. . . questions are mounting over whether Mr Millian was one of a number of people who could have acted as intermediaries to build ties between Moscow and Mr Trump. This comes after Paul Manafort resigned earlier this year as Mr Trump’s campaign chief after controversy over his years of consulting work for Viktor Yanukovich, the pro-Moscow former president of Ukraine.
Americans also have seen a stink raised about potentially high value State Department e-mail allegedly mishandled by candidate Clinton — and they have witnessed Trump spin the same story into an attack perhaps facetiously wishing that Moscow would recover the cache, despite the possibility of the same containing state secrets — and the opposition has picked up on that to throw the mud pie right back at him.
Into that mess comes this comes this header from the “lesser media”: “Trump & Putin. Yes, It’s Really a Thing” (Talking Points Memo, July 25, 2016). At the top, editor and writer Josh Marshall remarks, “My weekend post on Russia, Vladimir Putin, and Trump . . . has been one of if not the most read pieces I’ve ever written for TPM.”
Whatever the truth may be as regards either Clinton or Trump, the domestic atmosphere for elections has been poisoned by the polarized and strident politics enabled and perhaps encouraged in both camps. For the presence of “Red-Green” — old comrades in the “Solidarity Mode” — see, for example —
I post the URL because I like its unmistakable Red-Green branding in relation to that movement within the Democratic Party that has been developing for many years, and this year appears as part of a hate-America-first crowd that has been burning flags.
As regards the GOP, it’s doubtful that Trump would take office as what this blog refers to as a “New Nationalist” (in the manner of Orban in Hungary and Erdogan in Turkey). However, with the employment of Paul Manafort and an uncertain relationship with Putin, the idea that a Trump Administration might react to domestic and foreign affairs with an authoritarian hand also appears to worry Americans.
Add in the leading foreign affairs element: Putin’s efforts to destabilize NATO would seem to be advancing.
BackChannels has often stated in relation to dictatorships: “Different Talks — Same Walk”.
Again, in different words, the Democratic Party has been infiltrated or swelled by the presence of “fascists on the left”; the GOP frontrunner has been smeared as authoritarian and nationalist in predisposition; and NATO now hosts two states — Hungary and Turkey — in which the political style of each president has departed from standards shepherding the classically liberal values of other open and democratic societies.
Call it “Syndicate Red Brown Green” or Moscow’s efforts to play “ends against the middle”, the states of affairs for Americans in the middle — on both domestic and foreign affairs fronts — is looking rough.
BackChannels 