“How is anyone bewildered about this?”
“Trump is not just changing American foreign policy,” writes Fareed Zakaria. “He is reorienting America’s moral compass, a compass that has been firmly set since the country’s founding almost 250 years ago.” Like people elsewhere, Americans have made their share of mistakes over that time, but through it all, we knew “whom to root for — those who seek freedom — and whom to condemn — those who try to crush liberty.”
But no. Donald Trump is not “reorienting America’s moral compass.” The man lacks the gene for a moral compass, has no use for one, and he’s trying to break the country’s, not reorient it.
Marcy Wheeler on Sunday mocked CNN’s attempt to make sense of Trump’s behavior in the Oval Office last week and to discern why a “US president would choose the Kremlin over America’s traditional partners.” As if it’s a real puzzler:
Much of it, like the frequent suggestion that Trump is somehow a Kremlin agent, or beholden to Putin, is without evidence.
Perhaps the right-wing US ideological fantasy that Russia is a natural US ally in a future confrontation with China, and can be broken away from its most important backer, is motivating Washington’s dramatic geopolitical shift.
But for many bewildered observers, both explanations for Trump’s extraordinary pivot to the Kremlin seem equally misplaced.
Wheeler replies:
CNN asserted there’s no evidence to back the claim that Trump is “beholden to Putin” in spite of the fact that Russia helped Trump win in 2016, after which Dmitriev reached out and discussed a bunch of investments — investments which would require ending sanctions — as a way to improve relations. CNN asserted there’s no evidence to back the claim that Trump is “beholden to Putin” in spite of the fact that Russia attempted to help Trump win in 2020 at least by sending disinformation framing Joe Biden and his kid via Russian agent Andrii Derkach to Trump’s personal lawyer. CNN asserted there’s no evidence to back the claim that Trump is “beholden to Putin” in spite of the fact that Derkach made similar efforts in 2024, and a bunch of Russian malign influence efforts (possibly including bomb threats that forced the evacuation of Democratic precincts) similarly aimed to help Trump and others who would “oppose aid to Ukraine.”
CNN asserted there’s no evidence to back the claim that Trump is “beholden to Putin” in spite of the fact that a key Putin advisor, Nikolay Patrushev, said this in November:
In his future policies, including those on the Russian track US President-elect Donald Trump will rely on the commitments to the forces that brought him to power, rather than on election pledges, Russian presidential aide Nikolay Patrushev told the daily Kommersant in an interview.
“The election campaign is over,” Patrushev noted. “To achieve success in the election, Donald Trump relied on certain forces to which he has corresponding obligations. As a responsible person, he will be obliged to fulfill them.”
He agreed that Trump, when he was still a candidate, “made many statements critical of the destructive foreign and domestic policies pursued by the current administration.”
“But very often election pledges in the United States can iverge [sic] from subsequent actions,” he recalled.
“[C]ommitments to the forces that brought him to power … he will be obliged to fulfill”? Trump’s win comes with “corresponding obligations”?
Wheeler outlines some of the evidence of Trump’s Russia ties from 2016 and beyond, connections his inner circle lied and evaded testifying to conceal. She asks the obvious question:
And here we are, eight years later, utterly bewildered why Trump might be in such a rush to deliver up Ukraine to Russia and lift sanctions to pursue business deals, precisely the quo outlined by the lies told years ago.
Really? How is anyone bewildered about this?
Certainly not MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow. She connected the dots on Trump’s post-inauguration actions and pointedly asked who benefits:
Anyone still bewildered about Trump’s behavior toward Russia is drifting down a river in Egypt.
I don’t know the provenance of this warning by @AnnaOdesitka from Musk’s Twitter, but Marcy found it worth retweeting:
MESSAGE from my father. I went to lay down but he want me to urgently write what he say:
“Dear American partners and friends, hello. Do not listen to any American expert who is not saying what I say to you. They are idiots who don’t understand Russia. Putin is using standard KGB practice of destroying deal. I say this to you because Putin will not survive if he don’t have all of Ukraina to show Russians it was worth it. But he also needs immediate ceasefire because Russia is close to collapse. This is my not opinion but fact. I through my daughter relay this to you for months.
His only option is to use America to force our surrender. But Trump need to sell it to American population as peace plan. Every good deal offered will be saboteur. Until Putin and Trump can sell that Ukraine is not interested in peace and America give Russia green light to finish this.
Vance role is “innocent bystander”. It’s meant to look like person not involved who is not comfortable morally. It’s theatre. Vance is innocent bystander role so that Trump can look as though he want peace, but every time agreement benefitting Ukraine is proposed, Trump ordered Vance to saboteur it. This is old KGB trick of destroying agreements with looking like clean hands.
Trump is too stupid to know he is being used by Russia. He only needs to be managed. Vance is actively and willingly work for russia as innocent bystander tactic. This is dark hour for you. Apollo 13 Crew never give up hope. You must take example of them to work together to land America safely from crash. You have no time left.”
That last sentence certainly is true.
Update (just in): Another “who is this good for?” Welcome to Trump’s “home of the knave.”
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