Tag: TrumpRussia

Of NATO, Ukraine & Putin’s Metrics For Invasion


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

One theory floating around Twitter is Putin is about to engage in a massive, risky war against Ukraine because he wants to stop the country from joining NATO.

I struggle to imagine this being true, for a lot of reasons.

The biggest is — if all Putin wants to do is ensure that Ukraine doesn’t join NATO, all he has to do is a modest smash-and-grab operation connecting Donbass to Odessa. Have enough of a lingering “frozen conflict” endgame to it that NATO just doesn’t want to risk letting Ukraine join.

And all of the other metrics presented to me can be swatted away. Putin is old, they say. And I say, so what. Putin is an autocrat and all autocrats think they’re going to live forever. The list goes on.

You can’t escape some cold hard facts. It’s sexy to think of a big war between Ukraine and Russia, but you can’t escape how small Russia’s economy is. You can’t escape the stress such a huge, potentially long-term, war against Ukraine that has a fair sized population would have on Russia’s economy and overall stability.

The point is — what metrics is Putin using that would cause him to believe a general war against Ukraine would be a good idea? What the hell is he thinking? Because it would make a lot more sense if this was all just a very expensive bit of saber rattling meant to get a face-to-face sit down IRL with Biden.

And he can do that because he’s an autocrat. So, for the time being, that’s what I think is happening. When something changes, I’ll revise my assessment.

What The Fuck Is Putin’s Russia Up To Around Ukraine?


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Putin is up to something curious around Ukraine. The one thing I’ve noticed lately is someone has blocked the troop movement Websites that a lot of armature observers of this developing situation have been using to date. Which definitely seems to suggest that Putin wants as much leeway to strike when and where of his own choosing.

At this point I would like to point out that Stalin was a paranoid motherfucker with a lot of foresight — almost all of the capitals of the Soviet Republics were originally placed in geographic locations that are very close to the border of a sister of republic. I’m assuming his thinking was by doing so, if one of the two was in rebellion, the other one could at least be near the capital of the rebellious Republic.

So, if you look at the map of Belarus, the only thing that separates its border to in the south to Ukraine’s capital of Kiev is a large, long lake. So, if there was some sort of crazy huge war between Russia and Belarus against Ukraine, it’s easy to imagine a one two punch pincer movement by Belarus and Russia to strike Kiev.

If Putin really is preparing a open, general war against Ukraine it’s going to come a huge fucking shock to Americans. And, it has to be noted that in some ways a major regional war in Europe would help Trump a great deal and in another way would hurt him.

It would help Trump for the basic reason that it would crowd out all other news in the domestic news echo chamber to the point that a lot of his defeats about the investigation into January 6th could be pushed off the front page. And, the argument could be made that in the minds of most Republicans the fact that Putin waited until AFTER Trump was president to attack Ukraine would “prove’ that the TrumpRussia imbroglio was a “hoax.”

And, yet, such a war could also fuck Trump over for two reasons. One reason would that for a lot of the smarter center-Left thought leaders like those at Crooked Media and Deep State Radio, the logic of Putin waiting until AFTER Trump was in office to invade would be obvious — why invade Ukraine while your stooge is in office and devastate him politically, when you can just be patient and wait until he’s out of office and do the same thing?

The other reason why a major war between Russia and Ukraine could seriously hurt Trump is if there was a long term regional war between Ukraine and Russia then there would come a point where Trump’s absolute fidelity to Putin would bump up against the Republican’s historical hostility to Russians. And, that, might be the setup for a massive civil war between MAGA and the Republican Establishment to the point that Trump’s Patriot Party eats the Republican Party or the center-Right is simply hobbled for a few presidential cycles until they get their shit together.

In fact, sad to say, that’s one of the ways we could both avoid autocracy and civil war in the United States because if the Republican Party is too busy strangling itself, it can’t very well kill American democracy or start a civil war, now can it?

Why Would Putin Wait To Attack Ukraine After His Toady Trump Was Out Of Office?


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

On paper, it seems as though Putin missed a golden opportunity to achieve his geopolitical goals by not attacking Ukraine while Donald “golden showers” Trump was still in office.

