We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Russia hacks the Republican Party [Y]ou can get it from Robert Zubrin at the staunchly conservative National Review. “Carter Page is an out-and-out Putinite. A consultant to and investor in the Kremlin’s state-run gas company, Gazprom, Page has a direct financial interest in ending American sanctions against the company. Not only that, but Page is tight with the Kremlin’s foreign-policy apparatus and has served as a vehement propagandist for it.”
These are the people Donald Trump hired to hold his hand and tell him what’s what.
He’s not a Russian “Manchurian” candidate. He doesn’t take orders from Moscow, nor is Vlad bankrolling the Donald. There is no conspiracy here. There doesn’t need to be. Their interests and opinions align organically. Trump genuinely likes Putin, and the feeling is mutual.
– Michael J. Totten
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Assume this is true. Maybe, just maybe, a good personal relationship would give Trump the ability to persuade Putin to temper some of his more aggressive postures and actions? Hillary handed over US uranium to Putin. What did it get us? Maybe Trump eases economic sanctions on Russian concerns (you know, like we did with Iran) and this time we actually get something in return? Just a thought.
What I like most about Trump is that all the right people hate him. This “journalism” is a hatchet job, and couldn’t be hatchet-ier if it was written by Debbie Wasserman Schultz herself. (The only known person to possibly lie more than Nurse Ratchet, i.e. Shillary.)
The REAL story is Hillary’s exposed ‘career criminal’ corruption and wikileaks chronic exposure of the putridness of the left. Anyone who thinks otherwise is a foolish idiot and a useful tool of the warlocks.
The TRUTH or course is that Putin LOVES Shillary because HE BOUGHT HER while she was sec of state and paid her tens of millions funnelled through the Clinton Foundation in exchange for her signing off on the Uranium One deal that gave Russia control over 20% of America’s uranium ore production. The official story is that Uranium One shareholders paid the clinton foundation, and that’s a fine explanation…if you’re naive.
Really? Trump has essentially said NATO is a dead letter, because if a Trump USA no longer regards itself as its guarantor, who is going to take its place? France? Take a guess how NATO going away changes the behaviour of every country bordering Russia relying on the threat of NATO. Regardless of what you think of NATO, that would be seen as *the* biggest Russian foreign policy success since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
He is ok with Russia taking Crimea. Regardless of what you think of the current status of the Crimea, Hillary opposes it and Trump does not. So which do you think Putin wants?
Trump openly admire Putin. Hillary does not.
Which of these things is not correct? Yes, Hillary is vile beyond words. But that does not make Totten’s article wrong.
Do you seriously believe that?
I’m under the impression that Trump doesn’t dislike NATO, rather he’s said that other nations need to hold up their financial weight in that enterprise.
I’m also under the impression that Crimeans (crimeans? Crimea-folks?) voted in a majority vote to be associated with Russia rather than the alternative. ‘Shit load of Russians there already.
Trump said the US would not necessarily respond to an attack on a NATO country under NATO Article 5. Well that notion is the corner stone, hell, the very foundation of NATO. So making Article 5 conditional for the first time, NATO loses the very deterrence up which it is based. Has Hillary ever said that? Not that I know of, so who do you think Putin wants? “Status quo” Hillary or “Article 5 is now conditional” Trump?
Saddam Hussain also won every election he ever held. But that is beside the point anyway: as I wrote before, “Regardless of what you think of the current status of the Crimea, Hillary opposes it and Trump does not. So which do you think Putin wants?” Well… who?
Hillary should have chosen Mittens as her VP. I mean, now that the Dems are on board with the Russians being the threat that they are.
Too bad, because the real threat is Iran. And we already know what the Dems think of that.
Way I see it, if you want to vote Trump for domestic reasons, and screw the rest of the world and geopolitics, that is a perfectly valid position to take. After all, it is probable Putin supported Brexit too (and I am of the view he was mistaken because I think it will make the UK stronger geopolitically in the medium and long run)… and yet I still backed Brexit.
But that is not what Totten is writing about. He is writing about Trump and Putin, and Trump is a big win for Putin, whereas Hillary is pretty much just a pale version of Obama with tits, i.e. the status quo.
