously things would be massively different.
Ukraine is not a democracy. The current government came to power via coup and banned their major opposition party, which was most popular in eastern Ukraine. The people in eastern Ukraine didnât like the direction the government was taking, and had been cut out of the political process, so they rose up and seized control of some regions from the government, which began a civil war. The separatists asked for Russian assistance, and Russia sent troops in.
They arenât fighting because one country has more rights or freedoms or a higher quality of life, they are fighting for the interests of their state. The stateâs interests are separate and distinct from the peopleâs interests. It would have been better if they had pursued peace rather than lose all the lives theyâve lost over this, even if it meant territorial concessions. Even if they won, it wouldnât be worth it.
We did more that leave him alone, we joined an alliance and fought alongside him. But NATOâs fight against communism wasnât just about countering Stalin. Democratically elected leaders all over the world, from Iran to Guatemala, were forcibly overthrown the moment they tried to do something to help the common people, and were replaced by fascists who hunted down and exterminated leftists of all stripes.
This is the second time youâve made that comparison.
As I said before, this comparison has been used in every major conflict the US has been engaged in for the past 70 years, and we can look back at them and see how ridiculous the comparisons were and how unjustified the conflicts were. They said the Vietnamese were like the Nazis, that if we didnât stop them there, theyâd take over the world. Howâd that play out?
You say that you donât agree with those wars. Alright, but thatâs very easy to do after the fact. When the US went into Iraq, many Americans were critical of Vietnam, and yet, the war had overwhelming support - just as Vietnam did, at the start. Youâd get called a terrorist sympathizer if you opposed it. Then, after the fact, we can look back and see that it was no different, that it was just as unjustified. But it means nothing to say youâre âanti-warâ if it only applies after the fact, when itâs too late to do anything about it, and if the moment our leaders roll out the propaganda machine and tell us âthis time, itâs different,â you just go along with it. At the very least, you should be applying extreme skepticism to everything they say. These arenât just the same types of people who lied us into wars in the Middle East, in many cases, itâs the exact same people in the exact same positions. I donât trust them and would never follow them into a war under any circumstances.
lol dude I wasnât critical after I was always critical. In the UK we had our biggest protest march ever when the Iraq war was about to start. Plenty of people were against it.
Iâm just gonna simplify the Ukraine thing. They are a country. Who cares democratic or not although they are they might not be perfect but they are nothing like Russia. But the point is no country has the right to invade their neighbour.
I canât keep up with too many of these different talking points so Iâm just gonna push you on the fact that you donât see a problem with a sovereign country being invaded.
And I brought up the appeasement because itâs what youâre advocating and it hasnât worked before and it hasnât worked now. If appeasement worked then Russia would have stopped after crimea - why didnât they stop after Crimea
Iâll do you the same courtesy of simplifying it down to one point. Even if the war in Ukraine had all the justification in the world, we still canât afford to fight it. The US is spread incredibly thin, trying to exert pressure all over the world all at once while things at home are completely falling apart. It doesnât matter whether something is right or wrong if it is outside of our capabilities.
Aside from the fact that conditions are shit and thatâs just bad inherently, the longer we go without addressing domestic issues, the stronger the far-right becomes, and that threat is much greater and more existential than any foreign power. The ruling class of the US has been stoking xenophobia to justify military spending, but there is a serious risk that it will spiral beyond their ability to control it. If the US goes full fascist, as we are very much trending towards, then other powers being able to challenge its hegemony will be the only thing holding it back.
Like letâs give you a scenario. Letâs say Mexico were more powerful than the US. Would you be fine with them invading you? No you clearly wouldnât so why is it fine in Ukraines case?
Let me give you a scenario. What if balloons could sneeze? What then?!?
Yeah so basically you donât give a shit because Mexico isnât more powerful than the US.
Youâre privileged (feel a little weird saying this about America) to live in the worldâs most powerful country. But things change. Look how quickly China has changed. Just in my lifetime theyâve gone from the equivalent of the poorer parts of Africa to having a pretty decent standard of living.
You canât just isolate yourself and say fuck you, youâre on your own Ukraine, when they get invaded by Russia. I mean you can. But as I say, it wonât stop there. It didnât stop with Crimea. Appeasement failed.
Your balloons comment just indicates you actually have no credible argument. You know that Iâm right. Just admit at least that youâre selfish and care only about yourself.
That Russia can invade the whole of Europe if they want to do, kill as many people as they want, just so long as they donât attack the US.
Thatâs basically your argument isnât it? At least be honest about it and we can just conclude that youâre not a very good person but at least youâre honest.
My balloons comment was meant to demonstrate that your hypothetical bore no relation to reality. You can construct an entirely different scenario where such and such action is justified, but if it diverges too much from reality itâs meaningless. You are asking me to imagine a world where Mexico is more powerful than the US, before even getting into the conflict, that world diverges so much from ours that Iâd have to completely reevaluate tons of stuff.
Russia has no intention of invading the whole of Europe. The question is whether US interventionist policy does more good or ill. And I have completely soured on it following the whole, â20 year long war of aggression that achieved nothingâ thing. Itâs not about âAmerica first,â itâs about containing the damage that we do to the rest of the world.
Also you arenât saying it out loud in an obvious way. But you are clearly admiring Trump. Who the fuck would admire Trump!? Youâre the sort of person who would look past all the rape allegations his other trials and convictions and still say something positive about him. Youâre clearly a republican who doesnât give a shit about others lifeâs. Just like with gun control and republicans - âitâs a fact of life that school shootings will happenâ no itâs fucking not. They donât happen anywhere else (or not on anything remotely close to the scale of the US) so of course we can solve that problem
What on earth are you talking about? Fuck Trump.
Lol. If you like, I could cite some of Leninâs work thatâs relevant to the topic.