#putin is no 'savvy genius'

[tomorrowusa]

The murder of Alexei Navalny came during a peculiar week. Putin felt like he could get away with killing off his main opponent after getting winks and nods from his Republican sycophants in the US.

Some people regard Putin as a "savvy genius". But his catastrophic three-day "special operation" in Ukraine, now about to enter Year 3, has demonstrated what s fool he is. Over 400,000 Russians have died so far in his egotistical attempt to become the 21st century version of Peter the Great.

The ramifications of Putin killing off Navalny are only beginning to be felt. It may have speeded up Europe's efforts to further arm Ukraine. Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen of Denmark is donating her country's entire stock of artillery rounds to Ukraine.

Putin may have thought that he's showing the world how strong he is by murdering Navalny. Instead he's sparked another international backlash against his régime.

We need to hold Republicans responsible for their craven backing for Putin. They are holding up aid to Ukraine on the orders of their leader and wannabe dictator Donald Trump.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Arthur Delaney at HuffPost:

Former President Donald Trump kept in touch with Russian President Vladimir Putin after Trump left office, according to “War,” a new book by famed reporter Bob Woodward. An aide to Trump told Woodward he was once asked to leave a room at Trump’s home in Florida so he could have a private phone call with Putin. “According to Trump’s aide, there have been multiple phone calls between Trump and Putin, maybe as many as seven in the period since Trump left the White House in 2021,” Woodward wrote, according to CNN, which obtained a copy of the book ahead of its release later this month.

Trump has spoken fondly of Putin over the years; he used the words “genius” and “savvy” to describe Putin’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, for instance. Trump claimed to have been the victim of a “witch hunt” when the Justice Department investigated his 2016 campaign’s contacts with Russian sources. Woodward reported in “War” that Avril Haines, President Joe Biden’s Director of National Intelligence, said she didn’t know whether Trump and Putin have spoken. “I wouldn’t purport to speak to what President Trump may or may not have done,” Haines said, according to Woodward.

[...] Another revelation in Woodward’s new title is that Trump sent Putin a secret shipment of COVID-19 testing equipment in 2020 at the height of the pandemic, when tests could sometimes be hard to come by. Putin reportedly begged Trump not to tell. “I don’t want you to tell anybody because people will get mad at you, not me,” Putin said, according to Woodward. “They don’t care about me.”

Bob Woodward’s soon-to-be released book War revealed that Donald Trump had multiple phone calls with Russian President Vladimir Putin since leaving office and that he sent Russia a shipment of COVID-19 testing equipment while ignoring our nation during a time of crisis when COVID was ravaging the entire world in 2020.

See Also:

CNN: ‘That son of a bitch’: New Woodward book War reveals candid behind-the-scenes conversations of Biden, Trump, Harris and Putin

[azspot]

President George HW Bush worked with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to unwind the USSR in the hope of creating a democratic Russia. Neither expected Vladimir Putin to turn that nation into a virtual concentration camp where gays are routinely murdered, child pornography is legal (and they’ve kidnapped over 700,000 Ukrainian children), and dissenters are tortured, poisoned, and sent to brutal Siberian gulags. Donald Trump celebrates Putin, calling his invasion of Ukraine “genius” and “savvy,” handing Putin’s ambassador a western spy and top-secret information in his first month in office, and trying to abandon America’s traditional role as a moral leader in the world.

The GOP's Last Stand: Cruelty as Their Final Weapon

[posttexasstressdisorder]

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Cruelty is all the Republicans have left

Thom Hartmann

August 24, 2024 5:55AM ET

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) speaks to members of the press on the steps of the House of Representatives at the U.S. Capitol on May 8, 2024. (Photo by Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)

During the 1950s, Republicans were the party that promoted labor unions, Social Security, and a top 91% income tax bracket and 70% estate tax on the morbidly rich. Dwight Eisenhower successfully campaigned on what we’d call a progressive agenda for re-election in 1956.

During the Reagan years, Republicans embraced Milton Friedman’s neoliberalism with its free trade, opposition to unions, ending free college, and tax cuts for the fat cats. They called themselves “the party of new ideas.” They may have done more harm than good, but for most Republicans it was a good-faith effort.

Today, they’ve pretty much given up on all of that. All they have left is cruelty.

When Governor Tim Walz gave his heartwarming acceptance speech Wednesday night here at the DNC in Chicago, his son Gus was caught on camera proudly proclaiming, through tear-streaked eyes, “That’s my dad!”

The response from Trumpy Republicans was immediate: Ann Coulter wrote, “Talk about weird.” Rightwing hate jock Jay Weber posted, “Meet my son, Gus. He’s a blubbering b---- boy. His mother and I are very proud.” Trumpy podcaster Mike Crispi ridiculed Walz’s “stupid crying son,” adding, “You raised your kid to be a puffy beta male. Congrats.” Another well-known podcaster on the right, Alec Lace, said, “Get that kid a tampon already.”

Compassion for a learning-disabled child is dead on the right: all they have left is cruelty.