And, yet, if you look at Trump’s recent statements about Ukraine, one gets the sense that Putin had a very specific reason for not attacking Ukraine (or anywhere else) while Trump was in office. If he had, the jig would have been up as to how absolutely weak Trump was with Putin.

Trump was so beholden to Putin — for whatever fucking reason — that had Putin taken advantage of it while Trump was still in power then it would have been difficult for Trump to successfully stay popular enough to become the autocrat that Putin wants him to become.

Or, put another way, one could make the argument that Trump is too weak domestically for Putin to have walked all over the United States while Trump was president the first go round. If Trump had won a second term, then, probably at some point after he got his Constitutional Convention and secured his place as American’s first autocrat, THEN Putin might have attacked Ukraine knowing it would all be a domestic political lulz.

But now that Trump is out of power, Putin can attack Ukraine and pretty much it will be Biden’s problem and there’s nothing he can do in real terms without risking WW3.

At least, that’s all I got. It just makes a lot more sense to me for Putin to be thinking this than anything else.

The Duality Of Maggie Haberman — And Speculation On Why She’s Enraging Trumplandia Right Now


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The thing about “Trump Whisperer” Maggie Haberman is she is, at the same time, both way too close to Trumplandia AND a great journalist. So the Twitter liberals who defend her no matter what and the populist pitchfork crowd on Twittter who hate her both have vaild arguments.

Recently, however, Trumplandia “thought leaders” like Sean Hannity are freaking out about her, apparently out of the blue. It makes you think maybe she’s up to something that she’s asking questions about and they’re doing a pre-emptive freak out to prepare to base for whatever bombshell she’s about to drop.

What I HOPE she’s going to tell us is exactly why Trump was so absolutely desperate to remove 1/3 of America’s troops from Germany right before the 2020 election. I have yet to get any explanation for this directive on Trump’s part and, as best I can tell, the whole thing was off the books to begin with.

Trump just started demanding it happen, without going through any proper channels at all.

This was and is very suspicious.

At the time, I kept ranting about how I thought it was YET ANOTHER quid pro quo between Trumplandia and Russia — Trump removes a big chunk of our troops from Germany, the Russians hack into our election systems.

But…the Russians this go round strangely sat on their hands, even though Trump did everything in his power to give them a major geopolitical windfall in Europe.

But, I’m just a hayseed rube in the rural part of a flyover state. Though, if I guess that this is what Maggie Haberman is about to drop, well, I take back all my snarky comments about her being an “access journalist” and will want to buy her a beer.

Ms. Haberman, however, has to produce the goods. It could be whatever she’s looking into isn’t nearly as momentous as the scenario I’ve proposed. But I will note that my 2020 ranting about this topic is beginning to get just a tick of traffic out of the blue, as if other people, out there in the aether are thinking about what I was thinking.

‘Cancel Culture,’ Incels & A Second American Civil War


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It boggles my mind that anyone would actually want a civil war in the United States. In fact, if a civil war as bad as I fear might happen, happened here in the United States, it would be compared to the French Revolution in regards to a mysterious tragedy.

Using almost every metric but one, the United States is a rock solid country that from the outside you would never think was beginning to implode. But, here we are. The problem with the United States right now is almost entirety political. It seems to me that if you talk to your average conservative-but-not-MAGA person, if a civil war did happen it would be in large part to how conservatives perceive cancel culture.

Conservatives are enraged by cancel culture because of their abstract fear that simply by being conservative, they risking having their life ruined. That cancel culture doesn’t even really exist outside of some #MeToo monsters who definitely deserved it, is lost on them.

But your typical conservative can, off the top of their head, give you a half a dozen “examples” of people they believe were just minding their own business being conservative and then had everything taken from them for just being political “unwoke.” That they think this is pretty much the engine of fear and rage that has gotten us to this point.

The other big problem that has eaten away at America’s foundations is white, blue collar men without a college education can’t get laid anymore. They can’t afford to get married and start a family. For them, the American Dream is long dead.

So, we got MAGA.

Now, there’s a third aspect to our impending doom — Donald J. Fucking Trump.

He’s America’s anti-Gorbachev, but with similar results in that he’s going to probably destroy the country he was elected to lead.

Through a combination of being a criminal ding-dong and a regular old traitor, Trump is apparently hell bent on forcing us into political violence. There’s no ready answer.

