Some "Dare Call It Treason": Trump Turns GOP Into the Grand Russian Party
June 24, 2020
Vladimir Putin, Trump’s Handler (DonkeyHotey)
MARK KARLIN, BUZZFLASH EDITOR
In December of 2016, on the now inactive Bill Moyers website, media Professor Marty Kaplan warned, before Trump had even assumed office, that he was a dupe or willing agent of Vladimir Putin:
Beware of Donald Trump. Witlessly or willfully, he’s doing the Kremlin’s bidding. Anyone who enables him — on his payroll or in the press, by sucking up or by silence, out of good will or cowardice — is Vladimir Putin’s useful idiot. This is a national emergency, and treating it like normal is criminally negligent of our duty to American democracy…
None of it is as dangerous to democracy as the CIA’s finding that Putin hacked the 2016 election on Trump’s behalf. Without firing a single shot, the Kremlin is weeks away from installing its puppet in the White House….
Before the election, when both parties’ congressional leaders were secretly informed that Russia had its thumb on the scale for Trump, Republican leader Mitch McConnell torpedoed a bipartisan plan to decry their intervention. …
Trump blew off the Kremlin’s intervention in our election the way Putin denied Russia’s intervention in Ukraine. Do we call that a lie, too?
Kaplan began his commentary by explaining how a self-published book in the ‘60s, “None Dare Call It Treason,” a rabidly anti-Communist screed that accused liberals of assisting in a Soviet Communist takeover of the US government became a right-wing sensation. It became a major propaganda tool in the unsuccessful Barry Goldwater campaign in 1964, when he was crushed at the polls by Lyndon Johnson.
Now, Russia is only ostensibly a democracy, in which Putin just last week made a move to control the nation from a position molded by him after he leaves the presidency. Russia is now a country whose economy is overseen by oligarchs and where the state media plays a vital role in Putin’s control of the populace..
It is understandable how Trump would slavishly praise Putin and enable him by fulfilling many of his international goals. After all, a key element of the impeachment is a crazed conspiracy theory that Ukraine tried to steal the 2016 election from him. This theory, called “CrowdStrike” was denounced by former White House national security advisor Fiona Hill as a Russian intelligence agency talking point, and warned of the consequences of those in Congress who supported such a calculated false conspiracy theory.
Furthermore, the impeachment inquiry reveals that not only was Trump aiming to enlist a foreign power to help him steal the 2020 election, he was putting the Ukraine in a vulnerable position vis a vis Russia by indicating that he was not fully behind Ukraine in its efforts to stave off Russianization of the country. 15,000 Ukrainians have died in a hot war with Putin’s military and Russian-sponsored militias, but Trump has been signaling to Russia that the US was at best providing lukewarm backing to the Zelensky government.
Like many who testified before Congress, the US intelligence agencies, and even taciturn Robert Mueller have raised alarms that the Russians are very much already involved in interfering in the upcoming 2020 election, with the understanding that it is Trump who they would be illegally assisting. That the sinister Mitch McConnell is still sitting on millions of dollars to try to bolster election security is just one more sign that the GOP is enabling Trump in betraying the US by becoming, in part, an enabler of Putin’s goals.
After all, why would Putin both so openly and illicitly support Trump if he wasn’t doing his bidding? Trump’s Ukraine betrayal, his support for the Russian annexation of Crimea and sympathy for the Russian enclaves in Ukraine becoming independent fulfill a key Putin goal.
But the services Trump has performed in carrying out Putin’s objectives are many in number. For one, Putin has long had his sights on weakening NATO. True to form, Trump’s contempt for and criticism of NATO has weakened its ability to halt an expansionist Russia.
Then there are the many hot spots where Trump has made seemingly impulsive decisions that weaken US influence at the expense of strengthening Russia’s.. This was evident in Trump’s decision to precipitously withdraw troops from northeastern Syria (shortly redeployed to protect Syrian oil fieds, abandoning the Kurds, and allowing Russia to even take over former US military posts. BuzzFlash detailed how Russia, Turkey and Iran had planned goals for Syria in mid—September last year and we wrote a commentary: “Trump May Have Made Horrifying Syria Decision at Request of Putin.” The only explanation that makes any sense for Trump’s impetuous decision on Syria was that he was giving a gift to Putin and to Turkery’s Erdoğan that was not in the US national interest.
Trump has unrelentingly tried to remove many sanctions on Russia, which would be an economic boon to them. Trump has advocated, much to the annoyance of the G-7. that Russia be admitted to what would become the G-8, although he has been unable to find support among other members. In short, he is again being a useful tool for Putin.
We don’t know much about what Trump privately discusses with Putin because he either doesn’t keep records of phone calls and meetings of most exchanges with him, tears up transcriptionist notes, or doesn’t even comply with the Presidential Records Act and keep a log of his contacts with “Vladi.”
