People wanted Bernie Sanders in 2016 and when he got pushed out, they went for Trump

Americans are fucking stupid

I don't miss him because he was bloodthirsty psychopath about the drones. Didn't he kill an American citizen once? Anyway, the Iran deal was really good. One thing I don't fault him over.

and they agreed to have IAEC inspectors all the way up their asses. undoing the deal with them was a monumental blunder.

Another shitty aspect of this is that probably a majority of our ability to get a deal done bloodlessly like this is, for better or worse, due to the implicit threat of the massive power imbalance of our militaries. If you are negotiating with someone who is kind and smiling and sincere and they have a squad of fucking jacked dudes armed to the gills standing behind him also smiling.... well negotiating may seem like the preferable thing at that point. And, in this case, the sincere man genuinely agrees to come to an amicable and sustainable solution from that is good for all parties, so it worked out.

But then a petty stupid egotist with a complex about everything the sincere man did comes in an rips up the deal and acts like a lunatic basically no matter what you do. So rather than try to create a bullshit new deal with someone who will only accept absolute capitulation under threat of war, you stand your ground and prepare for war. War comes and... turns out that, at least when this stupid manchild and his idiot crew are in charge, and once they have fired a ton of their non-cis straight white male officers and soldiers, their disorganized and poorly led military is pretty fucking ineffective. They are also extremely easily swayed by financial risks, for oil in particular, and it takes next to nothing for you to leverage your position next to the primary channel for the world's oil shipments to bring that shit to a stand still.

Now you have taken some licks from bombings, and there is still an ever looming threat of nukes. But now you are sitting across from this petty stupid egotist and there doesn't seem to be as overwhelming of a threat there anymore. And now they are coming back at you with deals that are not just that you unconditionally surrender. Now they are desperately offering you control over the shipping channels you only hijacked due to this war they started, a monetary payout, and essentially the same terms otherwise you already had. Fuck man, why the fuck wouldn't you hold out longer and see what else this stupid prick will offer you?

It is absolutely not a good moral stance that we have long decided to negotiate with the world by might and threat. And ends do not justify means. But on the odd occasion, some good did come of it. Whatever hope there ever was of that happening again though... it just got thrown out the window. If Iran can barely inconvenience your oil supply chain and make America roll over, why would anyone sitting across the table ever take that threat seriously again?

My hope is that, if anything good comes from this, it will be that less priority will be put on military power in the future (after we are done with this regime, obviously) as it will no longer be as impactful as it used to be in negotiations. But I am not holding my breath for that.

Keep in mind his "Look forward, Not Back" attitude when confronted with torture and other criminality from the W crowd likely emboldened the current pack of degenerates and directly led to today's events. "Hey the spineless Weimarcrats wouldn't even go after them with evidence of torture...we can do whatever we want!" That being said he was light years better than the pedophile in office currently.

Also Barry Obama: Let's spy on our allies and bug their phones.

I'm not saying he was perfect. I'm not saying that we shouldn't criticize past political leaders. I'm not saying he did nothing wrong. I'm not saying Democrats are great. I'm not saying Democrats are the entirely of the left, and yes, I've heard that the Democrats aren't the left because they are capitalists, for the context of this comment I'm using "the left" as a more colloquial definition, on relation to the Overton window and so on, basically meaning "not conservatives".

So if you're going to respond to the following, please refer to the above first.

People say "the left needs to be more united", and it does. But the problem we have is a constant purity battle. Everyone is silently judging each other, and more harshly, themselves, for who's got the better morals.

We then fall into this trap where, when someone from "the left" fails to meet our moral standards, to sometimes literally any degree, we have to point it out. After all we like accountability, transparency, and we would hate to be hypocrites, right? This can range from "X did war crimes" to "yeah but X said a slur once in the 90s and even though it wasn't considered a slur then by a lot of people it is now"

The end conclusion is "No one is good enough. Everyone has failed you. Our side is weak. Our side is hypocritical. I, the commenter, am morally better for pointing out this flaw. I'm in the know. I know what's right and wrong and I speak truth to power."

Conservatives... Don't do this. They either clap or jeer. They don't care for nuance, thing is good or thing bad.

So when conservatives see the "bad" people admitting they are bad, there's a bit of confusion then a sense of validation. It verifies what they think deep down, that everyone is secretly conservatives and so called "libruls" are just playing pretend to get votes or look better, and that real conservatives are just more honest. They think that, by criticizing our own side, we're admitting that everyone is just as bad as Trump.

They think, and maybe for over are right, that we can never be happy.

I'm not saying we should lower our standards.

What I am saying is that we have certainly learned how to jeer, but maybe we should learn how, and when, to clap.

I do not miss Obama. He was a step in the right direction, and better than most candidates. He was a cool guy, very charismatic, improved relations with countries around the world, and brought some forward movement.

Unfortunately, like every other democratic president, they were soft on their opposition and continued pushing the status quo. Trump shouts down his enemies. His goons of ICE are running amuck. He's pardoning Jan 6 terrorists. Trump made companies suck his dick. Trump is effective at getting his way, even if it's all diaper shit. We got all this fascism and racist shit now.

Just like when we shrugged at the Confederates, Obama would have just told ICE to "Cool it bucko!"

So no. Don't miss him or Democrats like him.

Hey Barry, are you trying to upset me right now, 'cause that's what's happening!

Yes, but... The Iran deal also economically enabled Iran to expand its ballistic missile program and funnel billions to proxies like the Houthis, Hamas, and Hezbollah. That in turn helped bolster Netanyahu in Israel. He handled Iran much better than Trump, but it caused a lot of problems as well.

Winning this war will both embolden Iran and deepen the regime's paranoia in the future.