In June of 2020, Alexander Smirnov, an FBI informant, dropped a “bombshell.” His revelation: The owner of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company, paid $5 million each to Joe Biden and Hunter Biden as a bribe in exchange for Biden, then Vice President, stopping an investigation into Burisma. Smirnov’s allegation became the basis for the Republican’s Biden impeachment inquiry.
The impeachment inquiry blew up this week when the DOJ charged Smirnov with lying about the entire Burisma-bribery scheme. Yup. According to the indictment, he made the whole thing up. We then learned from the DOJ that Smirnov had ties to Russia.
Some headlines painted the Republicans as “useful idiots,” like this:
The Smirnov Affair: MAGA Republicans Are Useful Idiots for Russian Intelligence
How GOP lawmakers got caught doing Moscow’s dirty work.
And this:
Tucker Carlson joins long line of ‘useful idiot’ journalists helping tyrants
This Washington Post piece refers to Congressional Republicans as “incredulous.”
A look at the facts and history shows that the Congressional Republicans are not useful idiots. They are not being manipulated by the cunning Russians. They are Putin’s willing partners. They share Putin’s goals and political views and use the same tactics.
How (and why) the Republican-Russian partnership came about
The Republicans hated the former Soviet Union because, in the former Soviet Union, the government owned all the nation’s resources and industries. The Republicans believe all (or almost all) resources and industries should be privatized.
When the Soviet Union broke up, the Russian Federation was established as a constitutional republic, but before democracy (and rule of law) could take hold, there was a wild rush to control (grab) the nation’s industries and resources. The people who successfully grabbed the resources and industries became billionaires. These new billionaires then hand-picked the nation’s leaders. (If you control everything, you can do that.)
The new Russian billionaires are usually called oligarchs, but basically they’re gangsters who got rich by stealing.
Now that a few wealthy people own all of Russia’s resources and pull the strings behind the scenes, lots of Republicans feel differently about Russia.
One way to understand people like Peter Thiel and Paul Ryan is that they believe a few wealthy people should control the nation’s resources and industries and they believe these billionaires should be able to pull the political strings. They offer a few theories for why this is good and sensible. One theory is the “makers and takers” theory which holds that a few clever people drive the economy with their innovation and business brilliance. These “makers” create jobs and wealth for a lower class of people called “takers,” who are generally depicted as lazy and immoral. The trickle-down theory similarly holds that if you remove regulations and let clever people do their thing without limitations, they will create wealth and jobs for everyone.
People who hold to the makers-and-takers theory have a hierarchical worldview. They think nature forms a hierarchy and some people are naturally at the top. While most of us see regulations as creating fairness so people can’t get rich from stealing, those with a hierarchical view believe that regulations take from the competent and give to the undeserving.
The way to understand Donald Trump is that he wants to be like Putin and control the oligarchs.
It’s about Grift and Greed
We can start the story of the Republican-Russian partnership with Semion Mogilevich.
Mogilevich got rich as a young man in the Soviet Union scamming his fellow countrymen who wanted to emigrate. He offered to sell their assets and send them the money, but instead, he pocketed their money. His victims had left the country so they had no legal recourse. It made no sense (and was immediately suspect) for a person in the former Soviet Union to have millions of dollars, so Mogilevich needed to launder his money. (Money laundering = hiding the origins of illegally gotten money by putting the money through a series of complex transactions.
In 1984, Mogilevich sent an operative to buy luxury condos in Trump Tower. Foreigners, by this time, discovered that money could easily be laundered through US luxury real estate. Trump (and his agents) didn’t inquire into the origins of the money. Trump sold Mogilevich 5 condos for $6 million in cash, and Trump personally attended the closing.
It’s about Grift and Greed and White Supremacy
Timelines are always helpful. I will color in red where America’s far-right wing’s political views align with Putin’s.
In about 2000, Russian oligarchs begin “beckoning” (Timothy Snyder’s word) to America’s far right-wing, presenting Russia as the savior of white majority rule.
The message got through. In February 2001, David Duke said Russia was “the key to white survival.”
Also by the early 2000s, Trump was considered uncreditworthy and bankrupt. He owed $4 billion to more than 70 banks, and showed no inclination or capacity to repay the money. He was such a bad credit risk that no American bank would touch him.
Then the money started pouring in from Russian billionaire-gangsters.
