275 Make Russia Great Again: The Crowning Achievement of Putin’s Career
I’m going to start this chapter with yet another prediction I hope is wrong but I’m very concerned about the welfare and future of Zelensky. It’s self evident that Putin wants him gone but it’s also become self evident even for the many living in self denial that the Trump-Vance Administration-or Trump-Vance-Musk-wants what ever Putin wants.
Elon Musk’s recent tweets have been very worrisome-at one point he floated the idea that Zelensky could receive AMNESTY.
Musk suggests Zelenskyy be offered “amnesty in neutral country”
This on top of Trump’s despicable slandering of Zelensky as “a dictator without elections” suggests strongly that part of the “ceasefire” the Trump Russia House is interested in is one where Zelensky is pushed out of power. Indeed Musk’s comments make you seriously worry for Zelensky-like could he be in physical danger? Putin has obviously wanted him dead for years and has tried in the past to make it a reality but Zelensky and his team were able to thwart it but this was before Trump ended all intelligence sharing with Ukraine-after unconstitutionally ceasing sending weapons to Ukraine the day before-it’s constitutional as Congress approved the aid.
FN: If Hakeem Jeffries frets about what Democrats can do how about an article of impeachment for this? This is hardly unreasonable seeing as Democrats did impeach Trump for holding back the weapons in 2019. That no one is even talking about that now just shows how much Trump’s unconstitutional behavior has been normalized-he’s easily committed 100 articles of impeachment in the first 6 weeks.
The “ceasefire” Trump is so concerned is pretty curious. As Trump and JD Vance frame it it appears to only apply to Ukraine-the nation which was attacked rathe than the aggressor. Indeed Putin’s “peace plan” entails him NOT withdrawing troops how’s this for an Orwellian headline?
Putin insists on peace terms without withdrawing troops
How is it “peace” if Putin doesn’t withdraw his troops? It’s not despite Trump’s maudlin pretense that “I just want to stop the killing” when in fact killing is fine with him-judging by how unmoved he was after Musk unconstitutially “ended” USDA. This has lead to a great many deaths and Trump has notably not lost any sleep over it. Yet Musk accuses ZELENSKY of wanting “forever war”-as I discussed in Chapter Roger Stone the Right has gotten very good in the last few years starting with Trump’s run in 2016 with appropriating the slogans of the Left-“forever wars” which is only ever applied to Ukraine the country that has been subject to a three year brutal invasion and NOT Russia which is presumed to be as peaceful as a dove despite it being the aggressor.
Yet when Musk declares “this is evil” he’s NOT referring to former Russian President Dimitry Medvedev’s declaration that “Moscow’s primary objective now is “inflicting maximum damage” on Ukraine”
but rather at Zelensky who he accuses of wanting “a forever war” once again using the narrative of the leftist Tankies.
Indeed Katie Halper has apparently gone full Nazbol now and continues to pummel the victims and accuse them of all manner of crimes
The Ukrainian Kidnapping Videos Western Media REFUSES To Show You – YouTube
Her and Aaron Mate used to do a show called Useful Idiots and you got to hand it to them for the truth in advertising. Apparently she doesn’t know that Russia has kidnapped thousands of Ukrainian children, forced them into adoptions to Russian parents and prepared them to go back and fight against their own country and families. But she isn’t worried over that. Even if she did it’s likely she wouldn’t care this is how perverse the Tankie Left has become-these days many are more or less Nazbol, more or less MAGA. It was always obvious to me in truth they were part of the MAGA base whatever they tried to tell you.
Indeed despite my atheist tendencies people like her-and Mate, Max Blumenthal, Jimmy Dore, Jeffrey Sachs and John Mearsheimer-make me reconsider-it could be worth it to have a God in the heavens just so these pathetic Russia cum Assad apologists can burn in hell preferably in the same “lake of fire” as Trump, JD Vance, Elon Musk, Putin himself, as well as Netanyahu.
I’m sorry it’s just hard to even put into works how frustrating it is for #ResistLibs like myself who have been warning for 9 and a half years that this is exactly who Donald Trump is and been dismissed by the Savvy as having “Trump Derangement Syndrome” and being full of “McCarthyism”-get it? You can’t criticize Russia as that makes your criticism “McCarthyite” despite the fact that the targets of McCarthy-who was both a Republican and long time Nazi sympathizer-were mostly liberals and leftists.