Quite a few people see Trump as Putin’s preferred POTUS.
When i look at Trump, Shrillary, and Johnson, all what i can say is:
Come back Joe McCarthy, all is forgiven!
It must be comforting to be under such an impression, but the reality is: Trump said that, if Russia (or anybody else) invaded a NATO country, he would make up his mind after the fact on whether that country has done enough to deserve defending. With friends like Trump, who needs enemies?
The EU Army can keep Putin in check.
Or at least keep him out of Czeck.
A common currency and a common defense, shouldn’t be too hard to muster.
I can only imagine what the military decision making process for that would look like.
In old days the usual suspects told us that US Presidents should be friendlier to the Soviet Union to prevent war. Now the usual suspects tell us the next US President should be a sabre rattler who threatens Russia with war if it steps out of line.
Strange isn’t it, when the USSR was a socialist one party State controlling large numbers of formerly sovereign states we were supposed to be nice to them, now is a single state with a nominally democratically elected leader we are supposed to threaten them with war.
Maybe, just maybe, a good personal relationship would give Trump the ability to persuade Putin to temper some of his more aggressive postures and actions?
Good to see the logic of appeasement never dies!
Bullies, and Putin is pure bully, love appeasement. But they don’t temper they actions because of it.
And in any case, what “relationship”? Have they ever met to discuss common issues? This is pure Trumpitis — thinking something positive of a man contrary to his previous behaviour because it is what you want. Trump is not a man who makes many friends, but does make a lot of enemies, yet we are meant to believe he will charm Putin, a man of vastly more foreign policy experience?
Putin holds the key to victory in the US election. If he were to release his copy of Hillarys 30,000 emails two weeks before the election then that would be the end of her, and he would put Trump into the Presidency.
However, Putin will win regardless. If Hillary were to win then Putin, and all others who have copies of the emails (Iran, North Korea, China, Saudi) would own her, and the US Presidency, outright.
Does anyone seriously believe she wouldn’t sell out US interests, security, and the security of the US allies, for her own personal advantage?
Imagine, the night before the high summit meeting, Putin (or China, or Iran) sends an aide bearing a manila folder containing five deeply incriminating emails to the US Presidential suite. What happens to Hillarys negotiating stance?
Whatever he does, Putin is on a winner here.
To be fair I think the usual suspects are really just saying Russia should be threatened with war if it attacks a NATO country, rather that saying well we might. but then again, we might not, go to war if he attacks a NATO country. It must be said the unambiguous approach has proven really effective to date.
Michael Totten knows a lot about the Middle East but I’m not sure he understands Russia. I’d say it’s far more likely the Russians – and Putin – like Trump because he has shown he has balls and is prepared to be unpopular with the chattering classes and speaks and acts in a masculine manner than for any other reason. The Russians didn’t like George W. Bush much but they kind of respected him because he follows through on what he said. By contrast, they think Obama is an absolute embarrassment because he’s such a pussy. Clinton they probably think is some washed-up grandma who has no business even running for the presidency. Russians put a lot of stock on character and personality and hold quite old fashioned views in this regard, I suspect this counts more right now than policies. The Russians still admire Thatcher, and she was hardly a friend of theirs.
If the Russians decided to invade the Baltic states to “liberate” the Russian populations there, the fighting would be over in hours. Does anyone seriously think the USA will risk nuclear war over them?
When Germany was split in two, along with the rest of Europe, NATO made sense. A Russian attack into West Germany would have been the Big One. It would have gone nuclear within days if not hours, and the Russians knew it. They also know that Estonia is not the same.
It was wrong to allow countries into NATO which cannot realistically be defended against a Russian attack, and for which we will not risk nuclear war. Russia views the status of the Baltic states in NATO as an extremely unfriendly act, and if you look at it from their point of view, it makes sense.
I have no wish at all for Russia to invade the Baltic states, just as I had no wish for it to invade Georgia or the Ukraine. But I also know that I would not want a nuclear war to be fought over them.
