What the Hell is Going on Here, Anyway
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Patrick Slattery
February 14, 2024
Dear Readers,
This week everyone is talking about Tucker Carlson’s interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin. I know I need to distinguish myself from everyone else if I expect people to want to read this column. So here goes.
Our top story of the week: Tucker Carlson’s interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Honestly, I think the fact that the interview took place and has already had over 200 million views on Twitter alone is far more significant than anything that was said during the interview. People who get their news from the mainstream media are inundated with messages about Putin being Hitler (the Hollywood movie version) that as long as he didn’t start goose-stepping and throwing up Roman salutes, it was a net positive for him.
I need to mention that at least a few members of my Republic Broadcasting Network (RBN) audience have a favorable view of Hitler and Nazi Germany, such that I feel compelled from time to time to remind them that just because you have a swastika tattooed on your neck doesn’t automatically make you the good guy. They would have been happy to see Putin goose step a bit and seem put off by his commitment to the de-Nazification of Ukraine. De-Nazification seems like a bizarre goal for a country with a Jewish president, massively disproportionate Jewish representation in the political elite, and Jewish puppet masters in the State Department. And yet, there is an element in the Ukrainian political class and military that idolizes people who collaborated with the Germans in World War II or otherwise had extreme nationalistic positions.
Furthermore, I often remind my RBN audience that what Hitler’s Germany represents to Russians is very different from what it represents to Americans or most other Westerners. In America, Nazi Germany killed 6 million Jews. Everyone else killed in the war is a footnote. In Russia, Nazi Germany killed 27 million Soviet citizens, and everyone else is a footnote. Overall, of course, few Americans would view the goal of de-Nazification with suspicion, but RBN listeners are a bit quirky.
So what’s important is that the interview took place and was seen by so many people. Putin was intelligent, rational, reasonable, even humorous at times, and in no way the monster that he has been portrayed. Zillions of people are commenting on the contrast with the types of political leaders we have in the West, whom you could barely imagine having the detailed knowledge of their country’s history that Putin displayed. It sounds like a cheap shot, but Biden cannot even remember his own personal history.
While self-aggrandizing commentators have praised Putin’s 25-minute history lesson at the start of the interview in order to signal how well-read and sophisticated they themselves are, and Putin no doubt thought that it was important to impart this knowledge to his American audience, that fact is that history is not most Americans’ strong suit. Most people don’t realize how bad Americans are at history because they are too busy realizing how bad Americans are at math and geography.
Nothing Putin said in the interview was really new, but unless Westerners go out of their way to see what the Russians are talking about they would have no way of knowing. People who listened to the full interview got to hear Putin recount how he had attempted with five different U.S. Presidents to build a friendly Russo-American relationship, starting with his rebuffed request to President Clinton for Russia to be admitted to NATO. He said that Clinton initially seemed willing to consider it, but shortly later said it was impossible, as if he wasn’t really the one making decisions and had to check with headquarters. It was clear that Putin doesn’t think that America’s Presidents are really in charge, but rather there is some unelected ruling elite that is calling the shots. Obviously, that is the case, but one does not often get to hear it from someone of Putin’s stature.
I think the interview was very good for Donald Trump, even though he was not talked about much. Much of the criticism of Trump has always been that he is “Putin’s puppet,” so to the extent that Putin has been de-vilified in the eyes of millions of American voters, that is good for Trump. And while I surely think that Putin would prefer to see Trump beat Biden (or whatever Democrat) in the next election, I think he has largely given up on trying to build strong relations with America and the West. As for Tucker Carlson, Hillary Clinton called him a useful idiot. Unlike Hillary, at least he is useful.
Americans are used to thinking of themselves as the indispensable country, the world’s only superpower, with a manifest destiny to lead the world. This is how it has been during our lifetimes, especially during the third of a century since the end of the Cold War, and as noted above, we aren’t good enough at history to know that it wasn’t always this way. The fact is that the world has changed fundamentally, especially during the two years of the Ukraine War. The real objective of the war, which was planned in the State Department by Victoria Nuland, was to provoke Russia into an invasion that would provide the pretext for unprecedented economic sanctions that would destabilize Russia and topple the Putin government. It didn’t happen because China supported Russia, and then the rest of the non-Western world followed suit. The center of gravity of international politics has shifted from an America-dominated G-7 to BRICS, centered around the Russia-China axis.
Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates, three Arab countries that for decades were in the American orbit, have joined BRICS. Saudi Arabia is insisting that an independent Palestine be immediately created with pre-1967 borders and a capital in East Jerusalem, meaning 700,000 Jewish settlers in those lands would be expelled. While this doesn’t seem like such a departure from its long-held position, the difference is that it the demand is being raised within the context of a war that is ongoing as a condition for ending it. Egypt is threatening to scrap its 45-year-old peace treaty with Israel if it invades Rafah in the Gaza Strip. Yemen has already declared war on Israel. Israel has become used to acting with impunity, like the little brother of the neighborhood bully, but the defeat of the West in the Ukraine War has exposed the American military complex as a paper tiger. America and the West are becoming irrelevant. Israel is badly mistaken about its ability to remain above the law, and the longer it continues to slaughter Palestinians the more it is going to lose.
