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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsHow Russia Mercilessly Played Trump for a Fool
From Vanity Fair late yesterday, subhead "He and his coterie of idiots, nihilists, and opportunists were the perfect prey for Putins spell":
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/07/how-russia-played-trump-for-a-fool
-snip-
All this seems to have been lost on Trump, his retinue of loyalists and hangers-on, and the odd assortment of tertiary characters, like Russian recruitment target Carter Page, who peopled Trumps campaign. These are not the best Americans. They are nihilists à la Steve Bannon, idiots like Page, neophytes like Trump Jr., or opportunists like Manafort. They have acquired, over many months of politicking and quasi-governing, the language of the patriot without understanding what they are saying. Not only that. Their pretend patriotism, their ignorance of American history, its poetries and injustices, its constant existential confrontation with itself, leaves them especially susceptible to the allure of the authoritarian. There is a logic and clarity to the authoritarian, with his shiny toys and Potemkin bullet trains and airport terminals. The authoritarian knows how to put on a good show, and these people love to be dazzled. They are vulnerable to Putin because they admire him while not understanding where he comes from nor who he is. They have no idea whom they are doing combat with. They do not even know that they are engaged in battle, and that the battle is already won.
The ironies are legion. The American, we are often told, is like a child incapable of memory formation, constantly learning and relearning the lessons everyone else has known for centuries. There is something indisputable about this. We have a tendency to believe that it is incumbent upon us to meddle in elections, to prop up opposition movements, to lecture, to scold, to pontificate. But the outsider forgets or does not know that these tendencies, however irksome or maddening, are symptomatic of a belief that we can make the world better. Many awful decisions, most of them having to do with war, have sprung from this belief, but that doesnt mean we ought to abandon it. Those who are quick to bemoan American hegemony never seem to mention what might replace it: a Pax Sinica? A world devoid of any super- or hyperpowers? Then what? The wars of late will look like playground skirmishes when the Pax Americana ends.
Donald Trump, the first American president ever to abandon our idealism completely, to declare that the United States is now all about cutting deals and not getting screwed by the Iranians nor Democrats, has not made us safer or stronger. That is because our ideals are not fantasies about how wed like the world to be, but powerful buffers against hostile forces, agents, interlopers. They define us. So long as we know who we are, we also know who we are not. One imagines the 8 (or 10, or 200) people crammed into the conference room in Trump Tower last year, ostensibly talking about adoptions, believed that they were doing what had to be done to beat the Clinton machine, or to drain the swamp; that they were being tough, and breaking someone elses rules because thats politics!ignorant, as always, of the depths of their ignorance. They were, of course, wittingly or otherwise, providing the Russians with a beachhead. This is not an exaggeration. The Russians will call it an exaggeration, and they will make many Americans believe that their fellow Americans are overreacting or acting in bad faith, but we should not be swayed by this, because it is disinformation. They are better at this than we are.
dalton99a
(81,386 posts)Achilleaze
(15,543 posts)Not only is Comrade Casino being played for a chump, the whole freaking GOP is betraying America by looking away and pretending that russia is not meddling with our power grid, our nuclear facilities, and our American elections. Heinous. Deplorable.
Zoonart
(11,828 posts)the war is over and we lost.
sunonmars
(8,656 posts)Gothmog
(144,884 posts)triron
(21,984 posts)And a great number of American voters.
Grammy23
(5,810 posts)To have seen this coming and feel powerless to stop it is sad. When I voted last fall, I thought we were putting the tRump nightmare behind us. Little did I know (and many others like me who cast our ballots in good faith.) To begin to comprehend how complicated this is takes my breath away. We are in for a huge struggle to try to save ourselves. It sounds weird to speak in such dramatic tones but I think we are at a critical point that will be like nothing this country has ever seen.
I would like to take a break from this mess but too much happens every day that trump's debacle is in the White House. We don't know from one minute to the next what will unfold. So as much as I'd like to declare a moratorium on following the twists and turns of this sh*t storm, I will remain engaged. Stay vigilant, DUers.