Wednesday 10 May 2017

Republicans of 2017 (and Russians) should beware the Republicans of the 2020s

When the dust settles on the Trump administration a new McCarthyism could be next.

As I mentioned in an earlier blogpost there appears to be no limit to the opportunistic treason of the current Rep party, particularly in the wake of the sacking of the head of the FBI.

I feel sorry for the historians that will have to explain this Comey business,

HISTORY STUDENT FROM 2025 : "so.. just before an election Comey announced to the press that thousands of security risk emails had been forwarded to a private account.. 
.. but didn't announce to the press that the Russians were attacking the election..
...then it turned out that the emails weren't a security risk and there weren't thousands of them...
WWWHHHAATTT?!?
What was everyone on in 2016?"

The very least you would expect this to do to would be to call into question the fairness of the last election. Even for Republicans. Even if there was no Russian interference (see below) the FBI has obviously disastrously undermined the voting system.

But no
the current Republican thinking seems to be
"lets move on"

And since the Democrats have allowed them to control all branches of US government it would appear they will be able to do that, at least until next years mid term elections.

HISTORY STUDENT FROM 2025 : ".. so yeah...Trump fired the man who made him president...
 the head of the FBI...
to cover up the evidence of it ever happening 
WHHAATT?!"

Rather than ask current Republicans and supporters to be non partisan and consider the long term health of their own democracy
which, on current form, is laughable
I would ask them to consider their own self interest, because there is no way this is going down well in the long term for you.

I imagine the Democrats in the next few decades will be pretty much what they are now, trying to be non-partisan, trying to do the right thing and failing miserably at both.

In the bitter aftermath of Trump I see most of the serious reaction to be from future Republicans, who I'm sure will have been convinced by then that Trump and his fellow travelers, like Bush II, were never a real Republicans anyway. That way of thinking would insulate the future GOP from contagion with the current generation.
History won't paint you as Republicans - you will be
 'Trump supporters'
something else entirely.

Who should really be worried though, in the long term, are the Russians. A country economically the size of Italy who it would appear are earning the long lasting enmity of a scientific and economic super power​.

I have a lot of personal goodwill towards Russia and Russians. I studied their history intensely at school. It's my favourite classical music. Some of my favourite movies are Russian.
My grandfather served on Arctic convoys in WW2.

Putin might have looked like a political chessmaster last year, now he's starting to look like a midget cheating at cards with a powerful drunken paranoiac who is too focused on his drinking - right now - to realise what is happening.

Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto   said this much more eloquently after December 7th 1941
"I fear we have awoken a sleeping giant and filled him with a terrible resolve"

Americans are lousy at getting over history - some of them even like to imagine the Revolutionary War was somehow equivalent to the Eastern Front 1941-45.

Even allowing for the fact that the United States has attempted to do similar (as has my own country)
I think we will all be long dead before the US gets over the history of 2016. The reaction in next couple of decades could make McCarthyism look mild. Intelligent Russians must be horrified as to where this could eventually go. They are going to be the conspiratorial boogeymen of the next 2 or 3 generations - even the Chinese might find dealing with them toxic.

One intelligence analyst on CNN suggested the Russians had only intended to empower Trump, not get him elected, making this one overly successful intelligence op that has run way out of control. Of the two Russian intelligence agencies that helped Trump into office "Fancy Bear" and "Cozy Bear" - which one was the Sorcerer and which one was the Sorcerers Apprentice?

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