Like Maya Angelou said when someone shows you who they are believe them the first time. I have believed Trump since he declared “Russia if you’re listening I hope you’re able to find the 32,000 emails I think you’ll be richly rewarded by our press.”
And Trump has shown us who he is 50,000 times since for a conservative estimate yet many still claim to be puzzled by the idea that Trump could be a Russian asset. Many were shocked and appalled by the way Trump and Vance treated Zelensky. Not me-I was appalled but hardly shocked. This is who Trump is, who he has been, who he always was since at least when visited Moscow for the first time in 1987-weeks after returning he ran for President for the first time. I know the Savvy will declare this “just another coincidence.”
So even after the ambush CNN simply rejected the idea that Trump is a #RussianAsset out of hand.
CNN described literal “bewilder[ment]” about why Trump would sell out America’s allies.
[W]hy the US president would choose the Kremlin over America’s traditional partners remains the subject of intense speculation.
Much of it, like the frequent suggestion that Trump is somehow a Kremlin agent, or beholden to Putin, is without evidence.
Perhaps the right-wing US ideological fantasy that Russia is a natural US ally in a future confrontation with China, and can be broken away from its most important backer, is motivating Washington’s dramatic geopolitical shift.
But for many bewildered observers, both explanations for Trump’s extraordinary pivot to the Kremlin seem equally misplaced. [my emphasis]
Russia Russia Russia – emptywheel
Yep, much of the conventional wisdom-which a Nietzschean cum Zarathustrain like myself always seems like something of a contradiction in terms-has preferred over the last 9 and a half years since Trump has infected our politics to be “bewildered” than face the self evident truth that Trump is a #RussianAsset. While the MSM gripe how “this is the age of pettiness”
If anything is “petty” it’s their coverage which has contributed so much to where we are today-not the age of pettiness but of Trump’s Manchurian authoritarianism
As for the idea that there’s NO evidence this is one of the major moments of Original Sin from the legacy press as EW documents:
CNN asserted there’s no evidence to back the claim that Trump is “beholden to Putin” in spite of the fact that Russia helped Trump win in 2016, after which Dmitriev reached out and discussed a bunch of investments — investments which would require ending sanctions — as a way to improve relations. CNN asserted there’s no evidence to back the claim that Trump is “beholden to Putin” in spite of the fact that Russia attempted to help Trump win in 2020 at least by sending disinformation framing Joe Biden and his kid via Russian agent Andrii Derkach to Trump’s personal lawyer. CNN asserted there’s no evidence to back the claim that Trump is “beholden to Putin” in spite of the fact that Derkach made similar efforts in 2024, and a bunch of Russian malign influence efforts (possibly including bomb threats that forced the evacuation of Democratic precincts) similarly aimed to help Trump and others who would “oppose aid to Ukraine.”
One very significant reason we are where we are is because of the media’s fomenting the false narrative of the Bill Barr fake exoneration letter that ‘Mueller proved no collusion.’ The entire sorry episode is a classic example of lies prevailing over truth. It’s a major reason that Trump and Putin have won. As we saw in Chapter Lex Fridman, Zelensky had poignantly made the point that Putin’s war is as much as anything an informational war. After hearing the lies that Trump has told the last few weeks culminating with that shameful moment in the Oval Office last Friday-indeed the most shameful moment in certainly any recent US history-it’s striking to the extent that Russian disinformation has prevailed. And the “bewildered” media has committed to Putin’s victory in no small part.
But many have chosen to be bewildered rather than believe Trump.
As Claire Berlinsk puts it in a recent appearance on the Bulwark “Trump has always loved Russia”
But this evident Putin love is always obscured. ‘Oh he’s just transactional’-not untrue but he’s lot more than just that, explaining it all with this is superficial to say the least; ‘he’s a dealmaker’-he’s the consummate deal maker FOR PUTIN;, ‘he’s a real estate guy from NY’-his prowess in this area has been rather overstated.
