The anti-corruption rallies in Russia this past weekend received a spurt of coverage in the Western press. If you read The New York Times you would be forgiven for drawing the conclusion that opposition gadfly Alexei Navalny is leading a mass children's movement which represents a legitimate challenge to Putin's United Russia.
In fact, the latest opinion poll reveals that only 1% would definitely vote for Navalny in a presidential election. This puts Navalny in the same category as the U.S. Green Party's Jill Stein.
The weekend protests weren't an outpouring of support for Navalny; they were a cry of disgust from the working class over conspicuous consumption and income inequality.
As I said, the "Russia-hack/Trump-Putin-treason" scandal was supposed to be President Clinton's casus belli, but was modified to be used as a negotiating tool with Trump. It looks pretty clear that Trump lost and he will step aside and let the dogs of war free.
ReplyDeleteNow it's a question of whether or not the Deep State can live with a moronic megalomaniacal greedhead on the throne. The bully is going to have to say uncle.
Given where we are at now, Bob, month two of the Trump administration, I'm not sure Trump should have ever really been considered a "peace" candidate or Deep State rebooter. Unless we assume that Hillary automatically would have initiated a nuclear attack on Russia, I don't see that there will end up being a substantial difference between the two -- even if we somehow can account for the fact that Trump has been painted into a corner by Congressional Dems' neo-McCarthyism.
ReplyDeleteI say this because Trump's bending over backwards to mollify the Gulf sheikhdoms is going to end up with the U.S. and Russia in a superpower conflict anyway. One could argue that the Deep State took stock of a war with Iran and decided that it would basically amount to a War of Armageddon, at least that's what ex-CIA agent Robert Baer says. So we ended up with the Iran nuclear deal instead.
In this interpretation it is pick your poison. Hillary would have been an extinction event, and Trump is moving in the same direction.