In part, we're seeing the fruit of a long Russian influence operation to persuade religious-social conservatives that Putin's autocratic rule better serves their values than the American democratic system does.
The Kremlin struck gold with a presidential candidate on whom it probably holds kompromat as well as financial leverage; who is p…
In part, we're seeing the fruit of a long Russian influence operation to persuade religious-social conservatives that Putin's autocratic rule better serves their values than the American democratic system does.
The Kremlin struck gold with a presidential candidate on whom it probably holds kompromat as well as financial leverage; who is predisposed to admire and envy dictators; and whose psychopathology leads him to believe that any roadblock to the fulfillment of his wishes is intrinsically wrong.
Trump's profoundly self-centered view of right and wrong was then tightly joined with a preexisting hostility to the administrative state on grounds of a partisan (Democrat-leaning) slant in the permanent bureaucracy. But what was ostensibly a project of redressing ideological bias in the bureaucracy turned into a belief system centered on whatever Trump wants. All the institutional guardrails intended to prevent the president from acting as a lawless autocrat have been cast as perfidious Deep State attacks on the Duly Elected President - or on the GOP frontrunner. If the law goes after Trump, then the law is corrupt.
This is all helpful to the Kremlin's aim of undermining the American constitutional system.
I have a background as a Soviet/Russian analyst during the waning days of the Cold War and a few years thereafter. I am also an Orthodox Christian with a theology degree. I am quite distressed by the attraction of my fellow Orthodox, as well as many other "conservative" American Christians, to Putin and Russia. I think it is mostly a matter of identity politics, which has recently taken over American politics but has been prevalent in Orthodoxy for centuries.
The notion that Russia is a Christian nation is absurd. It is one of the most secular nations that has ever existed. While 70% of Russians identify as Orthodox Christians, 30% of those 70% also identify as atheists, and only 3% ever attend Orthodox services. Russia cannot even produce enough priests to staff its churches - it has to import priests from Ukraine, a MUCH more Christian country, which produces more priests than its churches need. Russia also has one of the world's highest abortion rates - a fact that Putin's American fans systematically ignore because it doesn't fit the requirements of their political narrative.
It was clear to me by late 2015 - long before the Steele Dossier surfaced - that Trump had corrupt ties to Russia. Don Jr. boasted about the Trump Organization's access to investment funding from Russian oligarchs! That's one of the two main reasons I was a charter member of NeverTrump. (The other was his preference for protectionist trade policy.)
I really do not see the Kremlin in this . I see neighbors, friends and relatives violently reacting to more than a half-century of being scolded by a proliferating mass of professional finger-waggers.
Just saying “professional finger wavers” is another way of saying anyone who tells me I can’t say and do whatever I want even when the group I am part of has an obvious history of transgressive, self-indulgent behaviour. To most it’s saying things that are politically incorrect and ideas of “personal freedoms” like owning and displaying as many guns as you can afford. But this creates a pool of discontent that has been taken by political operatives, turned into a movement and aimed at the normal function of democracy, creating a space for overturning not just political norms but American democracy itself.
In part, we're seeing the fruit of a long Russian influence operation to persuade religious-social conservatives that Putin's autocratic rule better serves their values than the American democratic system does.
The Kremlin struck gold with a presidential candidate on whom it probably holds kompromat as well as financial leverage; who is predisposed to admire and envy dictators; and whose psychopathology leads him to believe that any roadblock to the fulfillment of his wishes is intrinsically wrong.
Trump's profoundly self-centered view of right and wrong was then tightly joined with a preexisting hostility to the administrative state on grounds of a partisan (Democrat-leaning) slant in the permanent bureaucracy. But what was ostensibly a project of redressing ideological bias in the bureaucracy turned into a belief system centered on whatever Trump wants. All the institutional guardrails intended to prevent the president from acting as a lawless autocrat have been cast as perfidious Deep State attacks on the Duly Elected President - or on the GOP frontrunner. If the law goes after Trump, then the law is corrupt.
This is all helpful to the Kremlin's aim of undermining the American constitutional system.
I have a background as a Soviet/Russian analyst during the waning days of the Cold War and a few years thereafter. I am also an Orthodox Christian with a theology degree. I am quite distressed by the attraction of my fellow Orthodox, as well as many other "conservative" American Christians, to Putin and Russia. I think it is mostly a matter of identity politics, which has recently taken over American politics but has been prevalent in Orthodoxy for centuries.
The notion that Russia is a Christian nation is absurd. It is one of the most secular nations that has ever existed. While 70% of Russians identify as Orthodox Christians, 30% of those 70% also identify as atheists, and only 3% ever attend Orthodox services. Russia cannot even produce enough priests to staff its churches - it has to import priests from Ukraine, a MUCH more Christian country, which produces more priests than its churches need. Russia also has one of the world's highest abortion rates - a fact that Putin's American fans systematically ignore because it doesn't fit the requirements of their political narrative.
It was clear to me by late 2015 - long before the Steele Dossier surfaced - that Trump had corrupt ties to Russia. Don Jr. boasted about the Trump Organization's access to investment funding from Russian oligarchs! That's one of the two main reasons I was a charter member of NeverTrump. (The other was his preference for protectionist trade policy.)
I really do not see the Kremlin in this . I see neighbors, friends and relatives violently reacting to more than a half-century of being scolded by a proliferating mass of professional finger-waggers.
Just saying “professional finger wavers” is another way of saying anyone who tells me I can’t say and do whatever I want even when the group I am part of has an obvious history of transgressive, self-indulgent behaviour. To most it’s saying things that are politically incorrect and ideas of “personal freedoms” like owning and displaying as many guns as you can afford. But this creates a pool of discontent that has been taken by political operatives, turned into a movement and aimed at the normal function of democracy, creating a space for overturning not just political norms but American democracy itself.