• star_wraith [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      I think they massively overplayed their hand with the beheaded babies thing. Genocide Joe getting caught lying about it was devastating (btw no way that staffer who said he never saw the pics still has a job, right?). I think Blinken was sent out there to do damage control but by then the spell was broken.

      Like, anyone who wants to believe the beheaded babies thing will continue to do so. But for everyone else, within the span of like 48 hours it went from being this thing everyone thought was true to a meme once they realized how absolutely silly the claim was (and that Biden straight up lied about it).

      • RyanGosling [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        The White House retracted many bold statements from Biden like him recognizing Taiwan as a country before the White House reiterated that they recognize the PRC as the only China lol

        • s0ykaf [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          1 year ago

          there’s no way that guy is actually presidenting

          just like with trump i’m 100% sure he gives some terrible orders and people under him just decide to not obey, going “sure grandpa your order worked wonderfully, as you can see” and showing him fake graphs and shitty photoshops

          • barrbaric [he/him]@hexbear.net
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            1 year ago

            The Deep State (that is, the underlying bureaucracy of the US government that persists regardless of who is elected) quite clearly runs the country. Every elected official is just putting on a show so that people think they have a say in what happens in their “democracy”.

        • PointAndClique [they/them]@hexbear.net
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          1 year ago

          Edit: I done messed up and confused strategic ambiguity with other ambiguity re. the status of the One China Policy in recent times. Thanks to immuredanchorite for the correction.

          The White House does not recognise the PRC as the only China though, they adhere to the One China Policy which acknowledges the status quo of competing claims by the PRC and ROC over Chinese territory and Taiwan province.

          Them backtracking Biden’s gaffes wrt the status of Taiwan as a country is only to retreat to the ambiguous ground of ‘One China’ they currently operate under.

          (honestly, I’m not entirely sure I’ve even gotten it correct in terms of how the USA defines its One China Policy because they deliberately keep it vague to allow themselves maximum freedom to engage with the ROC as though it were a sovereign government. All I know is they wouldn’t go so far as to say the PRC is the only China, that would be seen as too much of an endorsement of the PRC’s own ‘One China’ policy vis territorial integrity and governance)

          • immuredanchorite [he/him, any]@hexbear.net
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            1 year ago

            I could be wrong, but you might be confusing this with “strategic ambiguity” which afaik is keeping the PRC and ROC both guessing about how far the US will take its intervention. The “one china policy” wasn’t ambiguous, it was a necessary step in order to create normal diplomatic relationships with the PRC. But once the US had normalized diplomatic relations with the PRC, it effectively said, “There is only one chain and the PRC is the legitimate government that we formally acknowledge.” That is why all of these recent state visits between politicians in the US and Taiwan is so inflammatory. The US is only supposed to have “unofficial” ties to any other “government” that is supposed to represent China.

            • PointAndClique [they/them]@hexbear.net
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              1 year ago

              Thank you. Yes, I seem to have gotten the two mixed up and further reading supports your comment. The concept of my country’s own One China Policy was raised recently when a former PM visited Taiwan and this has muddied the waters a bit. It’s been a long weekend :/

    • TylerDurdenJunior@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      Then they will just up the propaganda game.

      The more horrific shit they make up, the easier it is to sway to enlightened centrists

      • silent_water [she/her]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        it’s gotta be played carefully. if it comes out as obviously false too quickly, people learn to ignore the source. if they learn years later, they stay pliable to atrocity propaganda. the IDF got too brazen with it so once people cottoned on to it just days after, while the news was visceral and fresh, the whole news cycle flipped on them while they were in the early stages of a genocide.