I retitled this article to make it conform to what is actually written in it. I don't ordinarily share anything from the extreme-right, Trump supporting The Spectator, and their enthusiasm for wars against Trump's declared Enemies; Russia, China, Iran, Palestinians, Cuban, et al., but the extreme-right is more "honest" in their analysis of Trump than the useful idiot supporters of his who say they oppose our wars, but cheer and support Trump who is already escalating the wars as his plans take shape with Netanyahu, as this shows he's planning against Russia:
Quote from article below: "And many of the people tipped for Trump’s cabinet are strong Russia hawks, not appeasers. Both former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, a possible defense secretary, and former national-security adviser Robert O’Brien, tipped for secretary of state, have criticized the Biden administration for restricting the use of US weapons and called for more sanctions on Russia. Indeed, Pompeo has backed creating a $500 billion lend-lease program to help Ukraine defend itself and also supports giving the country Nato membership . . .
. . .
"The only difference is that Trump’s threats to go full tonto on Putin’s backside if he fails to wind up his invasion are more credible than Harris’s empty promises ever were.
Did I mention the other day that were I Putin, I would have Mr. Doctorow arrested for "Aiding the Enemy" in his support of Trump, who by his own admission waged war against Russia throughout his administration, in league with Duda of Poland.
So not to pick on him but here is what Gilbert Doctorow said in the interview of his in regard to Trump, where he touted Trump and the Republican Senate as the solution for "Peace," omitting that they all support aggression against Russia and its allies China and Iran, which Putin also knows, explaining why he didn't congratulate Trump. With Netanyahu being 1st at that, which Doctorow overlooks.
I wouldn't ordinarily by so critical but as a volunteer attorney to defend student protester's right to free speech, and knowing Trump will never let a Guantanamo prisoner out, even if they're already approved for release (put aside Biden's own cowardice for the Yemeni prisoners, but he did release other prisoners unlike Trump, except the one Saudi he turned over to MBS), what Doctorow says here seems to me the most odious kind of pro-Trump obfuscation.
Doctorow: As I was saying, the most important change between Trump in 2016 and Trump in 2024 is that today he has a team of level-headed, sensible, and dedicated advisors and assistants, starting with the world’s richest man, Elon Musk. The Musk factor in Mr. Trump’s victory is enormous. (TP-Trump's Blob leaders, along with ultra-hawks like Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Palmer Luckey, each essential to the Military Tech Industrial Complex
13:09 He put at the disposal of Trump’s electoral campaign not just his money and his own personal voice, but the global reach of his X messaging service. This assistance was decisive in Trump’s victory, and I think that people who are sensible and committed to order as opposed to chaos will be at his side this time helping him, enabling him to perform the anti-war or the no-war policies that he has announced. (TP-🤣) You mentioned his stress on domestic policy. Of course, that’s understandable, because he won the election on the basis of his perceived ability to manage the economy. This was clear that the economy, management of the economy, was at least the second-most important issue on voters’ minds in the States when they went to the ballot box.
14:15 The first was the future of American democracy. But foreign affairs were nowhere on the radar screen, not because they’re unimportant, but because the American public does not view its presidential candidates from the perspective of foreign policy, only from domestic policy.
Doctorow: 15:07 There will be a difference because, as I said, this time he has control of the Senate. So he can get through the Senate people who will carry out his will. He did not have that possibility in his first presidency, and it was decisive in rendering his policies useless finally. His attempt to accommodate Russia was … failed simply because he did not have the proper people. (TP-F***! Now he can get his wars, with One-Party control, Republican, of the Senate and House.)
His first presidency was a kind of family cabinet. You know very well that he invited in his immediate family to perform important advisory roles and even executive roles in his administration. And the reason was he had nobody else. He came to the presidency without a strong support team, people experienced in how government is run. He didn’t have that in 2016. (TP-Yeah, the Heritage Foundation and NatCon Saurabh Sharma's organization for lower tier hires, all guaranteeing that at least we will take down Iran this time. Or die trying!) 16:01 He has it today. He has dedicated senators who understand his policies and are willing and able to see them through the Senate, where foreign policy is made. He has individuals like Robert Kennedy Jr. (TP- "useful idiots") who bring to his presidency great experience as implementers, not just as thinkers, but as implementers of a green policy. After all, Kennedy is the one who cleaned up the Hudson River in the United States. So in this particular case he has a team. And without a team, you don’t go very far in government, just as you don’t go far in business.