This is why so many were shocked by that fiasco where these two pathetic Putin worshipping cowards Trump and Vance double teamed a true hero of our time, the Churchill of our time like Vladimir Zelensky. It wasn’t if you believed Trump when he showed you who he was the first time and that’s before we even talk about Vance who’s the Putin’s hack Putin hack. As for those who remain Savvy-a la Jay Rosen-and insist it WASN’T an ambush-the very presence of Vance showed it WAS an ambush. As we saw in chapter Charles Johnson, while it’s pretty clear by now despite my initial optimism that Johnson is a simply too big a flake to in any way have confidence in the idea he could be a strategic ally he DID manage to release 20 months of texts with Vance which showed his absolute disdain for Ukraine, indeed his attitude on February 28 was the same attitude displayed in his texts
“Dude I won’t even take calls from Ukraine,” Vance wrote in October of 2023, in one text obtained by the Post. “Two very senior guys reached out to me. The head of their intel. The head of the Air Force. Bitching about F16s.”
Uncovered texts reveal lengthy conversations between JD Vance and Holocaust denier | The Independent
FN: Chapter Charles Johnson for more
In the ambush led by Vance he voiced this same peevish theme: ‘You’re ungrateful for all we did for you.’ I mean Vance has literally done NOTHING for Zelensky seeing as he voted against aid every time in the Senate. As for failing to thank “President Trump” what actually has Trump done?
Seth Abramson: “Hat tip to @alanferrier.bsky.social.” — Bluesky
Trump’s story that he saved Ukraine doesn’t pass the laugh test. Most of the weapons were sent from President Biden-which Trump is now illegally refusing to send. The javelins from his first term were passed by a veto proof majority in Congress-then, of course, he withheld the weapons in an attempt to force Zelensky to do a phony investigation into Joe Biden as was impeached.
FN:
Good to see Vance’s poll numbers fell after this despicable performance-but again:
Vance surprisingly took center stage for part of the fiery exchange between him, Zelensky and President Donald Trump in the Oval Office on February 28, taking the lead in accusing the Ukrainian president of being disrespectful toward the U.S as rarely a vice president does
JD Vance Suffers Polling Blow After Zelensky Clash – Newsweek
It’s not surprising at all if you believed Vance when he showed us who he is-again this was the same peevish sentiment he expressed in the Charles Johnson’s texts.
End FN
Many Americans were outraged by this hideous fiasco which Trump clearly scripted to be like an episode of the Apprentice-‘You’re fired.” Even many Trump supporters were outraged. Of course none of them ever saw it coming and neither will they now admit the truth: that we #ResistanceLibs were right all along. They’ll NEVER admit THAT they’ll go to the grave never admitting that they’d rather die than admit THAT.
This is why you have to love Vaush-he’s one of the few on the Left who always admitted we liberals were right about Trump and Russia.
Trump Allies With Russia, BETRAYS Ukraine
Now even with Vaush he sort of underestimates the importance of WHAT we were right about and he kind of dismisses the idea that there was any “deep conspiracy”-it’s more in the way he frames it that Trump likes that Russian money. He dismisses the idea that there is a deeper Trump-Russia conspiracy. He acknowledges Trump-Russia collusion going back to 2016 but dismisses the idea of a deeper connection than Trump is a money loving grifter that loves the Russian money. While Vaush-of course-remains my favorite streamer it might be his Marxist worldview a la Heidegger which makes him skeptical of “conspiracies.” In other chapters I’ve discussed how thanks to him I’ve come to see Marxism as a very helpful heuristic tool in analyzing society certainly today’s Trumpian society.
In chapter Inauguration I discussed how Remain In Hell made a great point about the relevance of the 18 Theses of Brumaire today. So even though I’m a liberal hardly a Marxist I see now more than ever that Marxism is a useful tool for analysis. Having said that one drawback is it’s tendency to dismiss “conspiracies”-Vaush tends to see such political events through the lens of actors following their material interests-and this lens has value. But precisely because powerful actors desire satisfying their material interests they often engage in wide ranging nefarious conspiracies-a major theme of not the theme of this book. As I discuss elsewhere October 28, 2016 was the day this was really brought home to me in a way I can never unsee. In any case there’s no contradiction in a world where material interests are major motivating factors which also motivates grand conspiracies.
