Mike,
Let me assure you that there was never a red pill moment or that I have came out the other side LOL~ Also, I'm sure you understand that being rational or otherwise level-headed doesn't necessarily mean 2 different persons have to see stuff eye to eye, or even agree on any number of issues. It is absolutely OK that both of us are level-headed people, and yet we completely disagree on stuff lol~
I don't think anyone would be surprised if I were to say that I absolutely dislike Communist China, and while the degree of dislike can ebb and flow, it has always been there. Because of this, I see Trump as the more preferrable candidate in the 2020 US presidential election. I can't remember who it was in this thread that mentioned it, but this sentiment is extremely common among the anti-Communist China folks.
I am not oblivious to undeniable facts, and I know Trump is deeply flawed as a president. I don't even agree with a lot of his policies. However, I also believe that Communist China is one of the biggest threats around to the entire international community. And while world views towards Communist China are gradually changing (to perceive it under a more negative light), no political leader in the world has been more unfriendly to Communist China and meaningfully enact policies that are effective in derailing China's path to dominance than Trump. The couldn't-be-more-vague description of multi-lateral international effort to pressure China back into following international practices simply does not work. Trump has already successfully put China into a chokehold. If the US tags Biden into the ring now and swap Trump out, China is going to regain its breath.
And so what happened in the election?
I see a Democratic candidate whose son boarded the Air Force Two with him to fly to Beijing, and inked a major deal with a Chinese equity fund. In China, all big businesses, esp financial businesses work under the direction of the Communist Party. And in the midst of this state-backed "business deal", accusations are rife that Joe Biden stands to take a healthy cut out of the deal. These allegations are confirmed by Bobulinski, a former business associate of Hunter Biden. (Joe) Biden has denied this, but I found his denial to be extremely weak.
There was of course also the Ukraine deal, the laptop, the emails, the photos and videos. And there was Joe Biden's weaksauce denial, trying to brush it off as "Russian disinformation" while the US Director of National Intelligence, John Ratcliffe indicated that the purported emails were not Russian disinformation effort.
And then I see a one-sided media, both traditional and online, that used every last trick they know to protect their preferred presidential candidate. Other than an extremely small number of media outlets that support Trump, nobody reported on the issues. Social media censored anyone who made this information available on the platform, claiming the censoring is to prevent the spread of disinformation / unverified information when in fact they are proactively violating the fundamental rights guaranteed by the First Amendment.
For allegations as serious as this, even if the allegations were baseless, a responsible Fourth Estate owes it to itself to throw some hard questions at Biden in attempt to clear the air, but that did not happen. Why?
And then after the election, these very same media came back to report on the very same news that they had previously censored. If they were disinformation, why the change of heart and report on it after the election? If they were real, they were they not reported on prior to the election?
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-54553132
Of course, pro-Democrat media took it one step further and started downplaying the seriousness of the allegations.
As you can see, I did not prefer Trump because I had taken the red pill. You don't have to agree with the conclusions that I arrived at, but every step along the way, there is a lot of rationale thought process behind it despite my dislike for Communist China. (And even that dislike for Communist China is born out of facts, but I digress.)
While I'd really consider myself center-right, I also see the benefits as well as the short comings of both sides of the political spectrum. This is why I am a swing voter. Federally, I have voted for the Conservatives as well as the Liberals (but never the federal NDP), and provincially, I have voted for the Liberals as well as the NDP. I belive in the need for the pendulum to swing from one side to the other every now and then, but I will of course not hesitate to help keep a party in power if they have been doing a good job. As I have described above though, I prefer Trump over Biden for the US election because I consider Communist China's bad to be far worse than Trump's bad.
We may or may not agree with the opinions that we have shared here, but I certainly appreciate that difference because it is that difference that brings out a lot of meaningful discussion points.