Estonia wanted to be in NATO and clearly NATO wanted them. An agreement was made and serious promises were made, and it’s appalling how many people believe just walking away is a) an honorable action and b) is somehow going to make the situation BETTER. 8 years of Obama have done serious damage to the US’ credibility, leaving allies scrambling to figure out how to cope in a world in which the word of the US can no longer be relied on.
If you want to end or withdraw from NATO you make your plans quietly, long in advance, and in full and constant consultation with other NATO members, and you build something workable to replace it. This amateur, reckless spouting off about tearing down important structures should not be coming from presidential candidates.
Nor should it be coming from libertarians who always claim to be tired of “stupid wars.” Avoiding same is not merely a matter of throwing up our hands and walking away.
Quite. And the key to avoiding a nuclear war has been everyone taking Article 5 very seriously indeed. For that reason alone I would not cross to road to piss on Trump if he was on fire.
I think Trump is merely fastening on a long-held and growing American perception that NATO has changed from a treaty between fair and honest allies into a relationship where we send guns, money, and guys to protect a bunch of people who spend their own defense money on . . . well, nothing . . . and then trash us as being cheap, warlike, and crude.
Like many Trump positions, I think this tells us absolutely nothing about what Trump will do about NATO if he’s elected.
He’s running this election on memes and attitudes. I doubt he’ll ever acknowledge anything he’s ever said as being a promise of future action.
So, who still thinks Europe and North America ought to be obliged to risk nuclear war to defend Turkey in the event it was attacked? Any takers?
I’m with JohnK on this. NATO made sense in the aftermath of World War 2, at a time when the Soviet Union (along with its Warsaw Pact allies) was seriously threatening world domination and nuclear war was a real possibility. Today, the Warsaw Pact is a distant memory; there is no Soviet Union and many of its former client states are more closely allied with the West than with Russia; Russia itself is at most a regional threat; and whatever threat of nuclear war there may be comes not from Russia, but from such as North Korea and Iran (and perhaps, someday, ISIS or its successor). The US should no longer be a part of NATO, which should be converted into a purely European defense alliance. Whether you want to go to war to defend any of the Baltic states from Russia is entirely up to you, but it’s not the US’s business.
It was a gross mistake to admit the Baltic states, or any of the former Soviet Union members, or even Turkey, into NATO. Has anyone ever seriously thought that the US would go to war (even a conventional war, let alone a nuclear one) with Russia to defend them? It was their admission which vitiated Article V, not anything Trump has said; he is merely giving voice to what every serious student of realpolitik already knows. To pretend otherwise is, at best, self-deception.
JohnK: Neville Chamberlain said it better. Why should Americans or Britons risk anything “because of a quarrel in a far away country between people of whom we know nothing”?
Laird: then it was a gross mistake to garrison West Berlin. After all, the Soviet army could have taken West Berlin in 24 hours if they wanted to, right? And would we fight a nuclear war over West Berlin?
Rich:
The question of who will join in if hostilities occur is not the same as the question of who should be footing the bill between now and then. Do you imply that the USA will cravenly stand by as Putin invades Germany and offer as your proof that the USA declines to finance the bulk of the defense effort of most of Europe?
NATO has an aspirational goal that all members will spend at least 2% of their GDP on defense.
Europe – the frontline countries for NATO’s purposes – is hovering slightly above 1% of GDP, spending about $1.00 per person per day on defense. The USA spends about 5.5% of GDP on defense – about $5.50 per person per day – and a great and significant chunk of that goes to programs that inure to Europe’s benefit.
Wanting someone to pick up the check every once in a while is a far cry from being Chamberlain. That’s like calling me racist because I oppose reparations.
Oops.
The USA spends approximately 3.6% of GDP on defense – not 5.5%.
Perry:
“Trump said the US would not necessarily respond to an attack on a NATO country under NATO Article 5.”
“If the Russians decided to invade the Baltic states to “liberate” the Russian populations there, the fighting would be over in hours. Does anyone seriously think the USA will risk nuclear war over them?”
Perry, you must be very naive to think that USA will go to war against Russia to defend Latvia, or that Germany or France or England would do that.