Ronald Reagan helped shepherd through Congress the most consequential border bill in American history, and when it needed updating Oklahoma’s Republican Senator James Lankford worked with Democrats to update it in a meaningful way. Trump demanded Republicans kill the legislation, invoking the memory of his tearing over 5,500 babies away from their mothers and trafficking them into fly-by-night “adoption” schemes (around 1000 are still missing) and his demand that the border patrol shoot immigrants in the legs.

Trump’s acolytes in Congress don’t even pretend any more to have a border policy: all they have left is cruelty.

Stephen Miller and 16 Republican state attorneys general are suing for the right to tear apart about a half million American families because at least one member of their family has brown skin and is not yet a US citizen.

Their hatred has almost no limit because all they have left is cruelty.

President George HW Bush worked with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to unwind the USSR in the hope of creating a democratic Russia. Neither expected Vladimir Putin to turn that nation into a virtual concentration camp where gays are routinely murdered, child pornography is legal (and they’ve kidnapped over 700,000 Ukrainian children), and dissenters are tortured, poisoned, and sent to brutal Siberian gulags. Donald Trump celebrates Putin, calling his invasion of Ukraine “genius” and “savvy,” handing Putin’s ambassador a western spy and top-secret information in his first month in office, and trying to abandon America’s traditional role as a moral leader in the world.

Trump’s GOP has abandoned our founding principles: all they have left is cruelty.

During the 2020 election, Trump followers tried to run a Biden/Harris campaign bus off the road in Texas, threatening to kill the occupants (which they believed included Kamala Harris). A crazed Trump supporter broke into Nancy Pelosi’s home and attacked her 82-year-old husband with a hammer. Trump tweeted a picture of the bus being attacked, writing below it, “I LOVE TEXAS!” and repeatedly makes jokes about the attack on Pelosi, as if to encourage future attacks on the families of other Democratic politicians. Most recently, Donald Trump posted a picture on social media of Joe Biden tied up in the back of a pickup truck with a bullet hole in his forehead.

Not a single elected Republican (as best as I can find with a pretty thorough web search) has condemned any of these, because all they have left is cruelty.

Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis turned down federal money that would have fed 2.1 million low-income children in his state; he was one of 13 Republican governors to do the same, in a nation where one in seven children — over 11 million every year — go to bed hungry.

We are literally the only developed country in the world with a massive child hunger problem because all Republicans have left is cruelty.

When President Obama succeeded in passing and signing the Affordable Care Act, it offered every state funds to expand Medicaid to give healthcare coverage to all their low-income citizens with the federal government covering 90% of the cost. To this day, ten states under Republican control have refused to accept the money, leading to millions of preventable illnesses and early deaths.

Republican states could have joined all the Blue states and every other developed country in the world by providing universal healthcare, but refuse to because all they have left is cruelty.

When a 10-year-old girl was raped and impregnated, Republicans like Congressman Jim Jordan, Governor Kristi Noem, Fox’s Tucker Carlson and Jesse Waters, and Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost ridiculed the claim. When the rape and pregnancy were proven and the girl fled Ohio to a state where abortion was legal to terminate the pregnancy, Indiana's Republican Attorney General Todd Rokita promised to launch an “investigation.”

Rokita didn’t investigate the rape, however: he instead went after the physician who performed the abortion. Because cruelty is all Republicans have left.

When Donald Trump lost the 2020 election by seven million votes, he sent a violent mob against the US Capitol. As they tried to murder the vice president and speaker of the house, covered the walls of the building with feces and defaced priceless paintings, Trump gleefully watched on live television for over three hours while refusing to call in the national guard or take any other meaningful action.

Five civilians and three police officers died as the result of his sending that murderous mob because all he and his GOP have left is cruelty.

This week Americans saw Democrats display compassion, care, respect, and reverence for our democracy. We saw the best of this country, hope for the future, and actual plans to improve the lives of Americans.

Last month, in sharp contrast, we watched the Republican convention and saw, instead, a cavalcade of anger, bile, grievance, hate, and, of course, cruelty.

Because cruelty is all Republicans have left.

For customer support contact support@rawstory.com. Report typos and corrections to corrections@rawstory.com.

[worldofwardcraft]

Autocratophiliac.

March 18, 2024

Someone really should come up with a word for a person with an extreme affinity for dictators. Because mob boss Donald Trump's certainly a prime example. Trump's longtime regard for Russian president and war criminal Vlad Putin is already infamous.

Back in 2013, Trump told Larry King that Putin did “a really great job outsmarting our country.” Campaigning in 2016, Trump asserted during a televised town hall, "I've already said, he is really very much of a leader." And only two years ago, he described Putin’s vicious and illegal invasion of Ukraine as “genius” and “savvy.”

But Putin's not the only brutal tyrant Trump esteems. A year ago on Faux News, Trump babbled on and on about China's tyrannical president Xi Jinping.

Think of President Xi. Central casting, brilliant guy. You know, when I say he’s brilliant, everyone says, "Oh that’s terrible." Well, he runs 1.4 billion people with an iron fist. Smart, brilliant, everything perfect. There’s nobody in Hollywood like this guy.

Then there's North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Following a meeting with Kim in Singapore, Trump gushed, “I learned he’s a very talented man. I also learned that he loves his country very much.” And don't forget the "love letters" Trump exchanged with Kim. "No really. He wrote me beautiful letters,” Trump cooed in 2018. “They were great letters. And then we fell in love.”

Only last week, Trump invited Hungarian strongman Viktor Orbán to visit him (the two pictured above as BFF twinsies). During a fete at Mar-a-Lago, Trump burbled, “There’s nobody that’s better, smarter or a better leader than Viktor Orbán.” And added, “He’s the boss and he’s a great leader, fantastic leader. In Europe and around the world, they respect him.”

Plus, unsurprisingly, Trump once told John Kelly, his chief of staff, that Hitler "did some good things." So why does Trump have this strange affection for authoritarian despots? Here's what John Bolton, his former national security advisor, told CNN news anchor Jim Sciutto:

He views himself as a big guy. He likes dealing with other big guys, and big guys like Erdogan in Turkey get to put people in jail and you don’t have to ask anybody’s permission. He kind of likes that.

Trump has already admitted that, if elected president again, he'd like to become "a dictator on day one," put people in concentration camps and "terminate the Constitution." Says Kelly, ��My theory on why he likes the dictators so much is that’s who he is.” And that's the word on Donald Trump.

[mariacallous]

Watching Joe Biden stroll through Kyiv alongside Volodymyr Zelenskiy, flexing the muscles of democratic solidarity under a blue Ukrainian sky, it should be difficult to imagine any US president preferring the company of Vladimir Putin. But it is easy. America had such a president only three years ago.

There is no doubt whose side Donald Trump would have taken had he been in the White House this time last year. He told a rally on Monday that Putin would “never, ever have gone into Ukraine” if he had been president. He reminded the audience that he “actually had a very good relationship” with Putin. Just ahead of the Kremlin invasion, Trump declared the massing of Russian troops a “genius” move by a “very savvy” leader.

Biden’s Ukraine policy has bipartisan support in Washington, but there is a streak of sweaty Putinophilia running down the right flank of the Republican party. In last November’s congressional elections, pro-Trump candidates took positions ranging from isolationism via appeasement (reluctance to “poke the Russian bear”) to regurgitating Kremlin propaganda. Tucker Carlson, the ultra-conservative Fox News commentator, delivers a diet of punditry so rich in pro-Putin flavours that portions are served on Russian state television.

Defeat for some of the more hysterical Republicans in the midterms sapped Trump’s momentum. But the kernel of his foreign policy is embedded in the conservative mainstream – scorn for rules; affinity with demagogues; dismissal of western Europe as a decrepit relic, overrun with Muslim immigrants, emasculated by “woke” ideology.

It would be comforting to think of that as an exotic American dogma, like the conflation of liberty and firearms, unable to thrive in Britain’s more temperate climate. Maybe it can’t, but seeds were sown in the hothouse atmosphere of Brexit insurrection.

In March 2014, when Putin annexed Crimea, Nigel Farage described the Russian president as the world leader he most admired. Eight years later, when Russia moved on to full-scale invasion, Farage blamed Nato and the European Union for provocative expansions into Moscow’s back yard.

This is Putin’s argument, too. In a speech today marking the anniversary of the war, he explained at great length how the west started it. In his warped retelling of history, the Kremlin record of bullying its neighbours is, in fact, self-defence against malicious encirclement by the west using places where Moscow has a proprietary claim (derived from Soviet nostalgia and a refusal to recognise the borders of smaller countries).

This inversion of reality has double purchase on the fringes of western democracies, common to the “anti-imperialist” left and nationalist right. It means rejecting the principle that independent democracies should be allowed to choose their own allies. The leftwing variant also ignores the fact that Russia was once an empire, and that imperial autocracy is the governance model for its current president.

The idea that western overreach provoked Russia to raid Ukraine for land also got an airing in the Brexit referendum, via Boris Johnson. He told a campaign rally that Kyiv’s decision to sign a trade partnership with Brussels had “caused real trouble” and that things had “gone wrong” in Ukraine because of EU meddling.

What Johnson says one day is no guide to what he will later do. He defines truth as any statement aligned with his immediate career interest. But he also believes in his destiny as the incarnation of Churchillian resolve. Happily, those impulses made him swift and energetic in support for Ukraine against fascistic Russian assault.

It is the most (maybe the only) creditable thing Johnson did as prime minister. His critics might point to vanity and flight from domestic scandal as his motives, but that doesn’t diminish the military advantage bestowed on Ukraine at its moment of maximum peril. Zelenskiy’s gratitude was powerfully expressed in a speech to parliament earlier this month.

Zelenskiy’s address also contained a note that doesn’t harmonise so well with a tune that Conservatives started singing under Johnson. The Ukrainian president located his country’s plight at the forefront of a wider struggle to protect the “rules-based world order and human rights”. Those are things that Tory ministers are all for, except when they aren’t.

Universal human rights sound noble and inalienable when projected on to Ukrainians threatened by genocidal Russian mercenaries. Then they are suddenly a nuisance when attached to refugees, upheld by European courts and put in the way of deportations to Rwanda. A rules-based order is something the Conservative party cherishes when it means the G7 and Nato – any multilateral institution, in fact, apart from the EU. Then it is a conspiracy against sovereignty or a disposable nicety that mustn’t get in the way of a purer Brexit.

Treaties are sacrosanct, except when they are signed in Brussels. Then they are feints and holding positions that can be rewritten by one side if it feels buyer’s remorse.

If Britain doesn’t like its obligations under international law it can breach them “in a specific and limited way”, as Brandon Lewis, Johnson’s Northern Ireland secretary, argued of clauses in the internal markets bill that overrode the Brexit withdrawal agreement. That was 2020. Johnson is still arguing that the way to get a good deal in Europe is to pass laws that assert Britain’s right to ignore whatever it signs.

That is the idea behind the Northern Ireland protocol bill, currently stalled on its way through parliament. Rishi Sunak knows it corrodes trust with the EU, stains Britain’s reputation as a reliable partner – especially in Washington – and grinds the gears of transatlantic diplomacy. But hardline Eurosceptics cling to it as the cudgel that will beat concessions out of Brussels.

They are wrong. Sunak’s de-dramatising approach has yielded more technical progress on problems with the Northern Ireland protocol than threats and swagger achieved under his predecessors.

The Johnsonian method also belongs on the wrong side of a wider argument about the kind of country Britain wants to be post-Brexit. It is a hangover from the period when Tory radicals were playing wingman to Trump’s maverick rampage through constitutional order and conventional diplomacy. It belongs to the thrill-seeking phase of Conservative politics when success was measured in decibels of liberal outcry; when it was a kind of sport to denigrate compromise, evidence and expertise as emblems of a pro-European establishment.

That ethos still governs much of the Conservative party. It isn’t Sunak’s natural style, although there is no sign he intends to challenge it. Failing to do so makes him look not only weak, but obsolete – a product of flawed design, the last Tory prime minister in a line that should be discontinued because it isn’t compatible with functional European diplomacy, and no longer meets the specifications for serious government in a dangerous world.

[liberalsarecool]

You don’t have to be a political scientist to understand the Republican Party has found itself on the wrong side of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. 85% of Americans now view Russia unfavorably — the country’s worst rating in over three decades — while GOP leader Trump publicly praises Vladimir Putin’s war moves as “smart” and “savvy” and as “genius,”

So why is the press ignoring the huge political blunder by the GOP? Why aren’t elite pundits lining up to warn about midterm implications for Republicans who foolishly blamed Biden last week, instead of Putin.

The strange silence comes as the Beltway media have spent months obsessing over the midterms — but only from the perspective that Democrats might be headed for lopsided losses. That story has been covered without pause for months, even though the midterms aren’t until November.

Every possible angle has been examined, over and over — Covid might hurt Democrats in November. Inflation might hurt Democrats. Education might hurt Democrats. The supply chain might hurt Democrats. There is been no shortage of media jumping off points as the press appears to be giddy over the prospect of GOP wins in November, and wants to spend the entire year detailing possible Democrats election woes.

Why the collective shoulder shrug when it comes to the spectacle of the GOP’s leader praising Putin as he launches the largest European land invasion since World War II? It may be the most astonishing foreign policy position ever taken by a major American political figure, let alone a former President of the United States. It’s not just Trump. In the days leading up to the invasion, Republicans were lining up to state their admiration, if not allegiance, to Putin, a despot whose political opponents are regularly killed, poisoned, and imprisoned.

Forever presenting Republicans as being savvy and outmaneuvering Democrats, the press remains blind to the possibility that the GOP has miscalculated by picking the Kremlin over the White House. Apparently, only Democrats can be in a state of disarray.

As I noted last week, what’s unfolding within the GOP would have been like in 1990 after Iraq invaded Kuwait if members of the Democratic Party had praised Saddam Hussein. The media condemnations would have rained down without pause, as would have predictions of the party’s electoral ruin

[truthbombmemes]

Feb. 22: Trump described Putin’s aggression toward Ukraine as “genius” and “very savvy,” adding, in reference to the Russian military, “They’re gonna keep peace all right.” Trump went on to praise Putin as “a tough cookie” who has “great charm.”

Feb. 23: Trump issued a written statement touting Putin and admonishing his own country’s president.

Feb. 23: Trump again praised Putin’s Ukraine policy, telling attendees to a Mar-a-Lago fundraiser, “I mean, he’s taking over a country for $2 worth of sanctions. I’d say that’s pretty smart.”

Feb. 26: Trump appeared at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), reiterated his belief that Putin is “smart,” and denounced his own country’s leaders as “so dumb.”

March 10: Fox News’ Sean Hannity all but begged the former president to criticize Putin, but he wouldn’t. “I got along with Putin,” Trump said.

March 26: At a political rally, Trump told a supportive crowd that Putin is “smart,” and his aggression toward Ukraine “looked like a great negotiation.”

