James Kirchik wrote this fascinating article for the Brookings Review.
In it, he answers a question that I have wondered about this past year: how did Republicans and conservatives become enamored with Putin?
It turns out that Russia has been cultivating the right. The far-right love his anti-gay laws and attitudes. They love his defense of “traditional values.” And Putin has reached out to the National Rifle Association and invited a delegation to Moscow (Kirchick points out that there is no individual right to bear arms in Russia but the NRA doesn’t care).
He writes:
“What I never expected was that the Republican Party—which once stood for a muscular, moralistic approach to the world, and which helped bring down the Soviet Union—would become a willing accomplice of what the previous Republican presidential nominee rightly called our No. 1 geopolitical foe: Vladimir Putin’s Russia. My message for today’s GOP is to paraphrase Barack Obama when he mocked Romney for saying precisely that: 2012 called—it wants its foreign policy back.
***
“I should not have been surprised. I’ve been following Russia’s cultivation of the American right for years, long before it became a popular subject, and I have been amazed at just how deep and effective the campaign to shift conservative views on Russia has been. Four years ago, I began writing a series of articles about the growing sympathy for Russia among some American conservatives. Back then, the Putin fan club was limited to seemingly fringe figures like Pat Buchanan (“Is Vladimir Putin a paleoconservative?” he asked, answering in the affirmative), a bunch of cranks organized around the Ron Paul Institute and some anti-gay marriage bitter-enders so resentful at their domestic political loss they would ally themselves with an authoritarian regime that not so long ago they would have condemned for exporting “godless communism.”
“Today, these figures are no longer on the fringe of GOP politics. According to a Morning Consult-Politico poll from May, an astonishing 49 percent of Republicans consider Russia an ally. Favorable views of Putin – a career KGB officer who hates America – have nearly tripled among Republicans in the past two years, with 32 percent expressing a positive opinion.”
The right loves a strong authoritarian figure who hates gays, loves guns, and hates America.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Intel Vets Challenge ‘Russia Hack’ Evidence – Consortiumnews
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/07/24/intel-vets-challenge-russia-hack-evidence/
Spinning Hillary: a history of America and Russia’s mutual meddling | World news | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/03/spinning-hillary-a-history-of-america-and-russias-mutual-meddling
Yes, We’ve Done It Too: A History of U.S. Meddling in Other Countries’ Elections | The Lowdown | KQED News
https://ww2.kqed.org/lowdown/2017/03/02/a-history-of-u-s-meddling-in-foreign-elections/
Database Tracks History Of U.S. Meddling In Foreign Elections : NPR http://www.npr.org/2016/12/22/506625913/database-tracks-history-of-u-s-meddling-in-foreign-elections
Ten Problems with Anti-Russian Obsession – Consortiumnews https://consortiumnews.com/2017/07/09/ten-problems-with-anti-russian-obsession/
Ed,
Why are you so opposed to recognizing that former KGB agent is not our ally?
What the GOP don’t admit is that they have never lived in, voted, or paid taxes in Russia. What would they really know about Putin.
They are merely attracted to his authoritarian demeanor, affectation, and style. What they don’t realize is that such a style has turned against faithful members of its own inner circle, and non one is immune to being thrown under the bus when the going gets tough.
The GOP should be hardpressed to be careful what they idealize and idolize . . .
I don’t think he’s at all opposed to that, he’s just pointing out that such meddling has long been standard operating procedure for governments. History shows us that this dynamic goes back for many centuries. Sun Tsu, author of The Art of War, who passed from this life some 300 years before the birth of Christ wrote of this. Machiavelli also went into detail about such things. They are not the only ones. Gresham’s dynamic, a corollary of Gresham’s law describes how the most vicious and manipulative among us rise to power by outcompeting moral and ethical players. It should come as no surprise that the percentage of sociopaths on Wall St. is far higher than that of the general population and that their methods demand similar ones from others laboring around them if they are to survive.
It it’s all fake news . Except for that troubling Email to Donald jr .About that meeting. The
one that was attended by the chief lawyer fighting the sanctions for Putin . You know the meeting that was supposed to deliver dirt on Hillary . But really Ed all they spoke about was adoptions. And no lawyer would ever let a client commit perjury of course, unless the crime was far greater than perjury . Oh and Jared never read the title of the email . And the fact that the Don hours later said there was some really big news coming. Was just him reading fake news and when the emails started coming in a week that was fake as well.
And when the guy who does not know where Georgia is as it pertains to Russia thinks its next to the former Soviet province of Alabama , no less know what made Crimea Russian national interests . Has the platformed changed to be more amenable to Putin. .Just a coincidence. Of course only innocent people fire FBI directors /special prosecutors and want to issue Pardons to people who have not been indicted yet.
But you are right Putin did nothing wrong . He acted in what he perceived to be the interests of Russia which happens to be the interest of the organized crime syndicate that he heads.
Now you are right Ed, in nation after nation this country has acted in the interests of the American Oligarchy . I have read “Confessions of An Economic Hit Man” too . We did not stop with subversive actions meant to destabilize Governments. There have been several cases of mysterious plane crashes that took care of leaders who would not tow the line. Yes our interference in other countries was in the interest of the oligarchy, plutocracy if you prefer , which for a long time has deluded the people into thinking that this was a Democracy while our representatives voted with the oligarchy 85% of the time. No matter what public opinion was. Or what the best interest of their constituents
was .
