Sunday, February 27, 2022

Enemies at (and within) the Gates

 

By Isaiah Thomas, Board of Editors with
Florida Correspondent Jenny Herk in Orlando

The brutal, unprovoked invasion of Ukraine by Putin's Russia has shocked and horrified the entire civilized world.  

So it was no surprise whatsoever that the first reaction of the Russian-owned Tangerine-Faced Grifter who, to the nation's eternal shame, served as President for one shambolic term likened the bloody attack to a real estate deal:

1943: German real estate deal in Stalingrad
goes south

It took only 24 hours for Donald T---- to hail Russian President Vladimir Putin's dismembering of independent, democratic, sovereign Ukraine as an act of "genius...." 

"I went in yesterday and there was a television screen, and I said, 'This is genius.' Putin declares a big portion of the Ukraine, of Ukraine, Putin declares it as independent. Oh, that's wonderful," T---- said....

The ex-President added: "So Putin is now saying, 'It's independent,' a large section of Ukraine. I said, 'How smart is that?' And he's going to go in and be a peacekeeper. That's the strongest peace force," Txxxx said. "We could use that on our southern border. That's the strongest peace force I've ever seen. ... Here's a guy who's very savvy. ... I know him very well. Very, very well."

After three days of scarfing fried chicken and watching the bloody business on his 30,000 sq. in. TV's, the Former Loser Grifter had some second thoughts which he shared with an adoring crowd of Republican insurrectionists and white supremacists:

Former President Donald T!!!! defended his praise of Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday while also calling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky "a brave man" amid Russia's deadly invasion of his country....

"The problem is not that Putin is smart, which, of course, he's smart," Trump said. "The problem is that our leaders are dumb... and so far, allowed him to get away with this travesty and assault on humanity."

"Putin is playing [President Joe] Biden like a drum and it's not a pretty thing to watch," he continued.  

When Former President U Bum was offered a chance to make an appeal on behalf of the people of Ukraine to end the violence directly to his BFF Vlad the Invader, here's what he said:

No message. 

Let that one sink in for a minute.  Here we have a former and (if the great hate-addled masses have their way) future President shrugging off a chance to turn his supposed a**hole buddy away from the path of death and destruction.

But wait there's more.  

Surely the same crowd of Republicans who love to hammer real President Biden as weak because he walked away from a podium at the end of a press briefing (instead of shooting a web and flying out like Spiderman) would not put up with the Demented Former Bigot-in-Chief defending his fellow autocrat Vlad the Mad Bomber while letting Ukraine swing in the breeze?

Wrong, Tovarisch!

Not a single Republican attending the various Florida hate fests or pontificating on Sunday morning television have dared to criticize the Dear Drug-Addled Leader of the Republican Party for his brazen kowtowing to Putin.  Not one.

In fact, among the thought leaders of the Republican Party the tendency is to follow their Leader and praise Putin:

Over the weekend, a group using the name America First held a conference in Florida. Led by a notorious white nationalist named Nick Fuentes, the group explored the explicitly racist and toxic applications of the phrase. No one did so with more eagerness than Fuentes....

“You know, they say about America, they say, ‘Diversity is our strength,’ you know,” he said. “And I look at China and I look at Russia —”

....“Can we get a round of applause for Russia?”

He got one. He also got chants of “Putin! Putin!” from the audience, referring, of course, to the Russian president who last week launched an unprovoked invasion of neighboring Ukraine.

Fuentes has been explicit in praising the invasion. On Telegram, he called the invasion “the coolest thing to happen since 1/6” — referring to the attack at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, which he called “awesome” during his speech, as he had weeks after it occurred last year.  

What accounts for the veneration of Vlad the Murderer, and the fervent support for his fellow white supremacist Adderall Don?

Sometimes questions contain their own answers. Elected Republicans don't dare criticize the Former Loser Grifter because they are integrity-free cowards. But lots of Republicans don't criticize the FLG or Vlad the Warmonger because they agree with them, as Philip Bump notes in today's Washington Post: 

Putin’s defenders in his fight against democracy are those who are disparaging America’s diversity, over and over again.


The once and future Russian Empire?
Last year, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) was one of a small group of right-wing legislators who floated the idea of a political action committee adopting “America First” as its name. Included in its proposed platform were specific articulations of the need to defend the country’s “uniquely Anglo-Saxon political traditions.” It argued for infrastructure that “reflects the architectural, engineering and aesthetic value that befits the progeny of European architecture.”

Like Waffle House?

They support Putin and his Orange-Haired Stooge because they share their values: white supremacy, hatred of liberal democracy, legitimacy of violence as a tool to destroy their political opponents.

We're not the only ones who have reached this not very obscure conclusion:

 

(Frank Luntz is by the way the disingenuous Republican flack and hatchet man most recently seen in these pages assembling 14 clowns who voted for the FLG to tell the New York Times what's on the mind of today's “independent” voter.  He knows full f***in' well why his white supremacist base supports Vlad the Rampager.)

The shared commitment to anti-democratic white nationalist bigotry links Vlad the Liar to the Tangerine-Faced Grifter now and forever.  That's why no matter how much Republicans squirm under the hot lights, they can't coherently attack Russia while refusing to repudiate as unfit for office their party's diaper-clad Presidential front-runner.

On the brighter side, we can look at this from the other side of the battlefield: Ukraine's fight is our fight too.  Ukrainians were told that they had no chance against the mighty Russian Army.  So far it hasn't turned out that way.  If even the woeful Germans are willing to ship defensive weaponry like Stingers and anti-tank missiles, maybe the Russian Army will tire of squandering its youth to advance Putin's fever dream of a reconstituted Russian Empire.

(Apologists for Vlad the Imperialist might think for minute about the extent of the Russian Empire at its widest, when it included Poland, Finland, and Alaska.)

And if the brave people of Ukraine can defend their democracy against the forces seeking to destroy it, so can we.  There's a lot of talk about the mighty Republican Party inexorably driving to victory in the midterms.  But it's only inexorable if the defenders of democracy sit on their asses.

Although Ukraine faces unspeakable suffering (and most of us do not, unless our children are malnourished by poverty or we die from a coat-hanger abortion), they do have one crucial advantage: their enemy is at the gates.

Our enemy, which shares a common ideology and goal with theirs, is in the house.

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