‘How bad was that?’ As bad as can be
“How bad was that?” a White House official back in Washington asked a CNN reporter after President Trump’s astounding joint news conference with President Putin. CNN did not report the answer, which was presumably something along the lines of “Oh, honey.”
Trump is being urged to address the nation this week to squash the perception that he does not like his own country or the people in it, given that he does not like Clinton voters and that he is stomping on his fan base with manic tariffs. No more Whirlpool washers for you, Wisconsin.
In other words, he has done terrible things to his country before, but had never before admitted that he was seeing another country on the side.
Trump, stuck in the 1970s, thinks he has traded up. Russia is a nuclear power that has backed him to the hilt, not some Yankee historical democracy with mixed feelings, so much so that he lost the popular vote on Nov. 8, the day where it all went wrong.
Trump does not grasp that President Putin is a false friend and a downmarket one too. For Russia is in fact a relatively poor nation with a GDP lower than that of Canada and, some allege, of Texas. It has an unreliable oil-dependent and criminal-based economy, a wretched populace, and it exports no highly processed goods beyond a stellar spying-hacking team specializing in snatching elections. The Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) is Russia’s greatest asset. Go, GRU!
Here’s something U.S. journalists don’t mention. The Russian sabotage of U.S. democracy for a leader it favoured is precisely what the CIA has always done to other nations: Iran in 1953, Guatemala in 1954; Congo in 1960; South Vietnam in 1963; Brazil in 1964; Chile in 1973, and more. Do you think the CIA suddenly stopped at that?
The U.S. had the gall to impose sanctions on Cambodia for pre-election violations. This is a country the U.S. secretly bombed, destabilizing it to the point that in 1975, the Khmer Rouge marched in and imposed a hideous “Year Zero” regime that killed millions by execution, torture, slavery and famine. Vietnam invaded to rescue Cambodia from the worst of the Khmer Rouge, but the nation is still in torment.
So, well-intentioned Americans, now you know. “This kind of experience is necessary for the learning,” as Brian Eno once sang sadistically.
On to more practical matters. Why did Trump grovel? What kompromat (compromising information) does Putin have on him?
It could be the alleged tape of Trump watching Russian sex workers urinate on a bed Obama had slept on. It fits with Trump’s hatred of Obama after the (very good) jokes Obama made about him at a 2011 Washington dinner. Trump may be shameless about sex but not about that night.
All of history is composed of such tiny slights fed over the years like a poison tree. They grow and grow.
On the other hand, what does Trump most care about? Right, money.
He may have done financial deals of such size and criminality that if revealed, they would destroy his presidency, and more importantly to Trump, his business.
U.S. journalist Julia Ioffe says “Yes, Putin has something on Trump: he helped him win. That’s the kompromat.” Trump has the thinnest skin — and we’ll use his terms — in the history of the world of skin. Even newborn bats would find it insufficient.
If the world knew that Trump won the election only with GRU help, he would crumple.
After this we really do dig into speculation. What does Putin like to do? Assassinate his enemies, including journalists, politicians, and a British woman walking in a park. Did presshater Trump suggest a target? I’m not saying it was acted on. But if the suggestion was on tape? Maybe.
But here’s the biggest possible kompromat Putin has on Trump. It’s the tape of the two-hour meeting in Helsinki, attended by two translators. Of course Russia has a recording, as does the CIA. As the Russian military says it will act based on “agreements” made in the meeting, release the audio.
What a foolish man is Trump. Putin went shopping for kompromat and came back with shopping bags bulging with the stuff.
We hope to hear it soon.