[continued from previous message]   
      
   than the US did. The Russian Federation aims to be an empire again, and   
   bring all of its former territories back under its wise and benevolent   
   tank-treads. It's hard to do that if the United States has a robust   
   economy, has enormous soft power on the world stage, and leads a strong   
   and coherent NATO. So they get a biddable fool into office to turn   
   Americans against each other, demonstrate to our allies that we're no   
   longer reliable, sabotage our economy, withdraw us from NATO, and   
   generally act like a prancing dipshit.   
      
   Note that the election-meddling is effective even when it doesn't   
   install Moscow's guy in office: If nothing else, it still saps political   
   capital and de-legitimizes the victor. And as long as the United States   
   becomes more fractious and impotent, the Russian Federation's goals are   
   advanced.   
      
   Why does Trump go along with it? I don't know. It's possible Putin has   
   some good old-fashioned kompromat on him — although it's hard to imagine   
   what secret could possibly be vile enough to turn the chuds on Dear   
   Leader at this point. The worse he acts, the more they love him. It's   
   possible Trump has simply been so deep in hock to the Bratva for so long   
   that there really isn't any path forward but obedience. And, sadly, it's   
   also possible Trump really is so goddamn stupid that he thinks he's in   
   control even as Putin works him like a Muppet.   
      
   Why do the American people go along with it? Privilege distress. The   
   gains made by queer people, brown people, and women in recent decades   
   have a lot of white straight undies in a bunch; when you've enjoyed   
   privilege your whole life, mere equality can feel like oppression. So   
   the homos and uppity women and them people with them funny accents had   
   to be taught a lesson, and who better to do that than the the dumbest,   
   angriest white loudmouth you ever saw?   
      
   "The salient fact of American politics is that there are fifty to   
   seventy million voters each of whom will volunteer to live, with his   
   family, in a cardboard box under an overpass, and cook sparrows on an   
   old curtain rod, if someone would only guarantee that the black, gay,   
   Hispanic, liberal, whatever, in the next box over doesn't even have a   
   curtain rod, or a sparrow to put on it." — Davis X. Machina   
      
   Heather McGhee describes this as "drained pool politics," referring to   
   Southern towns reacting to desegregation by shutting down public   
   swimming pools rather than let Black folks use them too. Hell, some paid   
   to plug the pools with concrete, just to ensure they'd never be used again.   
      
   And yeah, racism this open wouldn't have been tolerated in the Reagan   
   era (though the queerphobia sure was!) but this is the direction the GOP   
   has been moving for decades. The neoconservatives figured out in the   
   1970s that you could use privilege distress and generalized resentment   
   of modernity to get white folks voting against their own interests, and   
   in favor of the oligarchs; Trump just stopped using the coded language.   
   After 40+ years the Republican Party simply didn't need it any more.   
      
   --   
   [The address listed is a spam trap. To reply, take off every zig.]   
   Kestrel Clayton   
   "Every normal woman must be tempted, at times, to stoke the fire,   
   host the black mass, and begin eating hearts." — Rose Bailey   
      
   --- SoupGate-DOS v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)