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It's as if his KGB ringed finger is protruding from his mouth.A marionette is a puppet controlled from above by someone pulling its strings. A hand puppet is a type of puppet that is controlled by the hand that occupies the interior of the puppet. (Wikipedia)
I am not a cartoonist so I couldnt draw the illustration for today’s Substack. Of course, cartoonists often depict Trump being manipulated by Putin as both kinds of puppets.
Trump’s threats against NATO, alienating Europe, his claiming Russia didn’t invade Ukraine, how he’s treating Zelensky and pausing aid to Ukraine were without a doubt delighting Putin. Then we had not allowing Ukraine to use Starlink, Add to this Hegseth ordering our cyber command to stand down on Russia. Taking DEI to extremes, he’s forcing the military to lose talented personnel. He’s banning members from serving in the US armed forces and gutting the military’s diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Now we have this news:
The climate change move could be seen as a small thing compared to the other actions, but it is yet something else which will please Putin.
Imagine what the generals and admirals leading our armed forces think of all of this.
I have absolutely no doubt that Trump wants to rule the country unrestrained by the annoying constraints of the Constitution. No matter what one wants to call someone who does this, a king, emperor, dictator, or overlord, it all amounts to their being the absolute ruler. He is well on his way to achieving this goal.
Can he be stopped?
This is what I wrote yesterday:
I see our only hope being for the military to decide to intervene to save our democracy. This could come if Trump declared a national emergency and martial law to put down protests using violence if protesters refused orders to disperse. It should not be open to debate that Amercians have the right to peacefully protest, that pesky First Amendment, but it would be easy to rationalize a lethal attack against civilians. We could easily have another Kent State Massacre.
I see two ways the military could save us. One I call effecting a soft coup. This would involve barring Hegseth and whoever he’s elevated to power from entering the Pentagon. The patriotic generals would announce that they would no longer obey illegal and unconstitutional orders. The other alternative would be a hard coup. It would begin with tanks around the White House and soldiers removing its occupants. A general would take over as acting president. It would be announced that free elections would be held once the country was stabilized. By then I want to believe the majority of voters would decide they wanted the country to be a democracy and not a dictatorship.
Putin wants to see the United States descend into chaos. He wants it beset by internal warfare, whether peaceful or violent. In his dreams he’d like to realign the world’s powers so the United States joins Russia, North Korea, and possibly China. I am not sure about the latter since they depend so much on us for trade.
There’s no way I can see Putin wanting to see our top military leaders running the country. I certainly can see him wanting Trump ruin the United States, but for all those West Point, Air Force, and Naval Academy graduates to be actually running not only the military, but the country as well, that would be a bridge way too far.
It is very possible that Putin still hasn’t figured out what he wants from Trump aside from helping him win in Ukraine and for him to destabilize NATO and Europe, as well as weaken the country as a military threat. The notion of new world order, an actual alliance with the United States is probably just a fantasy. He knows how that worked out for Hitler and his Third Reich. He knows what happened to the Holy Roman Empire when their reach exceeded their grasp.
Of course Putin wishes he could restore the old Soviet Union, but likewise he knows this would be unrealistic because, with or without the United States as a member of NATO, attacking any member of the alliance would trigger Article Fivefor the only time since the September 11 attack. I can’t see any way that Putin wants to be engaged in World War III. Putin is a realist. If he can’t have a five course meal he knows he may have to settle for Ukraine, or parts of Ukraine, as a tasty appetizer.
Let’s say for the sake of argument that Putin, who we know talks to Trump from time to time, if not on a regular basis, really has his hand up his butt as far as it can go and is able to order him to do his bidding. Putin says “jump” and Trump asks “how high?”
Putin wants what is in his own interest when it comes to the United States. To this end he has to understand American society and American politics at least as well as our most brilliant historians and other academics. I am not saying he doesn’t think he does, but does he really?
Maybe Putin is controlling Trump and is both brilliant and is narcissistic in believing he knows exactly what he is doing. He’s also reportedly extremely superstitious, has an obsession with the occult may believe in reincarnation. (Article)Maybe the I Ching (the ancient Chinese book of divination) or his Magic Eightball is telling him what to do.
This all boils down to one of two possibilities. Trump listens to Putin but doesn’t take orders from him or he is truly a Putin puppet. Either way, unless our military saves us, our democracy is well and truly fucked. We have a mentally unstable president who wants to be king or we have a Russian dictator who believes in the occult as defacto president.
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