Going through the comments, it’s mostly Trump being an agent of China, of the Saudis, the Israelis, and mostly a Russian agent.
I unfortunately don’t think there’s a way out of this for the US population unless people start to accept that Trump is a very distinctly American character, the culmination of what the right wing in the US has been working towards forever. And that the problem the US has is an internal one. Trump is an inevitable consequence of the US political environment, and he or someone like him would’ve come to power sooner or later, even if Russia didn’t exist as an external factor. Unless people accept that, I don’t think there’s any coming back from this for the US population. It’s just going to get worse. And it unfortunately will also bring chunks of the rest of World down with it in the process.
As long as it makes him richer…
And if he makes everyone else dirt poor, more power to him.
Of course. That is the goal.
All the Putin jokes aside, I don’t think he’s doing it for geopolitical or treasonous reasons. I think it’s mainly just a by-product of his style of interaction and competition, which exists for very logical (“logical”) reasons and which he’s been able to make work pretty well for himself.
https://snyder.substack.com/p/the-weak-strongman
Snyder says it better than I can, but basically, he is weak and stupid, but he needs to be able to dominate people around him, and so his whole strategy is to attack and weaken, because that’s his only way to be able to compete effectively. He can usually dominate the weakened version of whatever he’s attacking, in a way he never could if it was at full strength. It’s why he shows such innate and passionate violence against anything or anyone that is organized, effective, or popular: Because someday, they might turn against him, and if they did they would definitely win, and so he has to Nancy Kerrigan them before they get a chance.
Again Snyder summarizes it better, but it is also the exact same model that Putin uses, and it’s had exactly the same effect on Russia (taking it from at least a regional powerhouse and functioning country that could accomplish significant things, to being a pariah state that barely functions in the first place even internally.) The strategy only works for as long as there is no one “outside the wall” who can come into the sphere of influence in un-weakened form, and if that ever happens, then the strongman crumbles instantly into impotent rubble. To ever let one of these people get control of your country or organization is basically just a nonstop rolling catastrophe that just gets worse and worse the longer they hold on to power.
(taking it from at least a regional powerhouse and functioning country that could accomplish significant things, to being a pariah state that barely functions in the first place even internally.)
Say what you want about Putin but he has been pretty successful in getting Russia back into the global game after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Now he’s mostly doing this by dragging everyone else down so your average Russian is gaining exactly zilch from any of this, but when you look at the state of democracy all over the West you can’t say he reduced Russia’s international influence.
Back into the global game?
They collapsed from being a global superpower, to selling off their natural resources to enrich a couple of hundred of the worst people on the planet, and beating up their neighbors for oil money and mostly being ignored by most of the rest of the world unless there’s an Olympics or something. Putin didn’t cause all of that of course, but he had a huge amount to do with entrenching the systems of corruption that doomed any chance they would have had of recovering their superpower status as China or Europe did after major catastrophes happened to them.
And now, as of the last few years, they can’t even beat up their neighbors anymore. Sure, they still have a huge impact on the world stage in the form of destabilizing foreign democracies. You’re not wrong about that part. But that’s another example of my point: The whole shtick is just weakening everyone else. It won’t do anything at all to increase their military power, increase standards of living for either oligarchs or common people. It won’t help them win any of those regional wars. And it definitely won’t help them against any threat that comes from “outside the sphere” (bird flu or climate change or whatever). It’s just more Tanya Harding shit.
Wrong again …
The powers that be and corporate owners seem intent on allowing Donald Trump to Sabotage US Dominance.
… dump truck Don is not that powerful or influential and you got to stop pretending he actually has anything to do with power.
Yeah. It’s an internal struggle between American oligarchs for who’d take more of the pie now that it’s almost stopped growing.
Comrade Krasnov doing a fastastic job for his droogs
Welcome to 9 years ago…
And people ask why I support him…
When is it going to stop being “He’s so incompetent, it’s like he’s doing it on purpose!” and start being “Oh, he’s doing this on purpose…”? This has been obvious for so long now.
There hasn’t been a doubt about his intentions for a long time. He is, however, likely taking many actions because someone told him to, he heard a sound bite on Faux News, or he perceived some slight from social media.
I’d say it’s part incompetence, part intentional sabotage. He truly is a fucking moron, but he also hates the US.
He’s easily manipulated by corrupt people, including those who don’t have the best interests of the U.S. at heart.
Like seeing Tim Cook gift him that golden statue so apple gets no tariffs…like everyone can see and stroke his ego.
Which is funny because its like he’s an 8 year old boy. Ohh gold. Doesn’t yet realize Platinum is worth more, etc.
I’ll take Russian Asset for 1000, Alex.
No, please don’t give him that much credit. If you saw him run a casino, you’d swear he was doing it on purpose, but he isn’t. He really just is that dumb.
I’m not saying he’s not also in Putin’s pocket, but don’t try to convince me that he has the brains necessary to make sabotage look like incompetence. He’s nowhere near that clever.
it doesn’t take much intelligence to destroy things under you over the course of 4-8 years. He’s very obviously incompetent because he’s doing this on purpose.
it doesn’t take much intelligence to destroy things
“A bull in a China shop” is a comparison I often use.
It’s fast and easy to break things. Any idiot can swing a sledge hammer at random stuff they don’t understand.
Fixing and building takes a lot longer. Also takes a lot more knowledge, skill and expense.
That was always Putin’s goal. Was known as far back as 2016.
Since 1997, actually, when The Foundations of Geopolitics was published. Brexit is in there, too.
So far, it’s all going pretty swimmingly, though Ukraine is putting up more resistance than anticipated.
Krasnov
One of the very few good things he’s doing.
He has done more to destroy the U.S. empire in 7 months than anyone else in it’s entire history. Good riddance, the world will be better off.
Yes. The goal of this administration is and always has been to hurt America at the behest of foreign interests. We have got to stop acting surprised when the people who want to hurt America, in fact, hurt America.
I mean, same
That’s been the plan since 2016.
since long before that.
Facts! You can honestly go back to Nixon and watergate and even JFK’s assassination to see how and who the GOP really are and have always have been.
But no one in the us seems willing to do anything about it, aside from making the occasional mildly caustic statements online and in govt.
A couple of guys tried. One missed, one got caught hiding in the shrubbery.
