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marble falls

(56,353 posts)
Mon Oct 12, 2020, 12:53 PM Oct 2020

The Kremlin Is Starting to Worry About Trump


The Kremlin Is Starting to Worry About Trump

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/the-soviet-union-is-gone-but-it-s-still-collapsing


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The search for a key to Trump’s mind-boggling and miscellaneous gusher of policy directives has tended to focus on his disturbingly erratic, vindictive, simplistic, narcissistic, insecure, and occasionally delusional personality, due exception being made for those conspiracy theorists who treat him as a kind of Manchurian candidate or sock puppet of the Kremlin. What most observers have been late to recognize is the extent to which, behind his mask as a showman, Trump views himself as a revolutionary insurgent with a mission to dismantle America’s “old regime.”

-snip-

Russian policymakers, obsessed as they are with the fear of “color revolutions,” may understand better than Americans and Europeans the radical nature of the political change that has descended on Washington. Indeed, when it comes to the ongoing Trump revolution, Russian policymakers are in much the same position as the German General Staff one century ago. In 1917, the German government concluded that the best hope for a German victory in World War I was for a revolution to erupt in Russia. It thus allowed some of the leaders of the Bolshevik party, Lenin among them, to pass through Germany and make their way back to Russia. The hope was that a revolution in Russia would pull the country out of the war — and the plan worked. But by the beginning of 1918, the German government started to fear that the virus of revolution that it had surreptitiously help spread to Russia might circle back calamitously to Germany itself.

-snip-

There is no way of knowing if Russian interference contributed decisively to Trump’s upset victory. But it’s fair to say that the Kremlin viewed the outcome as a divine gift. Since at least 2011-2012, when Russia witnessed widespread popular protests, and particularly after the Ukrainian Maidan uprising — events that elicited heartfelt praise and encouragement from then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — Russia’s leadership had been convinced that her election would spell disaster for Russia and that it might even lead to war. So Russians did what they could to prevent Clinton from getting into the White House. But while they welcomed her defeat, they were wholly unprepared for the ensuing regime change in Washington.

-snip-

With Trump in the White House, moreover, Putin has lost his monopoly over geopolitical unpredictability. The Kremlin’s ability to shock the world by taking the initiative and trashing ordinary international rules and customs has allowed Russia to play an oversized international role and to punch above its weight. Putin now has to share the capacity to keep the world off balance with a new American president vastly more powerful than himself. More world leaders are watching anxiously to discover what Trump will do next than are worrying about what Putin will do next. Meanwhile, using anti-Americanism as an ideological crutch has become much more dubious now that the American electorate has chosen as their president a man publicly derided as “Putin’s puppet.”
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The Kremlin Is Starting to Worry About Trump (Original Post) marble falls Oct 2020 OP
Welcome to the club, Russia! We're having jackets made. Aristus Oct 2020 #1
I'm learning the secret handshake, I've got the slap to the forehead with the "DOH!" down pat. marble falls Oct 2020 #2
"conspiracy theorists who treat him as a... sock puppet of the Kremlin" lagomorph777 Oct 2020 #3
Putin has a major investment in his puppet Gothmog Oct 2020 #4

Aristus

(66,075 posts)
1. Welcome to the club, Russia! We're having jackets made.
Mon Oct 12, 2020, 01:48 PM
Oct 2020

We've been worrying about him since he came down that fucking escalator.

Thanks for nothing, Kremlin...

lagomorph777

(30,613 posts)
3. "conspiracy theorists who treat him as a... sock puppet of the Kremlin"
Mon Oct 12, 2020, 02:13 PM
Oct 2020

Excuse me? This is not open for debate among rational people. Trump's daily actions make this incredibly plain. He rubs it in our faces.

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