WION2: 16:41 Dr. Gilbert, you very rightly pointed out that this time around, Donald Trump has the control of the Senate. Does that, however, also align with the reports that said Americans had voter anxiety looking at the outcome of the elections, thinking about the outcome of the election, should Donald Trump come into the second term? And if you contrast and compare it to Americans voting for economy, and of course, Trump also saying that he’s not a Nazi in his Georgia rally. So do you see, like Eric pointed out, do you see a renewed Donald Trump in 2.0, or do you think that the view of the Americans who felt that they should be feeling anxious about this presidency somewhat holds some weight?
Doctorow: 17:35 As I’m saying, the presidency is made not by one man, but by a team. It needs a leader, it’s clear (TP-Der Führer, in the original language). And this was one of the big failures of the Harris campaign. People perceived that she would not be a leader, that she would be a puppet, and that some people unseen, unelected, would be controlling her presidency.
That is not the case with Donald Trump. I think the man’s bravery has been proven to everyone in the States by his surviving two assassination attempts, in the first one of which he was wounded and still stood up, his fist in the air, saying, [“We will proceed.”] This, I think, was what won him the support of many minority leaders who otherwise would vote Democratic. They saw a real man here, a person with courage. And that is not the Trump that anyone could understand or very few people could understand in 2016.(TP-See Carl Schmitt, and his panegyric to his Führer, which is so close to Tucker Carlson and Darryl Cooper who couldn't do it better, for either Führer.)
18:29 I’d like to emphasize that the notion of Mr. Trump as a fascist is as much a falsehood as the notion of Mr. Trump in 2016 being put in as a Manchurian candidate by the Russians. That was rubbish. It was a campaign ploy, a very damaging ploy, that was sponsored by Hillary Clinton, just as the notion that Mr. Trump is a fascist or a Hitler supporter is absolute lie that is put up in this very dirty political campaign. Let’s go beyond that. Mr. Trump has been influenced, of course, by his near-death experience. I think that may make him more humane than the Trump of 2016. (TP-Unless one does a line by line political theory analysis of Mussolini's definition of Fascism, compared to Trump's political theorists Willmoore Kendall and Yoram Hazony.)
19:17 And I would not worry for the future of freedoms in the States, because Trump himself has given voice to the nonstandard thinkers in the States, or the whole array of alternative media in the States, of which I am a participant, I’m glad to say. This exists only because Mr. Trump himself said things in his campaign which would have put ordinary citizens into prison if the Democrats had their way about it. And since he was a candidate, they couldn’t stop him. And that has given us all in the States more freedom than our peers in Europe have.
TP-And what he plans to do to anti-genocide protesters doesn't count, nor did what Trump did to Julian Assange who would still be in prison had Trump won in 2020.)
Donald Trump’s electionvictory heralds the beginning of the end of the Ukraine war — and is likely to leave Vladimir Putin in control of most, if not all, of the territory he has seized in nearly three years of bloody conflict. To many Ukrainians, such an outcome will be a betrayal of their struggle, a stab in the back by the West that will sow decades of anger and resentment. To others, though, a swift end to the conflict before more land is lost and tens of thousands more young Ukrainians die represents the best hope of actually salvaging a decent future for their country before their infrastructure, economy, and an entire generation are annihilated completely.
“At this stage we are talking about survival, not victory,” says a former senior member of Volodymyr Zelensky’s cabinet who is now forming an opposition party in Kyiv. “What is important today is not fighting forever for lost territory. It’s making sure that Russia is no longer a military threat to us. That can only be done diplomatically, not militarily.”
Will Trump be a backstabber or a peacemaker? In public, Kamala Harris has come out as the stronger supporter of Kyiv, slamming suggestions that Ukraine should cede territory for the sake of peace with Moscow as “dangerous and unacceptable.” “They are not proposals for peace,” Harris said in September, “they are proposals for surrender.” Yet in practice, the Biden administration has effectively ignored Zelensky’s October peace plan, dialed down aid from $60 billion to $7.9 billion, and much of that non-lethal, and crucially refused to allow the Ukrainians to use long-range Western-supplied missiles to hit targets inside Russia. In other words, Harris’s plan was to continue funding Ukraine’s war effort indefinitely, but inadequately.
Trump, on the other hand, has promised to broker a swift end to the conflict. “They’re dying, Russians and Ukrainians,” Trump told a CNN Town Hall meeting in May 2023. “I want them to stop dying. And I’ll have that done — I’ll have that done in 24 hours.” But rather than preside over a Ukrainian capitulation, Trump claims that he will be tough on both sides. “I would tell Zelensky: ‘No more. You got to make a deal,’” Trump told Fox News in July. “I would tell Putin: ‘If you don’t make a deal, we’re going to give [Zelensky] a lot. We’re going to [give Ukraine] more than they ever got if we have to.’”
