I have read that discussion over on Sufficient Velocity, and that user's entire argument against both OTL and TNO United States basically comes down to the same line of reasoning along the reasoning of
'AmeriKKKa is an evil, genocidal empire founded by a bunch of racist rich white male landowners on stolen native lands and built on slavery. The country is literally no different from Nazi Germany except for better PR' that I have talked about from earlier when discussing the people that unironically support a Gus Hall presidency.
The counter-argument
(Which, BTW, I agree with) can be summerized as:
(1) Yes. America was a nation founded upon conquest and genocide. But they have stopped doing that centuries ago (For OTL)/slightly less than a century ago (In TNO).
(2) In the TNO world, they are fighting against literal Nazis who ARE actively doing those things.
In which that guy's response being,
'So? The only reason that the Americans stopped their genocide against the native in their version of Generalplan Ost was because they have succeeded in stealing the land from the indigenous people. And no matter how much time have passed, the current regime sitting in Washington in both TNO and OTL is a continuity of the exact same government that enacted Manifest Destiny'.
I find it quite ironic that if I understood one of his posts correctly, that user came from Russia, and someone could equally make that augment against his country both in OTL and TNO as well
(Minus the continuity of government part... Well, maybe unless you are Kemerovo under Rurik ).... After all, what exactly is Siberia but THEIR verison of Lebensraum? Or if you go back far enough, apply the same logic to any Russia land outside of the original Kievan Rus... What? Just because you have stolen those land by conquest back in the 16th/1st century instead of the 19th century like the Americans did with theirs, what you did was somehow OK and does NOT make you just as bad as the Nazis? Does that make even the more blessed and benevolent Russian unifiers as bad as say a Germany under facist Speer or Bormann?
The same line of reasoning applies to China. And indeed, I HAVE seen radical circles online saying that the entire concept the Chinese Huaxia (華夏) nation and civilization is illegitimate, and that everytime the country has been strong and powerful historically such as during the Han and Tang dynasties, it was the result of them going out and conquering or vassalizing the 'barbaric' peoples around them... Hence 'China' needs to be destroyed as a concept in order for there to be peace in Asia, otherwise they will just inevitably become a regional imperialistic hegemony that bullies nearby nations such as Korea, Vietnam, Mongolia, etc... Thankfully, I have yet to see anyone using that line of reasoning to advocate for the idea that therefore China deserves to lose the Great Asian War against Japan, and have the Nanjing Massacre 2.0 enacted against them on a nation-wide level.
It reminds me of this ad that Nando's made about South Africa:
The gist being that if you go back far enough, EVERYONE was a 'foreigner'/'coloniser'/invader' at one point or another. And while we must not forget about our history, being overly focus on that sort of thing does not help anyone in the here and now.