I can’t believe they just canceled you. I believe that you are one of the most thoughtful people that I have ever encountered since the first time that I watched Extra Politics. I don’t always agree with you, but I respect what you have to say. I hope seeing this helps, even if only a little bit.

That’s… pretty unlikely. What would the best candidate be for something that had a chance of getting passed? For the life of me I can’t think of anything.

That’s a good point. The failure cases are the ones that stick out to me, but it’s at worst a mixed record, not one of complete failure.

In the end, we are treated to images of people desperately trying to get onto aircraft as the Americans bug out of their last bastion in the capital after a decade or two of trying to prop up a regime. It seems like our arrogance and hubris has blinded us to these lessons again and again.

It doesn’t matter though, because our adversaries have more patience than we do, and are willing to absorb far more damage than we are or our local allies are willing to take. In the end, patience, fighting spirit and an ability to take severe punishment all overcome military and tech superiority

The main similarity for me is that what seems to happen is the US gets into overseas conflicts assuming that tech and overwhelming firepower will win. Our adversaries adapt guerrilla tactics. We get stuck in for a decade or two, killing many times the amount of people we lose.

The main difference seems to be that the South Vietnamese were willing to fight at all, while the Afghans were not. Even so, on paper ARVN had an advantage over the NVA and still lost. And 30K dead out of a million men isn’t exactly fighting to the last bullet and the last man.

I know the parallel is imperfect (the Taliban is not the NVA) but on at least a surface level it’s hard not to see the fall of Kabul and Saigon as similar. American involvement in Afghanistan may have been better than in Vietnam, but the end result appears to have been the same.

Iraq and Afghanistan?

What’s wrong with Tom Holland? He seems like a thoughtful person, his takes on Christianity are some of the most interesting ideas I have come across recently.

In your view, what can Liberals do to reverse this trend? In your analysis of Cuomo it seems that at least part of the problem is the lack of a message from Liberals and lackluster candidates from their wing. Are they out of ideas, or is it that they cannot communicate them effectively?

Are Liberals able to deliver on those ideas? Things have deteriorated significantly since the 90s and Liberals have often been in power during the time in question. There seems to be an issue with credibility.

And they are unconsciously doing this even while they are trying to spotlight the victims instead of just him. This reminds me of something I heard once about how anti-war films can be perceived or act as pro-war propaganda. It seems difficult to cover topics like these ethically and tastefully.

Maybe “reckless” would be a more accurate term? At any rate what he did was extremely risky, I didn’t interpret “daring” as editorializing but thinking about it further we usually use terms like that for dashing pilots or figures worthy of emulation.

I am very glad to hear that. Wishing you and Elfie all the best.

Any chance of a Porfiriato style breakdown of the collapse of America’s Ancien Regime?

Are there any quality sources that you can recommend on this topic?

Not sure if others are copying because I don’t watch a lot of other content, but yeah, it’s you.

I would say no, because if I asked you for a map and you handed me a globe I would be rather perplexed. To me it seems similar to the question of if Diehard is a Christmas movie argument, or if a hotdog is a sandwich argument. Even if technically true, it broadens the definition too much.