Shortly before WWII, Adolph Hitler and other European leaders signed the Munich Agreement, allowing Hitler to take a small, “German” part of Czechoslovakia so long as he didn’t invade any other territories. 6 months later he took the rest of Czechoslovakia. France and Britain followed with the threat of war if he went any further.
Hitler probably could’ve been handled in a million different ways, but the world didn’t know what he was up to or the carnage he would unleash.
While that scenario has many things in common with Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, there’s one major difference: everyone blamed Hitler. He wanted the world and and the world finally realized it. There was no level of sanction and/or political gymnastics that would’ve stopped him.
Nobody claimed that his campaign was the fault of some non-German politician.
Not so with Ukraine. Joe Biden is somehow to blame for Putin’s invasion of a sovereign country, and I need some help understanding how anyone can believe that. Putin wants to restore the USSR back to its former “unified” glory and is willing to blow the holy hell out of whatever to get it. Should there be sanctions? Sure, but let’s not expect much from them, now approaching the toughest the US has ever imposed on a foreign entity.
If the entire world sanctions Putin, he might reconsider, but that scenario is not likely to play out. Looks to me like China, among others, is going to lend Putin a hand.
Now, anti-Biden folk are calling for war, accusing Biden of further weakness for relying too much on sanctions. While I have some sympathy for the role of war in dealing with tyrants, this particular tyrant has his hand on a nuclear button and doesn’t seem to care much about his country, much less anyone else’s – I don’t trust him to be responsible with his nukes. And let’s reflect on what happens in a nuclear war: aside from the physical carnage, there would most likely be a huge upset in the balance of power after we incinerate half the world.
If we had a different president (guess who), however, Putin would not have invaded Ukraine, and I need some help understanding that one as well.
Would Trump have been tougher on Putin? Would he have taken us to war? How? Putin and Trump buddied up like no president I’ve ever seen.
If it were possible for Trump to stop someone like Putin, I have to assume that there’s some dark, scary relationship between the two. Note that Trump hasn’t condemned Putin’s rampage. All we’ve gotten from him is “If I was president, none of this would’ve happened.” Why the silence? What’s going on between those two?
Either way, if Trump can’t even condemn the invasion of Ukraine, how in holy fresh hell would he play the tough guy if he was president?
For now, you’ll understand why I blame Putin, not Biden, for the invasion of Ukraine.
It seems much more realistic to blame Biden for inflation and gas prices, both seemingly out of countrol. Come on, liberals, he’s been president for over a year now, can’t you admit that he’s the wrong guy for the job?
Personally, I’d be happy to blame him if it weren’t for three very clear facts.
Gas prices have been rising significantly since April of 2020.
6 months before Biden shut down drilling in an Arctic wildlife refuge, or cancelled the KXL extension of the Keystone pipeline (the Keystone pipeline itself is still up and running, folks, and this extension was never built, only planned). If closing these down is the reason gas prices are increasing, why were gas prices increasing 6 months prior to their closing?
Inflation has been rising steadily since April of 2020.
From April of 2020 to the end of Trump’s presidency, inflation began it’s epic leap, increasing 133% by the end of December, just before Biden took office. I heard no Trump supporters losing their minds, blaming Trump, or getting sucked into the anti-Trump memeverse.
Granted, since Biden’s been in office, inflation has gone up by 464%. But is that a leftover effect from the previous administration, incompetence from the current one, or something else?
America’s worst pandemic… like… ever.
How can we so utterly fail to get our heads around this? Nobody in America – none of us: our grandparents, great grandparents, great, great grandparents, etc. – have seen a pandemic like this. I’ve watched as we tried to deny it on so many fronts, cry “hoax!” “sheep!” “conspiracy!” etc. as the death toll mounted, then blame the sitting US president for the financial aftershock that was sure to follow.
How can a country like ours go through a pandemic the likes of COVID and not take a huge $$ hit for it?
And how do we utterly ignore the fact that gas prices and inflation are rising all over the world? Is that Biden’s fault too? COVID hit everywhere, yeah? The entire world is struggling. The pandemic is hopefully wrapping up, but we’re just now beginning to pay the bill.
While it’s clear that life has gotten more expensive under President Biden, it’s much less clear whether or how much he is actually to blame for it. In his defense, life has gotten more expensive for the residents of pretty much every country, not just America. Gas prices are surging around the world. Food prices are surging around the world. Commodities. Manufactured goods…
Us Americans are super bad about blaming the politician we didn’t vote for while utterly failing to see the faults in the one we elected. No self-respecting Trump supporter, for example, would blame him for the Jan 6th riot, or using hate speech like oxygen, or hoaxifying the pandemic, or calling for violence during his campaign rallies, or presiding over contemporary America’s most divided moment. I heard nothing from my conservative friends until Biden took office, now it’s a shit-storm of memes, finger-pointing, etc., while nothing but crickets from the liberal side of America.
I’ll admit that I’m much less critical of the politician I voted for, but I have my limits: if Biden starts using hate speech with any regularity, trying to convince me that the people who don’t think like I do are trying to destroy my country; if he tries to convince me that the people who are most qualified to influence pandemic legislation are trying to mislead me; if he does anything with the sole intention of national division, I’ll speak out just as I did during the Trump era.
Beyond that, Biden will make big mistakes, as all politicians do, and I won’t be commenting on them.
To the idea that gas, inflation, and Putin are Biden’s fault, I’m sure there are things that his administration could do differently. But if your favorite media outlet has left out the three points I mentioned above, I’ll recommend adding a different perspective to your diet.
It’s a little fishy when “responsible media” leaves key facts out of their equation, but to blame Biden for our current mess, that’s what you have to do.
Photo by Yassine Khalfalli on Unsplash
