1930s-style fascism-enabling “America First” isolationism is a big part of this for sure. Republican candidates may not be shining Putin’s jackboots with their tongues like Carlson is but they’re doing their part. Witness J.D. Vance, for example:
I don’t know if he’s being actively consulted as a n individual, but “Foundations of Geopolitics” is taken as a rough aspirational template by Putin’s foreign policy, military, and intelligence leadership. The book is indeed required reading in those circles and has been used as a textbook for senior military officers since its publication.
Germany (and to a lesser degree France) are envisioned by Dugin as being very loosely allied with the new Russian empire against the U.S. if their far-right parties can be helped into power and then those countries helped out of NATO (at that point the EU is finished too). Also part of the 1997 book’s anti-EU vision is an optimal scenario which the UK is (implied with a little Russian help) once again politically separated from the Continent.
The Putin regime obviously agrees, funding and supporting as it does any right-wing separatist party and movement and pundit in the EU. Combined with weakening the power U.S. and NATO it’s a requirement that gives Russia more room to work on the other goals laid out in Dugin’s book.
So, yes, given Putin’s implementation of many of Dugin’s broad suggestions and given his almost quoting Dugin as he described his view of Ukraine’s status vis-a-vis Russia in his speech the other day, it is a horrible sign.
Candidate for New York Representative to Congress Andrew McCarthy tweeted: “Putin protects the church, tradition, and Russian culture to an extent that globalists cannot accept…. We deal with far worse governments regularly.”
I can’t recall if it was the CA Assembly leadership or then Gov. Brown who, upon the election of the Orange Menace, made a public statement reminding Californians the state wasn’t here when the great experiment in democracy began and if it went too sideways we would leave it. I think it took the Russian guy about 1 day to start the Yes campaign after.
Once, all the Germans were war-like and mean
But that couldn’t happen again,
We taught them a lesson in 1918
And they haven’t bothered us since then!
–Tom Lehrer
He was singing about sharing nukes with Germany in the 60’s. Somehow I feel like Tucker Carlson in more dangerous.
If the GOP does finally achieve their goal of installing Putin-style illiberal sham one-party “democracy” at the federal level, California might try to separate after a while without the need for a clumsy effort like the Russian guy’s. The state uses its economic power to go very much its own way compared to the rest of the country on issues like abortion and is always trying to put together its own single-payer-universal health system (the latest attempt being Assembly Bill 1400). If a fascist central government keeps trying to stop these progressive policies via the SCOTUS then the state leadership might get fed up.
The problem in that scenario (as I’m sure you’re aware) is that California also has a lot of conservative residents and citizens. Some of them are geographically concentrated within the state, including the moneyCons and Xtianists of Orange County, the “State of Jefferson” ammosexual nuts up near Redding, and the agribusiness greedpigs who own the Central Valley. That’s a recipe for a nasty civil war within California, the kind where living in liberal West L.A. or San Francisco is going to be a lot less pleasant than it currently is.
Oh yeah, we have problems in the north, the south and the central valley. They are running out of water to farm with and sooner or later, there will be a reckoning. Those water deals mass-murderer Mulholland cut have stood a long time, and no one has tried to sabotage the CA Aquaduct in a long long time – but it is coming.
The only thing is, California would never stand the kind of drought measures they’re taking down here in Tijuana, what with shutting off the water for several hours a day.
The number one problem for CA leaving the Union is that so much of our water comes from a river that mostly flows elsewhere and people in say Utah really want that water. If the USG wasn’t telling Utah “No, that’s California’s” SoCal would be a dust bowl pretty quick.
This is exactly why the Putin regime’s demonstrated fascination with Dugin’s work is something to take seriously and not just “a load of bilge that’s not worth worrying about”.
Further along the human centipede, these sentimental hardmen are assisted by media Haw Haws like Fox News’s Tucker Carlson or GB News’s Nigel Farage – guys with such an overwhelming yen for the respect they feel they themselves were denied at some key point in their lives that their deepest human empathy is reserved for a foreign authoritarian also not getting his due.
Thanks for that insight, by the way. I was genuinely clueless as to why they (Fox & Co.) were taking this stance. Now I can settle comfortably into shock and disgust at their specific monstrosity, rather than shock, disgust, and confusion at their general monstrosity.
Once, all the Germans were war-like and mean
