[continued from previous message]   
      
   >>>> will that do to the US status among the free world?  Trump has even    
   >>>> claimed that he admires Putin.  Would dictator worship have been    
   >>>> tolerated by the Republican party 20 years ago?  It would certainly    
   >>>> not have been tolerated in the Reagan era.  This is just my political    
   >>>> observation, but something stinks.   
   >>>   
   >>> Why Russia would interfere with the elections is obvious: They figured    
   >>> out how to wage war in the social media battlespace earlier and better    
   >>> 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. [...]   
   >>    
   >> I suspect simple flattery. It's easy to con a conman.   
   >>    
   >> [snip more stuff I agree with.   
   >>    
   >>>   
   >>> 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. [...]   
   >>    
   >> One small correction: The GOP no longer exists.  The Republican Party    
   >> still exists in name, but it bears almost no resemblance to what the GOP    
   >> was.  It would be better labels the American Fascist Party.   
      
      
   The GOP has a history of radical policy shifts.  Nixon took advantage   
   of that in 1968.  Hayes took advantage of that in 1876.  Teddy   
   Roosevelt almost succeeded in 1912.   
      
      
   >> I wish Nyikos were still alive so I could ask him how Trump is    
   >> substantially different from Hitler, now that Trump has said he wants to    
   >> kill hundreds of thousands of people by cutting USAID.   
   >>    
   >   
   >Peter did claim to be a never-Trumper, and repeated that claim long    
   >after Trump's first inauguration, even after Trump's installation of a    
   >unelected black-robed Integralist dictatorship.   
      
      
   IIRC Nyikos claimed to have roots in Eastern Europe.  I suspect anyone   
   like that in the U.S. would have trouble with Trump sucking up to   
   Putin.     
      
   --    
   To know less than we don't know is the nature of most knowledge   
      
   --- SoupGate-DOS v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)