In 2002, after Trump went belly up in Atlantic City, he was bailed out by Bayrock, a real estate development company with ties to Mogilevich. Bayrock moved into Trump Tower. Felix Sater, a convicted Russian mobster and money launderer, was senior advisor to the Trump Org. and partnered with Bayrock.
Also in 2002: the Russian Imperial Movement, an ultranationalist, neo-Nazi, white supremacist far-right organization was founded in Russia. The idea, embraced by Putin, was to return Russia to its former glory as a great imperialist nation by “returning and reinforcing ancestral Russian lands. “ (Putin wanted to Make Russia Great Again.)
In 2004, Paul Manafort, a long-time Republican operator and later Trump’s 2016 campaign manager began strategizing on behalf of the Russian-backed Ukrainian President Yanukovych. Russia installed Yanukovych as a puppet leader in Ukraine. In 2014, the Ukrainians didn’t like having a Russian-installed president and expelled him.
Somewhere along the way, Manafort acquired $66 million. Manafort’s daughter called it “blood money.” Trump appointed him as campaign manager in his 2016 election. Manafort was later indicted on charges of fraud and money laundering, was found guilty of 8 counts, and was then pardoned by Trump.
Between 2002 – 2016, Russians invested one hundred million in Trump’s properties. Trump needed money and the Russian bandits had money they needed to launder. It was a match made in heaven. ❣️
February 2013, Trump Jr. said, “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of our assets. We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.” (Gee what do you know, the Russians just keep giving us money 🤷♂️ how lucky of us!)
In this blog post, “The Perennial Problem of Demagogues,” I wrote that Trump’s pseudo biography that fueled his rise in American politics was that he was a “successful businessman.” Without Russian money propping him up, he would not have been able to pull off that deception.
It’s also about Christian Nationalism
2013: Russia enacted anti-homosexual legislation. Putin presented himself as the opponent of Western immorality and debauchery and a defender of Christian values.
2013-2014: Putin calls his “anti-gay” campaign “a return to traditional values.”
2014: Here is how Pat Buchanan responded:
Putin is plugging into some of the modern world’s most powerful currents. Not only in his defiance of what much of the world sees as America’s arrogant drive for global hegemony. Not only in his tribal defense of lost Russians left behind when the USSR disintegrated. He is also tapping into the revulsion of and resistance to the sewage of a hedonistic secular and social revolution coming out of the West.
What did Pope John Paul mean by moral crimes?
The way to end the “West’s capitulation to a sexual revolution” is to ban abortions and birth control, which will return us to a patriarchy where women are kept barefoot and pregnant. Another way to say the same thing: these guys are frustrated that they can no longer simply grab women:
Putin has the solution: return to “traditional values.”
2015: “Russian authorities were cooperating with the NRA.” (Snyder Road to Unfreedom).
2015: The Russian Agalarov family, who had longstanding ties to Trump, offered to help when Trump decided to run for President and initiated the famous June 2016 Trump Tower meeting.
March 16, 2016: Sen. McCain accused Sen. Rand Paul of working for Putin.
May 2016: Russian government official Alexander Torshin met with Donald Trump, Jr. in Kentucky in May. That same month, the NRA endorsed Trump and eventually gave Trump’s campaign $30 million.
June 9: A meeting took place at Trump Tower between three senior members of the 2016 Trump campaign – Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort – four other U.S. citizens, and Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya. The meeting was arranged by publicist and long-time Trump acquaintance Rob Goldstone.
June 15, 2016: Rep. McCarthy (R-CA) was caught on tape saying “There are two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump.”
December 2016: Richard Spencer, a leading American white supremacist, called Russia the “sole white power in the world.”
December 2016: Matthew Heimbach, head of the white nationalist Traditionalist Worker Party, recently said that Russian president Vladimir Putin was the “leader of the free world”—one who has helped morph Russia into an “axis for nationalists.”
In 2018, Tucker Carlson said the U.S. should “rethink America’s alliances.”
August 2018: Sen. Rand Paul went to Moscow to“open lines of communication“?
October 2018: Giuliani attended a pro-Russia conference. He was about to attend another in 2019 when the Ukraine scandal exploded and he abruptly canceled.
January 2019: The DOJ indicted Russian lawyer Veselnitskaya, one of the lawyers who was at the famous Trump Tower meeting in 2016. The indictment accused Veselnitskaya of obstructing justice in the Prevezon case by lying to the court about her connections to the Russian government. The DOJ thus had evidence that she was working as an agent of the Russian government during the 2016 Trump Tower meeting.
