Mostly Monday Reads: Putin’s Putz

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

We’ve crossed a Rubicon. Trump, Tucker Carlson, and many other Republicans are no longer denying that Putin’s Russia is deeply involved with Republican Politics and Trump’s campaign. The Republicans of my Daddy’s Republican Party are tossing in their graves. It’s essential we take the 2024 elections seriously and that we do not join “The Evil Empire.”

Do you remember Ronald Reagan borrowing that term from Star Wars? It happened a few days before I gave birth to my oldest daughter, and I had just finished my term as the director of the Women’s Festival in Omaha, where I had spent my term meeting Maya Angelou, Betty Friedan, and Kate Millet. We were talking about the future. Reagan’s speech was delivered to the National Association of Evangelicals. This speech frames the frontline of the battle they’d fight in the Culture War, eventually leading to much of the neighbor-versus-neighbor warfare we see today. I won’t mention the number of rights we’ve also lost on that road and journey. The one thing I never would’ve foretold at the time was how cozy Republicans would become with Russians. But then, Putin decided to let American Evangelicals into the country, and that bargain put us on the road to cozying up with everything Republicans used to hate.

“Well, because these “quiet men” do not “raise their voices,” because they sometimes speak in soothing tones of brotherhood and peace, because, like other dictators before them, they’re always making “their final territorial demand,” some would have us accept them at their word and accommodate ourselves to their aggressive impulses. But if history teaches anything, it teaches that simpleminded appeasement or wishful thinking about our adversaries is folly. It means the betrayal of our past, the squandering of our freedom.”

That’s the part of the speech they’ve all conveniently forgotten.

Contrary to the beliefs of many Republicans these days, Russia is not our ally. Putin–the holdover from the age of KGB and the Berlin Wall–was stationed on the Russian side of the Wall in what was East Germany. He was there when the wall fell and was none too happy about it.

Putin’s five-year sojourn in Dresden, which abruptly ended in 1990, has come under renewed scrutiny as the 70-year-old Russian president prosecutes an increasingly brutal and bloody war in Ukraine — a neighboring sovereign state that for the last 16 months has fiercely resisted a total Russian takeover.

Against that backdrop, analysts point to the lingering legacy of Putin’s Dresden years: His determination never to allow domestic dissent to turn to a tidal surge like the one he witnessed. The realization that even a powerful elite wielding a ruthless police apparatus could suddenly find itself vulnerable. His grievance-laced dreams of a Russian empire greater than the one that slipped away before his eyes.

“It was an important time in his life,” said Douglas Selvage, a historian who works at the main Berlin archive of the Stasi, the onetime East German secret police. “It probably contributed to his sense of how everything could fall apart.”

The Wall fell on my youngest daughter’s literal birth day. This is from the BBC. “Nato chief says Donald Trump comments ‘undermine all of our security.”

Addressing crowds during a rally in South Carolina on Saturday, Mr Trump said he had made his comments about Russia during a previous meeting of leaders of Nato countries.

The former president recalled that the leader of a “big country” had presented a hypothetical situation in which he was not meeting his financial obligations within Nato and had come under attack from Moscow.

He said the leader had asked if the US would come to his country’s aid in that scenario, which prompted him to issue a rebuke.

“I said: ‘You didn’t pay? You’re delinquent?’… ‘No I would not protect you, in fact I would encourage them to do whatever they want. You gotta pay.’

The frontrunner for the Republican nomination for this year’s presidential election did not make clear which nation or leader he was speaking about, or even when this conversation took place.

According to Nato’s own figures for 2023 spending, 19 of its 30 member nations are spending below the target of 2% of their annual GDP on defence – among them Germany, Norway and France.

But most countries which border Ukraine, Russia, or its neighbour and ally Belarus, are exceeding this guideline.

At over 3.9% of its annual GDP, Poland spends even more than the US. Romania, Hungary, Finland and the Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia range between 2.3 and 2.7% for defence expenditure.

Donnie Dotard appears to believe that NATO is like Mar-a-Lardo, where you pay to play. It should be noted that Germany is stepping up to support Ukraine. Anyone sitting in Berlin is aware that 1989 is not that long ago. Meanwhile, the press is drumming up a Biden Fitness crisis that reeks of “but her Emails.” This is from Sam Meredith, who wrote this for CNBC. “Trump’s NATO comments stir up a political storm as Russia keeps quiet.” Who’s the puppet now, Donnie?

Former U.S. head of state and presidential candidate Donald Trump stoked the ire of U.S. lawmakers and international leaders, after remarking he would not protect NATO countries from Russian attacks if they lag on their membership payments.

Speaking at a rally in South Carolina on Saturday, Trump said that, as president, he warned NATO allies that he “would encourage” Russia “to do whatever the hell they want” to a member country that didn’t meet its defense spending guidelines.

