Affection for dictators

My Sunday viewing was the Oscar Awards. It was an enjoyable evening and most of the relevant details are available elsewhere. I will mention that for the best leading and supporting (or is it “featured”?) actors and actresses previous winners came out to give tributes to the nominees. Some were rather touching. But in doing it that way I didn’t see moments of the nominees’ actual work. Mark Sumner of Daily Kos reported the nasty guy has completed his takeover of the Republican National Committee. His choices for co-chairs have been installed and work is commencing on turning the RNC into a subsidiary of the nasty guy’s campaign. Good luck if you’re a Republican and were hoping for some campaign cash from the national party. Sumner also reported that the RNC fired about 60 staff members, an “absolute bloodbath.” There are some strange things about this move. First, this “seems insane” to drop that number of people in an election season. Second...

As Politico makes clear, this isn’t just a matter of moving out staff aligned to a previous candidate—Trump was the previous candidate. Trump has essentially been at the top of the Republican Party ticket for around eight years, meaning that the staff at the RNC was already heavily aligned with him.

The new RNC chairs say donors will have no problem funneling money through the RNC directly into the nasty guy’s legal bills. But small donors are showing signs of “donor fatigue.” And the big donors are undecided about whether they want to support him.

This is more about dissolving the remaining walls between the party and Trump. It’s about making clear that there is no difference between being a Republican and being a blind follower of Trump. And there’s certainly no difference between donating to the Republican Party, and donating directly to Trump.

Another thought: Were 60 people let go because the previous chair was bad at fundraising and there just wasn’t the money to pay for them all? Hunter of Kos noted the nasty guy almost has (and since Hunter wrote, does have) enough delegates to win the nomination.

It was always going to end up that way, of course. Polling has long shown that the majority of the Republican base—the very white, very angry, very racist, very conservative Republican base—would be choosing the Republican who plotted out a very real, if very stupid, attempt to topple the United States government over any of the also-rans who offered themselves up as alternatives. ... What that means is that at this point, we can do away with three years of caveats and take it as a confirmed fact. When Republican voters in 14 of 15 states on Tuesday went to vote for who they believed best represented their party and should run the whole of government, they chose the man who launched the most consequential insurrection against the government since the Civil War. Because that is who they are, and we all ought to be very damn tired of anyone who claims otherwise.

Sumner wrote about the nasty guy’s affection for dictators. Hungarian authoritarian Viktor Orbán went to visit Mar-a-Lago this past Friday. Afterward Orbán explained out loud what everyone assumed was the nasty guy’s plan to end the war in Ukraine:

"He will not give a penny in the Ukraine-Russia war,” said Orbán. “That is why the war will end.” In other words, Orbán and Trump are promising to starve Ukraine of any ability to defend itself, ensuring that a democratic nation of nearly 37 million (as of 2023) people falls to an authoritarian dictatorship. "It is obvious that Ukraine cannot stand on its own feet," Orbán said on Hungary's M1 TV. “If the Americans don't give money and weapons, along with the Europeans, then the war is over. And if the Americans don't give money, the Europeans alone are unable to finance this war. And then the war is over." For Orbán, Putin, and Trump, this is a good thing.

Sumner went on to explain how such a dictator in Europe isn’t a controversy, at least in some minds:

“He’s a non-controversial figure because he says, ‘This is the way it’s going to be,’ and that’s the end of it,” said Trump.

Then Sumner listed some of the praise the nasty guy has for Putin, Xi, and Kim. Dartagnan of the Kos community discussed what the nasty guy’s plan for Ukraine, said out loud by Orbán, means to the wider world. That bit about, “And then the war is over.” No, it won’t be. The war in Ukraine will not be a stalemate. Remember the horror of learning about the 37,000 people massacred in Bucha? Imagine that played out at least 100 times across Ukraine. Then consider millions of Ukrainians fleeing into the rest of Europe. The EU won’t be able to handle the crowds of refugees. The burden will assist the rise of far right pro-Russia parties in the hopes of placating it (which never works). Russia will turn its war effort to the rest of Europe, made weaker by America withdrawing from NATO. Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia don’t want to return to Soviet control but would struggle to forestall Russian attacks. Along with Finland they are contemplating mining their eastern borders, because Russia used that effectively in Ukraine. The rest of Europe would significantly increase their defense spending in a return to a perpetual state of almost-war, similar to the Cold War. That’s as Russia has increased its own defense spending in preparation for a perpetual war. Putin has no opposition to tell him that’s a bad idea. Putin would also support more terrorists around the world. Also, China and North Korea are watching to see if America turns its back, allowing them no opposition to their own plans for conquest. Tyrants win across the world. And with the nasty guy’s affection of tyrants he’ll see that as a good thing. In a pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev had a few quotes worth sharing. Heather Digby Parton of Salon wrote:

The truth is that Orbán may need Trump more than Trump needs Orbán. He's isolated in Europe and in order to fulfill his larger agenda he needs a friend in the White House, and Joe Biden will not be that.

Orbán may be in need because his party is in turmoil, he’s the pariah of Europe, and there are cracks in his support.

If Trump wins all that changes. Orbán sees his friendship with Trump and Putin puts him right at the center of a major new alliance and it's not at all an unreasonable assumption.

Kev quoted Zack Montellaro of Politico who wrote about a vulnerable target of AI deep fakes. That’s election workers. They’re still broadly trusted, but not well known in their communities. “A well-executed fake of them could be highly dangerous but hard to counter.” Secretaries of State are aware of this possibility and are working scenarios into their training. Down in the comments are a couple good cartoons. One from John Deering shows Biden playing checkers with the nasty guy. Biden says, “King me.” A cartoon by Pat Bagley plays on a famous line from the movie Jaws: “We’re going to need a bigger boat!” This time the boat is “local news” and the shark is “Misinformation.”