I get the feeling from all Putin is doing and saying, he is actually emulating Trump. I realize that disinformation was always part of his arsenal but it has a much more Trumpian tone to it this time around: repeating ridiculous themes ad nauseum, holding fake rallies, never explaining anything unless it is to double-down.
I get the feeling from all Putin is doing and saying, he is actually emulating Trump. I realize that disinformation was always part of his arsenal but it has a much more Trumpian tone to it this time around: repeating ridiculous themes ad nauseum, holding fake rallies, never explaining anything unless it is to double-down.
Trump would like to emulate Putin but is unable to, a great source of frustration to him. Trump recently said that if he is ever president again, he wants the power to fire anyone in the Executive branch who fails to do his bidding. That's exactly how Putin rules, though he might do more than just fire them.
He will be able to do this and much more as of Jan 21 2025. The entire American government, and then from there outward every business, industry, and institution in the country that engages with or does business with the Federal government State governments controlled by the regime, will be overwhelmed and drawn into the nightmare life that is a society not protected by rule of law.
- Intelligence agencies will be required to produce the product their masters want to hear. PutinтАЩs difficulties in Ukraine right now are a foretaste of the consequences when intelligence services are compelled to become intellectually corrupt.
- We have a professional military. One of the positives about such a system is that if morally healthy it promotes the best and weeds out the worst. However, after Jan 21 2025 any member of our armed forces who hopes to have a career will have to тАЬsign loyalty oathsтАЭ. Promotion will depend on political loyalty. It will become necessary not only to compete in demonstrations of personal obeisance, it will soon also become mandatory to report on disloyalty in others. Reporting corruption and criminal activity will become not only death to oneтАЩs chances for promotion, it will eventually become the short route to arrest and even physical harm. (Google Eddie Gallagher. ) The result will be an increasingly ineffective, massively corrupt, lavishly funded bureaucracy staffed by thieves and looted, pillaged, and operated by gangsters.
- We can also expect to see replicated in every part of our economy the egregious financial corruption permeating every тАЬshithole countryтАЭ in the world. As the poison spreads, doing business with other businesses that require permission from the authorities to operate will entail flows of favors and inevitably bribes and payments. In a corrupt system this behavior comes to be engaged in not only for personal gain, but for personal protection. Being corrupt is a way of proving to everyone else you wonтАЩt turn them in, so they donтАЩt come after you.
It also is a way of ensuring that you always have something on everyone. The тАЬlawтАЭ becomes a means of making examples тАЬpour encourager les autresтАЭ. And the wider the corruption the more the non-corrupt abandon efforts to oppose it.
RememberтАж Trump pardoned Blagojevich. And Bannon. He had no personal reason (aside maybe some favor to someone who did have a reason, probably pecuniary) to put himself on record as favoring such egregiously criminal and personally unpleasant miscreants. He did it strategically. He was sending a message.
This doesnтАЩt even begin to scratch the surface.
Today oneтАЩs ability to find employment, rent an apartment, borrow money for transportation, obtain health insurance, pay for auto insurance, or do countless other things, is largely governed by a number assigned by three companies that collect and sell information on you, and there is nothing you can do about it. And this is a relatively benign sort of tyranny.
Consider that today the Republican Party boasts of a database of every voter. Pause a moment to reflect on what happens every time you read your emailтАФ the ads that follow you as relentlessly as Trayvon Martin was hunted until he finally stopped and made the mistake of trying to fight off his pursuer. The regime that takes power on January 20 2025 тАФ I donтАЩt want to dignify it with a term like тАЬgovernmentтАЭтАФ that regime will have tools for oppression no secret police agency in history has ever had before, tools that will enable them to predict, to statistically valid confidence levels, a loyalty index for every human being cursed with the misfortune of living under its sway.
A boot stamping on a human face forever and ever, as George Orwell famously put it, will be a kindness compared to what is coming.
I second the Putin/Trump comparison. One key similarity between them is their high emotionality. Putin's entire "adventure" in Ukraine is driven by emotion, which is the same way Trump governs. There have been lots of theories surrounding Trump's affection for Putin (all of which may be true), but one thing that I think has been overlooked is that they might get along simply because they are similar in personality.
People with personalities like those of Trump and Putin do not really get along. If they perceive each other as equals, then they will make nice to each other in public and bad mouth each other in private--because there is no visible hierarchy.
Otherwise, the "stronger" one will rule the weaker one--who will be trying very hard to emulate the stronger one. The stronger will despise the weaker--the weaker will fear the stronger.
it is simple pack behavior in a sense--the alpha and everybody else.
