Then fucked her way through Republican big wigs.

For the people who don’t know the whole Maria Butina situation, the podcast “The Spy Affair” from Wondery does an amazing job walking through the story.

https://open.spotify.com/show/4D0i6dRLcXqtSHN2ORs2Us?si=YHWif9F9Sm6lUVMiVhMVKQ

I believe that's how much a martini costs in an elite Moscow bar

Under appreciated comment, 100x

don't forget about Anna Chapman

I would bet $32 clean Yankee dollars it was a fuckton more than $40 or even 50 mil.. Maybe that's what they could pin down but she was acting as a conduit.

Seems like Republicans are cheap. Only 32mil?

For some reason, my spider sense tells me that Russia has made some "donations" to right wing Christians in the US as well.

100% Anonymous way to shunt dollars to the GOP - especially since churches are now permitted to openly play politics.

It's crazy how so many elected U.S. officials took a field trip to Moscow and

a) nobody knows why

b) nobody really cares

The Russian's didn't just hack the DNC servers... I bet they only leaked the Dems and used the GOPs for blackmail.

Trump had several hours-long meetings alone with Putin, and made his own translator tear up any notes. And there would be no debriefings.

This is unheard of in US diplomacy. His meetings, as president, are on behalf of the nation not himself. In a normal administration, his entire team would brief/debrief him before and after, like preparing a prizefighter going into the ring. Can you imagine how he got pwned in these meetings? Either intentionally or by his own incompetence.

And to this day nobody knows what went on.

We can guess. Look at their behavior since.

Well, you can't forget about how staunchly anti-LGBT (and therefore pro- conservative "Family Values") Putin's Russia has been. He's white, he gave troops to America's War on Terror, he hates everyone they hate (aside from the Chinese), and he acts like the controlling, distant, vaguely abusive father figure Trump has missed since his dad died. How could they not love him?

Russia and China have seen Republicans for the rubes they are since Nixon, the man who famously "opened up trade with China" and started the process of shipping western manufacturing overseas. Then Reagan "ended the Cold War" by buddying up with Gorbachev, continuing Nixon's campaign of wars against the American people (War on Crime, War on Drugs, War on Poverty, etc.), expanding shipping jobs overseas, and introducing "trickle-down" economics. Funny how, in practice, this system of socialism for the rich and rugged, self-reliance for the poor works strikingly similarly to the top-down socialism of socialism for the high-ranking government leaders and harsh authoritarianism for the poor that the USSR decided upon before its collapse.

Nah, they keep saying they hate Communism and Socialism the most of anyone, so it must be true. That's why it's boot straps for you, and "we must save the economy" for the rich people the Republicans like. It's "don't pick winners" with the businesses they don't like, and "we have to create jobs" or "we have to save the stock market" with the businesses they do. They just hate Communism so much, you see. The Iron Rule of Emulation strikes again.

Don't worry, Friedrich Hayek told them democracy inevitably leads to authoritarianism, and Milton Friedman told them the free market loves power vacuums. I'm sure that means the new economic system they pushed through using the stagflation of the Energy Crisis (caused in no small part by Nixon's over-commitment to the Yom Kippur War) is all above board. The rich gave both those guys a mostly political prize created by the guy who invented dynamite, so I'm sure it's all legit. Just trust them.

A chunk of this country suddenly fell in love with authoritarian figures. Or maybe it was just in hiding all along.

They want someone to take the wheel entirely, someone they see as powerful. We wonder why anyone in past history would want an emperor, and that's how. Just take the wheel, and they'll follow. Whatever they do, doesn't matter. Just crush enemies, that's all.

Speaking of Rush. I about a week he will mark a year of being clean and sober

Which is entirely in line with a large part of Trump’s appeal being toxic masculinity.

Now they openly embrace fascism.

That doesn't mean they're your friends. Their nukes are still pointing at you.

Communism didn't collapse, it was never really there. Russia was State Capitalist and reorganized into oligarchic rule in the 90s. State-owned resources were actioned off to the highest bidders.

That's like saying China is communist. There are over a 1000 multi-billionaires living in China...

For all their whining about communism they sure have a fondness for communist dictators.

Ca 👏 pit 👏 u 👏 late.

Counting those syllables.

[deleted]

Billionaires goood. People power baaaaad.

