Reports are reaching me that 'Pro-Putin Republicans' have become the GOP’s ‘new useful idiots’ according to a former Reagan speechwriter (msn.com) Quoting this article:
For Americans who are old enough to remember the Cold War
and the Reagan era, it is ironic that some of today’s MAGA Republicans aren’t
shy about openly expressing their admiration for Russian President Vladimir
Putin — even during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This admiration for Putin,
liberal New York Times opinion writer Paul Krugman noted in a scathing column
published on September 12, has been expressed by everyone from Fox News’ Tucker
Carlson to former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani to the leader of the MAGA
movement: former President Donald Trump. In that column, Krugman argued that
praising Putin’s authoritarianism fits right in with the “MAGA ethos.”
But liberals and progressives certainly aren’t the only ones
who have been calling out the pro-Putin attitudes in the MAGA movement. More
than a few Never Trump conservatives have been slamming Putin’s MAGA
sympathizers, including veteran columnist Mona Charen. In an article published
by The Bulwark on September 14, Charen lambasts “pro-Putin, pro-authoritarian”
Republicans as the “new useful idiots.”
“At the moment when freedom-loving people around the world
are elated, if on tenterhooks, at the progress of Ukrainian forces in pushing
back the Russian invaders, Heritage Action, the political arm of the conservative
Heritage Foundation, has joined with other self-styled conservative groups to
oppose helping Ukraine fight for its life,” laments the 65-year-old Charen, who
was a speechwriter for First Lady Nancy Reagan during the 1980s. “I know, I
know, the Trumpification of the GOP has been a fact for six years, and yet,
this heel turn is remarkable. It’s as if People for the Ethical Treatment of
Animals announced that they support puppy mills for medical research.”
I suppose this is really no surprise: As I've reported before Trump's ex-chief strategist Steve Bannon is openly a supporter of Putin's dictatorship. Also, cranky christian conspiracy theorist Marjorie Taylor Greene has praised the despot. This only confirms in my mind that these MAGA Trumpites are seeking to end democracy and usher in an autocracy perhaps under the guise of a theocracy. They chime with Putin's traditional, religious and authoritarian values and see him mirroring their own anti-liberal sentiments and mores.
But it gets crankier and crankier: News is coming in that Donald Trump is making increasingly positive moves toward the QAnon theorists (As has fundamentalist theme park supremo Ken Ham). This group, which almost idolize Trump as a kind of national savior, no doubt appeals to Trump's already planet sized ego. Trump's (and Ham's) cryptic overtures toward QAnon will help secure QAnon's patronage and/or vote - not that votes are of much consequence to Trumpites if they are always going to declare the elections of America's well-established democracy as rigged whenever they lose. See these reports:
Trump asks QAnon to stand back and stand by (msn.com)
If Trump or (more likely) his successor ever regains power we may well have to kiss goodbye democracy, freedom of expression & choice in the West: A far-right Christian group are praying for the return of this demagogue to power:
