Originally, Moscow simply wanted to destabilize the United States using an old KGB doctrine. Destroy the country from within by stoking hatred, especially racial animosity, gaining control of one party to effectively work against the other. In the 1960s, the KGB tried gaining control of the Democrats through socialist leanings, the Weathermen, etc. By the 2000s, they targeted the Republican party almost solely through the NRA.
Remember back when the NRA controlled Republicans because they controlled so much campaign money? Shortly after it was discovered that Russia was funneling money into American politics through the NRA, the NRA declared bankruptcy. Republican politicians no longer feared nor gained from the NRA. They have made guns one of, if not “the” definition of American freedom and are working for the gun manufacturers directly now, bypassing all need for the NRA.
The seed, however, was already in the ground.
Originally, in 2015, the Russians only wanted to weaken the United States through destabilization, flaming racial divides, and increasingly polarizing the country. The original fake news was born and controlled by the Russian military.
Then Trump took the lead. By January 2016, the Kremlin affirmatively decided to back Trump, who already looked to be the Republican leader. (I cannot find the link, but I’ve read it many times. A formal shift occurred in January of 2016 to back Trump, not just sew chaos).
Soon after, Paul Manafort started providing critical intra-campaign polling numbers and the plan to focus on the midwest, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, primarily to a man all agree is linked to Russian intelligence. The Russians wanted the polling to focus its impact on the campaign getting their victory. At least with respect to the campaign itself, there is no question there was collusion and cooperation.
Russia was now all in on Trump. Of course, it is suspected that the Kremlin knew that it could have at least some amount of control over Trump. Every single action between Trump and Russia says to any reasonable person that the Russians held “something” over Trump and wanted their Manchurian candidate in office.
It worked, obviously, and one of Trump’s first major actions as a president-elect and president was to: Try to establish a “back channel” to the Kremlin. Trump texted out kudos to Putin for not responding to Obama’s sanctions, “I knew he was smart!” already establishing a pattern. Russians over American opponents. And then a serious attempt to lift sanctions against Russia almost immediately, even though the Russians had settled into Crimea and not backed out. One might ask oneself how the Republicans knew at the time that they needed to block Trump with a 97-2 vote to legislate sanctions and keep Trump from lifting sanctions.
Senate Republicans knew that Trump would serve Russia almost on demand, and they needed to set limits. How do you suppose they knew that?
Fast forward to 2018, July 4th, to be precise. A herd of Republicans headed to Moscow for a meeting, “ostensibly” to ensure Putin kept out of the 2018 election, which is odd because it was not a bipartisan meeting: The GOP lawmakers, Sen. Richard Shelby (Ala.), Steve Daines (Mont.), John Thune (S.D.), John Kennedy (La.), Jerry Moran (Kan.) and John Hoeven (N.D.), and Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas), spent July 4 in Moscow’s U.S. Embassy, NPR reported.
Republicans only, invited to the Kremlin (the first Americans to go since the 2014 Crimean sanctions) to… Well, we didn’t hear much about the trip, but we do know that it was at that point that more people in the Republican party began to see Russia as an ally, closer to U.S. interests than Canada, the U.K., Germany, Japan, South Korea, and the invaluable French. It became increasingly acceptable to… at least seem “open” to Russian cooperation, even though Russia didn’t leave Crimea. Why did Russia only invite Republicans?
We all know the rest of the story. Trump demanded that Russia be readmitted to the G7 (G8). The MAGAs were increasingly pro-Russian, “I’d rather be Russian than a Democrat.” John Bolton wrote that Trump planned on leaving NATO at the beginning of his second term.
Meanwhile, Ukraine ousted a pro-Russian president and elected a television star who played the president, and he went from actor-president to actual president. Biden urged the ouster of the corrupt prosecutor who couldn’t control oligarchs Victor Shokin and Burisma.
But sources ranging from former Obama administration officials to an anti-corruption advocate in Ukraine say the official, Viktor Shokin, was ousted for the opposite reason Trump and his allies claim.
Ironically, Viktor Shokin was not prosecuting Burisma when he should have been. Hunter Biden sat on Burisma’s board. Biden went on the side of democracy, not corruption, and against his son.
Trump had to deal with a new Ukrainian president who rejected Putin, Vlodomyr Zelensky. Congress, wholly backing Ukraine, at the time, against a possible Russian attack, had appropriated money as aid to Ukraine:
Trump: “I need a favor though.”
As Ted Cruz said behind the scenes at the Senate trial after the first impeachment to Trump’s lawyers, “Not one person here doesn’t know it was a quid pro quo, not one.” It was all politics.
No one will ever know how much Russia assisted Trump in the 2020 election. There is no proof that they assisted at all, but a common sense presumption is that they did.
And so that’s that, right? A new president, fully backing democracy, fully embracing NATO even before hostilities in Ukraine.
Of course not.
Trump often tells the truth when he says, “Had I been president, Russia would never have invaded Ukraine.” Of course, Putin would have held off. Russia would be too busy collecting the spoils of a disbanded NATO. But without Trump, Putin wanted NATO divided. And that’s where Putin miscalculated for a time.
First, he anticipated running right over the Ukrainians. That, of course, did not happen, in no small part, because Ukrainians had weapons (and surely intelligence) provided by the U.S. and NATO, as solid as ever. The most that Trump could muster was a statement that Putin made a “mistake” in invading and should have lined up its military and negotiated.
At first, nearly all of Congress backed aid to Ukraine. Some of that aid came in the form of weapons. But then some spectacular successes happened, almost defying logic:
Ukrainian officials said that their forces damaged the ship with two R-360 Neptune anti-ship missiles, and there was a fire, information which was later confirmed by the United States Department of Defense. Russia reported the ship sank in stormy seas after the fire caused munitions to explode.
I don’t have a citation, but the reader can determine whether Ukraine got extremely lucky or that American weapons might have been loaded with American intelligence as to the precise location of the Muskva, and a Ukrainian soldier could fire the weapon as surely as an American when the missile, especially if it’s guided with U.S. GPS coordinates. The pride of the Black Sea is now on the bottom of the Black Sea. Luck or very effective intelligence cooperation? You decide. I know what I believe.
As Ukraine got stronger, voices - those closest to Trump, especially, increasingly blamed the United States for “prolonging the war” and spending too much money. Tucker Carlson said he wanted Russia to win, and his show was featured on Russian state television. Suddenly, those closest to Trump in Congress, MTG, Gaetz, etc., didn’t want to spend any more on Ukraine. Gaetz didn’t even show up for Zelensky’s speech. Trump has never, not once, noted that the war could end tomorrow if Putin pulled out. Trump’s message today? Biden will start a nuclear war with Russia.
FIRST COME THE TANKS, THEN COME THE NUKES. Get this crazy war ended, NOW. So easy to do!
First, note that Trump blames the United States and makes Russia the victim (incredible). We send 31 M-1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine, and the next thing you know, we will nuke Russia. We are the bad guys.
Second, yes - very easy to end today. Negotiate with a war criminal who committed crimes against humanity, Vladimir Putin, to reward his mass graves and give him a large part of the country that he wanted through war. Failure to make that deal is the U.S. and Ukraine’s fault. Putin has no agency in this, at least not in Trump’s world.
Third, not a single person on earth believes Trump is capable of saying, “Putin, get your troops out of Ukraine right now! End this war!”
AND QUITE THE SUMMARY COMING UP:
WHY? WHY ARE REPUBLICANS SUDDENLY RUSSIAN ALLIES… IT GOES WELL BEYOND TRUMP
Joe Scarborough said something that has left a punch to my gut since hearing it. It explains so much of what we’re seeing. This needs to be exactly right.
According to the host, one of those conversations happened with “a Washington fixture since the days of Ronald Reagan,” who had previously “expressed concerns about some of Donald Trump’s extremities.”
“He said, ‘Joe, we can replace the U.S. government. It’s not about the U.S. government. It’s about individuals.’ So here’s a guy who’s saying that we can throw away Madisonian democracy,” Scarborough reflected. “We can throw away checks and balances, we can throw away the Bill of Rights, we can throw away the Constitution, we can just get rid of a government that has fed and freed more people throughout history, that’s liberated more people throughout history, that’s keeping the flames of freedom alive right now in Ukraine and in Central Europe than any other country on the planet. And we can replace the US government. That is the depths to which this cancer has spread among mainstream Republicans.”
This “fixture” since the days of Reagan (I speculate it is Chuck Grassley) is now saying - as Joe says, throw it all away. It’s all about the people who are in leadership.
That is fascism, and it explains the slow drift set forth above.
The Republicans are an increasing minority party, even regional in some respects. They hate other Americans more than enemies in North Korea or Iran. Look at how far they’ve gone to tighten elections. Look at the case before the SCOTUS (Already heard in December) deciding whether to give state legislatures full control of who to send to the Electoral College, no court oversight, no nothing. If Arizona’s state legislature wants to send Republican electors, even in a certified Democratic victory, they can send Republican electors.
At least since Trump - and that’s being generous - Trump and Republicans have more trust in Russia, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Hungary… other burgeoning populist countries than our democratic allies, drifting from a democracy into a government where “the people in power matter, we can change government…
Change it into what?
Russia. Russia has a Constitution. It just doesn’t mean anything. Russia has elections. They just don’t mean anything. The victory is assured. Russia has a court system, even a legislature. They just don’t mean anything. What Russia does have is a permanent minority leadership that doesn’t have to put up with your woke shit and can put it down with force. It’s a government of alpha males that start wars to take what they want, and your rights are subject to what “the state needs.” This is so enticing to the modern Republican party.
No true conservative will argue with what I’ve written. True conservatives believe in smaller government, fewer taxes, less regulation, more freedom, and a love of democracy and adherence to what our forefathers built. True conservatives (e.g. George Will) have all left the GOP already.
I’ll leave off with a quote one can find in three dozen sources: “If Republicans ever had to choose between power and democracy, they will choose power, every time.” It’s not a new quote.
And that is how we got to where we are today. Where a fascist invades democratic Ukraine for no reason other than to roll it over. Democracy is fighting for its right to exist. Ukraine is fighting the 21st Century proxy war for democracy against fascism. The stakes couldn’t be higher and Americans Reagan may have sent troops.
Meanwhile, Don Jr. calls the democratically elected president a “welfare queen,” while Matt Gaetz stands and says, “Not another dollar” to the country they want to lose.
They would rather be with Putin than Zelensky, more fascist than democratic, and the implications go much much deeper.
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jmiciak@yahoo.com
Thanks to everyone who made the last article the most-read article on this site ever. This “family” that I intend to grow with a lively comment section (On the website: Much Left Ado). We gained five new subscribers and held the line at 45% readership of every word. That is such a great stat. In five days, we go to at least 50% content payment pledges/plans. Push the subscribe button and chip in a couple of bucks, and I can continue this. These first few hundred are the originals.
BEACH TIME: Back to the Maldives for the 4th time because I really love the scenery (who wouldn’t). Accepting Apps to come with.