Trump, May 2017: 100 days of [unintelligible]

Doesn't seem so complicated, conservatives admire Putin/Russia for the same reason they admired Francoist Spain or Pinochet's Chile. Russia is a plutocratic and intolerant kleptocracy, in many ways a model of ideal conservative governance.

yeppers

"look at this guy, he wrestles bears and tickles children, he must be alright!"

Putin is such a lovable fellow, there's plenty on the (far) left who like him too.

[citation needed]

In Europe, definitely.

is that some "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" shit? cuz I don't see what leftist principles Putin embodies.

(also ftr I don't consider Zizek a leftist)

(xp) That's it, except it's always, "The enemy of the USA is my friend".

I am a Basque dude btw, have hung with sheepherders in the Boise area

OT: Euler! I am here for two months! (see Spain travel advice thread)

i thought everyone except for trump hated/was mad at russia. it really is the only country he doesn't say bad stuff about.

he just really likes russia apparently. he should move there.

Putin's regime p ruthless when it comes to gays and straight up lethal when it comes to certain journalists. I imagine that's pretty seductive for the GOP base in 2017.

hey there's a Basque Country in my new county too! still haven't been down there. have been to Spanish side though

i don't think i've heard a single republican say anything about how trump says nice things about dictators. so scary. thankfully trump has been a pretty inept dictator so far.

Russia love prob feels transgressive for righties who grew up on Red Dawn etc, it's a rush

maybe trump and putin are planning to take over the world together. and build casinos everywhere.

^that's probably very true xpost to Euler

i don't think the love affair really took off until Trump oh so gracefully telegraphed his predilection during the campaign? and hey, it's becoming more apparent for these garbage people that's what's really important here.

enormo- deep dive new yorker article by Remnick and others from a while back posits that Putin experienced the decline of Soviet power as a KGB dude and saw the post '91 Yeltsin era as a deep humiliation: much of what he and his plutocrat peers does is motivated by a desire to regain its clout on the world stage without the pesky lip service towards socialism…

oddly, I remember a few anti-Obama dudes of my acquaintance decrying his alleged socialism roundabout 09, and I thought "why are these guys talking about socialism?" that must have been a widely circulated Rush L. talking point, but it seemed anachronistic to me to bemoan that shit…

it will be really interesting how all this will be viewed 10-20 years from now. too bad the american right no longer has capacity for shame.

Obliged to point out for the hundredth time that Trump doesn't seem to have enacted any particularly pro-Russian policy, has appointed the feverishly anti-Putin Nikki Haley to the UN, set out pro-Ukrainian and pro-Georgian agendas after meeting with Ukrainian and Georgian leaders, etc. He has no underlying consistency in any of his foreign policy dealings other than apparently agreeing with the last person he happened to speak to.

Separately, remember when?

Bono is at the Crawford Ranch pic.twitter.com/yd43vTaBby

— Joe Perticone (@JoePerticone) May 26, 2017

Obliged to point out for the hundredth time that Trump doesn't seem to have enacted any particularly pro-Russian policy, has appointed the feverishly anti-Putin Nikki Haley to the UN, set out pro-Ukrainian and pro-Georgian agendas after meeting with Ukrainian and Georgian leaders, etc. He has no underlying consistency in any of his foreign policy dealings other than apparently agreeing with the last person he happened to speak to.

All of this has definitely weakened Putin! As per usual, you are totally OTM about how if the Russian government were in control of this administration, they are certainly doing several things that make it less than 100% obvious that they are in control.

While he hasn't enacted much on the way of policy towards Russia. His behavior with them has been incredibly curious. Consulting/meeting with them frequently, blabbing intel and shutting off the tapes for calls. He's talked about wanting to lift sanctions - and I'd imagine the only reason he hasn't moved on that is, with all this heat on him, it would be incredibly difficult to pull off.

Meantime, back in the 'war room' and all that

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-eyeing-white-house-shakeup-1495831679

Most of it is a continuation of the rumors that there's going to be some sort of change/shakeup/etc whatever. Buuut

One major change under consideration would vet the president’s social media posts through a team of lawyers, who would decide if any needed to be adjusted or curtailed. The idea, said one of Mr. Trump’s advisers, is to create a system so that tweets “don’t go from the president’s mind out to the universe.”

Alas.

... tho I wasn't aware of the anti-Russian appointments.

While he hasn't enacted much on the way of policy towards Russia. His behavior with them has been incredibly curious. Consulting/meeting with them frequently, blabbing intel and shutting off the tapes for calls. He's talked about wanting to lift sanctions - and I'd imagine the only reason he hasn't moved on that is, with all this heat on him, it would be incredibly difficult to pull off.

Yeah but Nikki Haley though

*Expands NATO*
"It's a double bluff!"
*Bombs Russian allies*
"Excuse me, why no bombs for Russia?"

Time will tell if this is all part of some grand narrative arc being dictated from the Kremlin but, if it is, getting Trump to open it with a bunch of dopey comments about how he admires Putin was an interesting ploy.

He hasn't been able to do shit for Russia yet because he has been under a constant cloud of investigation into his relationship with the Russians! Had this stuff been somehow brushed aside who knows what he or his people might have tried to do his first few months. Or years. But now he can't get away with it.