June, 2018: Katie Hopkins said, Putin rocks.” She praised Russia as being “untouched by the myth of multiculturalism and deranged diversity.”
August, 2019: Paul Hasson, who was indicted for planning to “murder innocent civilians on a scale rarely seen in this country, said he was “Looking to Russia with hopeful eyes . . .”
September 2019: Senator Mike Lee of Utah traveled to Moscow. Lee said his solo talks with Russian government officials will help the U.S. maintain an open dialogue with Russia.
Wendy Rogers, an elected representative in Arizona, wrote this when Russia was on the third day of its invasion of Ukraine:
“Christians worldwide” refers to Putin’s Russia. Notice the anti-semitism.
I’ll stop the timeline there. You all know about Tucker Carlson’s recent visit to Russia. I wanted to show how far back the alliance goes, and how it is entwined with Putin establishing himself as the protector of traditional values and the white race.
Why would someone prefer oligarchy to democracy?
The answer is easy: A person who doesn’t trust the voters, and who has more confidence that a handful of billionaires will make better decisions.
Now that whites are losing their electoral majority, and the demographics of the nation are changing, white nationalists, white supremacists, Christian nationalists, and libertarians no longer trust the American electorate. Some of them don’t think many of today’s voters are true Americans. They think “real” Americans are being usurped and displaced.
They are in a panic and no longer trust the people to do what is right. Democracy means “rule by the people,” so if you don’t trust the people, you can’t embrace democracy. If you think your democracy is being overtaken by people who have no right to be here and shouldn’t be voting, you also don’t trust the voters.
In this post, I wrote there will always be an anti-democratic opposition. The anti-democratic opposition in the 1930s was aligned with Hitler. Charles Lindbergh (an aviation hero who later revealed himself to be an admirer of Hitler) urged Congress to enter a “neutrality pact” with Hitler and stop supporting England. This is an image from the Bund Rally a pro-Nazi demonstration in Madison Square Garden in 1939:
On the stage, the image of George Washington is flanked with swastikas. Lindberg’s movement was called “America First.”
The difference is that today, the anti-democratic right-wing controls the House of Representatives and numerous state legislatures. Over the past 5 decades, the radicals have been slowly seizing power. Their highly successful method was to begin with local politics because most people are focused on national politics and ignore local elections.
Repeating for emphasis: They came to power through local elections because most people are not paying attention to local elections.
In the 1930s, America’s right-wing wanted the United States to emulate Germany. Today, America’s right-wing wants the United States to emulate Putin’s Russia.
Putin’s supporters don’t think worse of him because he made himself wealthy by seizing power and control of the nation’s resources. They think better of him. He’s strong enough and smart enough to able to reverse the evils of Western debauchery. He’s strong enough to keep order in Russia and to flex his muscles on the world stage.
Similarly, Trump’s supporters don’t think worse of him because he made himself wealthy by cheating on taxes and laundering Russian money. They don’t think the wealthy should have to pay taxes and they believe “liberty” means the freedom to sell property to anyone at any price.
And that, my dearies, is why the Republicans are willingly partnering with Russian oligarch-gangsters (and why they continue to support Trump).
They are not being duped or fooled. They are not credulous morons being manipulated by the wily Russians. They are allies.
YES !!! This! Exactly. Thank you.
Time line was helpful. Not able to stomach Fox, CNN or NBC…but MSNBC, misinformation? Please explain. I’m sincere…how do I recognize misinformation on MSNBC? So many of their hosts and guests are Republicans who are no longer welcome by their party.
Find the pinned post called “There are no Yankees here” and begin reading. Given how sad I feel watching all the people who were duped again over the 14th Amendment issue, I plan to add to the series this weekend.
Thank you, Teri…will follow through now that our WIFI is back up!
Thank you so much for this timeline. It really puts everything together in my mind. I wasn’t quite seeing the whole sordid picture before.
I intend to share this post with others who don’t quite get it, in hopes of encouraging them to become more aware and take positive action.
Right after reading it, I came across this, which reinforces what you’ve written: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/02/one-global-issue-trump-cares-about/677592/
re: local politics
Too many folks around here will camp in line for days for sports tickets, or the grand opening of a convenience store or to purchase a bottle of some “limited edition” liquor.
