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submitted 4 days ago by jackmaoist@hexbear.net to c/chapotraphouse@hexbear.net

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Man is just fucking with Euro brains with every statement.

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[-] electric_nan@lemmy.ml 8 points 4 days ago

I have been very sceptical of 'russiagate' stuff, but I do find it difficult to explain Trump's behavior regarding Russia by any other rubric.

[-] CommunistCuddlefish@hexbear.net 42 points 4 days ago

idk what kind of behavior you're talking about but it's really easy to explain Trump's behavior regarding Russia by looking at Trump's behavioral patterns and personality. We can Occam's Razor this shit. Man's a deeply insecure loser with a pathological need to be seen as the winner and a strong man. So he likes strongmen. He likes winners. Russia keeps on winning -- the Ukraine War is clearly a defeat for NATO and has been since about 2023. Therefore, Trump will be friendlier to Russia just because he wants to be on the winning side. Simple as.

It's not just Russia. He'll suck up to anyone because the most important thing for him, psychologically, is to be aligned with other winners. Man just praised the bravery of Ansar Allah (with good reason!). It's all about his brand. If he hitches his brand to winners, then his brand's a winning brand too, no matter how pathetic he himself is.

He also thrives off chaos and antagonizing the liberals. The more they get themselves into hysterics about Russia, the more Trump has a neuron activation loop of "Russia good because it gets the liberals upset at me, and then they screech about it, and that's publicity for me, baby!"

I really cannot take "Trump is a Russian asset" conspiracies seriously at all. It's good to be skeptical of russiagate stuff since it's largely a fabricated scandal that exists primarily to absolve establishment liberals of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory by running Killary over Brother Bernard, and the "trump is a russian asset" shit is just an extension of that same bullshit conspiracy.

Also let's be real, Russia's had some very shrewd statesmanship. Why on earth would shrewd and competent political agents trust Trump to be a reliable asset? He's completely self-centered, extremely fickle, and can't stand firm on his decisions. Because he cares more about his public image and his personal brand than about any actual policies.

[-] CrawlMarks@hexbear.net 22 points 4 days ago

Russia is capitlaist. We are capitlaist. There is no reason to not do business together. All the anti Russian stuff is political theater for the masses and left over cold war propaganda

[-] Sam@hexbear.net 13 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Russia is capitlaist. We are capitlaist. There is no reason to not do business together.

Russia is, and always will be, America's enemy. They can provide all the resources and services America can to the rest of Europe at much cheaper and efficient rates. This is why even after the USSR collapsed instead of absorbing them into NATO they continued to be seen as the enemy, its why Nordstream was blown up and its why the proxy war in Ukraine is happening right now. America has to keep the rest of Europe separated from Russia whether they are capitalists or not.

This will also, I believe, potentially blowback on the US. Unlike the rest of the Eastern bloc they could not simply pour in and wipe the last 80 years of history away. Russia today still holds the muscle memory of the practicalities of a communist state and when Putin goes there will be the possibility for a return to it. See my below comment for clarification.

[-] vovchik_ilich@hexbear.net 10 points 4 days ago

Russia today still holds the muscle memory of the communist state and when Putin goes there will be the possibility for a return to it

Absolutely fucking not. The material conditions in Russia couldn't be further from socialist revolution

[-] Sam@hexbear.net 3 points 4 days ago

I am merely stating that the historical knowledge of the practicalities remain and that the sort of fanatical anti-communism that infested the rest of Eastern Europe when NATO swept in has not taken strong roots. The truth is most of our theory and all of our historical analysis is based on societies that have always been capitalist before being overthrown by a revolution. We dont have any sort of precedent for a former socialist society that is now capitalist returning to socialism.

I don't have any answers. All I am saying is that the reason that a peaceful revolution is impossible in most societies is because the forces of capital would not allow it. But in Russia the unbroken chain of capital that exists in most countries does not exist, their forced opposition to capital forces from the west have isolated and weakened them. Putin brought them back from the brink, and he will remain in power for as long as he wishes. But once he is gone then who knows. Probably Nothing Happens(TM), but maybe something does.

[-] CrawlMarks@hexbear.net 7 points 4 days ago

I agree with you that we mess with Russia for no sensible reason and that does gutted American hegemony. It isn't because of a specter haunting Russia though. It is all our own brainworms

[-] lorty@lemmygrad.ml 9 points 4 days ago

Except they don't want a business partner. They want a balkanized and weak countries to exploit.

[-] CrawlMarks@hexbear.net 5 points 4 days ago

This is true however. We have the case of Japan that proces a business partner is infact better for capitalism. So it is what they ought to have done

[-] AmarkuntheGatherer@lemmygrad.ml 4 points 4 days ago

I'm going to chime in because I'm confident I know how they meant and I don't want to see this discussion get bogged down in "but he didn't literally boil babies" levels of discourse.

As much as all of us around here they're around the word balkanise, it's clear that the imperial hegemon doesn't need its former adversaries divided into chunks, merely subservient. Japan is subservient, they accepted a deal that would make their exports much less competitive, even though they didn't have a plan to deal with its ramifications. They accept usian bases in their land, because the constant spill of American rapists and the possibility of an outright occupation are a small price to pay if one of happy as a vassal anyway.

Yeltsin was the same. The drunk fuck didn't give a toss how much he pissed away the wealth of Russia, or how her people suffered. Unfortunately for the sрooks that got him elected, his successor and his base of support wanted an equal relationship with the west. Even as I say that, I believe (pure conjecture, have no source) they'd have accepted a position like Germany if it came without the ritual humiliation Germans get their kicks from. At any rate, if they wouldn't just be subjects, they'd be subjected, or at least the hegemon would try.

Anyway I didn't write any of this with the belief you didn't know, just to have some clarity.

[-] CrawlMarks@hexbear.net 2 points 4 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

That is an intresting and diffrent perspective than I have so I appreciate hearing it.

[-] itspatato@lemm.ee 1 points 4 days ago

They are a mafia

[-] Zuzak@hexbear.net 14 points 4 days ago

The assumption that we have to fight Russia because they're the "bad guys" is grounded in this idea of "idealist interventionism," that American foreign policy is motivated by benevolence and promoting freedom and democracy. There was a time when that was politically hegemonic in both parties but the complete failure of the War on Terror has broken that down and bred more skepticism of those assumptions. That skepticism goes in all sorts of directions, from leftists who correctly identify that US foreign policy is motivated by the material self-interest of the ruling class, to nationalists who think that it's motivated by idealism but should be self-interested, to libertarians who see it all as "the government doing stuff."

Trump's approach to foreign policy is built on appealing to nationalists and libertarians. Any ideological differences between the two are easily papered over by the democrats screaming "Russian bot" at anyone who doesn't want to kill a bunch of people halfway around the globe for the sake of "freedom," and by parading around the Cheney's, who are emblematic of that ideology (and it's failures). When Trump persued an exploitative mineral deal with Ukraine, that's red meat to the nationalists who are just as warmongering as the liberals but think the problem is the veneer of idealism, in reality, Trump is likely to keep the Ukrainian meat grinder running but he's selling it to his base with, "We're doing this for our own material benefit" because they respond better to that than, "We're doing this to uphold international norms and promote democracy."

Trump once bragged about sending "offensive weapons and tank killers" to Ukraine when Obama only sent, "pillows and blankets," and that's true. All that really matters is Trump being able to distinguish himself as an "outsider," as an alternative to the status quo everyone's fed up with. It's kinda similar to how Trump promoted COVID vaccines while trying to take credit for them and his supporters booed him for it, because if the Democrats are saying one thing, his base wants and expects him to say the other.