Poking the Bear Again

[Smitty-48]

Can you opine on why it appears Putin is striking a more provocative stance with what is supposed to be a more hawkish FoPo team in DC?? I mean, if Trump was such a Putin Pussy, wouldn't it have made more sense to do this Donbas Offensive while he was in office?

I don't think it is Putin who is being provocative, I think it is Zelensky who is provoking this

this was all started by the Ukrainians making their move in the Donbass first, preparing to attack the Russians

with Trump in office the Ukrainians didn't feel like they had backup

now that the Obamacons are back, the Ukrainians are being encouraged to provoke the Russians

Sorry, of course I totally left the Ukrainians moves out of the picture. I can't imagine they aren't being encouraged by DC tho.

Zelensky is the one stirring shit up

he ran on Hopey Changey, he was the tv comedian who beat President Poroshenko

now Zelensky is very unpopular, the Hopey Changey thing hasn't come true, he's down below 30% approval

so he needs a war of some sort to rally around

he seems to have some crazy idea that Ukraine can be fast tracked into NATO

he's trying to get NATO to forgo all its rules & procedures to make Ukraine a member, by inciting a crisis

[Smitty-48]

on this particular front, Trump was not that soft on the Russians

he just took a slightly altered approach

where Obama focused on meddling in Ukraine

Trump focused on firepower, building up the American BMD & INF capabilities

the Trump Administration was building up the position in Romania rather than in Ukraine

Obama was all about Hopey Changey idealpolitik, Maidan Revolution

Trump was all about realpolitik with overwhelming military force, introducing new classes of weapons in theatre

Trump moved forward with the all the Missile Defense Agency programs

he also accelerated the Hypersonic weapons program

he deployed tactical warheads on the Trident II SLBM's

and he launched a program for the Marines to deploy land based Tomahawk

he pulled out of the INF treaty and started to pursue counterforce options aggressively

[Smitty-48]

the basic problem for Trump was that he had to be Nixonian to get elected

to bypass the media gatekeepers, he had to play dirty like Tricky Dick

once he was in the White House, he tried to shift gears, to be more like Reagan

but once you stir up the hornet's nest being Nixonian, it's hard to pivot to Reagan from there

none the less, Trump's military policy was basically Reagan's Neoconservative military policy

peace through strength, spend the Kremlin into the ground, force them into an arms race they can't win

[Smitty-48]

it's like Trump had Stone and Bannon and Flynn

that's team Nixon, they got him elected

soon as he won tho, he threw those guys under the bus and switched to NeoCons, Pompeo, McMaster & Mattis

[Fife]

<remembering the day Trump hired Bolton>

[Smitty-48]

Trump's secret weapon was that he embraced the Information Age

so FDR was the Radio President

JFK was the Television President

Trump was the Twitter President

Trump used social media to bypass the MSM and associated Washington National Security Consensus

this was not something the Boomers in Washington were prepared for, so they panicked

that's why they are trying to take control of social media so desperately right now

[Smitty-48]

in terms of Trump being a "Disruptor", how was he the "Disruptor" ?

I wouldn't say it was at the policy level

I would say he provoked the Washington National Security Consensus into a panic

the result was that they showed their fangs to the public, they were provoked into overreach across the board

now they are scaring people, now they are showing the extremism they are capable of, that's the disruption

it is having massive effects even after Trump has been forced out

the main one being that the GOP is flipping from being the party of the rich to being the party of the middle class

the emperor has no clothes, and Trump was the one who exposed it

[Smitty-48]

as a result, I am far more pro-Trump now than I was at the beginning

I have to admit, I didn't think Washington would take the bait

I underestimated the level of panic which would ensue

I don't give a shit about policy

reason being that all politics is downstream from culture

Trump skipped right over policy to culture change, and that is having exponential effects which I did not predict

I don't think Trump even expected it, even he didn't realize the shit he had stirred up until he stirred it

I think his plan was to run as Nixon, then pivot to being Reagan

but shit went so haywire, that didn't pan out, so he had to play it by ear on the fly

now we are in uncharted waters

Trump blew up the status quo and nobody can put Humty Dumpty back together again

Accelerationism is now in effect and the Neoliberal empire is in free fall

[Martin Hash]

Nice analysis.

[Smitty-48]

Nice analysis.

the Establishment narrative is that Trump has destroyed the GOP

but I think the opposite is the case

Trump saved the GOP, Trump flipped the GOP away from the rich to be the party of the masses

history will absolve him, he is destined to be Teddy Roosevelt 2.0