The Great Russia Coincidence
Russia, Russia, Russia?
It is received truth amongst the MAGA faithful that there was never anything at all to Russia’s attempts to influence the 2016 election and that there was absolutely nothing to see in terms of Trump allies connecting with Russian operatives during the campaign.
But, as coincidence would have it, Trump sure acts like someone who fits the description of the character seen in the Mueller Report. Certainly, his general behavior over the last decade reeks of a specific and obvious kind of Russophilia (or, to be more precise, Putinophilia).
Certainly, the Russians think so.
Via Politico, Russia celebrates US foreign policy that now ‘coincides’ with Moscow’s worldview.
The Kremlin on Sunday cheered the shift in U.S. foreign policy under President Donald Trump, saying the American view now “largely coincides” with Russia’s take on geopolitics.
“The new [U.S.] administration is rapidly changing all foreign policy configurations. This largely coincides with our vision,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Sunday in a video published on Telegram.
[…]
Peskov also hailed the U.S. decision to back a United Nations draft resolution that refrained from calling Russia the aggressor in the Ukraine war, calling it something that previously had been “impossible to imagine.”
As James Joyner noted in a post, former Russian president and prime minister and Putin ally, Dmitiri Medvedev, tweeted, “The insolent pig finally got a proper slap down in the Oval Office.”
Unlike some commenters, I don’t think that Trump’s behavior is the result of kompromat. I think Trump simply likes Putin and wishes to emulate him (which is, in my view, actually a worse reality than blackmail). All of the needed components to explain Trump’s behavior are pretty much out in the open (or have been revealed via investigation). I don’t need there to be further motivations to understand what is going on here.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, just because the Steele Dossier did not prove to be accurate does not disprove Trump’s love affair with Putin, nor does it delete the reality of Russia’s 2016 election actions, among other connections between Trump and Russia. It certainly doesn’t change current US foreign policy.
Look, if you are a Trump supporter, you have to at least admit at this point that your guy is actively aligning himself (and our country’s foreign policy) with Vladimir Putin’s Russia. So how long before MAGA stops claiming that the “Russia hoax” was a hoax and just starts a full embrace?
Put another way: why defend Trump from the supposed “Russia hoax” when he is behaving exactly as one would expect him to behave had the “hoax” been real?
And how long before MAGA retcons the “hoax” and starts to agree with us who think it wasn’t a hoax, but not because it was bad for Russia to interfere with our elections and to interact with the Trump campaign, but to embrace it all as a good?
If you voted for Trump (even if you did so reluctantly or for whatever reason), please note this is what you voted for. And please note that there were plenty of warning signs about where we would be headed if he won.
The proof is in the pudding, as the saying goes.
The first, last, most essential prerequisite to being MAGA is to be willing to accept a lie and repeat it fervently no matter how ludicrous or preposterous.
MAGA is all about dominance and submission and forcing people to humiliate themselves by repeating absurd lies is the ultimate display of dominance.
Here’s more:
http://www.thedilybeast.com/kremlin-heralds-trumps-foreign-policy-shift-that-coincides-with-our-vision/
@CSK:
Sorry about bad link.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/kremlin-heralds-trumps-foreign-policy-shift-that-coincides-with-our-vision/
Stop the red scare mccarthyism. Trump is following in the giant steps of the great World War II Democrat Presidents Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman. Uncle Joe Stalin.
The Steele Dossier was always raw data, understood by its users as likely to have bad info mixed in with reality. Which it was, as expected, largely true with some bad info mixed in.
@Paul L.:
Bullshit.
@Paul L.:
Speaking of Uncle Joe, Putin and a great many Russians have great reverence for him.
I predict that sometime in the next few years a leading Republican outlet like National Review or The Federalist will publish something along the lines of “Stalinism And The USSR- Were They So Bad, Really?”
@charontwo:
Where can I find a summary of what was largely true, verified and corroborated in the Steele dossier. In a press release from Sen Adam Schiff or the unredacted Trump FISA warrants that primarily referenced the Steele dossier as evidence that were signed, authorized and approved by FBI law enforcement heroes J. Comey, J. Baker, A. Weissman and A. McCabe?