In other words, Trump’s plan is to push Russian President Vladimir Putin to negotiate by threatening to open the aid spigots for Ukraine — while also pressing Zelensky to the table by threatening to withhold aid. And many of the people tipped for Trump’s cabinet are strong Russia hawks, not appeasers. Both former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, a possible defense secretary, and former national-security adviser Robert O’Brien, tipped for secretary of state, have criticized the Biden administration for restricting the use of US weapons and called for more sanctions on Russia. Indeed, Pompeo has backed creating a $500 billion lend-lease program to help Ukraine defend itself and also supports giving the country Nato membership — though O’Brien said last month that would be “too provocative at this point.”
Despairing Dems point to rejoicing in Moscow over Trump’s victory as evidence that a great betrayal is coming. “Kamala is finished… Let her keep cackling infectiously,” gloated former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, who has frequently threatened nuclear strikes on the West. “The objectives of the Special Military Operation remain unchanged and will be achieved.” Conservative Russian friends of mine have bombarded me and their social media accounts with memes of a young Trump holding a white dove of peace, accompanied by hopeful messages of the imminent end of sanctions and the resumption of flights from Russia to Europe.
But despite years of Democratic accusations that Trump is a Putin shill or even agent, his first-term track record on dealing with Russia is actually pretty hawkish — despite the unfortunate optics of a 2018 summit in Helsinki where Trump appeared unduly sympathetic to the Russian leader. It was Trump who gave the green light for the United States to provide lethal aid to Ukraine in 2017, something Barack Obama had refused to do because of concerns about provoking Moscow. This April, Trump also came out as a supporter of the idea of a half-trillion-dollar lend-lease package for Ukraine as an alternative to aid grants. Trump also recently called Putin’s conditions for peace talks “not acceptable.”
After a September meeting with Zelensky at Trump Tower, Trump claimed that “we both want to see this end, and we both want to see a fair deal made…It should stop, and the President [Zelensky] wants it to stop, and I’m sure President Putin wants it to stop and that’s a good combination,” Trump said. In contrast, Zelensky told the New Yorker magazine that Trump “doesn’t really know how to stop the war” and called Vice-President-elect J.D. Vance “too radical” and “dangerous.”
In 2016, the Kremlin and its media were openly triumphant about Trump’s first victory. At the time, I attended an official US election party in Moscow, co-hosted by the Rossiya-1 TV channel, which featured large heroic oil paintings of Putin, Trump, and Marine Le Pen. “The world is going our way,” was the refrain of many of the conservative American revelers interviewed that night, and of the Kremlin’s TV coverage. This time round, however, the Kremlin has been far more cautious. Spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said that Putin will not congratulate Trump because the US is an “unfriendly” country — but said that Russia is “open to dialogue” even though peace cannot be achieved “overnight.”
There is one indisputable danger for Ukraine in Trump’s victory, however. Between now and the moment Trump takes office, the clock will be ticking for Putin’s forces to try to seize as much Ukrainian territory as possible before a ceasefire is brokered. It’s a critical moment for the Ukrainian war effort. According to Western militaries, up to 8,000 North Korean special forces have deployed in Kursk (inside Russia proper, not so far from occupied Ukraine) to repel a pocket of Ukrainian counter-invaders. Up to 80 percent of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure has been destroyed or damaged. If back-channel negotiations currently under way in Qatar between Russia and Ukraine on suspending mutual attacks on energy infrastructure fail, Russian attacks threaten to make major towns and cities effectively uninhabitable during the winter. A grinding Russian push through the northern Donbas is gaining momentum and could eventually threaten Ukraine’s second city, the largely Russian-speaking Kharkiv, with encirclement.
Ultimately, with the practical prospect of Ukraine being able to recapture its lost territories standing at less than zero, it is hard to see any difference between the final deal Harris would make and that which Trump will likely broker. What’s on the table is de facto rather than de jure partition of Ukraine along the line of control — wherever that may be at the moment of armistice — plus security guarantees for Ukraine short of full Nato membership. The only difference is that Trump’s threats to go full tonto on Putin’s backside if he fails to wind up his invasion are more credible than Harris’s empty promises ever were.
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This article was originally published on The Spectator’s UK website.