But spending any amount of time to educate yourself politically and cast a vote? That’s too much effort.
Thanks as always for the great blog post!!
I agree 100% that the GOP are willing participants and have been countering silly posts on Twitter for years when I would see a tweet asking what “dirt” do they have on trump or any other Repubs. None. There never was any.
Stating the obvious, defenders of democracy MUST turn out and vote. I am volunteering for poll work this November for the first time. While I sincerely believe Trump will lose by a large margin, I worry about a violent blowback and hope our military is true to their oath.
I appreciate all your work, as always. None of the assumptions in your reply reflect my views in any way. No doubting/questioning “sources.” Yes, “profound danger.” No, “not Garland’s fault in any way.” No “on the ledge.”
Please let me just leave it at that. [If this comment is held for Moderation and then just dismissed, that will be great for me.]
Again: Thanks,
(($; -)}™
Teri,
You have answered a question I have had on my mind since Trump first ran for the presidency: “How could anyone, but especially Republicans, embrace Putin?” I was in 2nd grade when Khrushchev allegedly banged his shoe in the UN. I was in 3rd grade during the Cuban Missile Crisis. I was very fearful of nuclear war. It was embedded in my upbringing that Democrats were socialists if not communists. So I have been baffled ever since Trump first said he admired Putin, that so many of Reagan’s “moral majority” would flock to Trump. And now, at last, I see clearly how fervent anti-communism has evolved to an embrace of Putin.
Once again, thank you for educating us with clarity.
Yes, I knew all this but your timeline and explanation just drills it home. And makes it all make sense. I miss your calming explanations on the elephant site but fully understand why you needed to pull back. Thanks for all! And thanks to JJ for saving the world for us all! Even if we didn’t get a JJ sighting this time out.
Thank you, Teri, for this amazingly frightening time line. I will forward it to a friend in Texas, whose favourite saying in cases like this is “We are f****d”. We may be but not yet. As a Canadian, Permanent Resident of Ukraine until the war started, one never wants to underestimate Putin. You are so right that Republicans hated USSR because it was communist but love Russia because it is fascist. So people still call Russia communist but it has been my observation that Americans have no idea of the meaning of the words fascist, democracy, communist, or socialist.
Trump wants his opponents to ~think~ “we are f*cked.”
Newsweek: (Speaker) “Mike Johnson’s Campaign Contributions From Company Tied to RUSSIA”
More: “A group of Russian nationals were able to donate to newly elected House Speaker Mike Johnson’s campaign in 2018 by funneling the money through a U.S. company…The Texas-based American Ethane company previously donated tens of thousands of dollars to the campaigns of Louisiana Republicans including Johnson…”
“While American Ethane was run in 2018 by American John Houghtaling, 88 percent of the firm was owned by three Russian nationals—Konstantin Nikolaev, Mikhail Yuriev, and Andrey Kunatbaev.”
https://www.newsweek.com/house-speaker-mike-johnson-donations-russia-butina-1838501
“Congressional Republicans are not useful idiots. They are not being manipulated by the cunning Russians. They are Putin’s willing partners. They share Putin’s goals and political views and use the same tactics.”
Excellent. This is why I love your writing. You made something that was right in front of me crystal clear. I just had not followed the logic of the R’s behavior to its conclusion. We have a 2R problem: Russians and Republicans.
I had of course considered the two possibilities, credulousness v. complicity, but I had stopped there, and not followed the logic of Republican/Russian complicity back to its ideological roots. My own analysis was too shallow, and stopped at the political horse race. Perhaps the very fact that the front line proponents of this pro-Putin movement are such blathering idiots (MTG, Comey, &etc) lulled me into thinking it was just a stupid joke. Now I am thinking they are literally “useful idiots” being paraded in front of us to reassure us that this movement is just a bunch of harmless buffoons, not the insidious traitors they actually are.
Maybe this is how my father’s Republican party, staunch anti-Soviets, could become pro-fascist in just a generation or so. Maybe fascism just had to outlive the bad press it got during the early 1940s in order to take another run at turning the USA into an autocracy.
Thanks for giving me yet more to keep me lying awake at night. Ha. Ha.
ps. I have been thinking for a while that “we” are at war with Russia. Not a declared war, some different kind of war most of us don’t recognize. That leads me to view a lot of Rs, and of course Donald Trump, as having committed and continuing to commit treason under Article 3, but where the meaning of “levying War” is too limited.
