This is all perfectly normal:
Senate Republicans are attempting to dissuade President Trump from holding another summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin anytime soon.
Many GOP senators regard Trump’s meeting with the Russian leader in Helsinki earlier this week as a political disaster. Congressional Republicans have since come under intense pressure to renounce the president’s embrace of Putin on the world stage, particularly his apparent acceptance of Putin’s denial that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election.
When asked about the possibility of a second summit, Senate Republican Whip John Cornyn (Texas) hung his head and quipped, “maybe in a year or two.”
The body language of other GOP senators was equally telling.
“I don’t have anything to say about that today,” said Sen. Roy Blunt (Mo.), another member of the GOP leadership, lowering his eyes and shaking his head.
The Democrats weren’t even this embarrassed when they learned that Bill Clinton had, in fact, had sexual relations with that woman, Monica Lewinsky. That was immeasurably more defensible behavior than what we’ve been seeing from Donald Trump.
I idea that any Republican up for reelection this November deserves another term in office while this problem remains unaddressed is ludicrous.
They are not “ashamed,” Booman.
They just fear losing.
The one weapon we really possess.
Let’s not half-ass it.
PLEASE!!!
AG
who here is part of your “we”, Arthur? You’re not a Democrat or even a liberal.
Not as things stand now I’m not.
I’m totally independent.
Deal wid it.
Read my latest post.
It’s about the…hopefully…browning of America and the increasing possibility of real change.
Ocasio-Lopez/Bernie Sanders in Kansas. We ARE in Kansas Anymore!!!
Deal wid that, too.
I’ll become a “Democrat” the day the DNC is taken over by new and better progressive forces.
Until then?
Not a chance!!!
AG
You don’t have the best interests of the Democratic Party in mind when you spew your drivel while Kiddie Koncentration Kamps draw no attention from you at all.
Hell, you don’t have the best interests of the United States in mind with your bullshit. You’ve openly called for States to secede, and for States to be split so they may secede as well.
Perhaps that is true of the politicians. But what of the GOP base? There are some hints that the base is shameless, and at least a subset of them would be among the first to welcome their new Russian overlords.
Let’s face it – Putin speaks the Alt-right’s language. It’s been out there for a while now.
https://www.newsweek.com/leaders-charlottesvilles-alt-right-protest-all-have-ties-russian-fascist-65
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The Putin-Trump partnership is just more of the same of what the US has been subjected to these last few years, but now on a global stage.
This is the GOP base. This is who they are. 79% of the GOP supported the press conference performance (Axios/SurveyMonkey poll). Are the politicians really going to grow a spine in the face of that type of support?
This IS bad.
I just don’t get it
Some of the base must be my age, which means they were growing up during the Cold War when epithets like pinko, commie and comsymp were slapped on anybody and everybody.
McCarthy was busy ruining lives and the John Birch Society was signing up new members like crazy.
How did these people become what they hated with an irrational white hot passion in the 1950’s and 1960’s?
. . . people I hate. Now gimme the damn ballot.
Putin and his Russian ratfuckers aren’t “commies”, they’re fellow-fascist white-nationalists. Making common cause with the rising white-nationalist fascist movement across Europe. So it makes sense that our own white-nationalist fascists are all in.
That said, it is, as you note, a stunning about-face wrt Russia.
Few leaders in this new century have made his libs cry* as hard as Putin.
Free press? Civil rights?
Independent judiciary?
Parliamentary supremacy?
Regulated capitalism?
Fuggedaboutit.
*That’s when he’s not actually having them whacked.
Of course he’s a hero.
Times change, alliances change. There is one constant: authoritarianism. We can count on about (give or take) a fourth of our population simply hating everything that liberal democracy (warts and all) stands for. It’s in their psychological makeup. Folks like Altemeyer have been on about that for decades. Folks like Hofstadter were on about the same basic phenomenon before Altemeyer was even contemplating his PhD thesis (Hofstadter’s The Paranoid Style in American Politics is an absolute must-read). Based on what I do know, there is always some authoritarian undercurrent – a subset of the population who wants to be ruled by an iron fist, watch others be ruled by an iron fist, and will fight to the death if necessary to make that happen if the opportunity arises – and we do need to remain vigilant. Right now we’re getting a taste of what these folks can do with a bit of power. My parents’ generation dealt grew up with McCarthyism and also had a good idea of what these folks could accomplish with just enough power. History is littered with far worse examples.
In the meantime, the Russia of today is not the old USSR. Very few on the left as far as I am aware think well of Putin (a few tankies duly noted as exceptions). But Putin is certainly doing what he can to bolster far right parties and movements. And in an unofficial capacity, there is always the theoretical work of former Nazbol Aleksandr Dugin, whose brand of white Christian purity is ideal for our own home-grown white supremacists.
Responding to the previous thread as well as this one: I don’t see how people can possibly believe that Trump is doing anything duplicitous with regard to Putin/Russia — or, that the fact he’s not being canny or evasive “proves” that he’s not compromised.
It’s blindingly clear, on the contrary, that Trump is so stupid that he simply doesn’t see anything wrong with the stuff Putin’s asking him to do.
