Fiona Hill: "This was Trump pulling a Putin"

[Velar Fricative]

This is a must-read and needs its own thread. Then again, so do so many things posted in the April politics thread!

www.nytimes.com/2022/04/11/magazine/trump-putin-ukraine-fiona-hill.html

This is such a strong but sobering "big picture" article tying Trump's actions to what's happening in Ukraine right now. Contrary to Bolton's assertions in this piece, I do not believe our institutions were actually that strong to prevent the transfer of power from Trump to Biden. We got lucky. That's what I believe 1000%. And 2024 is going to be ugly. 

Also, lately I've seen a few houses flying Trump flags alongside Ukrainian flags and I'm like "the cognitive dissonance is really strong in that house."

[rubytue]

I’m partially through the article, but, it brings to mind that yesterday, I went on a documentary binge on Kanopsy. They had a whole list of recommendations based on the Ukraine situation (yes, I’m wordsmithing here, I don’t recall if it said war or conflict, did they downplay it or am I?). Anyway, there was a fascinating documentary on Putin. And I kept thinking, it could have been about Trump without many changes. There were several that were just called “Putin”, so I don’t have a specific citation to which one.

(Side note Babuskas of Chernobyl was also sooo fascinating. And good! I’m sort of trying to learn Polish, so I’m trying to find things in salvic language with subtitles. Just to hear the cadences and such)

[neverfstop]

Apr 11, 2022 11:16:36 GMT -5 Velar Fricative said:

Also, lately I've seen a few houses flying Trump flags alongside Ukrainian flags and I'm like "the cognitive dissonance is really strong in that house."

Maybe they just like flags? Lol...but seriously I think the more we know and find out, the more people are pushed into their respective sides.  If you didn't care about Jan 6th before, then this trickle of news has all been a "nothing-burger" as they say.  And all this more damning info coming out to the rest of us is proving how we felt, but also sort of feel like reinforcing that nobody will be held accountable and half our country doesn't care about a failed coup.

I do blame Trump for emboldening Russia/Putin, and for making so many American sympathetic to Russia, instead of remembering that they not our friends. 

[rubytue]

To follow up on my previous post… Trump aspires to be Putin. Trump wants to be a oligarch like Putin. Trump is not nearly smart enough.