Just be ready for anything, I guess. If I’m forced to leave my home because of my politics, I’m heading north to NYC. That seems my best bet to make a difference if it comes to that.

Autocrats Never Lose


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As I keep saying, two facts are heading towards each other. On one hand, it definitely seems as though we may see unprecedented numbers of people vote in this election. On the other hand — autocrats never lose.

Add to this my personal belief that Russians are going to hack directly into our election systems as part of a quid pro quo with Trump for him removing 1/3 of our troops from German, and you have the makings of a massive clusterfuck — The Big Ugly.

Or, put another way, come January 20th, 2021, Trump is getting sworn in for a second term, no matter what. Even if it means we have dueling swearing in ceremonies and the country implodes. Even if Trump loses in a landslide, he’s going to sue everything and everyone in the way of his victory and he will win 5-4 or 6-3 at SCOTUS.

This is going to happen even if a sizable chunk of the Republican Establishment publically tells Trump to cool it and to leave office.

It’s just not going to happen.

I say this because Trump knows he’s probably got a real risk of being indicted if he ever leaves office. And the Russians have him by the short ones, so he has every reason to destroy the country before leaving office. And he has Bill Barr to make sure all this troubles go away.

The more difficult it becomes for TrumpBarr to stay in power, the more radical they will become. We could very well have A Very American Coup before it’s over with to the point that it’s seen as something of a political 9/11 — not even The New York Times will be able to “both sides” this — they’re going to have to admit that a coup is taking place.

The question, of course, is what the reaction of the average person will be to this Very American Coup. There’s something of a spectrum in my opinion — either there’s a lot of gnashing of teeth on Twitter but nothing really happens i the real world, or we careening towards The Big Ugly of some sort of civil war / revolution.

Of course, there is the “Trump Salts The Earth” scenario where Trump, after quickly bringing the country to the edge of The Big Ugly abruptly gives up, but tries to destroy as much as possible on his way out. He fires people, he pardons people — including himself! Or he won’t leave office unless he can quit and get Pence to pardon him.

The darkest scenario is Trump holds up in the White House and just rants on Twitter all day and we have to physically remove him from the Oval Office while a mob of angry MAGA shitheads surround the building to defend the Dear Leader.

Ratfucking The Election With The Russians: The Case Against Donald Trump


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m just a nobody in the middle of nowhere. But I’m pretty good at abstract thought. I’ve been ranting about how Trump is going to steal the 2020 election as part of a quid pro quo with the Russians, but why do I think that? Here’s why.

Ratfucking an Election is Trump’s Thing
Just with the 2016 election alone, Trump did two major ratfuckings — he paid off Stormy Daniels just before the election and, in more general terms, was actively working with the Russians to tip the scales in his favor.

House Trump’s Blocking of Election Protection
Both the Trump Administration and the Republics in Congress really, really don’t want any investigation into what the Russians may be up to in 2020. They do everything in their power to stop any protection at all of our election or election systems. And we keep finding evidence that the Russians are already fucking with our election systems. And, yet, Republicans are completely indifferent.

Trump Keeps Talking To Putin
Since just about when Trump realized he might lose, Trump’s been talking to Putin on the phone about every two weeks. In fact, he is doing everything in his power to talk to Putin in private in September when, I think, the G20 summit is going to be held.

Trump Has Removed 1/3 of Our Troops From Germany
No one has any good reason for why this has happened. None. Trump, just out of the blue, freaked out and demanded this to happen in September. Very strange. It’s almost as if someone told him to do it for some reason. Maybe as part of a quid pro quo? And who benefits the most from such a move? Putin.

As such, it’s easy to imagine a situation where during one of Trump’s many phone calls with Putin, Putin suggests if he really wants Russian help so bad, that he do something concrete to show a good faith effort to help them out. What better thing than move troops out of Germany? It pisses the Germans off and, yet, there is plausible deniability. The deal gets the final go-ahead when Trump meets Putin in private at the G20. They shake on it. It’s the perfect crime.

Russia’s Possible Coming Invasion of Belarus



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As I’ve said before, I’m no expert on any of this, but I can make some general, educated observations about what’s going on in Belarus.

