Putin must be proud of the way that Trump is no longer making any attempt to hide his love of authoritarianism:
Bye bye civil service system. And don’t forget to purge all the state election certification officials. Especially that guy in Georgia who refused to come up with the extra 10,000 votes that Trump demanded.
And what impeccable timing for Trump. Propose abolishing civil service protections right as Putin is purging his government of the “deep state”, aka “people who oppose his insane policies”.
Meanwhile the president’s son is spreading Putin’s propaganda:
“It’s not a “war,” it’s a much needed cleansing,” wrote a member of a Telegram group called “Patriot Voices” that is popular with supporters of Trump. “Ukraine has a ton of US govt funded BioWeapons Labs that created deathly pathogens and viruses.”
Television pundits and high-profile political figures have helped spread the claim even further. Fox News host Tucker Carlson devoted segments on his shows on Wednesday and Thursday to promoting the conspiracy theory. On Wednesday, Donald Trump Jr. said conspiracy theories around the labs were proven to be a “fact” in a tweet to his 7.3 million followers.
Can’t wait until Trump’s “much needed cleansing” of the US in 2025. Should be fun.
Francis Fukuyama is more optimistic:
The invasion has already done huge damage to populists all over the world, who prior to the attack uniformly expressed sympathy for Putin. That includes Matteo Salvini, Jair Bolsonaro, Éric Zemmour, Marine Le Pen, Viktor Orbán, and of course Donald Trump. The politics of the war has exposed their openly authoritarian leanings.
Really? Who’s the current leader in the race for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination? Perhaps Americans actually favor an authoritarian leader. Not most Americans, just the minority necessary to elect Trump in our “democratic” system of government.
[BTW, I’ve criticized many of those authoritarians in my blog, along with jerks like Putin and Tucker Carlson. I’ve said Germany should not have shut down its nukes. I’ve said Russia was a bigger threat to world peace than China. I’ve favored a carbon tax. Dare I say, “I told you so”?]
And speaking of Tucker:
And people say that I’m a CCP stooge.
I’m starting to think that calling the US a banana republic is an insult to Honduras.