April 1: Trump pointed to the duration of Putin’s dictatorship as proof that the Russian is “obviously” intelligent.

#trump #putin #trump2024 #trumprally

#trumpismypresident #dumptrump #trumpwon #truthbombmemes

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/even-now-trump-continues-praise-putins-intelligence-rcna22866

[mckitterick]

As Russia attacked Ukraine, Trump again praised his master, Putin, then licked the war criminal's butt like an obedient dog

Former USA "President" Dunald Tramp again praised the cunning of Russian President Vladimir Putin while lashing out at the current USA President who handily defeated him last year.

“I mean he’s taking over a country for $2 worth of sanctions,” Tramp said of Putin to his rich donors and Republicans at Mar-a-Lago, his private club, on Wednesday. “I’d say that’s pretty smart.”

"Also I'm about to go lick Putin’s butt," added the sleazy fake billionaire.

The words a former president lavished on a foreign war criminal locked in a geopolitical showdown with the United States — and committing the most egregious act of aggression in Europe since Hitler in World War II — would be unprecedented, except that Tramp had again praised Putin only a day earlier, saying his aggression was “genius” and “very savvy.”

The scale and perils of Russia’s attack became increasingly apparent on Thursday after Russia assaulted Ukraine by land, sea, and air, and Ukraine’s interior ministry announced that Russian troops had pushed into the highly radioactive Chernobyl exclusion zone.

Other Republican leaders condemned Putin’s actions.

“Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is reckless and evil,” Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the House Republican leader, said in a statement on Thursday, adding: “This act of war is intended to rewrite history and more concerning, upend the balance of power in Europe. Putin must be held accountable.”

Tramp has long expressed admiration for foreign dictators and strongmen, and for Putin in particular, notably during his 2016 presidential campaign. In that campaign, Trump directly appealed to the Russians to hack the emails of his Democratic rival. Russians made their first effort to break into the servers used by her personal office that same day.

Trump broke with decades of American precedent and repeatedly showed disgusting deference toward Russia, especially his boss, Putin.

full story (without editorial comments) here: X

[collapsedsquid]

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, what went wrong was a rigged election and what went wrong is a candidate that shouldn’t be there and a man that has no concept of what he’s doing. I went in yesterday and there was a television screen, and I said, “This is genius.” Putin declares a big portion of the Ukraine — of Ukraine. Putin declares it as independent. Oh, that’s wonderful.

So, Putin is now saying, “It’s independent,” a large section of Ukraine. I said, “How smart is that?” And he’s gonna go in and be a peacekeeper. That’s strongest peace force… We could use that on our southern border. That’s the strongest peace force I’ve ever seen. There were more army tanks than I’ve ever seen. They’re gonna keep peace all right. No, but think of it. Here’s a guy who’s very savvy… I know him very well. Very, very well.

That’s right we must ensure self-determination of the people of Chihuahua and protect them from a government that oppresses them.

[tomorrowusa]

Just prior to the start of Putin's three-day special operation in February of 2022 Donald Trump, the self-proclaimed "stable genius" referred to Vladimir Putin as a "savvy genius". I think this is Day 526 of that three-day special operation.

Vapid bullying authoritarians only hire or appoint groveling sycophants, so there's nobody around to give them a heads-up on their galloping stupidity.

Remarkably, Trump got caught trying to cover up his cover up regarding the classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. 😆

Trump's ketchup-stained fingerprints of stupidity are all over his administration. Here's another example...

"Incandescently stupid": Former DHS official says he had to "dumb" down classified memos for Trump

We'll likely be hearing many more examples in the upcoming trials.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Stephen Robinson at Public Notice:

A persistent theme at any Trump rally is MAGA’s utter contempt for America, which Donald Trump has repeatedly called a “garbage can for the world.” The MAGA movement is actively hostile to the America that currently exists — a diverse, inclusive multicultural democracy (even if it’s hanging by a thread). So on Election Day, it’s worth unpacking the ways in which Trump offers his supporters the promise of an America that’s eerily similar to Vladimir Putin’s Russia, a white male-dominated kleptocracy with rampant cronyism and corruption where a not-so-free press submits to the will of an authoritarian ruler.

Trump openly admires Putin, a thuggish dictator with a long history of killing his political opponents and critical journalists. At his hate rallies, Trump repeatedly refers to the media and non-MAGA politicians as “enemies within” that might need to be suppressed with force. It’s increasingly obvious that MAGA and Putin’s goals are closely aligned. The Wall Street Journal reported last month that Elon Musk, a close Trump ally, has been in regular contact with Putin and other Kremlin officials since late 2022. This was around the same time that Musk completed his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter, which he later renamed “X” and transformed into an online suppository for hate speech, disinformation, and pro-authoritarian content. Musk’s critics have described the billionaire CEO as a “useful idiot” for Putin, but that supposes Putin has manipulated a clueless Musk. In reality, Musk’s fondness for Putin is just as sincere as Tucker Carlson’s. Carlson, you might remember, earlier this year went on a grand tour of Russia, which he described as superior in every way to modern American society.

