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[–] 9 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

My read on this is that since the end of the cold war, America has had a monopoly on decisionary power, and news media around the world has assigned responsibility for geopolitical events accordingly: whatever happens, wherever it happens, America has, at minimum, assented to it, and is therefore responsible for it. The first truly bizarre application of this reasoning that stood out to me was assigning blame for Russia's invasion of Ukraine on NATO. Since Russia lost the cold war, it is relatively weaker than its western neighbors, propped up by the US, and somehow that turns its acts of aggression over its former territories into defensive measures. It's a unipolar read of geopolitics, where only one dominant power exists at the global scale, and any local complications in the balance of power are simply ignored. The same applies to the US's internal politics. The US decides, so the US is responsible. Never mind all the attacks on democracy, representativity, and citizens' safety and security. In the case of Milei, Orban, Bolsonaro, Putin, etc., people are more willing to see citizens as victims of their failing democracies; with the US, there is a failure to distinguish between the country's global power and its citizens' individual power.

Add to that longstanding resentment over the US's hegemony and you end up with a lot of people who have sincerely been looking forward to this shitshow. You're just one more piece of tinder in the bonfire they've been waiting for their entire lives

My point being, you're expecting too much of most people if you're hoping for a compassionate, nuanced read on the situation.

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