FN: Again I speak about this elsewhere but see especially Chapter Craig Unger
And most people don’t even acknowledge the Trump-Putin alliance certainly Vaush is fairly unique on the Left. He acknowledges it but chooses not to delve into the motivations of it more deeply. In a sense he’s right-whatever the motivation clearly to quote Claire Berlinsk again: Trump loves Russia. But unless we delve deeper into motivations we will be left “bewildered” as CNN puts it.
Many besides MAGA and the Tankie Left failed to see Trump’s betrayal of Ukraine coming despite all the evidence that this was always where he was going to end up over the years-going back to his first impeachment; again why haven’t the Democrats written articles of impeachment for this as they did in 2019?
Indeed while I’m a big fan of Jake Broe and appreciate his knowledge about and advocacy for Ukraine he failed to understand who Trump was and so for three months post November 5 had been predicting that Trump might be very good for Ukraine(!) His premise was very similar to many commentators: Trump is transactional and just wants a GOOD DEAL to make himself look STRONG. Surely once he sees that Putin has no interest in a deal Trump will turn on him. This is a similar fallacy to those on the Left before the election who suggested that because Trump is unprincipled and has no consistent ideology maybe he’ll turn on Netanyahu after he sees Bibi doesn’t want a ceasefire(!)
This hits on yet another zombie idea that never dies with Trump that his allegedly lack of a consistent ideology could be a good thing-after all maybe his positions today are terrible but tomorrow he might wake up on the other side of the bed and suddenly get some good ones. This is a fallacy as his talk of making GAZA beachfront property. This TOO should NOT have been a surprise as Jared Kushner had talked about this kind of an idea for years. But again and again folks choose NOT TO BELIEVE TRUMP THE FIRST TIME.
As we saw in Chapter Netanyahu my premise which I will take to the grave is that Trump and Bibi had a deal similar to the one the Reagan campaign had with the Iranian Ayatollah in 1980 to wait until after the election for a ceasefire deal. I had been predicting that the Israel hostages would be released 20 minutes after Trump was sworn in-actually they-at least some of them-were released the Sunday before.
THIS is why it’s important to understand Trump is a Russian asset and his ideology is VERY CONSISTENT: Russia First. In judging a hypothesis obviously a major selling point is it’s explanatory power and once you understand this you understand Trump far more as opposed to just talking about how “bewildered” you are.
For those of us who believed Trump-who never hid who he is-it was self evident he was always going to end up by Bibi’s side
Trump’s Simple Chair Pull For Netanyahu Breaks The Internet: Netizens Ask, Who’s Really Leading US?
Who is leading the US? Not US interests that’s for sure. Remember years go Bib had dismissed America as “something which can be controlled.”
So for us #ResistanceLibs there’s good news and bad news. The good news is we were right that Trump in power would be the end of the freaking world, the bad news is: it’s the end of the freaking world.
Seth Abramson was right despite being dismissed and treated with mirth by the MSM for years when he wrote Proof of Conspiracy which talked about a grand conspiracy-the Red Sea Conspiracy-which included not just Russia BUT ISRAEL.
FN: As well as the Saudis, UAE, Egypt…
UPDATE:
So it wasn’t a surprise for those of us who knew about the Red Sea Conspiracy when both the US AND ISRAEL voted against condemning Putin’s invasion. Indeed, Israel for its part never condemned Russia even for Israel’s brief respite from Bib when Naftali Bennett was PM. ‘
FN: While one zombie argument Israel’s apologists a la Alan Dershowitz always make is that we have to defend them as they’re the Middle East’s only democracy it’s not noticed that Netanyahu has been in power roughly as long as Putin has.
And it’s fair to say that our US foreign policy serves not US but Israeli and Russian interests. But to quit being BEWILDERED by Trump you have to get it that he’s a Russian asset.
FN: I use “asset” more a term of art than an precise legal term.
Again the failure to understand this is very wide not just the MAGA Right or Tankie Left but among the Democratic consultant class like in Carville’s Dems should rollover and play dead manifesto he said this:
“It’s a wiser approach than we pursued in the first Trump administration, when Democrats tried and failed at the art of resistance politics. We voiced outrage on social issue after social issue. We spun ourselves up in a tizzy over an investigation into Russia. We fought Mr. Trump at every corner, on every issue imaginable and muddied up our message in an unwinnable war. We were saved only by his lousy governing and a lot of effort on our side finding good candidates to run for the House and Senate in 2018. Sometimes the most powerful thing we can do is retreat on the immediate battlefield — and advance in another direction.”