[...]

No Kompromat needed

Trump is the leader of a personality cult, so it stands to reason he’d relate more to strongmen rulers. He’s wished that “his people” would stand at attention the way North Koreans do for dictator Kim Jong Un, and he’s called himself a “big fan” of Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Trump said Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who our European allies rightly shun, is “a great man, a great leader.” Orbán respects the rule of law about as much as Trump does. Putin has received considerable praise from Trump, who’s called him a “genius” and savvy” after he invaded Ukraine. “They say, ‘Trump said Putin’s smart.’ I mean, he’s taking over a country for two dollars’ worth of sanctions,” Trump said at a 2022 fundraiser. After his January 6-related indictments, Trump literally quoted Putin, who said the charges against Trump revealed “the rottenness of the American political system, which cannot pretend to teach others about democracy.”

Russian elections are more like predetermined “events” than a true democratic process, but it’s possible that Trump is both gullible and stupid enough to buy the Russian propaganda that Putin commands high approval from voters (particularly women) because of his dominant masculinity. MAGA finds strongmen rulers appealing because they don’t answer to a democratic society that they consider weak and overly feminized. A recent Turning Point Action event illustrated this. Tucker Carlson described America as “a two-year-old smearing the contents of his diapers on the wall” and “a hormone-addled 15-year-old girl slamming the door and giving you the finger.” “There has to be a point at which Dad comes home,” Carlson said, referring to Trump’s possible re-election. “Dad comes home and he’s pissed … and when Dad gets home, you know what he says? You’ve been a bad girl. You’ve been a bad little girl and you’re getting a vigorous spanking right now. And no, it’s not going to hurt me more than it hurts you."

[...] MAGA men are greatly disturbed at the possibility that women voters will deny Trump a second term. Charlie Kirk and Jesse Watters have both complained about (presumably white) women defying their husbands and voting for Kamala Harris. This is the sort of concern one would typically associate with countries like Russia, which has a patriarchal, overtly misogynistic government. Russian women are underrepresented in parliament and earn 30 percent less than their male counterparts. They’re barred from supposed “strenuous” occupations like aircraft repair, construction and firefighting. One in five Russian women face domestic abuse every year, and in 2017, Russia’s legislative body decriminalized domestic violence that does not require hospital treatment.

[...]

The blurry line between Putinism and Trumpism

Musk is a born again member of the Trump cult, and and his personal political radicalization fits seamlessly with Russia’s extremist policies. Musk has argued that the “woke mind virus” is a threat to “modern civilization.” According to his biographer Walter Isaacson, “Musk’s anti-woke sentiments were partly triggered by the decision of his oldest child, then 16, to transition.” Thus, Musk’s purchase of Twitter was both personal and political. He’s vowed to destroy the “woke” ideology that he believes cost him his child, who no longer speaks to him. He believes “wokeness” has “infected” America, and that the former Twitter suppressed rightwing and “anti-establishment” voices.

It might seem absurd that a billionaire would not consider himself part of the establishment, but MAGA has long coded the “establishment” as overly feminine and minority-driven. After California passed a gender identity law, Musk announced that he was moving SpaceX and X to Texas. Trump’s campaign has spent millions on anti-trans ads that air in battleground states on NFL and college football games. Meanwhile, Trump keeps repeating the absurd, sick lie that schools perform ad-hoc gender-reassignment surgeries on students. “You know, they take your kid,” he said on Fox & Friends last month. “There are some places, your boy leaves the school, comes back a girl. Without parental consent. What is that all about?" 

Putin shares Musk and Trump’s contempt for trans people. He’s personally rails against what he describes as the West’s “degradation and degeneration,” specifically trans people, and his rhetoric wouldn’t stand out at a Trump rally. Putin’s transphobia is unchallenged law in Russia, which actively persecutes transgender people. Parents can lose their children simply because they’re trans. Russia’s Supreme Court ruled last year that the “international LGBTQ movement” is an “extremist organization” that incites social and religious discord. Russia’s gay propaganda law bans all public information or activities that support LGBTQ rights or display non-heterosexual orientation. There’s no exception for the arts or education. Indeed, Putin has promoted Russia as a sort of “anti-woke” haven. The Moscow Times reported in September that Putin had approved “an extension of temporary residence permits to those disillusioned with the identity politics and militant wokeism rampant across the West.” In this regard, Putin sounds like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who claims his state is where “woke goes to die.” (Musk originally supported DeSantis’s face-planting presidential run.)

Will America remain free, or will it become like Hungary and Russia? Find out.