Remember that he walked offstage in Helsinki with a spring in his step, convinced he’d just executed some great statecraft. It wasn’t until he got to Air Force One and then back to the U. S. that he had the slightest glimmer of understanding that things had gone wrong — that the whole country was appalled — and then he tried to fix it by adjusting a single word (and, not even doing that), not because he understood any of what was going on but because he (apparently) had sullenly accepted that he was in trouble and had to recant something.
Everybody on the plane knew the reaction minutes after wheels up. Whether they Told Trump is another story. But the reaction was immediate.
You’re exactly right that Trump is that stupid, though. He’s certainly stupid enough to believe that the MSM actually invents shit just to bring him down.
That’s the trouble with lying your whole life, including to yourself: You forget there even is such a thing as “true.”
Agreed, and thank you.
When Putin says that Mueller is full of shit and there’s no collusion — even given the total absurdity of Putin saying this, since they are colluding — Trump can’t help but reply, “Yeah! That’s what I’ve been saying! This guy gets it!”
“Whether they told Trump is another story.”
Yeh, would YOU want to be the one who had to break the news to him?
But when a Man’s Fancy gets astride on his Reason, when Imagination is at Cuffs with the Senses, and common Understanding, as well as common Sense, is Kickt out of Doors; the first Proselyte he makes, is Himself, and when that is once compass’d, the Difficulty is not so great in bringing over others; a strong Delusion always operating from without, as vigorously as from within. – Jonathan Swift
If Putin visits this Fall, would that be considered an October Surprise in reverse?
No, just another harbinger of the End Times.
The Senate Republiclowns may be hanging their heads and lowering their eyes for the cameras, but when the time comes to vote on the nomination to the Supreme Court of a Republiclown operative who believes that a Republiclown president is above the law, which way will they certainly go?
I have always been an independent. Last election, i voted for candidates in all four parties on my ballot in at least 1 race.
This time, as much as it irks me to say this, I’m voting Democratic in every race.
Hearing the “bravest” of the Republicans, people like Jeff Flake, almost say the right thing but continue to support this guy has convinced me that when the house is burning, you don’t stand around complaining about how the furniture could be better.
The GOP is not ashamed. They have no idea why he met with Putin or what was discussed with Putin or why there needs to be another meeting. This close to the midterms there is no need to go out on a limb to defend something you have info on. It is not safe to just make something up….lie.
It’s not a question of shame, it’s a question of fear. Roughly 80% of Republicans think Trump can do no wrong. And every representative and not a few senators have primaries to win, and then the general. Backing Trump is their only hope. If they turn on him, they’re done.
As long as enough of the base is convinced that anything Don the Con does is sticking it to them libruls, they’ll gladly fly Russian flags next to their Confederate flags. That is, as someone else has duly noted, who they are. At this point, it is a suicide mission to go against the base if you are a GOP politician. Very few who oppose Drumpf survive the primaries.
Yes, but Republicans are only 21 percent of the population of America–down from 23 percent. Thank God.
Something is blindingly obvious and it’s been right in front of us all along. Thanks to Julia Iofe at GQ for pointing it out.
What Putin has over Trump, how he is compromised is simply that Putin promised to give him the election and he did.
Yeah, people asking “What does Putin have on Trump?”
We already know. It’s not a secret.
The Republican’s low morale is a good thing for Dems.
Let’s hope that the aftermath of Helsinki is a dampening of voter enthusiasm on the GOP side, and that trend persists through Nov. I am not sure we can ramp up enthusiasm on our side any more than we already clearly have.
Well, no.
The elected Republicans are uncomfortable knowing that their leader is a foreign agent and their cult is in thrall to forces they can’t control. That’s not shame.
Some of them are mad because they understand this is a shit product they will have to sell beyond the cult in the fall. That’s not shame.
To be in the cult there is no shame. Only the folks who are actually leaving the cult are acting on principle. There are precious few of those.
99% of these jackasses are just lemmings in pursuit of their nirvana of hate and greed.
I don’t think they are ashamed. Afraid maybe, but shame is not a republican attribute. They’ve done a lot pre Trump that required shamelessness to pull off and subsequently justify in the most ridiculous and/or hypocritical ways.
Republican leaders know that, with Trump and Russia, they walk a fine line. Going all in with Trump to support him every time he does something that benefits Putin while hurting the US and its allies, they run the risk of Trump doing something so far beyond the pale that even the generally dumb-assed public of this country can’t miss the dire threat of it. And them being on the wrong side of that ire. When something happens where they think that line may have been crossed, like they did with Helsinki, and with Charlottesville, they have Trump walk it back, even though Trump finds ways to screw these up, usually its enough for the Cornyns, Blunts, Ryans et al of the GOP world to say see, nothing to worry about, its over, let’s move on.
Personally some of them may be embarrassed at some of Trump’s more cringe worthy antics. Especially since some of them spent eight years insisting how “incompetent” Obama was. But neither shame nor hypocrisy ever moved these guys in any meaningful direction. Only fear.