Recent Forum Topics › Forums › The Public House › Rebecca Solnit on the Trump-Putin network
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March 2, 2022 at 11:16 am #137165Billy_TParticipant
She’s a staunch feminist author, and known for her independent mind. Strong, concise article, thoroughly sourced, so it’s best read on the Guardian site itself:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/mar/02/time-to-confront-trump-putin-network
It’s time to confront the Trump-Putin network
Rebecca SolnitA stunning number of Trump’s closest associates had deep ties to the Kremlin. The significance of this cannot be overstated.
Last modified on Wed 2 March 2022 06.24 EST
In 2014, the Putin regime invaded Ukraine’s Crimea. In 2016, the same regime invaded the United States. The former took place as a conventional military operation; the latter was a spectacular case of cyberwarfare, including disinformation that it was happening at all and promulgation of a lot of talking points still devoutly repeated by many. It was a vast social-media influencing project that took many forms as it sought to sow discord and confusion, even attempting to dissuade Black voters from voting.
Additionally, Russian intelligence targeted voter rolls in all 50 states, which is not thought to have had consequences, but demonstrated the reach and ambition of online interference. This weekend, British investigative journalist Carole Cadwalladr said on Twitter, “We failed to acknowledge Russia had staged a military attack on the West. We called it ’meddling.’ We used words like ‘interference.’ It wasn’t. It was warfare. We’ve been under military attack for eight years now.”
As she notes, Putin’s minions were not only directing their attention to the United States, and included pro-Brexit efforts and support for France’s far-right racist National Front party. The US interference – you could call it cyberwarfare, or informational invasion – took many forms. Stunningly, a number of left-wing news sources and pundits devoted themselves to denying the reality of the intervention and calling those who were hostile to the Putin regime cold-war red-scare right-wingers, as if contemporary Russia was a glorious socialist republic rather than a country ruled by a dictatorial ex-KGB agent with a record of murdering journalists, imprisoning dissenters, embezzling tens of billions and leading a global neofascist white supremacist revival. In discrediting the news stories and attacking critics of the Russian government, they provided crucial cover for Trump.
In her 2019 testimony to House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, former National Security Agency staffer Fiona Hill declared, “Russia was the foreign power that systematically attacked our democratic institutions in 2016. This is the public conclusion of our intelligence agencies, confirmed in bipartisan congressional reports. It is beyond dispute, even if some of the underlying details must remain classified. The impact of the successful 2016 Russian campaign remains evident today. Our nation is being torn apart; truth is questioned; our highly professional expert career Foreign Service is being undermined. US support for Ukraine, which continues to face armed aggression, is being politicized. President Putin and the Russian security services aim to counter US foreign policy objectives in Europe, including in Ukraine, where Moscow wishes to reassert political and economic dominance.”
The assertions of interference were compelling all along. On October 7, 2016, US intelligence agencies released a bombshell press release declaring “The US Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations.” In one of the weirdest days in US political history, the Access Hollywood tape of Trump boasting about sexually assaulting women was released half an hour later, and half an hour after that, “WikiLeaks began tweeting links to emails hacked from the personal account of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta.” Wikileaks is thought to have gotten its material from the Russian intelligence agency GRU; longtime Republican operative and Trump ally Roger Stone appears to have been a liason between Wikileaks and the Trump team.
On October 30, 2016, then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reidput out a furious letter to then-FBI director James Comey, charging “it has become clear that you possess explosive information about close ties and coordination between Donald Trump, his top advisors, and the Russian government – a foreign interest hostile to the United States, which Trump praises at every opportunity.” He demanded, unsuccessfully, that Comey publicize this information. On October 31, Obama contacted called Putin on the nuclear risk reductions hotline to demand he stop this interference, but the public didn’t know about this until after Trump had lost the popular vote but won the electoral college.
Of course the most striking role of the Russian government in the 2016 US election was its many, many ties with the Trump campaign, including with Trump himself, who spent the campaign and the four years of his presidency groveling before Putin, denying the reality of Russian interference, and changing first the Republican platform and then US policy to serve Putin’s agendas. This included cutting support for Ukraine against Russia out of the Republican platform when he won the primary, considerable animosity toward Nato, and ultimately trying to blackmail Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in 2019 by withholding military aid while demanding he offer confirmation of a Russian conspiracy theory blaming Ukraine rather than Russia for 2016 election interference.