Trump only continued his shtick of exposing conventional, pious lies. Everyone knows that NATO is a fiction, and Obama (or Hillary) will never go to war over anything less than an invasion of the USA itself.
Maybe it was unwise to say that, but it is the truth.
Hillary gave the Russians the reset button. Obama told Putin he would be more flexible after the election, and mocked Mitt for getting his foreign policy from the 80s. He also told Putin much when he declared a red line that wasn’t, etc., etc. So (after discounting the blatant mainstream media spin – I note that Totten is not part of that crowd), we still have to set Trump in that context. (I’d rather set Cruz in that context but things are where they are.) We know that Hillary’s promises are as worthless as her redlines, and her financial connections with Russia are more newsworthy than Trump’s, though less in the news. The commenter who said Trump was mainly thinking of US voters fed up with taking, whining Europeans is probably right – which just means that his actual future policy is therefore unknown. As in some other cases, the certain weakness of Hillary confronts the uncertain future of Trump.
I’d think Trump stupid indeed if he thought that a personal relationship with Putin will let him persuade the latter of anything – which is not to guarantee he cannot be so foolish, just to disagree with QET (August 2, 2016 at 8:14 pm) that any good could come of any alleged personal relationship. If Trump restrains Putin it will be the same way Reagan did – by looking like he could lose his temper and act. That Putin knows Hillary’s weakness (and probably other material about her) is obvious, making Trump the unknown (less known) quantity. Thus he is, as often, somewhat damned by such very faint praise – not as sure a push-over as Hillary.
Lets look at recent history.
There was the Korean war, 1950-53, 54k American casualties (and wounded and $$$): achievement: a free and prosperous South Korea (a nation of 55 million ~ the size Britain). Handsome achievement, but favoring mostly Koreans, not Americans.
Then there was Vietnam 1964-75 60k American casualties (and wounded and $$$): achievement: Defeat – nothing.
Then there were 2 Iraq wars, <10k American casualties (and wounded and $$$): achievement: More or less nothing. (One gets some good points for killing Saddam, but that is a sentimental achievement, not a tangible one).
It is understandable that the American people (not only Obama and Hillary) are weary of fighting foreign wars to save the hides of other people.
Donald Trump has this special knack of riding popular sentiment, for personal ambition (gaining the Presidency to satisfy his vanity). But the anti-foreign-war sentiment of American people is genuine and justified.
NATO (NATO nations) gave up on Eastern Europe and let it linger half a century (1945-89) in abject poverty and slavery. The assertion that it is different this time around, and that they will now defend it (having miraculously found will and the ability) – is an obvious and transparent false pretense.
Rich:
Acknowledging reality is not the same as appeasement.
If the Russians had invaded West Germany in 1980, half a million US troops were there, and it would have meant World War III. The Russians knew it, and they did not do it.
There are no large deployments of US troops to the Baltic states, and there never will be, because it would be an obvious provocation to Russia. The status of the Baltic states in NATO is purely notional. If Russia wanted to seize them, it would, and there would be no military response possible.
I am sure that if he thought he could get away with it, Putin would seize the Baltic states. He does not because he knows it would destroy his country’s relations with the West, and thus shatter the Russian economy and his power base. It’s just not worth it from his point of view. However, pretending that if Russia seized the Baltic states, the US would be at war with Russia is plainly wrong. If Trump is pointing that out, he is merely stating the obvious, and I am sure the Kremlin could have worked that out for itself.
Perry asked: Do you seriously believe that?
I used the word “maybe.” It is a speculation. But your question suggests you categorically deny the possibility, either because you deny it absolutely in all cases (i.e., that some degree of personal regard between two heads of state could ever have any positive influence on their decision making), or because, like Chester Draws, you know Putin and how his mind works better than I do and have concluded that he is merely a bully and all attempts at working with him amount to appeasement.
I have no idea, really. But I do not accept the contention, whether explicit or implicit, that the apparent regard the two have for one another (apparent, I said; I don’t have the knowledge to know more than what I have read to be the case) can only be a negative, a detriment or disadvantage to the US. If Trump wins, it may turn out that his alleged regard for Putin turns out to be (a) true, and (b) entirely harmful to the advancement of US interests. But that is pure speculation no less than my own. And I did not suggest that this speculation constitutes a reason to vote for the guy. I think some people on this site need to examine their own #NeverTrump hysteria.