See Also:

Vox: It’s not alarmist: A second Trump term really is an extinction-level threat to democracy

[dhaaruni]

It's just sad because I feel like there are so few people - journalists, academics, etc. Who can live up to this particular political moment. It's one thing seeing awful call of duty poisoned redditors treating the war like a spectator sport but a wholly disheartening experience watching people with a TOTALLY un-earned sense of cynicism & savvy handing down awful take after awful take from blue-check accounts. Like this is true for everything but the ghoulishness really hit me yesterday. People here are desperate for a Hollywood underdog story that just isn't going to happen, and I for one do NOT look forward to the change in posture if/when Ukraine falls and I have to start seeing the same tired profiles of putin as a bond villain 7-D chess genius despite all evidence 2 the contrary

I've seen so many people hero-worshipping Zelensky, the President of Ukraine, and I'm just honestly worried about how they'll react if one of the million assassination attempts on his life succeeds. It's really cowardly too like we all know Zelensky would only want to go down if he goes down fighting for Ukraine, but of course Russia wants to shoot him in the back.

It's like this, of course we should have been showing the same empathy to the people of Syria and Yemen, and a lot of people, especially white people, didn't, but I'm glad they're finally realizing the horrors of war I guess.

This piece was so horrifying to read:

[b2bordermanagement]

‘Genius, wonderful’: Donald Trump on Putin declaring Ukraine rebel regions as independent

Contrary to maximum reactions from the relaxation of the sector, Donald Trump has lauded Russian President Vladimir Putin's popularity of Ukraine’s rebel-held territories as impartial as a “genius” move.

Appearing on The Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show, the previous US president gushed approximately Putin’s conflict-like demeanor in his common incoherent fashion.

“I went in the day past and there has been a tv screen, and I stated, 'This is genius.' Putin pronounces a huge part of Ukraine, Putin pronounces it as impartial. Oh, this is wonderful,” stated Trump.

He equated Putin to a peacekeeper and remarked that americaA need to take a cue from Russia’s moves in Ukraine and observe a comparable method on its southern border with Mexico -- in which the Trump management had famously attempted to place up a miles-lengthy wall to hold out immigrants.

“So Putin is now saying, 'It's impartial,' a big phase of Ukraine. I stated, 'How clever is that?' And he is going to move in and be a peacekeeper. That's the most powerful peace force. We ought to use that on our southern border,” he stated.

The United States’ condemnation of Russia’s moves notwithstanding, Trump went on to explain Putin as a “savvy” man whom he knows “very well”. He additionally claimed that “this in no way might have happened” together along with his management.

This changed into Trump’s first public assertion at the escalating tensions among Russia and Ukraine that's sending tremors thru Europe and sparking fears withinside the relaxation of the sector that an all-out conflict is imminent.

Since Putin’s statement to recognize the independence of Donetsk and Luhansk, Russian troops have moved into the 2 rebel-held regions in jap Ukraine.

The White House has termed the Russian troop deployments in jap Ukraine as an “invasion”, with President Joe Biden slapping punitive sanctions on Moscow for its unabated aggression toward its neighbour.

In the past, too, Donald Trump has sided with Putin on some of occasions. He famously absolved the Russian most desirable of any involvement in manipulating the 2016 presidential elections -- which he received via way of means of sweeping the electoral university however dropping the famous vote -- notwithstanding a record via way of means of US intelligence organizations that pinpointed Russia.

[bobby76love]

Putin said the same about Ukraine. QUOTE of "Don the Con": Putin's genius with a savvy strategy." We ALL know how that savvy strategy worked out, Don't We?

[xtruss]

The Myth of Putin as World Energy Czar is Running Out of Gas

— By Jeffrey Sonnenfeld and Steven Tian | July 25, 2022 | Commentry | Energy | Fortune.Com

Vladimir Putin speaks at an economic forum in Moscow on July 20. The Russian president has been blaming Western for oil supply disruptions. Getty Images

There is something gaseous about the alarm of some of the current energy commentators in the media. The familiar echo chamber is filled with the voices of industry spectators, speaking over the accurate nuanced perspectives of authoritative, objective industry experts.

The dramatic coverage and media commentary are filled with fact-free speculation and dark, foreboding images of a savvy, smirking triumphant Vladimir Putin splintering the West. Many of these voices imply that Putin holds the grand puppeteer position on energy issues, with enormous economic leverage over the rest of the world, worsened by weak Western governments that are supposedly asleep at the switch, divided amongst themselves, or reflexively hostile on energy challenges plunging Western nations into Russia-induced recession.

The unrelated changes in governments in the UK, Italy, and Israel, along with a closer contest in France, get thrown into such discussions. Of course, that is a canard, as those government changes are over unique internal political matters.

Sure, it is fun to throw bean bags at the Biden administration’s energy policies–but the alarmist image that business media narratives have relentlessly promoted is not supported by the facts. In fact, quite the opposite is happening under the surface, even if it has been little trumpeted.

Genuine energy experts have pointed out that there is no coherent brilliant economic strategy underlying Putin’s energy reactive machinations, especially as the Russian economy implodes and Russia’s status as an energy exporter deteriorates significantly.

As energy scholar Dan Yergin wrote, “in just a few weeks, Putin has destroyed the internationalized economy he has been building for more than 20 years, as well as the reputation Russia has cultivated as a reliable supplier….what he has done is to undermine and debase Russia’s most important source of economic power.” In short, Putin made “an enormous miscalculation”, or as experts Jason Bordoff and Megan O’Sullivan put it, the entire exercise has been “self-defeating for Putin economically”.

