James’ post made me think of this:
The road not taken.
But you know “Russia, Russia, Russia” was just a hoax!
Trump is a tough guy whom Putin respects!
Sigh.
The Same Subject Continued
A blast from the past.
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20 responses to “The Same Subject Continued”
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It’s been clear for a long time that he admires Putin, or at least wishes he could run the country with the same authority Putin runs Russia. Still, we shouldn’t forget that with Trump his ego and narcissism always come first. He will quite happily engage in symbolic acts against Putin if it will make him look better, hence his signing of the Graham act. He will also engage in acts to strengthen his personal position to the detriment of the country, hence dropping sanctions.
Steve
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There is no world in which don’t believe that Trump is a Russian asset. Nothing else makes sense.
There is one person on the planet that Trump has not insulted: Putin.
There is one person on the planet to which Trump ignores long standing norms, laws, and treaties to please: Putin.
There is one person on the planet who Trump acquiesces to repeately, often against the interests of the USA: Putin.
It’s going to come out – eventually – exactly what the Kremlin has had on Trump all this time.
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I don’t think Trump has the discipline to not snap at someone who is holding something over him. Anger and petulance are two of his defining character traits.
Putin may well have all sorts of shit on Trump, but I don’t think he’s used any of it — not as a stick anyway.
As a hypothetical, assume Putin made sure Trump got some underage girls in his hotel room and filmed it, to hold over Trump’s head. Trump would be happy with Putin for getting him the underage girls, and the threat would never need to happen.
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For years, Trump bragged about warning Europeans they shouldn’t rely on Nordstream gas, but they wouldn’t listen.
Today we have this development:
BERLIN/WASHINGTON, Oct 8 (Reuters) – Top Russian and US officials, including US Special Envoy Jared Kushner, have held talks about bringing a US investor into the Nord Stream pipelines that delivered gas to Germany before Russia invaded Ukraine, five people with knowledge of the situation said.
The discussions included Kirill Dmitriev, a close adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Kushner, the son-in-law of US President Donald Trump, the people said.Witkoff and Kushner must be wetting themselves with excitement at the prospect of doing all those deals Putin keeps dangling in front of them.
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imuho Witkoff and Kushner are desperate to cash in before Trump departs.
They are stupid.
Germany has invested billions in replacing Nordstream, and there is no viable German government that would permit it to operate.
Even before the Nordstream pipes were blown, Germany was refusing to license Nord2, because of Russian actions.If anyone in the Trumpiverse thinks Germany is about to recycle the Schroder/Merkel naive folly of believing Putin’s Russia was an acceptable partner, I have some nice seaside properties in Kansas they may be interested in.
Also, were I Witkoff or Kushner, I’d worry a teensy little bit about one cold morning when the Ukrainian SSO might come calling.
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… the Gore, H. Clinton, and Harris elections, thank you very much.
In the PA debate in 2024, Trump declared his close relationships with Putin and Zelenskyy would make is easy for him to get them to sit down and negotiate “before I even become president, if I win.” VP Harris replied that Putin would “eat his lunch.”
Imagine how different our world would be if “I told you so” had any political salience.
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As a candidate, almost certainly she was a loser.
Sadly.
However, about Trump’s delusions regarding Putin, she was entirely correct.
Putin will indeed eat Trumps lunch, and possibly have Trump himself for dessert.
Trump, imuho, still thinks of himself as dealing with Putin, Xi, etc as one “boss” with another.
He simply can’t process the reality that almost every other leader regards him as a contemptible fool.
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IIRC the big issue in George Kennan’s 1947 “Long Telegram” was whether Russia was being aggressive because they were commies or because they were Russia. Well, we seem to have the answer clearly before us. But, to Republicans Russia was the enemy because they were godless commies. Now that Russia is Orthodox capitalists they seem reluctant to recognize Russia is still an enemy.