12th dimensional chess

the idea that there was some explicit quid pro quo that Trump was going to diligently follow through on & take orders from the Kremlin was never particularly realistic or consistent with how Trump makes decisions. The Russians helped him get elected, there was some coordination between them and the campaign, Putin probably extracted some assurances from some flunkies, and Putin assumed a chaotic and/or friendly Trump admin would be to his benefit. But the idea that Trump is secretly following specific Russian orders is and always was ludicrous.

xp, I just thank god you're better at this than the Five Eyes security apparatus. Otherwise we might have reason to worry.

trump totally better for putin than clinton though, right? everyone agrees on that. i think. wait, maybe not, trump is nuts...who the hell knows what he'll do.

i mean having a pro-dictator president has to be better for putin.

Russia doesn't 'control' Trump, so much as the Russians have insinuated many avenues of influence into his administration through financial dealings with his businesses and payments to his aides/advisors. Russia clearly aided and abetted his election, in the process helped to create an administration that is ignorant, incompetent, ineffective, and easily misdirected.

NATO is less unified now. The EU is less unified now. US policy is chaotic and unpredictable, putting alliances into question, leaving more openings for further global moves. Putin has to be generally satisfied with the overall trend, even if Trump isn't handing him Ukraine and Syria on a gold platter. US weakness and unreliability can only improve his global standing.

I agree w all that

But the idea that Trump is secretly following specific Russian orders is and always was ludicrous.

Hmm, ShariVari's entirely predictable series of arguments are premised on a counterfactual that makes little sense. It's almost as if willful misunderstanding is afoot.

Why would anyone do that. Hmm. My beard needs trimming. Hmm.

no idea what yr getting at tbh

I'm being a passive aggressive dbag and calling SV out for being a useful idiot

well duh I get that, I just don't specifically know why SV would have Russian sympathies

ShariVari I appreciate your expertise and insight on international policy topics especially fraught ones like this, and especially when your ideas about how to fit facts together contradict my received wisdom and instincts, but the consistent "if you guys would just pay attention to the details you would see that Trump is not in the pocket of Putin AT ALL" thing is too much for me today.

assuming Kislyak hasn't already gotten to him too. Damn your seductive wiles Sergey!

xp

Seriously how the fuck does one weigh Nikki Haley's sinecure against spilling Israeli intel to the Russian ambassador and say "you know what - that UN post is the bigger deal."

I think it is entirely plausible that there could have been some undue collaboration ahead of the election and that parts of Trump's outlook are more convenient for Russia than Clinton's would have been. It is also pretty clear that Trump is a moron who admires political strongmen.

I also think that a proportion of the people coming up with foreign policy on Trump's behalf appear to be fairly hostile to Russia and that the US and Russia will remain mutually antagonistic for the foreseeable future.

The 'Trump always does what Russia wants!' stuff is annoying - partly because it is factually incorrect and partly because it reduces a lot of the complex and still very opaque nature of the relationship to a cartoon binary.

Putin is such a lovable fellow, there's plenty on the (far) left who like him too.

― Punnet of the Grapes (Tom D.), Friday, May 26, 2017 8:46 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

(citation needed)

― A is for (Aimless), Friday, May 26, 2017 8:47 PM (one hour ago)

salon, counterpunch, the nation and a bunch of other left-wing publications have published some pretty unambiguously pro-putin stuff in the past. here's a pretty odious example:

https://www.thenation.com/article/the-perils-of-russophobia/

There are also pro-Trump leftists.

He hasn't been able to do shit for Russia yet because he has been under a constant cloud of investigation into his relationship with the Russians! Had this stuff been somehow brushed aside who knows what he or his people might have tried to do his first few months. Or years. But now he can't get away with it.

― Josh in Chicago

would love to live in a world where whether or not trump could "get away with" something was a genuine consideration

parts of Trump's outlook are more convenient for Russia than Clinton's would have been.

This underplays their differences, I think.

As for cartoon binaries, that is the fuel of US politics at the electoral level. Every issue, foreign or domestic, is eventually forced into a cartoon binary for the consumption of voters. The real cartoon binary at work here is the image of Trump as super-shrewd billionaire deal-maker who knows how to put Americans back to work and back on top in the world versus Trump as a childish, empty-headed, greedy, carrot-topped buffoon who pays Russian prostitutes to piss on him.

Of these two cartoons, the second, while overblown, seems much the more realistic.

Marketwatch.com editorial: It's time to plan an escape route for you and your money from Trumpland

There are two great dangers when managing your own money and, indeed, the rest of your affairs. The first is reacting too much to recent events. The other is reacting too little.

And when it comes to what’s now happening in this country, the second danger is every bit as risky as the first.

To cut to the chase, it is becoming increasingly clear that Americans should be taking reasonable steps to diversify their investments outside the U.S., including holding assets in currencies other than dollars, and where possible to acquire a second passport.

Yes, I’m serious. Jewish-, Irish- and Italian-Americans, for example, should be checking out whether they qualify automatically for dual citizenship. Others should be looking into their options too. It is always a good thing to be diversified globally and to have the option of leaving the country and living and working elsewhere. But right now it is more important than usual.

It is no longer a certainty that America will remain a stable country governed by an impartial rule of law. You could argue it no longer is.

I am not saying that a further breakdown is guaranteed or even likely, but I am saying it is possible. Maybe things will end happily, but maybe not. What we are witnessing today is exactly how it has happened historically. It goes in steps. Countries do not leap from civilization to barbarism in a single bound. You do not wake up one morning to discover mobs burning books in the streets. The decline happens by degrees. Each step enables the next.
...
When you travel abroad these days, it’s like a cloud lifts. Stepping outside Trumpland, even for a few days, reminds you of what life is like in the normal world. You and your family should have that option as a matter of right.