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applegrove

(118,022 posts)
Sat Jul 21, 2018, 05:57 PM Jul 2018

Why Trump Has a Soft Spot for Russia

https://politicalwire.com/2018/07/21/why-trump-has-a-soft-spot-for-russia/

"SNIP.........


Andrew Sullivan: “Everything Trump did in Europe — every horrifying, sick-making, embarrassing expostulation — is, in some way, consistent, and predictable, when you consider how he sees the world. It’s not a plan or a strategy as such. Trump is bereft of the attention span to sustain any of those. It is rather the reflection of a set of core beliefs and instincts that have governed him for much of his life. The lies come and go. But his deeper convictions really are in plain sight.”

“And they are, at root, the same as those of the strongmen he associates with and most admires. The post-1945 attempt to organize the world around collective security, free trade, open societies, non-zero-sum diplomacy, and multicultural democracies is therefore close to unintelligible to him. Why on earth, in his mind, would a victorious power after a world war be … generous to its defeated foes? When you win, you don’t hold out a hand in enlightened self-interest. You gloat and stomp. In Trump’s zero-sum brain — ‘we should have kept the oil!’ — it makes no sense. It has to be a con. And so today’s international order strikes Trump, and always has, as a massive, historic error on the part of the United States.”

”This is why he has such a soft spot for Russia. Its kleptocratic elites see the world in just the same way. And if you wanted to undo the international system created by the U.S., an alliance with Russia is the first step you’d take.”

.........SNIP"
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Why Trump Has a Soft Spot for Russia (Original Post) applegrove Jul 2018 OP
Eh, I think it gives Trump far more intellectual capacity on the subject RandomAccess Jul 2018 #1
 

RandomAccess

(5,210 posts)
1. Eh, I think it gives Trump far more intellectual capacity on the subject
Sat Jul 21, 2018, 06:50 PM
Jul 2018

than he's capable of.

But, the bottom line is probably mostly right.

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