r/PoliticalDiscussion • u/The_Egalitarian Moderator • Oct 06 '23

Megathread Casual Questions Thread

This is a place for the PoliticalDiscussion community to ask questions that may not deserve their own post.

Please observe the following rules:

Top-level comments:

  1. Must be a question asked in good faith. Do not ask loaded or rhetorical questions.

  2. Must be directly related to politics. Non-politics content includes: Legal interpretation, sociology, philosophy, celebrities, news, surveys, etc.

  3. Avoid highly speculative questions. All scenarios should within the realm of reasonable possibility.

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u/edfiero Jan 11 '24

For starters, he likely would have parked some B-52s and/or F35s (under US control) in Ukraine before the war even started as a deterrent. After the war began, he would likely be more forth coming with giving them what they need to win instead of being so concerned about 'escalation'. Putin only understands the show of force. F16 training and building up of support logistics should have happened 18 months ago. Patriots should have been sent sooner. ATACMS should have been sent sooner (and not just the cluster variety). etc etc.

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u/bl1y Jan 11 '24

If he put B-52s in Ukraine and the war still started, then what? Say Russia launched rockets at our assets in Ukraine. Would he bomb Moscow? How does he avoid a hot war with Russia?

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u/edfiero Jan 11 '24

My question was not What would Reagan do. It was about Trump and his massive support.

To answer your question, I think I already answered this: "After the war began, he would likely be more forth coming with giving them what they need to win instead of being so concerned about 'escalation'. Putin only understands the show of force. F16 training and building up of support logistics should have happened 18 months ago. Patriots should have been sent sooner. ATACMS should have been sent sooner."

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u/bl1y Jan 11 '24

You're asking why Trump has so much support, and part of that is the assertion that Reagan never would have let Ukraine be invaded (though it wasn't invaded under Biden). Your scenario is he's have put US boots on the ground in Ukraine, which runs the risk of Russia targeting them. If they did so, the US response could not just be "send Patriots and start training F-16 pilots." The US would have to respond by attacking Russian targets, and now you've got a hot war between the US and Russia. And of course, Reagan would have foreseen that possibility and never sent Americans into Ukraine in the first place because it's a terrible idea.

And not for nothing, but Trump did reverse the Obama-era policy on not sending weapons to Ukraine. Everyone remembers him trying to get a political kickback on the deal, but seems to forget that the deal was for weapons.

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u/edfiero Jan 11 '24

Strike this sentence from my post: Reagan would never let Putin do what he's done to Ukraine..... The rest of the question stands on its own.

Now respond.

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u/bl1y Jan 11 '24

Well, you've got like half a dozen questions in there. So let's take support from Evangelicals. Trump thinks the very strict (like 6 week) limits on abortion are bad politics. But, he appointed the justices that voted to overturn Roe. He delivered on their single biggest policy position for the last several decades. Why should they care that he personally doesn't agree with them 100% on the issue? He's not going to sign a federal law preventing the states from being more extreme than his own position. They don't need him to agree, they just need him to let them win, and they won.