@Paul L.: dude, what flavor is that kool aid that you’re guzzling?
The relationship doesn’t have to be based on “kompromat” to exist; it could be entirely transactional. All those decades of laundering money for wealthy Russians through real estate is enough to make Trump’s Presidency a conflict of interest. Especially for a personality long observed to abandon relationships in pursuit of self interest.
Trump has abandoned his early relationship with widely held “American values” in favor of a more profitable one with his Moscovite buddy. In this he has betrayed his older, established relationship. There is a common name for such a person— give me moment.
@Paul L.:
For those who need definitions I provide the following.
Broadly speaking, a “red scare” is conspiratorial thinking that communists are secretly working to undermine Western democracy/power.
“McCarthyism” is a conspiratorial notion that the US government has been secretly infiltrated and is being undermined from within.
I would note that I said nothing about communism. I am not claiming a communist attack on American values. I am warning about right-wing nationalist authoritarianism.
But even more to the point: I am not claiming a conspiracy. I assert nothing here is subaltern. It is out in the open.
Instead of the secret communists of McCarthyite fever dreams subverting the West, we have, instead, the President of United States doing it out in the open.
Pick your side, Paul L and be honest with yourself as to which side you have chosen.
To my knowledge nothing in the Steele Dossier has been disproven. Which matters not one whit. The Mueller Report, the Senate Bi-Partisan Report, the Stone Trial Transcript, and Manafort’s own admissions all spell out the reality which MAGAts refuse to accept.
https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/steele-dossier-retrospective
There are two theories for why Trump gobbles Putin’s balls.
A) One is the affinity theory. Trump sees Putin as a fellow big, rich, tough guy. So he follows Putin’s line, even when it risks his own image. And it does risk his own image. Even many MAGAts have limits. Fox News has limits. Granted he is mostly Teflon, but not entirely.
B) The other theory, the one I agree with, is that Putin has a hold over Trump, kompromat.
Let me make the case simply: Show me where Trump was loyal to anyone who represented a threat to his status. For that matter, show me where he’s been loyal, period. People have been accusing him of being Putin’s bitch for 10 years. He could have easily dispelled this by openly criticizing Putin. Has he? Ever? Nope.
10 years of being unable to find even the slightest flaw in Vladimir Putin is more consistent with kompromat than with mutual admiration.
Let’s look at what we know of Trump’s personality. He is 100% transactional. So, what was or is the transaction that ensures Trump’s loyalty to Putin? Was there no transaction? Is that consistent with what we know of Trump? He gratuitously, with no tangible payoff, risks his own status to remain a Putin admirer? Really? For free?
Putin allowed Russian TV to openly mock Melania and show her nudes. Trump said nothing. How many times has Trump, or anyone closely associated with Trump, been mocked without a Twitter reaction from Mar a Lago?
The reason so many people have a hard time seeing what, to my eyes at least, is highly likely, is a bias toward normalcy. Draw a circle, and inside that circle is normal. A president who is a traitor is way outside that circle, therefore it’s easy to dismiss.
But the circle isn’t where people think it is. Back up a decade and take a look at what has happened and tell me how much of the Trump era has been within the original circle of normal. Exactly. The circle isn’t where we left it, it has moved. And if, a decade ago, I had traveled back from 2025 and told people what’s gone on, I would have been institutionalized.
Putin owns Trump. MICE: Money, Ideology, Compromise and Ego. I believe it highly likely that the KGB got him on three out of four. Four out of four if you consider transactionalism (word?) an ideology.
Slavery is freedom.
We have always been allies with Russia.
@Steven L. Taylor:
Checking the approved official narratives from the main source of conventional wisdom woke thought.
According to wiki McCarthyism can only be applied to left wing ideologies similar to racism only applies to whites.
@Michael Reynolds: And none of the theories are exclusive of the others.
We’ve seen how Trump loves Bosses, and wants desperately to be a Boss himself.
