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The former US afforded Kyiv a mere hour’s warning before Monday’s Russian ballistic-missile assault, attributing the intelligence ‘failure’ to a ‘software problem’. {The Telegraph 19 October}
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/27da1caf805aff89
Apparently, Trump believes that throwing in his lot wholesale with Putin and Russia, so close upon these wretched midterm elections — wherein he and his corrupted party are so desperate to cling to power — constitutes a sound idea. Yet, given how thoughtlessly the American people betrayed the Ukrainian people by restoring Trump to power — and putting aside the 99.9% certainhood that Putin hath been blackmailing him for years — might he be making a shrewd, though entirely unconscionable, political calculation?
Recall what preceded Trump’s return to the presidency: nearly three years, whilst Biden was in office and America remained Ukraine’s friend and protector, of incessant whining over the money expended in defending Ukraine, from millions upon millions of citizens forever susceptible to mindless right-wing populism and blatant propaganda. Perhaps Trump knows his constituency better than those of us who persist in expecting reason, consistency or elementary decency from it. Or, perhaps some of our number only understand his constituency all too well by now; enough to realise the vast majority of MAGA voters are never coming back from the abyss.
How else did Trump come to power in the first place — and, inexplicably, for a second time after a historically rotten first term that ended amid a pandemic, mass protests, and the political violence of 6 January 2021 following his sustained effort to overturn the election result? How is it that basic vaccines, once almost entirely uncontroversial, are now regarded as a demonic plot by our friends and family members? How is it that seemingly everything unfolding around us now appears to defy common logic and reason? Collectively, the American people find themselves in a very dark place: psychologically, spiritually, morally, physically, economically, and more besides.
As such, the people are being played like a fiddle by some of the most evil and ruthless men on earth: Trump and his cadre, certainly, but also Vladimir Putin, Elon Musk, Xi Jinping and, arguably and regrettably, Benjamin Netanyahu (though we are not having that argument at present), among many others.
Arguably, meanwhile, the Trump rΓ©gime is itself being outfoxed and outmanoeuvred by the very allies it hath stabbed in the back, Ukraine among them. The reorientation of US foreign policy towards Putin doth wound Ukraine, yet its people are proving themselves the most resilient on earth, and shall stand triumphant in the end. Unquestionably, they have grown stronger in adversity and are going to prevail. As for #Muricans? No chance; we are ultimately killing ourselves first and foremost, and are not of the calibre of the generations who preceded us — when there actually was much to be proud of.
I cannot endure much more of this.
πͺπ #QueSeraSera π ¨ π