Trump, who has a long history of criticizing the trans-Atlantic military alliance, recounted a time when an unspecified president of a NATO member challenged him on his threat not to defend them from a potential Russian invasion if they failed to meet NATO’s target of spending at least 2% of their gross domestic product on the military.

“You didn’t pay, you’re delinquent. … No, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. You got to pay. You got to pay your bills,” Trump said.

The U.S. has historically had the largest number of military personnel out of all NATO countries, counting 1.35 million troops in 2023, according to Statista.

Trump has been accused of entertaining close ties with Russia during his first presidential mandate. The Kremlin declined to address Trump’s remarks.

Does anyone other than me find it ironic that the man who never pays his lawyers–at least from his own pocket–and files bankruptcy constantly to avoid paying bills is chiding our allies over the level of their financial commitments to their own safety?

Tucker Carlson discovers Putin is spooky, John Buss, @repeat1968

I’m not the only old-school blogger unnerved by all of this. Here’s Digby writing at Salon. “Donald Trump and Tucker Carlson gave Putin exactly what he wants. It is no coincidence that Trump made his biggest threat against NATO right after Tucker Carlson sat with Putin.”

As we all know, the biggest story in the world is the breaking news that President Joe Biden is old. Sure 9/11 was something of a big deal and the war in Iraq and the global pandemic required all of our attention for a time, but this is the most important news of our lifetime, maybe anyone’s lifetime and there’s no telling when, or if, the nation will ever recover. Still, it’s probably important to at least pay a tiny bit of attention to other things happening in the world just in case they might also be affected by Biden’s age in some way.

In fact, we probably should be just a little bit curious about what former Fox News celebrity Tucker Carlson was doing in Moscow last week interviewing Russian president Vladimir Putin. Carlson has demonstrated his affinity for Putin for years now and is commonly extolled on the Russian state television channels as a model American with all the right ideas. Back in March of 2022, Mother Jones obtained a copy of a Kremlin memo with talking points for the media:

“It is essential to use as much as possible fragments of broadcasts of the popular Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who sharply criticizes the actions of the United States [and] NATO, their negative role in unleashing the conflict in Ukraine, [and] the defiantly provocative behavior from the leadership of the Western countries and NATO towards the Russian Federation and towards President Putin, personally,” advises the 12-page document written in Russian. It sums up Carlson’s position: “Russia is only protecting its interests and security.” The memo includes a quote from Carlson: “And how would the US behave if such a situation developed in neighboring Mexico or Canada?”

(People like Carlson used to be called “useful idiots.”) Russian state media has followed those instructions and for the past two years has featured Carlson’s commentary regularly. It’s therefore not all that surprising that he would be granted the coveted interview with Putin.

As it turns out the interview ended up mostly being a twisted history lesson from Putin with Carlson sitting there like a potted plant with a feigned fascinated expression on his face. The point of Putin’s tutorial was to explain why Russia has every right to invade Ukraine and anywhere else he might fancy. Putin went to great pains to explain why it was the victims of WWII who made Hitler do what he did, specifically the people of Poland, whom Putin blamed for balking at Hitler’s invasion of its country. The entire thrust of the conversation was a very thinly veiled threat to invade Poland. The Polish government certainly heard it that way.

This is a pithy analysis. Please go read it! Marcie of Emptywheel has similar thoughts. “CALL AND RESPONSE: PUTIN DEMANDED GREATER RUSSIA AND TRUMP AGREED.”

Over the weekend, Putin and Donald Trump seem to have come to public agreement that, if elected in November, Trump would help Putin pursue Greater Russia.

In his session with Tucker Carlson, after all, Putin corrected the propagandist, informing him that, no, he didn’t invade Ukraine because of concerns about NATO expansion, but because he considers Ukraine — and much of Eastern Europe — part of Greater Russia. He subjected Tucker to a half hour lesson in his, Putin’s, mythology about Russia.

Tucker Carlson:Mr. President, thank you.

On February 24, 2022, you addressed your country in your nationwide address when the conflict in Ukraine started and you said that you were acting because you had come to the conclusion that the United States through NATO might initiate a quote, “surprise attack on our country”. And to American ears that sounds paranoid. Tell us why you believe the United States might strike Russia out of the blue. How did you conclude that?

Vladimir Putin:The point is not that the United States was going to launch a surprise strike on Russia, I didn’t say so. Are we having a talk show or serious conversation?

Tucker Carlson:That was a good quote. Thank you, it’s formidably, serious!

Vladimir Putin: Your education background is in history, as far as I understand, right?

Tucker Carlson: Yes.

Vladimir Putin: Then I will allow myself – just 30 seconds or one minute – to give a little historical background, if you don’t mind.

Tucker Carlson: Please.

