The president was gracious but tough, candid but thoughtful, and unlike his predecessor, did not sell out the country to a dictator.

Had Donald Trump been the U.S. president hosting this week’s APEC meetings, I have no doubt that the headline from the event would have been unchanged. It would have been: “He’s a dictator.”

The only difference is it would be Xi Jinping who was saying it to describe Trump.

Other than that, though, a Trump-hosted APEC meeting would likely have been unrecognizably different from the successful and productive forum hosted by President Joe Biden.

    • WoahWoah@lemmy.world
      65·
      1 year ago

      He has the respect of roughly (or over) half of voters in this country. Don’t forget that.

      Whining about how he isn’t liked when he’s currently leading polls seems pretty hollow, don’t you think?

      I don’t like him, but it seems dangerous to make these characterizations when he clearly has a lot of support. Otherwise we will be in the situation again where no one can “believe” he won.

      He’s winning. That’s a problem. You may not like it, and I certainly don’t, but we need to recognize the problem to solve for it. Dismissing half the voters in the United States as “degenerates” isn’t the answer. They feed on that.

  • cyd@lemmy.world
    4016·
    1 year ago

    This is not going to be a popular opinion on here, but when it comes to Asia, Biden’s foreign policy is almost indistinguishable from Trump’s.

    Basically: aggressive ratcheting of trade and tech restrictions on China; gum up the international trading framework (e.g. WTO dispute resolution process); try to woo China’s neighbors but steadfastly ignore their requests for better trade access with the US; discourage Chinese scientists and students from coming to the US. All of these initiatives originated under Trump, and are being continued under Biden, with minor tweaks.

  • ArugulaZ@kbin.social
    256·
    1 year ago

    Yeah, exactly. Next year, you’ll have a choice between an actual president or a human train wreck.

  • spiderkle@lemmy.ca
    1530·
    1 year ago

    And by “skillfully” they surely mean Joe calling Xi “a dictator” shortly after their meeting, while lots of press press was around.

    • rigamarole@lemmy.world
      214·
      1 year ago

      While it’s not ideal, had he said no to the question, the media would have spun it as, “Biden refuses to call Xi a dictator”.

      • pgp@sh.itjust.works
        725·
        1 year ago

        He could simply deflect and avoid the question, as anyone with half a brain would have done.

        • Sconrad122@lemmy.world
          243·
          1 year ago

          “Typical politician Biden refuses to call Xi a dictator”. “Biden’s so mentally incompetent, he can’t even answer a simple yes or no question” ah yes, I can clearly see how these headlines would be so much better

        • Blackout@kbin.social
          74·
          1 year ago

          He was elected in free and fair elections and had opposition each time. Unfortunately people remembered the Republicans from the decade prior that allowed the economy to be fleeced and caused tremendous hardship on everyone, so they had no chance. Then a war happened.

          I guess you were determined to be a troll at birth. Too bad you won’t use that energy to do some good for someone besides yourself.

          • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
            102·
            1 year ago

            It’s very important to the US Right to demonize Franklin Roosevelt as much as possible. His policies included public works projects that employed millions, including artists and writers. He was an advocate of racial justice and general reformer. One of the really funny things is that the Right had to wait until most of the people who’d voted for FDR were dead before they could really unload on him. He was so popular in his lifetime that he won the Presidency four times.

              • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
                2·
                1 year ago

                He’s an amazing figure, no matter where you’re from. He was born rich and became a champion of the poor, overcame polio, and created policies that are still in place today.

          • Jyek@sh.itjust.works
            82·
            1 year ago

            Franklin D Roosevelt was a highly popular Democratic president who served 12 years (elected 4 times and then died in office) as president of the US. Generally speaking, the US has what are called term limits of 2 terms of 4 years maximum as the president. Before FDR, only a couple of presidents even attempted to run for a 3rd term as it was seen as tacky (though not illegal at the time) to try for longer service as the country’s leader. The two term limit was a tradition set by the first president George Washington who had the opportunity to become first literally and then effectively king of the United States after the revolution but declined to serve longer than 8 consecutive years. This unwritten rule essentially went unbroken until FDR came to power with such popularity that his opposition in the elections didn’t stand a chance.

            Efforts to write into law the term limit tradition were spearheaded by Republicans for obvious reasons but in the end they were right to do so. The term limits should be used to stop situations like Putin in Russia and Xi in China who effectively run unopposed out of fear for people’s lives. They are presidents as much as any dictator is president. They may be president in name but effectively, they run the country and manager to always win despite their unpopularity both locally and internationally and if they were to run a fair election, they would simply lose.