Again, thank you Teri for your factual ‘wordsmithing’, – your clarity in writing is impressive and so inspirational; scary……..gets me off the ledge indeed!
I first heard about the “makers-and-takers theory” as a teenager when I read Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged.” Even then I was appalled at the notion that wealthy people were obviously better because they worked harder than anyone to make all that money, and that people who weren’t wealthy just wanted handouts.
That was at a time when a college degree would pretty much guarantee a job. These days I am so angry for the young people who go deeply into debt to get a diploma that is near worthless — and GOP politicians are still citing Rand favorably and claiming that anyone who is struggling financially is just lazy.
If you haven’t read that book — it’s an education. You don’t have to read the whole thing to get the gist of Rand’s arguments, and you probably won’t want to finish it. lol
I read it in college. She’s a good fiction writer, which is why she was able to fool so many people.
Ayn Rand — I was listening to a podcast yesterday and learned for the first time that Ayn Rand and Alan Greenspan were good friends. Apparently he was part of her inner circle when she was writing Atlas Shrugged who were reading the drafts chapters.
A college boyfriend had me read it. I was appalled (and he was appalling).
The idea that a diploma is ‘near worthless’ is itself right-wing disinformation. Don’t spread disinformation.
I read it differently: A diploma no longer guarantees a job, but that doesn’t make it worthless. In my grandfather’s generation, a high school diploma pretty much guaranteed a job.
Thank you.
Wow. Just Wow. You have given me more than a lot to think about.
The whole of the demagoguery-oligarchy concept that has taken over the hearts and minds of the GOP scares the wits out of little ole me. From the allies of Putin to the Chrisstofascists of the evangelical, fundamentalistic Christian church, I think that it is all about Command and Control. This is has been the case for the Christian church ever since the conversion and proclamation of of a state religion by Constantine’s back in the early part of his reign 306 CE. Back in the 1960s we talked about “hearts and minds” in terms of dominating a country. Your analysis goes far beyond what I’d been led to think. Thanks (mebbe).
Did you see… https://youtu.be/sIyU6Yzu7Ls?si=RcYBxjw52YS2ZmDV
A young couple who believed the religious white privilege propaganda and moved to Russia…
Wow. What a timeline and analysis. Thank you. I’ll be sharing this widely.
And the Republican congressional delegation that met with Russians in Moscow on July 4, 2018 just ahead of another of Trump’s solo meetings with Putin?
I’ve been waiting for someone to comment on that. For the record, eight Republicans spent July 4th 2018 in Moscow:
* Steve Daines (R-MT)
* Kay Granger (R-TX)
* John Hoeven (R-ND)
* Ron Johnson (R-WI)
* John Kennedy (R-LA)
* Jerry Moran (R-KS)
* Richard Shelby (R-AL)
* John Thune (R-SD)
I dont trust voters that much, but surely beats having a absolute king or tyrant…. I think mostly people are too busy trying to get their life in track, lots of them just trying to make it to the end of the day with a meal in their stomachs….Is easier to just follow an strong man and not having to ponder too much, to pass the buck…
Thank you, Teri, for connecting these historical dots, something the media consistently fails to do. Readers will also enjoy the book “Red Mafyia,” written in 2000 by Robert Friedman. It tells the story of how extremely violent but highly intelligent Russian mobsters settled in Brighton Beach, NY. Friedman describes how they regularly met in a club owned by Michael Cohen’s uncle (yes, that Michael Cohen).and began to work with and eventually overtake the local Casa Nostra. Interestingly, the Russian mob benefitted greatly when many local Italian mob families were busted – by Rudy Giuliani.
As an Arizonan, I can tell you that dear Wendy is only one of many republican legislators that send dozens of zany bills to the floor to be voted on each year. Almost all of them restrict voting rights, promote open carry, among other dangerous and punitive measures.
With republicans in the majority of both houses, it is only the veto power of our narrowly elected democrat Governor that is saving us at all. Many of the abominable bills are becoming ballot measures this election. I am sure they will be written in such a way that voters will say “oh, that sounds good” and vote yes.
That history is stunning.
Thank you Teri.
Great summation.
Thanks Terri?