Opinion | James Carville: It’s Time for a Daring Political Maneuver, Democrats – The New York Times
I also quoted him in Chapter Roger Stone and again-“resistance politics” didn’t fail though clearly Carville doesn’t like them. We basically won three straight election cycles until 2024. But this dismissal over spinning “ourselves up in a tizzy over an investigation into Russia” didn’t age too well.
Once you understand unlike Carville and his consultant friends that Trump is a Russian asset his actions are far more understandable and make far more sense-again he DOES have a unified foreign policy: Russia First.
UPDATE: After Trump’s authoritarian screed of a State of the Union speech-technically it’s not SOTU as he just got there though in his unique case it really WAS as he’s already seriously damaged the economy that had been the envy of the world in 6 weeks., Carville declared Trump hates America and wants to break it down with him.
Trump HATES The Country And Is Bringing It Down With Him (w/ James Carville) – YouTube
YES BUT Carville still doesn’t know why as he fails to understand Trump’s a Russia asset.
The costs of failing to understand this are steep. So even very nice and well meaning folks who are very smart and knowledgeable and really love and care about Ukraine like Jake Broe or Joe Lindsay of the Silicon Curtain have been entirely blindsided as they don’t understand Donald Trump.
Indeed Lindsay tried so hard to be fair in his post Trump-Vance ambush show he suggested that Zelensky had been wrong to “lose his cool” with Trump-Vance. I disagree I don’t think he lost his cool at all, he actually acquitted himself very well considering the level of pressure he was under and the unfair playing field he faced. Trump and Vance had the homefield advantage, this was in public being beamed out to all the world, they had him completely by the shorthairs as he needs the US aid and to add to it English isn’t his first language and Trump and Vance were ganging up on him and raising their voice-Trump further gaslighted him by telling him Vance WASN’T raising his voice.
Zelensky had to keep his composure, while not letting himself get entirely roiled-as the Ukranian people as Lindsay himself admitted wouldn’t tolerate Zelensky letting himself get totally bullied either. He had to stand up for himself while maintaining total composure and civility and this wasn’t his first language and Trump-Vance were engaging in total bad faith.
No. Once you understand who Trump is and his genuine motivations there was nothing Zelensky could have done-it’s been noted that the behavior of Trump-Vance was abusive behavior and big part of abusive behavior is gaslighting-trying to destroy their victim’s own sense of reality and tricking them into thinking they did something wrong-like the battered wife who wonders where she went wrong.
This is why for me nothing of which we’ve seen the last few weeks has been a surprise. To the contrary I wish we had been wrong. I didn’t buy the premise that Trump is transactional and a deal maker and therefore he’d insist on getting a good deal for America-because he doesn’t give a crap about America. OTOH he really likes Russia. Don’t get me wrong February 28 was traumatic. It was a national trauma it will take us years of therapy to ever get over. Seth Abramson said it well:
(16) From the Berghof to the Oval Office – by Claire Berlinski
So let’s take it from the top. Trump has been beholden to Putin since he helped steal the election for him-with a major assist from Comey’s FBI true. But when you do the history it goes back 40 years-we covered earlier in this book. but the important thing to understand is that Russia’s cultivating of Trump goes back to the 1980s during the Soviet Era.
Craig Unger: Trump Won’t Betray Putin After 40 Years of Russian Money
Exactly
On Trump’s historical hatred of our nation’s allies
See also Seth’s recent post which I fully agree with in terms of the New New World Order of Trump-Musk-Vavnce-Putin-MBS-Xi.
The biggest joke is Trump is so heartbroken over killing that he just HAS TO cease hostilities now
Trump’s team plans to revoke legal status of 240,000 Ukrainian refugees, Reuters reports
Anne Applebaum’s post and post that argues this is the crowning achievement of Putin’s career
(2) ProChoice Mike: “Maybe the most disgraceful moment in American international history” — Bluesky