The apples and oranges belong to you. The war was indeed lost, in our left-leaning Congress two years after our military forces left.
As for your
Myth: The US picked the correct side to support.
NVN had essentially lost its war-fighting capability and there was a cessation of hostilities for close to 2 years after we left. South Vietnam had a chance to survive but the Dem U.S. government no longer thought it was worth the cost to support it.
When two things are different, it’s commonly referred to as ‘apples and oranges’.
And I wasn’t referring to some post-exit support or lack thereof - I was speaking about the ‘50s, when we should have been supporting Ho Chi Minh in VN’s bid for independence, instead of the corrupt puppets we ended up with, trying to play nice with France.
We could have had as much influence as China or Soviets in the development of that region had we done so. Vietnam was never friendly with China (as later events proved out), and the Soviets were happy to play the proxy war. Vietnam was one of America’s classic self-inflicted wounds - but that’s hindsight for you.