Wonderful “next level” research and analysis: please keep exploring and exposing this angle, especially the foreignpolitical financing through shell-games, enforcement challenges and legal loopholes.
https://www.americanprogress.org/article/following-the-money/
Excellent article by Center for American Progress. What a great timeline and reminder of ALL the Russian money pouring into Trumps campaign during the early years of his administration. And a reminder of the avalanche of internet ads on Facebook during the campaign. How soon we all forget. Terri is right, Republicans are willing players in the war against our democracy.
I looked as carefully as I could on my tablet at the 1930 picture of Washington on the stage but could not identify any swastikas. Where should I look? Are you sure they are there?
Visit this page for photos closer to the action:
https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2019/02/20/695941323/when-nazis-took-manhattan
Or watch this video:
https://vimeo.com/237489146
St Tee, check the middle image of three, about halfway down this page. The swastika emblems are easier to see in this close-up of the stage.
http://lde421.blogspot.com/2014/12/the-bund-that-binds.html
Also in a clear image here: https://news.fitnyc.edu/2019/04/12/rally/
The image is actually from the Bund rally at Madison Square Garden, February 20, 1939. There are people on the stage with swastikas. Here’s a video with excerpts:
https://youtu.be/NC1MNGFHR58
The swastikas are at the top of the emblem on the long grey banners. If you follow the link above that image you’ll see them in a close-up of the stage.
The swastikas are embedded in the shield designs between the long draping flags that flank George Washington. Get a better resolution image a zoom in. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1939_Nazi_rally_at_Madison_Square_Garden
The link above the photo will give you your answer.
Sadly, they are. This page has a closer image https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2019/02/20/695941323/when-nazis-took-manhattan
St Tee follow the link for a close up. They are on the shield sigil banners between the stars and stripes.
Thanks for the timeline Terri! Very useful.
With all this, no wonder we don’t deserve a picture of JJ today .
I just wanted to add another reason why people turn against democracy. It’s when people feel that democracy is not working. It’s not so much that they don’t trust the voters, it’s that the people who have been elected can’t seem to get anything done.
I remember once in my life saying “what this country needs is a benevolent despot”
I was stupid, but Congress couldn’t get anything done. Good jobs were scarce etc. etc. so the idea that if a strongman could come in and work for the benefit of all without constraints, the country would move forward. Like I said, I was stupid but I think on top of what you said, there is a group of people that are barely making ends meet, one accident or severe sickness away from homelessness. They see the government not working for them … You get the picture.
I also have a question for you. Can you recommend a good book about Franco? In the 1970s I spent a year abroad in Spain as an exchange student when he was in power. I pretty much was oblivious to politics back then, but the streets were clean and as they say, *the trains ran on time*. I want to read about what was really happening for the average Spaniard at that time. Thanks in advance. And thank you for all that you do. I look forward to reading your posts and learn so much from them.
A college friend of mine who received his advanced degrees at the University of Louvain in Belgium spent some time in Franco’s Spain. He remarked that it wasn’t necessary to lock one’s apartment door while living there.
That’s the trade off: diminished liberty in exchange for greater security—or at least in exchange for a strong man’s promise of greater security.
A Russian-American friend explained the popularity of Putin: He’s the only thuggish oligarch who can keep the other thuggish oligarchs somewhat in check.
And so it goes.
Define “necessary”. I live in a democratic country where nobody really likes the government (the government included – it’s an uneasy coalition), the trains are very much not running on time, and nobody has ever come and tried to find out if my apartment door is locked.
Perhaps what was really happening is that locking your door did no good against an army of secret police and informants.
We left our suitcases unlocked in Soviet (Intourist) hotels as otherwise the locks would be broken. The floor lady collected your keys when you left and gave them back when you returned. There was a locked door in the hallway between two rooms so listeners could enter.
Thank you for this response. I need to add that I grew up in the burbs just outside NYC. When I was young we never locked our door. I would often take the train into the city by myself at 12yo just to wander and never felt afraid.
Also, I remember coming up out of the subway one day in downtown Madrid into the middle of a protest march. I was afraid, authorities were swinging batons, throwing people on the ground etc. it was very scary.
That said, I know now that there can be no such thing as a *benevolent* despot. Someone will always disagree. Security will only be better for some. Democracy is at its best with debate and compromise.
My post is about me reflecting on my experiences and asking myself questions in an attempt to understand things that seem unfathomable to me. I lived under a dictatorship for a year and everything was great with the exception of the one scary incident. Some things in Spain seemed better to me than things in the states. I’m asking myself why. Was I just oblivious? I wasn’t looking to find a job or start my adult life, I was still in school. This is why I really want to read a good historical book on Franco.