But here is the thing Ed, I prefer my Presidents not to have committed treason by colluding with a foreign power to alter the results of an election . And in my lifetime I have witnessed this happen numerous times. There has not been a legitimately elected Republican since Eisenhower and this is the third case of treason or what the majority of Americans would call treason. Nixon sabotaged the peace talks with in Vietnam possibly causing the lives of tens of thousands of American boys in order to win an election . Watergate minor in comparison.
So scrap Ford.
Reagan that little thing called Iran Contra you remember those hostages that were held after Carter had a deal to release them with the Iranian moderates . Of course that would make his running mate illegitimate but hell Bush pardoned all of those innocent people . Probably because he as a former CIA director provided the technical know how.
Of course you remember those hanging chads when Shrub got elected all on the up and up .
http://www.alternet.org/right-wing/gop-fraud-and-treason
Sorry Ed I don’t want us interfering in other foreign countries from Mosaddegh to Chavez / Maduro to Rousseff but you know what Ed . I want American Presidents who commit treason to be hanging from that crane with the Resist sign on it after a trial l of course.
Why bother with a trial? Just turn him over to a posse of vigilantes with a rope.
Trump is our mini-Putin. Trump also loves strength and force, he loves his military advisers because they are tough. Is he setting us up for some kind of quasi-military dictatorship? We know how all those South American military dictatorships turned out. People being disappeared, dissent being brutally crushed, law and order without any justice and massive bloodbaths of those who dare to dissent from the “leader.”
Trump is a chicken hawk
Loves “his” generals
They all know he was a draft dodger
Five deferments
4 for being a college student, the 5th for “bad feet”
bad feet that didn’t stop him from playing football in college.
That Dump is Putin’s puppet. He owes Putin for Russia money and probably MORE.
“32 percent expressing a positive opinion.”
This is #FakePresident Trump’s adoring fan base that would stick with him even if he appeared in San Francisco, or New York, or Los Angeles, or Seattle with an AK-47 and slaughtered dozens.
The 32-percent (identified as Republicans) is also where Trump and the Alt-Right Republican Party will recruit their brutal police-state army. Then it will be open season on anyone the Trumpists don’t like or who dares to speak out against them.
Now, how about actual numbers, not a ratio or percentage.
About 139 million Americans, or 60.2 percent of the voting-eligible population, cast a ballot in November’s (2016) elections, according to data compiled by the U.S. Elections Project.
“Overall, 48% of all registered voters identify as Democrats or lean Democratic compared with 44% who identify as Republican or lean toward the GOP.”
48-percent of 139-million Americans that voted in 2016 = 66.72 million
44-percent = 61.16 million
32-percent of 61.16 million = 19.57 million.
That is #FakePresident Trump’s support base.
According to the U.S. Census Population Clock, there are about 325.5 million people living in the United States. That means #FakePresident Trump’s support base, the ones he panders to and pushes his agenda to please (after all he promised them even though he has a history of breaking contracts and promises: marriage vows, the oath of office for the President of the United States, business contracts, etc) represents 6-percent of the total population or 7.8 percent of the adult population. These are the Americans that will support an autocratic, totalitarian, racist, fascist, police state and who are willing trash the U.S. Constitution so the rest of us lose our Constitutional protections and rights.
Thanks for this exercise in estimating the percent of the adult population who are probably attracted to and defending the Trump.
Now add the number of state legislators, governors, and members of Congress who are silent in the face of everything he and his allies are doing to “trash the U.S. Constitution” and allow bigotry and lies to flourish as if a perfectly wonderful princples for governance.
Earlier this afternoon I watched an analyst in an interview claim that Trump’s loyal and blind, brainless core is about 18 percent of the adult population (that’s about 45 million out of the nation’s 250 million adults), but this guy said 44-percent of the population that couldn’t stand #FakePresident Trump and most the 38-percent in between were drifting toward the 44-percent and not toward Trump.
How many of the Kremlin’s Agent Orange crowd votes?
Lloyd Lofthouse
Forget about Putin’s puppets vote and worry about the the 46% who do not vote and at the risk of being tarred and feathered , I suspect they are on the whole they are poorer and darker than those that do vote. I am now convinced we need voter id not to disenfranchise voters but like the Australians :
“Registering to vote and going to the polls are legal duties in Australia for citizens aged 18 and over, and failing to do so can result in a fine and potentially a day in court.”
80% VOTE.
Sanders said it; poor people don’t vote.
http://www.npr.org/2016/04/25/475613276/fact-check-bernie-sanders-and-whether-poor-americans-vote|
Or do not vote in the numbers they should .
Romney’s comments during the 2012 election season that he, Romney was the one best able to defend America from Russia were widely and foolishly criticized as being out of touch. They were an broad daylight appeal and warning to the American oligarchs on the danger and capabilities posed by the Russian oligarchy, one which was born out of entirely different circumstances. No “old, white money” there, no long term control of the wheels of government such that only limited competition was needed to remain on top in influence and control. Those who rose to become Russia’s new oligarchs were the ones who survived and indeed made use of the predations of the soviet era, a filtering mechanism that selected the most cunning and vicious, one that could even be thought of as selecting for “luck”. Putin was one of those who managed this process, using the security/judiciary apparatus to reward and punish according to his own plans. The Amercian political establishment was (and still remains) preoccupied with their infighting and ideological power struggles, assured by their own hubris that such a threat from an old foe they no longer understood could not be real. Trump continues to be defended by some sectors of the political/media apparatus on the Russian meddling issue as a result of this blindered, inward view. The security of the nation is an afterthought in the face of the purile ideological posturings of those oligarchs on the fringes of the right, ones who have indeed used the same and more techniques as the Russians did to far greater effect. Read up on Cambridge Analytica and the Palantir company for more on that.
“National Rigle [sic] Association”
Fixed