11-30-2016, 09:59 PM
(11-30-2016, 02:59 PM)taramarie Wrote: While America should not feel controlled by any country to the point they desire to tell them who to vote for, it is unwise to get into a war with them. So even though I despise Trump and think he is a threat to many freedoms that were fought for in your country, him winning avoided war with Russia and bloodshed. I think that is better to avoid as I value life over an unnecessary war. It is not cowardice. It is wise to avoid war...unless necessary (ww2).
Vladimir Putin did not tell Americans to vote for Donald Trump. Such would have backfired. He definitely preferred Donald Trump for reasons that might not be so safe for Americans. Donald Trump is already appeasing Vladimir Putin before Putin has demanded anything.
As when Russia was the biggest part of the now-defunct Soviet Union, I am satisfied that Kremlin leadership always preferred the weaker American leader. The ideal American President from a Soviet or now Putin's standpoint is either a fool who can be flattered into exchanging the safety of American allies for vague and unenforceable promises of peace (probably some liberal 'useful idiot' in Soviet times, ideology irrelevant now) or someone who can be blackmailed. With so many potential conflicts of interest President Trump is the biggest possible target for diplomatic blackmail in the world. President Obama was not an easy mark for blackmail of any kind and was by no means a useful idiot.
If there was any Russian tampering in the 2016 election, then any downfall of the President or the Republican majority in the Senate (which would have gone along with the Trump victory) that results from any blackmail by the Russian government would be tantamount to a coup.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.