A stunning number of Trump’s closest associates had deep ties to the Russian government. They included Paul Manafort, who during his years in Ukraine worked to build Russian influence there and served as a consultant to the Kremlin-backed Ukrainian president who was driven out of the country – and into Russia by popular protest in 2014 (the Russian line is that this was an illegitimate coup and thus a justification for invasion is still widely repeated). Manafort was, during his time in the campaign, sharing data with Russian intelligence agent Konstantin V Kilimnik, while campaign advisor Jeff Sessions was sharing information with the Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Manafort, Donald Trump Jr and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner held an illegal meeting in Trump Tower with a Kremlin-linked lawyer on June 9, 2016, where they were promised damaging material on the Clinton campaign.
After being seated next to Putin while being paid to speak at a dinner celebrating RT, Russia’s news propaganda outlet, Michael Flynn briefly became Trump’s national security advisor. He was soon was fired for lying to White House officials and later pled guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with the Russian ambassador. Jared Kushner allegedly directed him to make those contacts and as the Washington Post reported in May 2017, “Jared Kushner and Russia’s ambassador to Washington discussed the possibility of setting up a secret and secure communications channel between Trump’s transition team and the Kremlin, using Russian diplomatic facilities in an apparent move to shield their pre-inauguration discussions from monitoring.” The Guardian reported the same year that “Donald Trump Jr has been forced to release damning emails that reveal he eagerly embraced what he was told was a Russian government attempt to damage Hillary Clinton’s election campaign.”
What’s striking in retrospect is that all of this was made possible by corruption and amorality inside the United States. It was Silicon Valley’s mercenary amorality that created weapons and vulnerabilities and sat by pocketing the profit as they were exploited to destructive ends. It was corrupt Americans – from Manafort to Trump himself – that gave Putin his influence. It was international players such as Wikileaks and Cambridge Analytica that helped. It was corruption of media outlets such as Fox News that continued – in Tucker Carlson’s case until last week’s invasion of Ukraine caught up with him – to defend Putin and spread disinformation.
The Republican party met its new leader by matching his corruption, and by covering up his crimes and protecting him from consequences, including two impeachments. The second impeachment was for a violent invasion of Congress, not by a foreign power, but by right-wingers inflamed by lies instigated by Trump and amplified by many in the party. They have become willing collaborators in an attempt to sabotage free and fair elections, the rule of law, and truth itself.
Rebecca Solnit is a Guardian US columnist. Her most recent books are Recollections of My Nonexistence and Orwell’s Roses
March 2, 2022 at 11:23 am #137166Billy_TParticipantThought it would add to the above to also post the latest from Chauncey Devega,
https://www.salon.com/2022/03/02/how-supremacy-fuels-the-love-affair-with-vladimir-putin/
How white supremacy fuels the Republican love affair with Vladimir Putin
The American right’s romance with Putin is no mystery: Trumpers see him as leading a global war for whiteness
By Chauncey DeVega
Published March 2, 2022 6:01AM (EST)Racism is not an opinion. It is a fact.
This is true both in the United States and around the world.
As W.E.B. Du Bois presciently wrote in 1903, the problem of the 20th century is the problem of the color line. That is true in the 21st century as well, even if the context has changed — and that could remain true in the 22nd century as well (assuming humanity survives that long).
Racism and white supremacy continue to structure American society, largely by privileging some groups (those defined as “white”) and disadvantaging others (especially those deemed “Black,” but other nonwhites as well). These outcomes are the aggregate result of individual, systemic and institutional discrimination and other forms of racial animus. This has been a fixture of American life and society since before the founding of the republic through to the post-civil rights era and now the Age of Trump and a 21st-century form of fascism. In practice, racism and white supremacy are a “changing same,” constantly adapting over time to fit American society in support of the maintenance and expansion of white privilege, white power and white control.
Advertisement:RELATED: Right’s cynical attack on “critical race theory”: Old racist poison in a new bottle
Racial attitudes and values help to structure how Americans, particularly white Americans, feel about both domestic politics and foreign policy. For example, it is no surprise, and really no mystery — as some members of the mainstream news media and commentariat appear to believe — why many Republicans and other members of the white right defend or even embrace Vladimir Putin and his war in Ukraine. This is readily explainable: The Russian president is viewed by them as a champion of “conservative values” and the possibility of a return to what they have deluded themselves into believing was a “golden age” of white male Christian dominance over all areas of American (and global) society.
Putin’s politics, values and strategic goals, at least in a general sense, largely align with those of today’s Republican-fascist movement and the larger white right. Taken together, they are a global front aimed at undermining or destroying pluralism and multiracial democracy.
Robert Reich summarizes this in a new essay for the Guardian, where he writes: “The Trump-led Republican party does not openly support Putin, but the Republican party’s animus toward democracy is expressed in ways familiar to Putin and other autocrats. … Make no mistake: Putin’s authoritarian neo-fascism has rooted itself in America.”