We also know that in an infamous 2017 Oval Office meeting with the Foreign Minister Lavrov of Russia and the Russian ambassador to the US, Trump revealed classified information that resulted in the CIA being so so concerned that Trump’s leak to the Russians could compromise a high-level US asset that he was quickly exfiltrated from Russia by the CIA, and the intelligence community was worried that Trump had shared other classified information with the senior Russian officials. Trump also allegedly, repeatedly told the. two Russians that he “wasn’t concerned” about Russian interference, on his behalf in the 2016 presidential election.
That Trump is a threat to classified US intelligence getting in the hands of the Russians is just a fact. When he asked, “Russia are you listening,” he was really confirming his reliance on Russia to assure his 2016 election due to the fluke of the electoral college, and Russia’s ongoing use of social networking and hacking to keep him in power. But the damage to US interest s far more extensive. As House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has repeatedly said, for Trump, “All roads lead to Putin.”
And Russia benefits from Trump’s actions even when it may not seem readily apparent. On January 8, Slate ran an article, “The Only Winner of the U.S.-Iran Showdown Is Russia: A crisis tailor-made for Vladimir Putin.” It detailed multiple reasons why Trump’s precipitous assassination of Soleimani probably bettered position Russia in the region. A couple examples include:
Moscow’s expanding influence in Syria suggests that a conflict between the United States and Iran could advance Russia’s power and reputation in the region. At the very least, Russia will be able to paint the United States as an erratic aggressor, leading regional actors and international allies to question cooperation with Washington….
Moscow could also benefit if the U.S. strikes create more disunity between Washington and its European allies. Numerous U.S. decisions in the Middle East have frustrated allies, particularly its withdrawal from the nuclear deal….
Washington could incur additional damage to its relationships with European allies if Iran now hastens its pursuit of a nuclear weapon as a result of the strikes. Iran announced Sunday it would stop obeying all restrictions imposed by the Iran deal on its nuclear activities.
It’s important to reiterate that Trump has dramatically assisted Putin in sowing discord among European nations that benefits Russian hegemony.
However, Trump’s greatest service to Putin may be his incendiary divisiveness in creating a dysfunctional partisan divide in the U.S. based on his demagogic leadership. Putin very much wanted Trump to weaken US society so that it could not act resolutely, and that a disintegrating US social order while Putin maintains firmly in control of Russia benefits Russian influence around the world.
Furthermore, Trump has eviscerated the US intelligence agencies with his criticisms and dismissal of their findings. Putin could only dream of the disarray among the US intelligence comunity created by Trump. In addition, the thuggish Trump Congressional defenders defamed and denigrated honest US intelligence operatives and State Department employees, resulting in weakened diplomatic and intelligence capabilities, and decimating morale among those who are the defenders of US interests.
There are many, many more examples of Trump sacrificing US national security to do the bidding of Putin.
No, we are no longer in the Soviet-era that propelled a book called “None Dare Call It Treason” to become the battle cry of Barry Goldwater. Now, Trump has far more in common with Putin, the Russian oligarchs, and the use of television as propaganda. He appears proud to be a useful tool for Putin.
That leads us, in conclusion, to how the alleged enablers of Russia has transitioned from liberals to the Grand Russian Party (GRP). It should be clear that the current GOP Senators who are primed to acquit a churlish, uncouth, deranged Russophile are themselves traitors to the interests of the US. Moscow Mitch McConnell may have devastated the Senate, filled the federal courts with Federalist Society hacks, and assisted Trump in serving up the US to Russia on a platter, but it his cadre of lock-step Congressional Trumpsters who actively participate in this administration’s treason who are responsible for preventing US national security interests from being compromised.
We are at grave risk if we fear to call the actions of the Senate GOP Trump crime syndicate, who are choosing party and fear of Trump over country, traitors to US interests It is appropriate to rephrase the title of Barry Goldwater’s favorite political book to.Some “Call it Treason.” In acquitting Trump, Grand Russian Party Senators will prove not only they are puppets of Trump and McDonnell, but they are strengthening Russia at the expense of the US.
Afternote: As reported by The Hill on January 17:
A local Kansas City radio station reportedly signed a lease with a local radio operator that will allow it to broadcast six hours of programming froma Russian state-owned media outlet.
The Kansas City Star reported Friday that Florida-based company RM Broadcasting LLC has agreements to air Radio Sputnik on the Alpine Broadcasting Corp., which broadcasts on three frequencies in the Kansas City area. The agreement allows the Russia-backed programming to be broadcast from 6-9 a.m. and 6-9 p.m. seven days a week.
The newspaper noted that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) found in 2017 that Sputnik and another Russia state-backed media outlet were involved in Moscow’s efforts to influence the 2016 election.
The outlets “contributed to the influence campaign by serving as a platform for Kremlin messaging to Russian and international audiences,” the DNI assessment added.
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