Russia through the Trump presidency. There were legitimate different angles on how to deal with Russia. But the frenzy across the spectrum and Trump himself made it impossible, and turned it into a binary about domestic American politics and Trump/ism that wasn't a clear representation or helpful. As late as 2020 there were calls to work diplomatically and be more flexible with sanctions, more horsetrading, no chance for that to happen in the environment.

After Russia went for a full war and their initial plan failed, it's good we've scrambled and increased support for Ukraine imo, still think it needs to end asap in some compromise. All the intelligence thought they'd get rolled over (why was that so off? Russia seemed to think that too.) I see another irony of it around 'nationalism', which gets used a ton of different ways pejorative and less so- but this is a 'nationalist' war for Ukraine, and I've read where the UK was able to be so aggressive from the jump backing Ukraine in part because they no longer were a part of the EU. Too much going on to clearly understand for me as a casual, but it's hard to find nuanced analysis of the politics, also what is actually happening on the battlefield.

[Post edited by hoodeyo at 05/23/2023 1:19PM]