Writing at Jewish Currents, David Klion explores this further:
On the right, leading voices like Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon, and Donald Trump himself have been more likely to offer actual defenses of Putin and Russia. … But there’s also a deeper ideological affinity between the Western far right and Putin’s Russia, one that emphasizes Russia’s Christianness and whiteness, its hostility to LGBTQ minorities, and its potential role as a bulwark against China, which many on the right view as 21st century America’s true geopolitical rival.
In an essay last Sunday for the New York Times, Emily Tamkin discusses the right’s preoccupation with Putin’s supposed “strength”:
Advertisement:“Strong” may be the key word here. In this construction, a strong leader is apparently one who cracks down on opposition, cultural and political, and does not concede. This idea then dovetails with right-wing ideas that liberal elites are actively corroding deeply held traditional values — including traditional gender roles. For those who spend a fair amount of airtime worrying about the emasculation of men, the kind of strength portrayed by Mr. Putin — who on Monday convened his top security officials and demanded they publicly stand and support him — is perhaps appealing.
Many of the admirers of the world’s strongmen on the American right appear to believe that the countries each of these men lead are beacons of whiteness, Christianity and conservative values. …
These comments, from the right, aren’t exactly advancing a new position. In 2018, the political commentator Pat Buchanan said that Mr. Putin and the Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko were “standing up for traditional values against Western cultural elites.” …
Russia is neither all white nor all Christian — it is a country that encompasses several regions, religions and ethnicities. Still, it is often perceived as white. … [T]his construction of Mr. Putin as a beacon of far-right values began with the ultra-far-right nationalists in Europe and later spread to the United States.
James Risen is even more direct in a recent essay for the Intercept:
Advertisement:[Putin’s] brutal invasion of Ukraine is just the latest move in his long-running strategy to rebuild the Russian empire by any means necessary. But while Putin hasn’t strayed from his obsessions of 30-plus years ago, the U.S. Republican Party has been comprehensively altered into something that would have been unrecognizable in 1989. Today, much of the American right is in thrall to Putin and other autocrats, and a segment of the extreme right now harbors a hatred for Western democracy. The new American right somehow sees Putin as a guardian of white nationalism who will stand up to the “woke” left in the West. They don’t seem to care that he is a murderous dictator who has launched a war in the middle of Europe. …
But while other Republicans in Congress denounced Putin’s invasion, they refused to criticize Trump or other Putin sympathizers in their party. That follows the usual pattern within the GOP, in which establishment politicians try to ignore Trump — only to be overshadowed and eventually overwhelmed by him. …
In the United States, meanwhile, perhaps the biggest political question in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is whether the Trumpist wing of the Republican Party will continue its sympathy for and appeasement of Putin. For now, it seems likely that pro-Putin Republicans will continue to allow their hatred for progressives and adherence to white nationalism to blind them to what Putin really is.
These observations help to highlight three foundational realities about American politics and the color line in the post-civil rights era and the Age of Trump. The first of those is that today’s Republican Party is America’s and the world’s largest white supremacist and white identity organization.
Advertisement:The second is that “conservatism” and racism are now fully one and the same thing here in America.
The third is that on a fundamental level Trumpism and American neofascism are nothing new. Instead, they represent a continuation of evil forces that have long been present in American society — and show few signs of being vanquished. Ever since the invention of “race” as a concept in or around the 15th century, white supremacy and racism have been a global project. In America today, the Republican Party and “conservative” movement are the leading proponents of such anti-human ideas and values — and are wholly invested in perpetuating and strengthening them far into the future.
March 2, 2022 at 11:48 am #137168Billy_TParticipantSame caveat goes for the Salon article. Lotsa links within the article, so it’s best read on the site.
March 2, 2022 at 5:20 pm #137173
wvParticipantRebecca’s views do not resonate with me, fwiw:
“…One of the things I liked about the idea of an Elizabeth Warren presidency was her boldness and acuity in diagnosing the sheer scale of the problem and her radical but pragmatic solutions…” R. Solnit
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March 2, 2022 at 8:54 pm #137180Billy_TParticipantRebecca’s views do not resonate with me, fwiw: “…One of the things I liked about the idea of an Elizabeth Warren presidency was her boldness and acuity in diagnosing the sheer scale of the problem and her radical but pragmatic solutions…” R. Solnit w v
Well, hopefully, you’re not dismissing her article about Trump/Putin based just on her views about Warren. Remember the earlier discussion about friendships between people with differing political views?
;>)
It is possible to like Warren and tell the truth about Trump/Putin, etc. etc. The former doesn’t rule out the latter.
