it seems absurd to me, donald wouldnt be doing this for no reason. is blackmail at play or what???
I said this before, but I’ll say it again. When Trump hosted Russian diplomats/spies at the White House, when he confiscated his translators notes after a meeting with Putin, when he had another meeting with Putin with no US translators present, when he left the Kurds high and dry, the press would ask, “why would Trump do this?”
Every time Trump did something inexplicable, there were always a range of explanations. However, there was one that explained them all.
There is a trail of circumstantial evidence he has been a Russian asset since 1986 at least. I suggest you read American Kompromat by Craig Unger.
Just be careful because a lot of that info comes from a former KGB asset, so there’s certainly an agenda there. That doesn’t mean the info is wrong, just that there’s likely more to the story that we don’t have access to.
I’ve actively looked for anything that would debunk the book. Can you point me to some info on this source?
The best I’ve found is this snopes article:
In the book, Unger cites ex-KGB officer Yuri Shvets in making the case that Trump’s relationship with the Russian government started decades before he became president.
…
In a book review about “American Kompromat,” John Sipher, a retired member of the CIA’s clandestine services, concluded that the book doesn’t necessarily reveal anything that was previously unknown about Trump, who has long been a public figure and whose activities have been widely covered for years. It “reminds us that there is still much left to learn,” Sipher wrote.
And the Guardian article about the book has a bit more information about Shvets and his allegations.
So my take is either the information is correct, not dangerous, or the book isn’t popular enough for the interested parties to take it seriously. I don’t know why US intelligence operatives have been silent on the issue, that’s why I hesitate to take the book at face value (maybe they see him as a victim, or perhaps they need a smoking gun).
That’s the best I have. I would really like to hear what the Trump campaign has to say about it. They’ll probably just deflect though.
You have to understand both conservatives and narcissists.
Conservative morality isn’t based in utilitarian ethics; it’s nothing to do with greater good or least harm. It’s about pecking order: those at the top are protected by rules and not bound by them, while those beneath them are bound by rules but not protected by them.
And the important thing to realise is this isn’t a cynical observation of a regrettable truth for them, it’s aspirational and idealistic. That’s how they think it ought to work, and they admire it when they see it.
For them, the world is full of winners and losers. Not only is it good and right and moral for a person in power to abuse that power and violate laws and customs, doing so makes them a winner who deserves to get away with it. To attempt to hold a winner accountable is an affront to the natural order, blasphemy, sacrilege, dragging god from his throne.
And similarly, it’s good and right and moral for losers to be punished for violating rules, and to submit to abuse and oppression. All the rules and double standards around gender roles, racial roles, etc are not hypocrisy to them, they’re the whole point. High-status people in society (eg rich cishet white men, or police or military officers etc) are celebrated for getting away with things that others are punished for, and demonstrating both sides of the dichotomy is actively desired.
If a cop beats the shit out of a black kid and is rewarded rather than punished, that’s justice on both sides for them. The authority figure is allowed to revel in their license to abuse, as is their due, and the black kid is punished with humiliation and further trauma for daring to complain. If a woman is punished for promiscuity while a man is rewarded for having sex with her, ditto.
That’s why LGBTQ rights are such a threat to them - making gender identity anything but hardcoded messes with all their hierarchies, as does any change to man=fucker=winner, woman=fuckee=loser, and of course queer=victim=super-loser. It’s their whole social order turned on its head and dumped out on the floor.
So amidst all this, dictators are the the ultimate celebrities to them: they don’t just get away with murder, they get away with genocide, and wholesale flouting of both national and international law. They are rockstar-gods, accountable to none, the highest status imaginable. They will fawn and grovel and dream of being that great.
(That’s why they’re all so fucking pro-israel, and why pointing out their genocide and torture of the Palestinians is so completely infeffective - all it’s doing in their view is establishing Israel’s credentials as untouchable winners.)
On top of that, DJT is a malignant narcissist - as conservative leaders tend to be, since conservative voters admire those personality traits like dictators in miniature.
And narcissists are pathetically dependent on praise from the people above them - it’s the strongest hit of self-esteem they can get to fill the eternal sucking void in their souls for a tiny instant, even better than victimising someone themselves and mocking them for it.
So when Putin and the Saudis and the russian mob and every other fucker tossed him some sad little scrap of status, he whined and pissed on the floor like a submissive little lapdog, desperate for more. He got suckered into shady deals that left him owned body and soul, he got suckered into kompromat of all kinds leaving him even more vulnerable to external leverage, and all of this left him grateful for being able to attract the attention of vicious bastards, because it made him feel important and special.
People throw rumors around that Putin could have material for blackmail on him RE Golden Shower tapes and business dealings with Russian Oligarchs.
Another, simpler theory is that since he also throws compliments toward other Dictators as well as Putin is that he just admires their ability to do what they want.
simpler theory
Trump is a narcissist and not that smart, so I think he largely just wants to be like other powerful people.
It’s almost guaranteed that Putin has material for blackmail on pretty much every world leader, if it exists, because Russia’s intelligence operations are top notch. I’m guessing he holds his cards close.
I’m guessing Trump and Putin have a history as well, it’s just not clear what exactly that history is.
Lending and credit from western banks dried up for Trump, but he continued to find willing lenders overseas. It’s likely that he owes hundreds of millions of dollars to Russian oligarchs and as a result is beholden to Putin because he can’t afford for those loans to be called.
https://www.businessinsider.com/eric-trump-golf-courses-russia-funding-2017-5?op=1
I read a good breakdown about this earlier in the week, basically saying that Trump thinks all he needs is to be buddy-buddy with dictators and he can use that to control them. He also honestly believe he IS buddies with these people and that they will do anything he asks, ignoring the fact that the rest of the world sees him as a joke that makes America weak. So while Trump continues to believe he is popular everywhere, the reality is that dictators want him as President because he is easily manipulated.