I spent six years in Germany where I adopted an older German coworker as sort of a surrogate dad. I was in the military at the time and he was working on the base. He truly believed that Poland had started the war. So many things he told me about his experience of WWII were astonishing from my perspective. I wonder if on top of what Teri said about those that prefer oligarchy or autocracy and what I added is that for the most part it really is a minority that is paying attention (some of whom are working towards oligarchy) and a huge majority that really isn’t paying attention and is just going about their day to day life as I was when I was in Spain.
Si no te metas en política, entonces pisabas buen terreno.
Fortunately, however, I never lived in Spain. Nor would they have liked my non-Castilian Spanish.
One party wants voters frustrated and the other party wishes to govern.
If you are frustrated you are more open to having a strongman run the show
If you spend time on social media, particularly Twitter, you’ll see that there are people on the left who also work to keep people frustrated. This doesn’t come from the Democratic Party, but it comes from some of the TV talking heads and online influencers. That was what inspired the series I wrote (it’s pinned) called “There are no Yankees here.”
Thank you Teri for this superb framework for understanding the increasingly authoritarian objectives of the Republican Party.
The addition of White “Christian” Natonalism is rapidly bringing the witches’ brew to a rolling boil.
In “When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit”, the protagonist—a pre-teen Jewish girl who has emigrated to Switzerland with her brother and parents in order to escape the Nazis—asks her father: “Do you believe in God?”
He responds: “No, but I believe in gratitude.”
(The movie is available on Amazon Prime Video—highly recommended.)
Gratitude in response to the gift of being a person within a community of persons—and an agent blest with intellect and will within a universe of wonders—strikes me as the essence of what was once known as natural piety—a humble and humbling sense of the transcendent.
America’s White “Christian” nationalusts lack this sense of natural piety and humility. Wonder has been eclipsed. They maintain that the “certainty” with which they hold their religious beliefs justifies their use of state power to impose their moral beliefs on others.
They have anointed Donald J. Trump as their “Chosen One”, as their Moses who will lead them into the Promised Land wherein the separation of church and state is severely undermined or eliminated.
They fail to acknowledge that the aims of religion—such as increased responsiveness to our “better angels”, and gratitude for the gifts of existence and agency—and the objectives of the state may overlap, but nonetheless remain distinct. The state is charged with providing tranquility of order grounded in the rule of law—the order within which the flourishing of mutually supportive citizens who adhere to diverse beliefs can occur.
When “true believers”, religious or secular, employ the coercive power of the state to impose their ideologies on non-believers, the mass of the “true believers” may themselves become the instruments of monstrous hypocrites—of autocrats who are themselves non-believers.but who manipulate believers in order to achieve their own socio-economic-political objectives—objectives which are often self-serving and kleptocratic.
Donald J. Trump is such a would-be autocrat:
‘Speaking at the National Religious Broadcasters International Christian Media Convention in Nashville on late Thursday, Trump said, “No one will be touching the Cross of Christ under the Trump Administration. I swear to you that will never happen.”
‘Addressing a large crowd of Christian media figures, Trump stressed that he would protect Christian values upon his return to the White House.
‘“Remember, every Communist Regime throughout history has tried to stamp out the churches, just like every fascist regime has tried to co-opt them and control them. In America, the radical left is trying to do both at the same time. There’s never been anything like this, it’s really dangerous,” he said.
‘He continued to say that the “radical left” in the country is trying to remove the cross symbol from the buildings in the country and “cover them up with social justice Flags.”
‘“No one will be touching the Cross of Christ under the Trump Administration,”’
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/americas/trump-no-one-will-be-touching-cross-of-christ-under-trump-administration-/3146341
Trump is correct on one point: “every fascist regime has tried to co-opt [the churches] and control them”. Trump’s own fascist-regime-in-the-making is already doing so.
Thank you, Andrew, for that response!
What a tightly-written explainer — maybe your best yet, and that’s saying a lot. I’d forgotten about some of these things, did not know about others…you put it all together and make it look simple. Recommending and bookmarking. Kudos!
Thank you, Teri. You are a phenomenal researcher who fact-checks everything and this is why I read and learn from every post. Informed voters have a clear choice and democracy will only die if people maintain detachment.
This timeline freaks me out. It has been a years’ long Russian psy op against the US.