The latter, I agree with Chester Draws. We are taking very specifically about the former KGB man who is the leader of Russia. The notion he could be talked into not pursuing his geopolitical goals by whatever means seem the most expedient on the basis of a vague personal affinity seems… peculiar.
There is no lesser evil in the next US election. If I was a US voter I would spend election day on a beach in Cancun slamming Tequila.
The fact Trump pisses off all the right people is indeed vastly entertaining, but it also leads me to the conclusion that a great many who are not those pissed off guys are deeply credulous when it comes to Trump. The only good thing about Trump from my perspective is he is probably the final ingrediant needed to destroy the GOP, which is clearly not fit for purpose.
I suspect there would indeed be a military response, just not WW3. I imagine Kaliningrad would end up being called Królewiec again once the dust settles after a multi-year but completely regional war.
There is no lesser evil in the next US election. If I was a US voter I would spend election day on a beach in Cancun slamming Tequila.
Here is how I see it: the US is the frog in the pot, and the water temperature over the past 20 years (and especially the last 8) has been turned up by degrees so that the frog does not understand it is about to perish. Electing Hillary will simply amount to turning the heat up by additional degrees, and the frog will either perish or be so damaged that it will never recover fully (meaning ultimately it will perish). Electing Trump will be like tripling the temperature. The frog will sense the radical change and try to jump out of the pot before it is too late. Call it Pexit. Either he makes it or he doesn’t. But if he does, he will be a free, healthy frog again. If not, well, he was going to perish anyway, eventually.
The assumption here seems to be that Russia can mount an effective offensive war. Not sure that that is a given. Russia’s army is part-conscript and draws on a shrinking pool of potential recruits. The army could be boosted by conscription for all eligible men, but given that Putin is not an effective dictator but balancing a lot of competing regional power blocks, the effects of doing this could be to lose him support.
Plus I am not convinced the Russian economy is able to sustain a war; Russia would be far more prone than the west to uprisings and internal opposition; and would a war in Europe be in China’s interest (no) so they would have strong incentive to act to shut it down.
Note that in Ukraine, Putin’s intervention has been limited to Russian majority bits. In Georgia to those ethnic areas he is supported in. Russia has power, but is not the Soviet Union any more.
Crimea is indefensible. The Baltic republics are indefensible. Ukraine is barely defensible, at great cost. Poland is defensible if the Germans do their part. The test can be defended by locals… if they do their part. I don’t terribly like Trump’s statements on MATO (that’s an understatement), but if Europe can be made to get a bit more serious about defense by his comments, then it’s not the end of the world yet. The problem is that the Baltic republics can’t really be blamed for not doing enough: there is not enough they can do bc they are not defensible, so picking on them really does project the wrong idea.
Anyways, i don’t believe for a second in an American nuclear umbrella, and IMO neither should Sooth Korea nor Japan (both of which could build nukes quickly, and probably should, quietly). Does anyone believe in an American nuclear umbrella??
These are things that American leaders should say soto voce to any allies thick enough not to have figured it out by now. The U.S. is just not a reliable ally. Post-war history is littered with the bodies of people who trusted us to defend them.
It is also largely un-occupiable. The moment an invading Russian force moved into Central and Western Ukraine, it would experience what the Wehrmacht discovered. Not sure they would be all that welcome around Dnipro either.
Clearly it isn’t. It is capable of mounting a coup de main however, and the best way to discourage that is to convince them it would result in a protracted war they cannot afford.
“I don’t terribly like Trump’s statements on MATO [sic] (that’s an understatement”
Personally, Trump’s statements on NATO are one of the things I most like about him. Now, if we could get him to turn his attention to the UN . . . .
But I agree with the rest of Nico’s comment.
Well I cannot imagine England going to war with anyone since 1707. But yes, I cannot imagine Germany, France and UK *not* going to war with Russia if it attacks Latvia.