Like, he speaks glowingly about dictators like Kim Jong Un, even when kompromat and money can’t possibly have anything to do with it.
Which is how he tapped into the Republican Party, since the rank and file are themselves in love with a hierarchical Boss style mentality.
Shortly before the 2016 election New Yorker did a long story about Trumps hotel project in Azerbaijan, completed as a Ritz-Carlton. There were a number of shady actions and partners noted. Just in, for him, routine business activities, there’s likely a ton of possible blackmail material Russia knows of. Or at least Trump thinks Russia may know of. Maybe nothing big and splashy, but embarrassing, and possibly grounds for charges.
@Daryl: Michael Cohen in Prague to set up Russia collusion for the 2016 presidential election.
Is this the standard evidence required for FISA warrants?
@Chip Daniels:
Indeed. He can be a toady and still have a sword of Damocles hanging over his head.
@Chip Daniels:
Indeed.
He has expressed great admiration for
Putin
Kim
Erdogan
Orban
Xi
Dutarte.
He admires, and wants to be, a strongman.
There is nothing about his broader behavior that suggests a reason for his treatment of Putin to have some unique feature.
@Paul L.:
Amigo, you are the one who used the term. Did you have to look at Wikipedia after you used it to get a definition?
Also, of what relevance would racism be to either the OP or your comment?
I’d like to point out that nothing in the Steele dossier has been proven untrue. Some things are verified and some things are unverified, but nothing has been proven false.
Edit: I see other people have pointed this out already. Really important though because the retcon seems to be that the Dossier was false or “inaccurate”
@Steven L. Taylor:
You are the one who corrected my mocking of the progressive Democrat “McCarthyism!!” talking point with your definition that does not match the approved official one.
@Paul L.: Give us a straight answer. Do you think Putin is cool, and America should ally with Russia and spurn NATO? Yes or no?
I love how Medvedev calls Zelensky “insolent”. One can only be insolent in talking to one’s superiors. That’s what it means. Disrespect to one’s betters. This ought to be a non-concept in a democracy.
Have we forgotten that America rejected kings and nobility? Have we forgotten that we cherish independence, and speaking our mind?
@Chip Daniels: Embrace the faith, Chip. Kompromat is calling you. Won’t you answer the call and be
savedjoin those “who know the truth?”@Paul L.: So, you want to explain how racism is relevant?
@Console: I bring it up because many use its lack of confirmation as proof that the entire Russian but was a hoax.
And because I do not base any of my views on this subject on that document.
@Jay L Gischer: Not to mention calling a Jew a “pig.”
@Paul L.:
Thank you for confirming what I said. Nothing has been disproven.
And again, except to sycophants like you, it doesn’t matter. Enough fully collaborated evidence has been found in the meantime. Except the cult members refuse to hold the guilty accountable. Party of law and order, my ass.
@Michael Reynolds: Kompromat requires shame, or legal consequences, if revealed.
Trump has no shame, the justice department is his to direct, and the statute of limitations is almost certainly over.
If the pee tape were real and released, it would be decried as a fake, made with AI by demoncrats and DEI workers, all while the right wing would be taking up water sports.
@Steven L. Taylor:
Same standard. McCarthyism and Racism only apply to the Right/Republicans never to Democrats/Left.
See Democratic Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam racist yearbook photo.
@Michael Reynolds: @Gustopher:
Trump may not even know what Putin has on him. Putin might have told him that whatever it is, it’s so appalling that even the MAGAs would be repulsed.
@Paul L.:
Agree. Putin-puppet Trump using the world’s richest man and biggest welfare queen to purge civil servants based on DEI fearmongering reeks of McCarthyism.
On the other hand, will anyone here stop pointing out that Epstein-bestie rapist Trump is a traitor who continues to collude with Putin against the US and its allies? No we won’t stop.
Paul Manafort admits he passed Trump campaign data to a suspected Russian asset (Business Insider)
The stench of collusion and treason has been all over rapist and traitor Trump for a decade. He will be remembered in history like we remember Hitler’s non-German appeasers.
@DK:
Adam Schiff claims this is illegal but what law does it violate?