            The OP was suggesting that FDR was effectively an American Dictator in the same fashion of Vladimir Putin because of the fact that he was elected so many times. But the fact of the matter is that FDR was an incredible force of popularity in the country and pushed for many changes that impact equality among Americans and his policies, while radical for the time, have influenced both ends of the American political discussion for the better.

            That is nothing to say why Republicans dislike FDR having been such a popular leader. That you may want to do your own research on.

            • stephen01king@lemmy.zipEnglish
              2·
              1 year ago

              Thanks for the explanation. I never knew anything about FDR before this, but he sounds like an interesting person to learn about.

            • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
              1·
              1 year ago

              I find your commnet lucid and thoughtful.

              I’d argue that term limits are actually a bad thing. They weaken a President in his second term, and make it harder for them to push long term programs. The GOP actually screwed themselves, because Reagan would certainly have won a third term, as would Ike.

              Also, in Congress and the Senate. Imposing term limits without campaign finance reform would just mean that the same fat cats would have to find new stooges ever other term.

              • Jyek@sh.itjust.works
                2·
                1 year ago

                I feel the issue at hand is less about the number of years or terms leading, and instead is about how hard each party tries to revert the others progress for the sake of “my party better” even though at the end of the day, the majority of citizens all want the same things and effectively disagree on a narrow handful of topics that the media uses to divide us. If we could see past the manipulation and vote for the leaders that will unite us then we wouldn’t need lifetime appointments because all of the leaders would be working together through time to move our country and world forward.

                But as long as there is money in politics and ne’er-do-wells vying for power that we might allow into our leadership positions, we can stop them from driving our nation totally into the dirt by limiting how long they are allowed to serve. I feel similarly about Congress and the judiciary. Specifically age limits for Congress and both age and term limits for executive appointment supreme court seats.

    • Buffalox@lemmy.world
      193·
      1 year ago

      That’s not even remotely close to the idiocy of Trump:
      From the top of what I immediately remember regarding Trump embarrassing both himself and the USA.
      Trump embarrassing himself during meeting with the president of Japan:
      https://edition.cnn.com/2017/11/06/politics/donald-trump-koi-pond-japan/index.html
      Trump and the magic orb:
      https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/22/world/middleeast/trump-glowing-orb-saudi.html
      Trump bragging and then being collectively laughed at during UN speech:
      https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/watch-trumps-boast-draws-laughter-at-united-nations
      Trump and his idiotic handshakes.
      https://time.com/4797283/trump-handshakes-emmanuel-macron-justin-trudeau-neil-gorsuch/
      Trump soiling himself because he forgot to wear his diaper:
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
      Biden calls Xi a dictator because he is.
      The difference is that Trump is a narcissistic moron, it’s amazing how many people can’t see that.

      • TurboDiesel@lemmy.world
        111·
        1 year ago

        Don’t forget him walking out in front of Queen Elizabeth, leaving her to shuffle past the press behind him. He’s a buffoon.

      • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
        3·
        1 year ago

        Thanks for the compilation. The analogy I’ve been using for years is that trying to keep up with Trump’s follies is like trying to read Lord of the Rings while listening to Game of Thrones on audio and watching Avengers Endgame while riding a rollercoaster in a hurricane.

        • Buffalox@lemmy.world
          4·
          1 year ago

          There are attempts at making more complete lists of Trump being an absolute idiot.
          Such lists tend to outright exhausting, exactly because somewhat like you say, he creates scandals faster than it’s possible to digest.

    • Objects in Space@infosec.pubEnglish
      73·
      1 year ago

      And if he said “well there are lots of different types of governments and we can all work together” or some non answer then the headlines would be “biden refuses to call him a dictator”. It’s a no win so the best course was to say it and smooth it over later because maybe it signals they can both be truthful.

      Lots of good came out of this meeting overall in my opinion.

      • spiderkle@lemmy.ca
        1·
        1 year ago

        yeah exactly. not sure why i’m getting downvoted to hell for just stating this. it wasn’t by mistake, he told it to the press by choice.

  • goldenlocks@lemmy.world
    1276·
    1 year ago

    Biden did not “skillfully handle” this at all. He foolishly damaged relations with China even further by calling Xi a dictator after going to the trouble of planning this summit.

    If you cowards would vote for the Green party or any other party this wouldn’t be a problem. Instead, you support the Democrats who don’t even try to repair the damage the Republicans do. They both get rich from it together.