Two articles worth reading here. (Yeah, I know, some of you can't handle more than one-liners. Yore excused.) I don't have a whole lot of time for David Frum. And I disagree with a thing or two he says here. But, hell, you shouldn't always read only people you always agree with. Anyway, Frum has really nailed Trumpism in Power here, my view. Second: A piece by Ivan Krastev and Stephen Holmes in Foreign Policy about how Russia may suddenly be viewing its new position as, uhh.., maybe not quite so nice after all. (...) 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. (...) That's also my view. It's in the Dems' interest to portray Donald as illegitimate owing to the intervention of a foreign power (as if the US isn't always intervening abroad...). On the other hand, who would be surprised if Putin had moved heaven and earth to put Donald in the Oval Office? So ... we simply can't know for sure. (...) With Trump in the White House, (...) 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.” What the Kremlin fears most today is that Trump may be ousted or even killed. His ouster, Kremlin insiders argue, is bound to unleash a virulent and bipartisan anti-Russian campaign in Washington. Oddly, therefore, Putin has become a hostage to Trump’s survival and success. This has seriously restricted Russia’s geopolitical options. The Kremlin is perfectly aware that Democrats want to use Russia to discredit and possibly impeach Trump while Republican elites want to use Russia to deflate and discipline Trump. The Russian government fears not only Trump’s downfall, of course, but also the possibility that he could opportunistically switch to a tough anti-Moscow line in order to make peace with hawkish Republican leaders in Congress. (...) Discuss (or nuts).
^ So which paragraph is correct? Is Donald Trumps presidency boom or doom for the Putin government in Russia?
This assumes Putin does not control Trump, and that Trump isn't a coward, and that Putin doesn't take him for a coward. I am not certain of any of these.
I can't see how you draw those three conclusions. If the Russians teleported Trump into the White House (as we're invited to believe), they were teleporting someone who is notorious about his inconsistency of stated view, his near-hysterical denial of that inconsistency, and his absolute enslavement to his own ego. How could Donald be a modern-day version of the Manchurian candidate? He weathered the Pussy Scandal and apparently won the election. Are we supposed to believe that he walks in fear of the Kremlin releasing Trumpish porn flics? I don't think so. Why does the sentence quoted assume that Donald is not a coward or that Putin does not take him for a coward? If the Russians backed Donald, they backed an uncontrollable ego-maniac and infamous loose cannon. That, by definition, deprives Putin of his monopoly as the international loose cannon. Hillary would have been predictable, the Chinese leadership is fairly predictable. Who else counts? The other nuclear powers (Brits, French, Israelis, Indians, Pakistanis)? I don't think any of them counts in the big picture.
Nonono. Putin is a lot of things, but he's not that dumb. IF he wanted Trump to be elected, it's because he thinks he can control Trump. As for options two and three, just because he's loud doesn't mean he's a loose cannon in terms of international relations, or more specifically, in terms of facing down a nuclear power. Putin, for comparison, isn't loud.
Why? And how? OK, Putin isn't loud and Donald is. I'm still not following your reasoning. My worry, of course, is that, at the critical motion, Donald will go with his ego-driven emotions and not with any sort of Reason. For all I know, Putin was instrumental in Donald's election. I don't really see how. Helpful maybe. Decisive? I doubt it. But what do I know? Putin may be a smart cookie (Who doubts that?) but he most certainly is not infallible. Why would he think he can control Donald?
First of all, as with any fake TV personality, we have no idea about Trump's actual character, emotional state, or other affective disposition. He does seem jealous and easily offended; but that's just the signature baseline of any autocrat. He might actually be that way and thus make an effective autocrat, or he might have decided he wants to seem that way in order to make a better autocrat, or he might be that way and be used by someone who isn't and who wants to establish autocratic rule through Trump. Not only is there no way to decide which is true, but it doesn't matter which is true, as all lead to the same outcome. Indeed, all of them could be true at the same time. Secondly, I don't know that Putin thinks he can control him, nor if he is right to think so if he does, and certainly not how he might think to be able to do it. But any coherent theory that assumes Putin wished to help Trump get elected must assume Putin thought he could control Trump. Thirdly, just because someone is or acts as if he is jealous and easily offended doesn't mean he'll stand up to a stronger bully. So even if Trump himself is a s small-minded as he seems, and even if Putin has no hope to control him, that still doesn't mean that Putin needs to fear Trump's mood swings.
I don't disagree with anything you say. There is much that we simply cannot know. And that's one reason I'm skeptical (skeptical, not utterly dismissive) of the line that Donald is in power on account of Muscovite machinations period. Maybe he is, maybe he ain't. ("Ain't" is where my money would go.) I do think there is ample evidence of Donald's thin skin and ego-driven, autocratic personality that predates his political career. It would be strange indeed if he had somehow transformed himself. Yes, why indeed would a cold calculator like Putin think that he could "control" Donald. This looms as a huge question in my mind.
I thought that Russian efforts at intervening in our electoral process had more to do with undermining American confidence in their government than actually favoring one side over the other. I have a feeling that if Hillary Clinton had won the election that during her transition there would've been a whole bunch of "leaks" regarding Russian connections to her, her campaign or the Clinton foundation.
"Donald in the saddle" sounds like a bad 80's sitcom like "Charles in charge." Or maybe like an old-wet themed gay porn movie!
Sure, ok. But in that world, there is no reason to think Putin helped him rise to power. He'd have no reason to do so. So whatever might really be going on, I don't believe that Putin helped him and now regrets it. Either he didn't help him, or he's happy with the result, since that result was utterly predictable.
Oh, OK, I see what you mean. Yes, it is difficult to believe that Putin is so diabolically clever that he managed to manipulate Donald's way to the White House, but that this same Putin is simultaneously so stooopid that he wasn't aware of what an unreliable nutcase he was doing this favour for. Of course, Donald did say during the campaign something like "What's wrong with getting along with Russia for a change?" I agree entirely, and that sounded like a direct challenge to the military/industrial complex. But then ... but then ... why not also say "What's wrong with getting along with China for a change and forgetting this pivot-to-Asia bullshit?" So the jury's still out. In any case, we've yet to see Donald deal with the Russians in a way that shows his true colours (whatever the hell they are.)