Putin was the alpha in the Trump/Putin relationship... in fact Putin, XI and Kim all have it over Trump because Trump is a wanna be and the others actually rule. he is the beta to their alpha.
I get the feeling from all Putin is doing and saying, he is actually emulating Trump. I realize that disinformation was always part of his arsenal but it has a much more Trumpian tone to it this time around: repeating ridiculous themes ad nauseum, holding fake rallies, never explaining anything unless it is to double-down.
Putin isn't emulating Trump, the other way around, but the point is still valid.
Trump would like to emulate Putin but is unable to, a great source of frustration to him. Trump recently said that if he is ever president again, he wants the power to fire anyone in the Executive branch who fails to do his bidding. That's exactly how Putin rules, though he might do more than just fire them.
He will be able to do this and much more as of Jan 21 2025. The entire American government, and then from there outward every business, industry, and institution in the country that engages with or does business with the Federal government State governments controlled by the regime, will be overwhelmed and drawn into the nightmare life that is a society not protected by rule of law.
- Intelligence agencies will be required to produce the product their masters want to hear. PutinтАЩs difficulties in Ukraine right now are a foretaste of the consequences when intelligence services are compelled to become intellectually corrupt.
- We have a professional military. One of the positives about such a system is that if morally healthy it promotes the best and weeds out the worst. However, after Jan 21 2025 any member of our armed forces who hopes to have a career will have to тАЬsign loyalty oathsтАЭ. Promotion will depend on political loyalty. It will become necessary not only to compete in demonstrations of personal obeisance, it will soon also become mandatory to report on disloyalty in others. Reporting corruption and criminal activity will become not only death to oneтАЩs chances for promotion, it will eventually become the short route to arrest and even physical harm. (Google Eddie Gallagher. ) The result will be an increasingly ineffective, massively corrupt, lavishly funded bureaucracy staffed by thieves and looted, pillaged, and operated by gangsters.
- We can also expect to see replicated in every part of our economy the egregious financial corruption permeating every тАЬshithole countryтАЭ in the world. As the poison spreads, doing business with other businesses that require permission from the authorities to operate will entail flows of favors and inevitably bribes and payments. In a corrupt system this behavior comes to be engaged in not only for personal gain, but for personal protection. Being corrupt is a way of proving to everyone else you wonтАЩt turn them in, so they donтАЩt come after you.
It also is a way of ensuring that you always have something on everyone. The тАЬlawтАЭ becomes a means of making examples тАЬpour encourager les autresтАЭ. And the wider the corruption the more the non-corrupt abandon efforts to oppose it.
RememberтАж Trump pardoned Blagojevich. And Bannon. He had no personal reason (aside maybe some favor to someone who did have a reason, probably pecuniary) to put himself on record as favoring such egregiously criminal and personally unpleasant miscreants. He did it strategically. He was sending a message.
This doesnтАЩt even begin to scratch the surface.
Today oneтАЩs ability to find employment, rent an apartment, borrow money for transportation, obtain health insurance, pay for auto insurance, or do countless other things, is largely governed by a number assigned by three companies that collect and sell information on you, and there is nothing you can do about it. And this is a relatively benign sort of tyranny.
Consider that today the Republican Party boasts of a database of every voter. Pause a moment to reflect on what happens every time you read your emailтАФ the ads that follow you as relentlessly as Trayvon Martin was hunted until he finally stopped and made the mistake of trying to fight off his pursuer. The regime that takes power on January 20 2025 тАФ I donтАЩt want to dignify it with a term like тАЬgovernmentтАЭтАФ that regime will have tools for oppression no secret police agency in history has ever had before, tools that will enable them to predict, to statistically valid confidence levels, a loyalty index for every human being cursed with the misfortune of living under its sway.
A boot stamping on a human face forever and ever, as George Orwell famously put it, will be a kindness compared to what is coming.
I second the Putin/Trump comparison. One key similarity between them is their high emotionality. Putin's entire "adventure" in Ukraine is driven by emotion, which is the same way Trump governs. There have been lots of theories surrounding Trump's affection for Putin (all of which may be true), but one thing that I think has been overlooked is that they might get along simply because they are similar in personality.
People with personalities like those of Trump and Putin do not really get along. If they perceive each other as equals, then they will make nice to each other in public and bad mouth each other in private--because there is no visible hierarchy.
Otherwise, the "stronger" one will rule the weaker one--who will be trying very hard to emulate the stronger one. The stronger will despise the weaker--the weaker will fear the stronger.
it is simple pack behavior in a sense--the alpha and everybody else.
Putin was the alpha in the Trump/Putin relationship... in fact Putin, XI and Kim all have it over Trump because Trump is a wanna be and the others actually rule. he is the beta to their alpha.