For a number of years now, Putin has had his eyes on Belarus. The difference between Belarus and Ukraine is the former is significantly smaller and doesn’t really have the centuries-long animosity towards Russia that the latter has. So, it wouldn’t be existential for Putin to swoop in and gobble Belarus up.

The recent protests in Belarus give Putin exactly the cover he would need to invade the small country. He would say he was “invited in” because of the instability and, well, that would be that. He would never leave.

There might be significant opposition to such a land grab by the people of Belarus, but nothing a big as what Putin would face if he tried to do something similar with Ukraine.

Since it is August, the shittiest month of the year, it would make a lot of sense for Putin to swoop in and eat Belarus. And, really, the issue for me is there haven’t been any reports of any major troop movements by the Russian military (at least as far as I know.) Putin continues to move tanks around the area, but nothing — not even a “drill” — that might indicate any large-scale invasion of Belarus is afoot.

That could change very quickly, however if things continue to deteriorate in Belarus and it appear as if democratic forces might actually win.

So, it would seem we have something of a waiting game ahead of us. It continues to be curious that Putin hasn’t done anything major with Ukraine give the complete and total pass the Trump Administration would give him if he did so.

#Belarus, #Russia & The Legacy Of 1989



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Let me begin by saying I’m simply a casual observer of these things and no expert. Just have a reasonably educated opinion on the situation developing in Belarus.

On one hand, Belarus is a small country that should a tipping point come — like, say, a fixed election — would be a prime candidate for a successful revolution like what we saw all across Eastern Europe in 1989. In fact, Belarus is something of an anomaly in that it never even pretended to embrace liberal democracy after the fall of Communism there.

But there’s also a huge but you have to include whenever you discuss the fate of Belarus — but Putin’s Russia.

If events in Belarus grow too unstable, it is very reasonable to assume that Russia will strike rather quickly. They would say they were “invited in” then, well, never leave. Putin would do what he’s wanted to do for 25 years — annex Belarus outright.

Given that the United States is pretty much under Putin’s thumb in the guise of our traitor “president” Donald Trump, if ever Putin was going to absorb Belarus, now would be the time to do it. The United States won’t say a word.

There is a little bit of a risk, however, that if things grow too unstable in Belarus that the whole powder-keg in neighboring Ukraine might blow up in a way that Putin couldn’t control and he might grow way too tempted to sow the seeds of his own destruction by starting a general war in eastern Ukraine.

But that’s kind of stretching it at this point.

And maybe nothing will come of the protests in Minks. It’s going to be a long night, no matter what.

What Is Putin Thinking? #Ukraine #Belarus


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The thing about Putin’s Russia is in real terms, the election of Trump gives us a real sense of their power as opposed to what they would like us to think they can do. Electing Trump was the softest, cheapest form of geopolitical ratfucking possible. It was cheap and nearly value free.

Meanwhile, two major issues on Russia’s border remain unsolved, at least to date. While Russia would love to gobble up most of Ukraine and all of Belarus, as of right now, they’ve just been all talk outside of moving troops around now and then. But current reports of growing protests in Belarus just might be something Putin can use as a springboard to taking the country.

Belarus is small and poor and Russia could probably actually gobble up if the timing us right. Not that it wouldn’t be pretty bloody, but Russia could swoop in as “liberators” things get too bad in Belarus and then, well, never leave.

One sign, at least to me, that Putin is quite confident that Trump is going to successfully steal the election is there’s not been a major land grab of eastern Ukraine by the Russians. Putin feels confident that ultimately Trump will leave NATO in his second term and, as such, Russia will be in a much better position to eat as much of Ukraine as it likes.

Russia is a unique geopolitical player because geographically it’s huge and it has a shit ton of nuclear weapons, but on the ground, it’s economy is so small that Putin knows he would just be setting himself up for his own downfall if he simply attacked Ukraine in a general war. Hence, Putin simply lurks on the border and waits for just the right moment to strike.

As such, it’s far more possible Belarus might be gobble up sooner rather than later than Ukraine. If that should change, should Russia rather abruptly move on Ukraine late this year, then something pretty fucking dramatic would have had happened to Trump’s chances of stealing the election.

I don’t see that happening, however.