Vladimir Putin: Look how did our relations with Ukraine begin, where does Ukraine come from.

[snip]

Tucker Carlson: May I ask… You are making the case that Ukraine, certain parts of Ukraine, Eastern Ukraine, in fact, has been Russia for hundreds of years, why wouldn’t you just take it when you became President 24 years ago? Your have nuclear weapons, they don’t. It’s actually your land. Why did you wait so long?

Vladimir Putin: I’ll tell you. I’m coming to that. This briefing is coming to an end. It might be boring, but it explains many things.

And then, within a day, Trump told a fabricated story that served to promise that not only wouldn’t he honor America’s commitment to defend NATO states, but would instead encourage Russia to do “whatever they hell they want.”

I’m mad at the New York Times Op-Ed Editor who let the page run away with the Biden Fitness weirdness, but I’ll use this link anyway. This is from Peter Baker. “Trump, Putin, Carlson and the Shifting Sands of Today’s American Politics. An interview with Russia’s leader and congressional resistance to aid for Ukraine underscore the transformation of the parties and electorate in the United States more than three decades after the Cold War.” Remember, I’m old enough to have lived through the damned Cold War.

With the help of a populist former Fox News star and America’s richest man, Mr. Putin has gained a platform to justify his actions even as Russian and American journalists languish in his prisons. His favored candidate is poised to win the Republican presidential nomination while Congress weighs abandoning Ukraine to the tender mercies of Russian invaders.

Mr. Putin’s filibuster-style appearance with Tucker Carlson on Elon Musk’s social media platform amid the security aid debate on Capitol Hill driven by Donald J. Trump offers a moment to reflect on the head-spinning transformation of American politics in recent years. A Republican Party that once defined itself through muscular resistance to Russia has turned increasingly toward a form of neo-isolationism with, in some quarters, strains of sympathy for Moscow.

Instead of a ruthless autocrat seeking to conquer territory through the most violent war in Europe since the Nazis fell, Mr. Putin has made himself into something of a like-minded ally of certain right-wing forces in the United States, not least of all Mr. Trump, who praised his aggression as “genius” just before Russian forces stormed across the border into Ukraine in 2022. And Mr. Putin seems to be prevailing in the American capital in a way that would have once been unthinkable, with the help of a party that still pays homage to Ronald Reagan.

“For Putin, it’s a manifestation of the American weakness,” said Yevgenia Albats, an independent Russian journalist who moved to the United States last year after threats of prosecution. To Mr. Putin, she said, the Carlson interview proves that “Americans realized that they lost the war with him” and were “sending him a close-to-the-next-president envoy to confirm his success.” It also serves a domestic purpose for Mr. Putin, she added. “It is a message to elites, who are arguing the cease-fire: You see, Americans blinked.”

American politics did not need Mr. Putin to roil it. The rise of nativism, populism and polarization are homegrown phenomena with historical roots. After decades of a rough Cold War bipartisan consensus on America’s role in the world, globalization, mass immigration and foreign wars have discredited the old thinking for many and opened the door to figures like Mr. Trump, whose promise to put “America first” resonated in broad swaths of the country.

That’s not blinking. That’s batting your eyelashes at fascism and a fascist dictator. Carlson is great at that.

Mr. Carlson is among those who have grown more willing to listen and convey Russia’s message to Americans. As others have noted, Mr. Carlson used to refer to Mr. Putin as the “Russian dictator” who is “in league with our enemies,” but now he argues that Moscow has been misunderstood, or at least not heard. His commentaries assailing Ukraine have been gleefully repeated on Russian state media.

In a video explaining his decision to interview Mr. Putin, Mr. Carlson asserted that Americans and other English-speaking people were unaware of what was really happening regarding the war in Ukraine. “No one has told them the truth,” he said. “Their media outlets are corrupt. They lie to their readers and viewers.”

I guess he’s still reeling from his latest pink slip from Faux News. I had two students in one of my econ classes back in the 80s who obsessively worried and thought about Russia. It’s probably because Reagan was constantly beating a drum about them. One day, I put down the chalk and told them that if modern history teaches us anything, civil wars come along, and things change when people spend a lot of time in line for food and clothing. I mentioned the USSR hadn’t been in existence long enough to figure out who it was and that Stalin was dead. Just wait a few years. I wish I could talk to them both today. Because I guaranteed them a Russian Civil War by the end of the century. They beat me to that date. Plus, Putin is not what you would call a charismatic leader. He came close to being ousted by a crony not that long ago.

I now apply that logic to the US. January 6 was a canary; we still live in a coal mine. We need to be alert on this one. It wasn’t a tourist visit. It wasn’t a riot. It was an American President attempting a self-coup. Putin may be in over his head, but the Republicans are back there, lost in the woods. We have seen the enemy, and he is us.

So, what’s on your reading and blogging list today?