NYT: Our Russian problem
T. Belman. The author recognizes that this relationship is in flux yet can’t resist saying because of Trump’s “grotesque embrace of Putin’s thuggishness”, he is not the man for the job. Why not? Trump respects Putin for his strength and disrespects Obama for his weakness. I consider Russia’s actions in Crimea and Ukraine to be like a minor earthquake. The tectonic plates have just shifted a bit. This article must have been written before Obama made a deal with Putin in which he ceded Syria to Russia in exchange for Russia defeating the Islamists. Just another tectonic shift. They happen all the time.
RUSSIA’S place in American politics used to be (relatively) simple. The further right you stood, the more you feared Ivan and his Slavic wiles. The further left, the more you likely thought the Red Menace was mostly just a scare story.
Now things are more complicated. In just 15 years, the Republican Party has had a president who famously claimed a soul-to-soul relationship with Vladimir Putin … followed by two consecutive nominees who took a starkly hawkish stance on Russia … and now a presidential candidate in Donald Trump who has a palpable man-crush on Putin and promises closer ties with his regime.
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