[continued from previous message]   
      
   >>>>> Covid epidemic wasn't so bad and that testing wasn't needed, and at   
   >>>>> the same time he was sending covid equipment to his friend Putin.   
   >>>>> Trump is even said to be working up a military plan for Panama.  What   
   >>>>> 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.   
   >   
      
   My understanding is that he was of Hungarian extraction.   
      
   According to Wikipedia Trump won 58% of the Polish-American vote (I   
   assume that this is the largest Eastern European bloc, and also the most   
   anti-Russian) in 2016, and even in 2020, after 4 years of sucking up to   
   Putin, he won 42.4%. (Wikipedia doesn't have numbers for 2024.) East   
   European ancestry is not sufficient to cause opposition to Trump.   
      
   --   
   alias Ernest Major   
      
   --- SoupGate-DOS v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)