Trump has no political ideology. And I lose track of the varieties of RW lunacy. But some of his minions are of the school that believes the world should be carved into spheres of influence by us, China, and Russia. I’ve never understood why the European hegemon should be Russia as opposed to, say, Germany, which has a much larger GDP. Nor why they think Russia won’t be pulled into China’s sphere.
That said, yeah, Putin has something on Trump, blackmail or profit opportunities. Or at least Trump believes Putin has it. And Putin is certainly a role model for Trump.
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The amazing thing being, Russia is not remotely the “Orthodox capitalist” country US “conservatives” imagine it to be.
Religious observance is as low as in “secular” Europe, and the social instantiation of Christian ethics arguable much less.As for “free market capitalism”, it exists only to the extent that it serves and enriches the state elite.
The “spheres of influence” argument is really rather ludicrous.
The rest of Europe dwarves Russia in economics and military potential, and has no inclination whatsoever to submit to Russian hegemony.
Russia is already de-facto a satellite of China: if Xi pulled the plug, Russia would be entirely incapable of continuing to pursue Putin’s fantasies of domination over the former Soviet sphere.
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In this instance, whatever Russian influence there may be over Trump, the immediate cause appears to be setting up Ukraine as a scapegoat for inflation in general and diesel prices in particular.
The only question is whether Trump is stupid enough to think a “Russia deal” can actually make a difference to prices, or is purely cynical in using it as a blame avoidance tactic.
In addition, some key courtiers, in particular Kushner and Witkoff, and probably the junior Trumps also, are likely desperate to use the last couple of years of Trump’s term to achieve a “settlement” with Russia that enables them to cash in on the scale of multiple billions.
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Trump has a problem regarding his betrayal.
There are other actors in the game.
The Russian cut-off from the SWIFT system is crucial.
And SWIFT is not a US thing, despite the American default to thinking it is, because it generally conforms to Washington’s desires.
It is, however, European.
And in this case unlikely to be so obliging.Europe cannot as yet fill in for the US in regard to full-scale satellite comms (as in Starlink) and intel for Ukraine, or in ABM interceptors.
Once again, and despite plentiful forewarnings, European leaders have till now taken the easy (and cheaper) course of “it’ll be alright on the night” about US reliability.
No matter how much they were told it might not.
Perhaps they might now, belatedly, learn the lesson.
De Gaulle was right.
Europe must become fully self-reliant. -
I suspect Trump dreams of being the leader of a massive oil cartel stretching from Venezuela through North America and the Middle East to Russia. He might finally be as rich as Musk, and even more powerful! Putin may well subtly encourage this dream, which of course could only be achieved once that little shit Zelenskyy is out of the way.
Thus the war on Iran is a war to obtain control of its oil, the war on EVs and renewables is a war on alternative energy sources, the delay in any moves to restore democracy to Venezuela is to allow him to get a lock on the country’s oil deposits, the campaigns to annex Canada and Greenland are to bring their oil under his control, and so on. America getting control of other countries’ oil has always been an obsession of Trump’s.
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This could be part of it.
Trump has long had a fixation upon oil resources, going back to the 1980’s, along with his silly belief that trade deficit is material loss and tariffs as a remedy for that.It fits in with a lot of Trump’s dumbified paleocon concepts of how the world works.
Unfortunately for Trump, along with the entire conceptus being a pile of piffle, there are various other players in the game who have no inclination to conform to his desires.
See eg, in their various and very different ways, Canada, Europe, UK, Ukraine, Iran, China, India, etc.Even when Trump thinks he has a partner in his silly schemes (eg Putin, Netanyahu) they are only trying to use his stupidity and cupidity to further their own interests.
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I wonder what Trump’s reaction will be when he realises that, once again, US allies are NOT going to conform to his wishes.
They are not going to step in in the Gulf to fight Iran.
They are not going to end sanctions on Russia.
They are going to continue to support Ukraine.Will Trump try something really stupid about NATO or tariffs on EU/UK to attempt to enforce obedience?