For what it’s worth, “National Review” has an establishment conservative/neo-con outlook and is extremely butt hurt about Trump running away with the nomination. I would take their information with several grains of salt. The term “cuckservative” was invented to describe the people who write for NR.
To be honest K, anyone using the term “butt hurt” tends to gets filed in the “ignore” bin on the basis their ad hominem comment does not actually address the issue.
But here is a source who only cares about how Trump with affect them and really do not give a fuck about internal US politics otherwise.
Did you put the Interpreter articles up as serious support for the assertions they contain? Or did I miss the joke somewhere?
Because, from an intelligence-tech viewpoint, they don’t stand internally. Vague assertions of links combined with technobabble and knowledgeable-sounding-but-facile conclusions form the entire argument. Trump and Putin may well share a man-crush, and Putin could be financing and directing Trump for all I know, but these articles add nothing of value to the investigation.
If you already know this, and I misinterpreted your use of them, I apologize.
Re Perry de Havilland (London), August 5, 2016 at 7:08 am, and bobby b, August 5, 2016 at 7:43 am, I certainly have to agree with bobby b that the links read like full-on DNC propaganda of the crudest kind – or else brain-dead. Characterising Trump’s “ask Russia for the emails’ as “a request for a foreign power to hack a computer system belonging to a senior American government official” places the second article for me as a typical ‘ignore the obvious, so to viscously misrepresent’ hit piece. We on this blog, along with many others, have been dying since the email scandal started that of course Putin, the Chinese et al have them. The point of calling Hillary “extremely careless” is to say that a private hacker could also have them. ‘Not sufficiently careful’ would have been enough to let the Russians in. And as the whole point of Trump’s remark is the assumption that the emails have long been in Putin’s hands, it can hardly be a construed as a request for Putin to do anything – except hand them over, as it literally says.
(Being obliged to defend Trump on specific points is tedious – but will no doubt be required in logic from time to time.)
I don’t find the claimed evidence of Russian involvement compelling. It;’s clear that anyone doing this would surface it via Russian servers to avoid the risk of trackback via US subpoenas – or other access – in the west, and would be confident that the Russians already know whatever they wanted to know about it. It’s clear that Hillary’s email security was so bad (so self-regarding) that she and those who worked closely with her were exposed to a wide range of hacker abilities. The Russians are one of a number of legitimate suspects.
Meanwhile, I observe that things have turned around somewhat, but are less than they were:
Turned-around: the west has a corrupt left-wing ruling class who warn against Russian disinformation to distract from their own crimes. The right wing focus on these domestic crimes, not Russian wickedness.
Less-than-they-were: today’s Kremlin is nasty, but less so than the old communists, and their disinformation activities are also less. The west’s right-wing is less corrupt than was the left-wing formerly, and the west’s left-wing ruling class is more corrupt than was its right-wing ruling class formerly.
Apology accepted bobby.
The point is not the merits of the contentions, but to show this linkage is being commented on by all manner of different people and not just “butt hurt” National Review, to use K’s Bevis & Butthead terminology. I could have linked to really a lot of other people as well. A Ukrainian source is interesting though as Obama is not well regarded and Hillary barely even registers, so they really only care about how the next guy in the Oval Office affects them.
Typo: dying since the email scandal / saying since the email scandal
(Perry, please feel free to correct in situ and delete this.)
The points that really do not go away is that Trump would make NATO a dead letter by via stating Article 5 is conditional which makes deterrence vastly weaker, he has no problem with Russian occupation of Crimea and he claims they are doing great work fighting IS in Syria (even as they are bombing various anti-IS forces as well & indeed primarily). He clearly admire Putin. He had advisers with pecuniary interests in Russia. How is he not the Putin dream candidate?
Perry de Havilland (London), August 5, 2016 at 9:22 am: “A Ukrainian source is interesting…”
The Ukranians know, alas, too much about the viscousness of Russian electronic warfare, having been on the receiving end of it. However that can make them blind, or even absurd, if they wander too far west of their subject. The article decries Putin’s support for brexit as a major factor, reads as if the defeats of Hofer in the Austrian election was an honest and desirable result, and generally betrays a willingness to see Putin’s attitude as the key fact in every situation. I agree they don’t care much about stuff outside their field. That’s the problem.