@Paul L.:
Why was Manafort compelled to lie?
You bootlicking MAGA slaves falsely claim there was no coordination or collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia — why have y’all persisted in telling this “it’s a hoax” lie? If the Trump campaign passing campaign data to the Russians didn’t break any laws — why lie about it?
Just say what you really believe, Paul: “Trump’s Russia collusion is legal. As a conservative, I believe American politicians should collude with Putin. I and my Republican Party support helping Russians propagandize Americans. Much like I — as someone who worships Epstein-bestie rapist Trump and admires him for publicly riffing on his sexual attraction to his then-underage daughter — would support a 66 year old man dating an 18 year old girl. It doesn’t break any laws.”
@Steven L. Taylor:
That requires the general American public, possibly including some specific commenters here, knowing what communism is and is not.
This tidal wave of obstinate ignorance as a source of pride has been forming for a long time.
Anecdote, fuzzy details, but the gist is absolutely true:
Just the other day, I saw a reddit thread, wherein a user described something the Biden admin did as “communistic”. Note that the action was not some sort of economic program. If memory serves, it was about social media and misinformation policy.
Someone rightly pointed out that the policy had nothing to do with communism; the correct concept would be authoritarian.
Did the original commenter concede that they incorrectly invoked communism?
Nope. The response was a double-down. It was something like: that communists would and have done, so it’s just fine to describe it as communistic.
If one cannot get a misinformed person to concede they were incorrect about something basic– a fact that can be discovered within a minute via internet search, then how the hell are you supposed to persuade anyone else of something more complicated than a simple definition?
@Paul L.:
If you had read the Mueller report you would know the answer. Sadly you only know what the cult lets you know.
Blithely untethered from reality, you are.
https://x.com/RapidResponse47/status/1896217665909469378?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1896262318419476859%7Ctwgr%5E4eb3450d6dcdc7a80f1d99b489416e7990eb9443%7Ctwcon%5Es3_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fhotair.com%2Fdavid-strom%2F2025%2F03%2F02%2Fdemocrats-and-eu-leaders-encouraged-zelenskyy-to-confront-trump-n3800353
My favorite bit of Russian coordination was Trump’s brag in June 2016 that he was going to give a “major speech” with dirt on Hillary Clinton. He made the brag while Don Jr. was excitedly scheduling the meeting with Russian attorney Veselnetskaya, but before the meeting had occurred. Turned out the meeting ended up being a bust and Trump never gave that speech with the dirt he was expecting to get about Clinton.
(The timing of Trump’s public brag to have dirt on Clinton was massively inculpatory given the scheduling of the meeting, but Mueller took Trump at his word that he probably was going to just talk about material in the book “Clinton Cash” which had been published over a year earlier.)
@Paul L.: In other words, you don’t know/can’t explain why you brought it up.
@Connor: Good. Die mad about it. He gave your little punks, especially the one with the impeccable guyliner, the back of his hand.
Not everyone is ready to spread cheeks like you would be.
@Kurtz:
Indeed!
@Michael Reynolds:
Russia is big, lots of area, fossil fuels, various minerals. It is still a bit of an empire, once was more so, and has imperial aspirations – Aleksander Dugin, Ivan Ilyin etc. much admired by Putin. This makes it extra impressive to Trump.
Trump is very stupid, very poorly informed, Russia is still likely a superpower in his failing mind. So impressing Russian leadership is a big deal with Trump.
Gee, I missed all the fun here. As a New Yorker, the rumor was strong that when Trump got into financial trouble in the 80s, the Russian mob (which settled into the Brighton Beach area of Brooklyn) bailed Trump out. This was, mind you, before the wall fell. And it is also believed that the Venn diagram of Russian government, Russian mob, and Russian banks is close to being a circle.
The MAGA’s on the Hill are now parroting Trump’s call for Zelensky’s ouster.
Now, I mean, why would Putin want the guy that’s kicked his ass for three years out of office?
I’m sure it’s just another coincidence.
@Connor:
Garbage in, garbage out.