Indeed, from a purely economic perspective, Putin needs European markets far more than the world needs Russian energy supplies. Last year, Europe imported 46% of its energy from Russia–but Russia exported 83% of its energy to Europe!

Despite Putin’s much-hyped “pivot to the East” to replace the lost, erstwhile primary market in Europe, Asian countries are driving a $35 discount with overflowing excess Russian oil. At the same time, Russia can hardly re-direct piped natural gas away from Europe considering 90% of its existing pipeline infrastructure flows to Europe, not Asia. There is only one operational gas pipeline from Russia to China or India, reflected by the 16.5 bcm of gas sent to China in 2021 compared to 170 bcm sent to Europe.

As our new, original economic analysis reveals, Putin’s new ploys such as withholding gas from Europe actually hurt the Russian economy many times more than it hurts Europe–and the loss of oil and gas revenue is nothing short of catastrophic for Russia given record government spending, a budget deficit equivalent to two percent of GDP, and dwindling rainy-day funds.

As we proved in the number-one ranked scholarly paper in the online journal SSRN, Putin’s decaying energy position is just one dimension of a systematic collapse of the Russian economy. Clearly, there is no economic genius or market savvy driving Putin’s disruptive energy hijinks.

Rather, the Russian president’s strategy appears to be a classic tactic of divide and conquer–the timeless tool of insecure autocrats dealing from a position of weakness. He aims to sow as much chaos and panic and drive as many wedges as possible in the face of unified opposition.

The bet that Putin appears to be making is that by forcing difficult economic trade-offs, price pressures, and transitory supply disruptions on anxious electorates and by pitting countries against each other, resolve amongst Western democracies may weaken and ultimately break. It seems to be based on a cynical, transparent gambit that the authoritarian regime in Russia is better positioned to withstand crippling economic pain which is already many times worse than anything experienced by the West.

Unfortunately for Putin, besides the Cassandra-like handwringing of some misguided media commentators, there remains little evidence that his efforts to lever energy as the wedge to divide civil society are paying any concrete dividends.

Far from being passive and hostile spectators, policymakers on both sides of the Atlantic largely recognize the pressing energy challenges and are taking decisive collective action accordingly.

According to oil hedge fund manager Pierre Andurand, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has paradoxically brought more oil to the global market, not less. Strategic reserves around the world have released an unprecedented 240 million barrels–a figure that exceeds lost Russian production by a healthy margin.

In the U.S., the energy spigots have hardly been turned off with 3,557 permits for oil and gas drilling on public lands in its first year, far outpacing the Trump Administration’s first year total of 2,658. To the ire of environmentalists, the Biden Administration just this month reversed course in opening up oil and gas drilling leases in the federal waters off the coast of Alaska and in the Gulf of Mexico.

The U.S. is now running with record levels of natural gas and LNG production, and near-record highs of oil production at 12 million barrels per day. According to Energy Special Envoy Amos Hochstein, more supply is coming on the market from domestic producers and OPEC+ as a result of improved public-private partnership domestically and diplomatic overtures internationally after what many thought were initially turbulent starts on both fronts. Indeed, while prices are always influenced by a confluence of factors, domestic oil and gas prices are now below where they were at the start of the invasion in February.

In Europe, where the specter of natural gas rationing imposes more dramatic challenges, it is important to note that EU policymakers uniformly recognize the importance of solidarity with Ukraine, even as they work through specific esoteric areas of dispute. They are rising to the moment. Western media would be wise to acknowledge such resolve as the price of freedom instead of hyping-up threats that play into Putin’s mythmaking.

During WWII, FDR ignored the isolationist voices of appeasement as he took on another murderous imperialist bully. The five tiers of gas rationing in the U.S. from 1941 to 1945 led to a 32% reduction in usage–and somehow the republic did not collapse. While we may not be as great as “the Great Generation”, surely we can learn from them that freedom requires some investment.

These convictions appear to be very widely held. A recent survey by Morning Consult found that 85% of Americans support continued support for Ukraine against Russia, with comparable levels of support across political parties–and confirmed little has changed since the start of the invasion. Similar surveys have shown comparable levels of support across much of Europe, even in the face of difficult gas rationing challenges.

As National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan confided at the Aspen Security Forum last week, “there is still upward pressure on governments to do more, to go further with respect to sanctions. At the same time, all the headlines are saying there is flagging interest in Russia-Ukraine”.

The only way to stand up to an authoritarian bully of Putin’s type is by remaining united in collective opposition.

Despite the riveting doomsday coverage designed for TV audiences and the fact-free cynical skepticism, the facts suggest that when it comes to energy challenges, it is Putin who is running out of gas while the West has been busy refueling elsewhere, even if the path in getting here has been, and continues to be, noisy and far from linear.

Jeffrey Sonnenfeld

— Jeffrey Sonnenfeld is the Lester Crown Professor in Management Practice and Senior Associate Dean at Yale School of Management. Steven Tian is the director of research at the Yale Chief Executive Leadership Institute. The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.