Then you misunderstand the context of why I chose that to reply to K. Dismissing the Putin:Trump affinity as pique over Trump getting the nomination rather than someone else is a daft argument. No one in Ukraine really give a damn about wider US politics, so it is unlikely he is right about National Review either, particularly as National Review have attacked Hillary as well on her interactions with Russia in the past.
I see that the Democratic cheating and dirty tricks are no problem, uncovering them is a problem.
It would be better if patriotic American hackers uncovered Hillary’s dirty tricks, but none were found. So it was Putin who had to step up to protect American democracy and do the work Americans wouldn’t do.
Will Putin get a Pulitzer prize?
I don’t think Putin deserves a Pulitzer, but he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize every bit as much as did Obama.
I have always known that the Democrats were, mostly, no good – and not just the politicians, but the people who voted for them as well.
But I treasured the idea that the ordinary Republicans in the United States (not the politicians – but the ordinary people who voted for them) were decent people. Perhaps far too moderate – but decent.
The Trump campaign has shattered my view of ordinary Republicans – of “Mainstreet”.
The people who voted for Mr Trump knew what he is, they were told repeatedly (by many people – people who had dedicated their whole lives to the cause of liberty) and the behaviour of the Trump voters (their obscene language and so on – read the comment of typical Trump supporters on most forums) showed they knew they were doing wrong – and were doing what they did because they has made a CHOICE to do wrong.
I tend not to expect much of people, so I am rarely disappointed – but these people have disappointed me.
If they had one neck – I would have to fight against the desire to slash it through.
Paul Marks: the great majority of “Main Street Republicans” rejected Trump. His main support came from name recognition and frustrated middle/working-class voters with weak Republican affiliations.
His success in spite of his behavior (and the behavior of his votaries) is the poisonous fruit of leftist irresponsibility over the last generation.
The key moment, for me, is when the left rallied to Bill Clinton after his depravity was publicly exposed. Character did not matter to them – only victory over the right.
Since then, it’s only gotten worse. The torrent of abuse, often obscene, directed at President G. W. Bush. Open lawlessness – by government unionists in Wisconsin, by the “Occupy” movement, by leftist “hecklers” at colleges and universities. Riots masquerading as protests. Extravagant obscenity and vulgarity by leftists routinely passed off as “authentic”. And continual denial, by the bien-pensant, of any problem with immigration, with blacks, with Moslems.
So there was a niche for someone who would respond to the left in the sort of coin they had minted.
Rich Rostrom – many thanks. For example for your defence of Mainstreet Republicans – and for your short (and I think correct) history of how wallowing in vice became popular.
And Donald Trump has proved that “responding to the left in the sort of coin they had minted” is a TERRIBLE thing to do.
“Rules for Radicals” and so on is a manual to follow – it one wants to create Hell on Earth, not prevent the creation of Hell on Earth.
We are all sinners – all of us.
But the left, and the Trump “Alt Right”, wallow in vileness – they make evil their good.
No good will come from this Trump Campaign.
About Obama’s willingness and ability to oppose Putin in a proxy war:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/07/world/middleeast/military-syria-putin-us-proxy-war.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
Yeah, we know, in Latvia it will be different. The French will fight shoulder_to_shoulder, because of Article V, that will guarantee the outcome.
By the way: the US involvement in destabilizing the Assad regime (along with Saudi Arabia and Turkey) was a major blunder. CIA providing arms to Arab terrorists never ends well (see Afghanistan). The notion that the CIA can control the groups it supplies arms to is ridiculous. De-stabilizing Mubarak in Egypt was also an idiocy, that Egypt as averted, for now, catastrophe, happened despite the US involvement and wish, and intention.
Note also the great “freedom and democracy” champions that the US is associated with: Saudi Arabia and Erdogan’s Turkey.
About Trump: he is the quintessential democratic politician – he tells people what they want to hear, in order to get elected. He is the embodiment of “the will of the people” (if he gets elected). He follows the people – does not lead them and doesn’t try to educate them. He is the embodiment of democracy.