You’re right. These are not useful idiots, they are willingly working together with Russia to advance their undemocratic goals.
I’m terrified that they will succeed.
Thank you for your informative post. I’m not sure what I would do if you stopped writing, lol. I’ve devoured your books twice over, and I very much look forward to your posts. I always learn so much and I’m grateful for that. Thanks again.
Thank you Teri! I appreciate your ongoing intelligent and rational summaries and insights. I understand that there are people who lean authoritarian but am completely baffled by reasonable, middle of the roaders who cannot see this entire crowd for what they are.
THANK YOU! I kind of thought I had a handle on all this stuff, but now that you lay it out so clearly I see that I didn’t really. Really appreciate your hard work, deep research, and clear writing style.
Thanks for your work on this subject Teri. Great details on Trump and the Russian timeline. So much has been written about all the connections between the Russians and Trump but his supporters don’t believe it. I’m 68 my time here on earth is limited so I hope that the country wakes up in time for me to see some accountability on trump’s crimes. How is your new book coming along?
Hi Christine,
Our time here on Earth is limited for ALL of us. Just stay focused on YOUR mission to vote and share with your friends and family. As each of us do THAT, America WILL wake up. You have a VOICE. You have AGENCY. Your words matter and you matter. ❤️
And this, all of this, is why today’s GOP is unfit to serve. They represent an extremist minority bent on destroying democracy. If only Congress had passed the Voting Rights Act during Biden’s first two years. That would have helped to reverse the extreme gerrymandering we’ve seen in the deep red states. Of course unless we eventually eliminate the Electoral College, the minority would still have an outsized advantage in presidential elections which then also shades the judiciary over time to give us today’s lopsided SCOTUS that’s so out of touch with the vast majority of Americans.
That said, if we can retake both chambers of Congress with a sizable enough Democratic majority this fall (and repair the chamber rules to allow both the House and the Senate to function (e.g. revert the filibuster back to the talking filibuster or end it altogether)), just maybe we can better protect our democratic institutions and basic rights (like the right for citizens to vote and have their votes counted). While it won’t vanquish those who would destroy democracy if they could, it would at least make the majority the legislative majority.
And as you always say, the only way to protect democracy is with more democracy, BUT (and it’s a very big but), enough voters have to want us to remain a democracy.
This is the first post in all of your wonderful, factual, verifiable, come-down-off-the-ledge presentations that does not quite match the others. I only step out, here, to say this, in case it needs to be heard.
(($; -)}™
My guess (only a guess!) is that Gozo means that this post doesn’t provide a mildly comforting “come-down-off-the-ledge” message. Instead it lays out an overwhelming web of corruption, greed, racism, and dare I say, evil, that has infiltrated our branches of government. Some days it feels insurmountable.
Ha! You see? I thought I was doing the same thing I always did: Explaining that these people exist. I thought it was understood that all we need to vote them out and pay attention to local elections.
When I talk people “off the ledge” it is usually because they are unglued over another left-wing conspiracy theory or have been spun by fear mongers. People usually worry about the wrong stuff.
Thank you, Teri. Long time readers may realize you enable them to stay focused on what WE WANT to see and make happen for ourselves, our families, and our communities.
IOW, that we don’t need to fret about the sinister players, just Rise UP with One VOICE, exercise our citizenship and our AGENCY with LOVE, rather than fear and WE will WIN.
We don’t need to fret about the Fascists, TFG, Christian Nationalists or anyone else. Just stay focused on the mission.
There are many more of us who will safeguard and prolong democracy, than those who want to defeat it.
From what you said elsewhere, I think you were implying that what I wrote here isn’t factual. I included links for almost everything. If I didn’t, everything here can be verified.
Spend some time and check my sources.
If your understanding of my postings are “there is nothing to worry about! Come down off the ledge!” you have misunderstood me.
Democracy is in danger. It is always in danger by its very nature. My position has been that people, particularly those in what we might call the MSNBC-left-leaning social media media bubble, worry about the wrong things and are fed a stream of misinformation. I find left-wing misinformation dangerous and try to dispel it.
If you were on the ledge because Merrick Garland isn’t saving democracy for you, I have tried to explain that you have been fed a stream of rage-inducing simplifications.
It ism’t up to Merrick Garland to save democracy by putting all he liars and bad guys in jail (which is actually an authoritarian fantasy). It is up to us to save democracy.
Yep. Nice summary.