The Republicans have become the party of Russia. This makes me sick.

[meow2u3]

Of all the changes that have occurred in our politics since the rise of Donald Trump, the most gut-wrenching for me personally is to see the Republican Party transformed into the Kremlin’s “useful idiots.” As a young refugee from the Soviet Union growing up in Southern California in the 1980s, I was attracted to the GOP because it was the party of moral clarity — the party willing to stand up to the “evil empire.” How far we have come — in the wrong direction.

Today, we have a Republican president who, while reluctantly acceding to sanctions against Russia, incessantly praises its dictator, Vladimir Putin (“a terrific person”); tries to bring Putin back to the Group of Seven; conceals the details of their meetings; undermines Ukraine, a victim of Russian aggression, by harping on its corruption while ignoring Russia’s own kleptocracy; allows the Russians to take possession of U.S. bases in Syria; and propagates Russian propaganda blaming Ukraine for 2016 election interference. Trump is joined in spreading Russian disinformation by his secretary of state and other supporters, such as Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) and Sen. John Neely Kennedy (R-La.), even though the U.S. intelligence community has exposed claims of Ukrainian election interference as a “fictional narrative.”

Fox News host Tucker Carlson, one of the biggest stars on the president’s favorite television network and an informal adviser to the president, goes even further in expressing his admiration for Russia. Last week, he said: “Why do I care what is going on in the conflict between Ukraine and Russia?! And I’m serious. Why do I care? Why shouldn’t I root for Russia? Which I am.” Carlson claimed to be joking. But then this week, he said: “We should probably take the side of Russia if we have to choose between Russia and Ukraine. That’s my view.”

How did we get to the point where a “conservative” TV star openly sides with an anti-American dictatorship over a pro-American democracy? Most, but not all, of the blame lies with Trump. His affinity for Russia is as deep as it is mysterious. Has he been compromised by Russian intelligence? Is he financially dependent on Russian business partners? Or does he simply admire the way that Putin has destroyed Russian democracy? We still don’t know, because special counsel Robert S. Mueller III did not release any findings from the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/12/04/republicans-have-become-party-russia-this-makes-me-sick/

Max Boot nails it! We might disagree with him, but he's right on point about the reTHUGS.

[DBoon]

1. Putin's Russia is the republican's USA

They want a strongman ruler who will crush popular dissent, jail opponents including wealthy businessmen who oppose his rule, align with an official state authoritarian religion, persecute religious and ethnic minorities, enrich wealthy supporters of the regime, sabotage efforts to control global warming by aligning with the domestic fossil fuel industry, roll back feminist advances (it is now legal to beat your wife in Russia), and attack the LGBT community.

Anything I missed?

[Newest Reality]

2. Last gasp?

I am speculating and hoping that this is just a sort of last gasp grasp by the GOP. I imagine they know the demographics and the changes that are coming and how irrelevant they are in respects to that.

They will be around for a good while yet, but not indefinitely, but their base will shrink, (with various factors involved) and their "power" will diminish most likely. Due to the drastic changes in the way politics and economies will work during the Fourth Industrial Revolution, their so-called "conservative" perspective will be out of step and there are other ways for corporations to control the masses and influence government as we are already seeing, so the pandering to them is going to be more obsolete and what is that party without it?

Meanwhile, at least the more informed members of the party know that their limbs are on the chopping block and, like the proverbial cornered rat, they are showing sings of panic and desperation. I guess Russia helping and forming alliances like that would then make sense although it is an egregious betrayal of our country and most despicable by any standards.

Beware the cornered rat! That's my take, at least.

[JHB]

3. Umm, Max... it wasn't "since" the rise of Donald Trump

The Russians simply cloned a second set of controls for the apparatus the very conservatives you admired built.

It was all there in that "moral clarity" you found so compelling: reducing everything to "good guys" and "bad guys", and punishing anyone who was a slacker about who the "bad guys" were and couldn't get with the program of supporting the "good guys."

When you were a kid in the 80s, they they made it a point to destroy a wing of their party, the Rockefeller Republicans, as a political force. Once that was done, they went after liberals and Democrats. They normalized demagoguery in and out of government, and made a political bomb-thrower Speaker of the House. Gingrich exhorted Republicans to adopt his own scorched-earth rhetoric and changed the House rules specifically to discourage "fraternization" across the aisle. They may have called it "the Party of Lincoln", but in practice they preferred a different chin-bearded Gregory Peck character. They became the Party of Ahab.

Republicans in Congress have spent the entire two decades of this century in lockstep party-line voting at levels that rival the Soviet Politburo.

Let me give you another perspective about conservatives: the "golden age" they look back on is the Gilded Age, a time when Great Men built Great Industries and amassed Great Fortunes, a time when such men (and smaller big fish in smaller ponds) could pretty much roll over anybody who opposed them. Government rarely stood in their way -- that's what they mean by "small government". They were free to step on anyone.

A small stratum of the right families running things. A slightly less small stratum servicing them. And a whole bunch of people who they truly don't believe have any business having a real say in how things are run. Like they used to say about 60s protests, "this is what happens when you let just anyone go to college."

Just like a banana republic.

Just like Putin's Russia.


When you have, one one hand, long practice at simply doubling-down and brazening out the fuss in order to take what you want, and goals that are not all that far apart from that foreign country's (and plenty of money piped in -- and dirty secrets -- to lubricate any balky spots), there isn't much mystery as to why the Republican party has become what it is now.

Since you've missed all this and been caught completely flatfooted, when can we expect you to get out of the business of commenting on politics? Maybe take a nice long sabbatical to get out of the daily grind and do some deep reflecting on things. And free up the media slot for someone who hasn't spent his career missing the biggest story of the last century.