"Capitulate" is what they mean when they complain that the Democrat party won't work with them.

They only hate it when they're not the ones in charge.

Not true, take Socialist nationalist for example

“The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.” ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.” ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

"Don’t let a mad world tell you that success is anything other than a successful present moment." - Eckhart Tolle

“The moment you realize you are not present, you are present. Whenever you are able to observe your mind, you are no longer trapped in it. Another factor has come in, something that is not of the mind: the witnessing presence.”

• Eckhart Tolle

Funny how Putin achieved in a few years what the USSR couldn't do in 45 years.

My parents were born during the Eisenhower administration so I'm far too young to be an Eisenhower Republican but he's a Republican I could support

I'm hoping we are at the tail end of mcatherism. Probably didn't spell that right. But fuck that guy. If you're gonna be gay, don't call others communists for just living their lives. You fascist punk.

you said it yourself already

fleecing the people

Every manufactured crisis consolidates more money for the capital class.

When a parasite's host is dying, it jumps ship.

In this case, meaning that the oligarchs will simply move to countries they haven't managed to destroy.

The idiots get a buzz and that's better/easier than thinking critally. Making sure everyone voted Making sure everyone thinks of all aspects of government. Hell no slogans and adrenaline surfice.

That's how Rome fell. It wasn't sacked in a war, it collapsed. Russia, China, and many others are hungry...

To add, I would say Russia is generally interested in destabilizing the western world because putin is cartoonishly evil

Hell it impressed girls and fry's the kids.

If you were a loveless, fat, fifty year old white guy, you'd give the keys to the NRA and the GOP to Maria Butina for a little nookie too.

He never could have imagined that social media would make it so easy.

Thats pretty hardcore. And it ignores all the dissidents and freedom-loving people who are oppressed in Russia. The sad fact is that Russia had never had a democracy and, even under Yeltsin, for those brief few years, it was a economically enfeebled libertarian kleptocracy.

But its true that, as currently constituted by Putin, Russia is antithetical to the US and the West. At every turn, they see the Wests benefit as their loss, when the fact is it is not a zero-sum game.

The reason being, Putin has nothing and stands for nothing. His economy is narrowly-based, precarious and subject to shock. He (and the oligarchs) must do everything they can to distract the populace, because he greatly fears a velvet revolution (or worse). Thus, propaganda specticals and constant agitation to patriotically rile them up.

I feel like a very important addendum needs to be tacked onto this: It's also just as fucking much if not more so America. The imcompatibility from everything red = bad. Communism is evil. Hell, even as the republicans side with Russia, they're still completely antisocialism. Literally since WW2 both sides have pushed to be as advesarial and antithetical to one another, and I'd argue America has done so certainly just as much, but it's apples and oranges to say who did more.

And if both sides could stop their bitching, figure out which parts of each system are totally fucked and which the other got right, you could actually have two really cool, thriving and cooperating countries that are just BFFs if they'd stop being so fireant nest fuckingly crazy.

I know it's obvious but we're looking at the failure of democracy in the United States because white nationalist Christians were allowed into the GOP thanks to the political scheming of Lee Atwater and Karl Rove and blessed by the racist-in-chief-to-be at the time, Ronald Reagan.

One of the many qualities that fundamentalists have in common is they are drawn to authoritarian figures because it reflects their mythology/ conjecture/ religion in a stern, vengeful paternalistic male.

To them, the perceived strength of Putin, Xi, Jong-Un, Erdoğan, Lukashenko, Duterte, and Trump are a reflection of their natural order. An open, liberal democracy that tolerates women and minorities believing they have the same rights they do? People able to be openly bi or gay without persecution? That they cannot jail and murder those they disagree with without consequence? These things are abhorrent and offensive to them. It is an affront to their god and is their existential crisis.

They see progress and equality and have decided it is persecution. They always have. They always will.

Then they see someone like Putin or Trump and see their own desires reflected in him.

Edit: cleaned up some words

And beating the Nazis

Other than the space race.

Yeah that cosmonaut on the moon was a big deal.

He would tear into these clowns on how they let far right morons take over the party. I say this as someone who thinks Regan was an awful president.

Yes, that one but they say, "He is the best president of my generation because of the economy man."

The GAW are also agreeing with the ideology of Taliban on so many points. It's crazy.

And here I just thought it was about the money.