@Connor: So you’re admitting that Trump got played now?
Interesting move.
@Paul L.:
In what ways is he doing so?
Trump is what he always has been: a crooked, and also rather stupid, mob-wannabe and WWF kayfabe barker, raddled with resentment.
Who was able to channel old-time paleocon talking points, and latch on to the grievances of the grumpy, the self-interest of the Republican establishment, and the (rather contradictory) ambitions of the Christianists and the tech-bros.
It would be hilarious if wasn’t both so sad and so perilous.
The proof of the pudding is in the tasting, actually. But I’m sure we all understood.
Except @Paul L.
@Michael Reynolds:
Part of me believes it is as simple as others loyalty to Trump. Putin has been nothing but supportive of Trump. Pumping up the election fraud myths, telling him he is right on things etc….that is all Trump needs to kowtow to you. He just needs your love, your loyalty – case in point – all of his cabinet heads. All grossly unqualified but nothing but supportive and loyal…all got rewarded with positions of power under the boss.
If it were a normal person I would tend to lean towards what you have said, he has got to have something on this guy. But Trump is far from normal and lives in his perceived reality, which is possible when you surround yourself by people who perpetuate it
Look, if you are a Trump supporter, you have to at least admit at this point that your guy is actively aligning himself (and our country’s foreign policy) with Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
Why do a lot of R’s prefer Russia over Ukraine? Russia clearly invaded unprovoked. Why do they side with Russia?
Why would they prefer Russia over Western Europe?
Jesus H Christ. The day after a timely post headed ‘Please Don’t Touch The Poisonous Toad’, we have another thread rendered unreadable by people who should know better picking one up and feeding it.
Trump is a simple soul. It’s true his approach to dealing with foreign governments is partly transactional, but it’s also subjectively personal, like a thin-skinned teenager navigating high school. He likes Putin and Xi and Kim Jong Un because they have always been nice to him and treated him with “respect”, the way a mob boss should be treated. He can’t stand Trudeau and Macron and Merkel and a bunch of other world leaders because they laughed at him, even to his face on occasions. And that weasel Zelenskyy wouldn’t even do him that little favor he asked for in 2019.
The consequence is he wants revenge on a whole lot of people he dislikes and he’ll happily trash NATO to get it. But he yearns to have Putin as a ‘partner’ because they’ll have fun together.
@de stijl: I’ll take a crack at this one. Men like Putin, Xi and Un have big problems with prosperous democratic republics right on their doorstep. Putin has Ukraine and Poland, Xi has Taiwan, and Un has S. Korea. The contrast between standards of living is too great and too close by to hide completely, and they represent a constant reminder of the lies and failures of the authoritarian regimes. Videos showing Russian troops ignoring their orders to steal washing machines from Ukrainian houses at the outset of the war makes this point. And what are the Chinese to think about Taiwan, where people that look, speak and act just like them live in freedom and prosperity? In order to survive in the long term, the authoritarian regimes need to roll back the rising tide of capitalist democracies. The problem with their strategy that if they get rid of us, they won’t have anyone to sell their shit to. Their populations are all dirt poor and utterly incapable of supporting their national economies. So we end up having countries that live by exports alone feeling the need to attack their customers. It’s a lose/lose proposition. I’m not sure if that answers your question. Sometimes trying to make sense of RW actions can feel like a fool’s errand.
@Fog:
You are brilliant!
@de stijl:
Providing citizens with basic human rights as just assumed, regular shit is just anathema to them.
Weirdos get really weird about the rules around citizenship.
@Ken_L:
I know–and it is my fault. But sometimes, it is difficult not to want certain things clarified. But the process proves, yet again, how pointless it is.
@Steven L. Taylor:
This is so me. Over and over again.
@Paul L.:
Is this the standard evidence required for FISA warrants?
_______________
Still litigating the reality of a proper FISA warrant, I see.
The standard is whether or not a judge finds that a request for a FISA warrant is adequately predicated. As in, the FISA warrant approved in-and-for the situation where Donald Trump Jr. met with known Russian operatives at the Trump Tower.