One last word on the Putin interview. Tucker Carlson, who has some inexplicable hatred of China, made some juvenile and retarded effort to goad Putin into saying something against China. Putin promptly put Tucker in his place, forever smashing his dream of a Russo-American alliance against the dreaded slant eyes that he often called for on his Fox News show.
Meanwhile, in other news…
Trump at this point has a pretty formidable lead over Biden, especially when taking into account the third-party candidates that will be on the ballot in most states. Pro-Democratic pundits speculate delusionally that Biden could be persuaded to drop out of the race and allow someone else to take his place, and that any establishment Democrat who is younger than Biden could easily defeat Trump. What they are missing is that it is not only Biden’s age that is leading to his lack of popularity, but also his policies, which in fairness are not really his, but are the policies of the Jewish-dominated Democrat establishment.
A well-known Jewish pundit by the name of Jonathan Alter, who thinks Biden has been a great president but should retire at the end of his term, said Gavin Newsom or Amy Klobuchar or Gretchen Whitmore or any number of other establishment Democrats would be able to defeat Trump. But these people are associated with Biden’s policies, one of which is his support for Ukraine. Putin’s appearance with Tucker was significant because he was able to make a coherent case for Russia’s actions and therefore against the US support for Ukraine that tens of millions of Americans had never heard before.
By contrast, Biden held a 12-minute press conference on the same day that the Putin interview dropped. He was addressing the release of a special counsel report on his mishandling of classified documents from his days as Vice President in which the special counsel referred to Biden as a “well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory.” It didn’t help that Biden then took credit for having convinced the Mexicans to open their border with Gaza for humanitarian aid. The White House press corps which has been protecting Biden from any real scrutiny for three years, then started shouting questions at him about being too old and dropping out of the presidential race. Biden shouted back that they should get the hell off his lawn and then stomped out of the room, taking their football with him.
The only way a Democrat would have a chance in anything like a fair election would be if he had been a skeptic on the Ukraine war and a critic of mass immigration and an opponent of COVID lockdowns. We keep hearing Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s name mentioned, but she was gung-ho for the lockdowns and is famous for having micromanaged what could and could not be sold at retail outlets. For instance, Home Depot was allowed to stay open, but it was NOT allowed to sell home gardening goods to people wanting to grow their own food. California Governor Gavin Newsom, whose name is most frequently raised, runs a sanctuary state for illegal aliens. Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar has been shilling big time the Ukraine war. People are not souring on Biden’s policies because they don’t like him personally, they are turning against him because they think his policies are wrecking the country, and simply switching him out for a younger alternative will not make much difference.
Honestly, Donald Trump deserves a certain share of the blame for all of these policies, but the bulk of his supporters feel that things were much better during his presidency, or at least that he tried to oppose these policies but was thwarted by the “deep state” or whatever. Obviously, immigration was his big issue in 2016, and although many of his supporters were very disappointed by his lack of success, by contrast to Biden or other Democrats, his administration really does seem like the good old days. Also, while the worst days of the lockdowns were under his administration, they were not federally enforced, but rather state-enforced, especially in states that had Democratic governors. And Trump has been able to say that had he been president, the Ukraine war would have never happened, whatever that means.
Many politicians are accused of speaking out of both sides of their mouths. In Trump’s case, it’s more that his mouth is so big that he can speak out the front of it and still covers an enormous amount of territory. He speaks with humor and a certain charisma, but an astounding lack of clarity. Much is left to the imagination. For instance, when he says the Ukraine war would have never happened had he been in the White House, he leaves the listeners to assume why. Some will assume that because he’s such a tough guy Vladimir Putin would have too afraid to try anything. Others may assume that he would never have been so foolish and provocative to force Putin to feel he had to invade Ukraine in order to prevent it from joining NATO.
One last word: the situation in Ukraine is rapidly unraveling. The government is unlikely to get any more big infusions of aid from America. President Zelensky has fired General Zaluzhny, whom he feared was in a position to overthrow him, and now is trying to purge the military of Zaluzhny supporters. This can be done by firing them as well, but it can also be done by sending them to the front lines and feeding them into the meat grinder. There are increasing reports both of troops refusing to fight and men refusing to be drafted. There are loads of videos of men in fistfights with recruiters who are trying to snatch them off the streets. I started predicting that the military would overthrow Zelensky back in the summer of 2022, and it feels like I have been waiting for the other shoe to drop forever. While Putin seems content to methodically continue gaining ground with minimal risk rather than deliver a knock-out punch, the situation on the Ukrainian side is completely unsustainable and cannot possibly continue that much longer.
Sincerely,
Patrick Slattery