Yes, it’s a shame that some people think of Warren as “progressive.” But I’d take the moderate senator from Massachusetts over anyone the GOP offers — seven days a week and twice on Sunday. She’s not Sanders, of course, but then Sanders doesn’t go nearly far enough to the left for me. I see him as “moderate” too. Just a different kind of moderate. He wants Denmark on the Potomac. I suspect Warren wants a toned down FDR.
Aside from her take on Warren, what do you think Solnit gets wrong?
March 2, 2022 at 10:22 pm #137188wvParticipantRebecca’s views do not resonate with me, fwiw: “…One of the things I liked about the idea of an Elizabeth Warren presidency was her boldness and acuity in diagnosing the sheer scale of the problem and her radical but pragmatic solutions…” R. Solnit w v
Well, hopefully, you’re not dismissing her article about Trump/Putin based just on her views about Warren. .. Aside from her take on Warren, what do you think Solnit gets wrong?
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I dont think she gets anything wrong about Putin/Trump. But then I dont think Jimmy Dore gets anything wrong about Biden and M4A.
Solnit and Dore both give me problems. If you read Solnit stuff (and i have two of her books) she blames Reps, and was soft on Obama. She actually blamed ‘the people’ for not essentially moving Obama more to the left. She didnt blame him. So she triggers me, the same way Dore triggers me or any ‘blue team’ or ‘red team’ person triggers me.
The only ones who dont trigger me, at this late stage of my life
are the folks who rip into the dems and the reps, both. And that aint Solnit, and that aint Dore. Its the anti-capitalists. And there aint many out there in the US.
I mean, why doesnt she do an article about how her Dems and the reps
are both destroying peace and life on this planet? Why is that impossible for her (and Dore, and all the rest) to do? I suspect its because they would not be able to earn a living in this country.
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March 2, 2022 at 10:59 pm #137191Billy_TParticipant== I dont think she gets anything wrong about Putin/Trump. But then I dont think Jimmy Dore gets anything wrong about Biden and M4A.
Solnit and Dore both give me problems. If you read Solnit stuff (and i have two of her books) she blames Reps, and was soft on Obama. She actually blamed ‘the people’ for not essentially moving Obama more to the left. She didnt blame him. So she triggers me, the same way Dore triggers me or any ‘blue team’ or ‘red team’ person triggers me.
The only ones who dont trigger me, at this late stage of my life are the folks who rip into the dems and the reps, both. And that aint Solnit, and that aint Dore. Its the anti-capitalists. And there aint many out there in the US.
I mean, why doesnt she do an article about how her Dems and the reps are both destroying peace and life on this planet? Why is that impossible for her (and Dore, and all the rest) to do? I suspect its because they would not be able to earn a living in this country. w v
WV,
Interesting. Then you know a lot more about Solnit’s work than I do. I’ve just heard good things about her, mostly in literary arts journals. But I haven’t read any of her books yet.
To your main point. I agree critics should go after both parts of the duopoly, and the capitalists who pull their strings. But we live in a winner-take-all system, politically and economically. Two rotten choices. One wins, the other loses, obviously. Go after both, and you may indirectly aid and abet the party you think is more rotten — to one degree or another. So they go after the one they think is more odious. Or, they simply see them as good versus bad, and it’s a very easy call for them.
Like you, I see them as both rotten. But I’m also guessing that I see a much greater difference between them than you do, as far as their relative impact on life and the planet. I think it actually matters which of our two horrible choices holds power, and that’s reinforced for me almost on an hourly basis these days.
I want them both to hit the road, Jack. But as long as we have just the two choices . . . I’ll take a centrist, corporate Dem eight days a week over a fascist. And I think those are our choices right now.
March 3, 2022 at 9:04 am #137206Billy_TParticipantBack to Solnit’s comments on Warren, which I didn’t know about until you posted them . . .
It’s amazing to me that people to her right see Warren and Sanders as basically the same: commies. So, while you and I think of Warren as moderate to conservative on the issues, Solnit is not as far off as those to her right. The pro-Trump folks hate Warren for being on the “far left,” in their view.
Personal observation, with caveats: If we think in terms of a sliding scale, and one’s ability to sync up with reality, the further to the right one goes from “leftist,” the less they can sync up — with exceptions, of course. Liberal is worse than leftist; moderate is worse than liberal; centrist is worse than moderate; right of center is worse than the center; to the right of conservative is worse than conservative, and so on. That’s how I see things in general, in short-cut terms.
Again, exceptions, and everyone has blind spots, regardless of their politics. Everyone. I also think we’re obligated to rid ourselves of those blind spots as soon as we know they exist. A difficult task, etc.
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