By Edwin Cooney
Your guess is as good as mine, but I wonder if the conversation between Presidents Trump and Putin last Friday went as tweeted by Trump. Even more, I wonder how many of his GOP senators and representatives really and truly share the president's enthusiasm for or his closeness to a man who once served as a member of Soviet intelligence.
The fact of the matter is that throughout our history Republicans and in fact millions of Americans have been suspicious about foreigners in general and about Russians in particular.
Even more, since the end of World War II and the beginning of the “cold war," the party that put Donald John Trump in the White House and sustains him has enjoyed the glory of cold war encounters with Soviet Russia far more than it has the prospect of detente or even the news of glasnost and perestroika which were proclaimed by Mikhail Gorbachev during the nineteen eighties and early nineties.
For a hundred years now, the Democratic Party has been the butt of Republican contempt due to its willingness to establish and join the League Of Nations in 1919, to recognize the Soviet Union in 1933, to give aid to Great Britain through FDR's Lend Lease program during the 1940-1941 Hitlarian blitz, to establish and open the United Nations in 1945, to institute the Marshall Plan for the relief of Europe in 1947, and to negotiate the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in 1963.
Thus, Republicans, conservative Republicans especially, surely must have some disquiet regarding the president's palsy-walsyness with Mr. P! If they don't, they've abandoned tons of prejudicial assumptions and conclusions about what comes out of the Kremlin! Of course, the Russians are no longer “Soviets,” but they’re both culturally and politically quite a mysterious people to most Americans. I'm convinced that they are as capitalistic as American corporations and oligarchist supporters of today's Republican Party.
Still, there's got to be something a little disconcerting about a president who allows himself to be congratulated by a foreign leader who clearly played a vital part in his successful presidential campaign. I'm guessing that part of the conversation went like this:
Mr. Putin: As I assured you back in Helsinki, Donald, those damn Democratic fools know there was no collusion between us! Collusion takes two participants, not one. They know how much I hated that bitch Hillary Clinton and they also know that anyone I hate lives with limited prospects. So, I did it with the sheer knowledge of two things — that what you needed done had to be without your participation and that you were too smart to even think of exposing me (although you came damn close to it last July in Helsinki when you lavished so much praise on me. Be more careful next time, Donald!)
Trump: I'm really grateful that you were so understanding and loyal to me. I value loyalty above all else, be it love or even patriotism!
Putin: Wait a minute, Donald. Loyalty is necessarily a sentiment which is extended from below. I must be the recipient of loyalty since I hold a much tighter grip on responsibility and power than you do. You are an exceedingly valuable partner but remember, Donald, that your place in history will be due to my lofty international political coattails! By the way, Donald, I see you've got that SOB Biden pretty well lined up. Remember, stay away from those smart Democratic leftists! They're too smart for both you and themselves. Otherwise I'll have to “not collude” with you for a second time!
Trump: I still hope to campaign against Pocahontas!
Putin: You leave it to me to do the picking, Donald!
If that wasn't the exact conversation, it's my guess that that was the flavor of it. If we haven't crossed the threshold that separates democracy and oligarchy, as I see it, we're straddling it.
While I was growing up, conservatives used to worry about what they called "our steady, deadly drift to the left." Since the Reagan revolution in 1980, I've been convinced that, if anything, we're leaning toward world corporatism, or, if you prefer, world oligarchy. A world run by communism, once the proletariat has dominated, expects to fade into an educated and self-directed society. A world run by autocrats simply expects to be worshiped!
Thus we have Mr. Trump's expectation of absolute loyalty - even, eventually, by Mr. Putin!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
No comments:
Post a Comment