From Walter Russell Mead writing at The American Interest - February 24th, 2017
Trump Isn’t Sounding Like a Russian Mole
With his latest effusive remarks to Reuters on the importance of expanding the U.S. nuclear arsenal, President Donald Trump has sent the press into a panic once again.
What the press has largely ignored about Trump’s latest pronouncement is an obvious truth that undermines its own narrative: someone who was safely in Vladimir Putin’s pocket wouldn’t run around saying things like this.
And Dr. Mead's thesis:
If Trump were the Manchurian candidate that people keep wanting to believe that he is, here are some of the things he’d be doing:
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- Limiting fracking as much as he possibly could
- Blocking oil and gas pipelines
- Opening negotiations for major nuclear arms reductions
- Cutting U.S. military spending
- Trying to tamp down tensions with Russia’s ally Iran
That Trump is planning to do precisely the opposite of these things may or may not be good policy for the United States, but anybody who thinks this is a Russia appeasement policy has been drinking way too much joy juice.
Obama actually did all of these things, and none of the liberal media now up in arms about Trump ever called Obama a Russian puppet; instead, they preferred to see a brave, farsighted and courageous statesman. Trump does none of these things and has embarked on a course that will inexorably weaken Russia’s position in the world, and the media, suddenly flushing eight years of Russia dovishness down the memory hole, now sounds the warning that Trump’s Russia policy is treasonously soft.
So true - people are not thinking when they spout off the accepted narrative. They are unaware of just how silly they sound. Unaware.
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