"The stability of the U.S.-backed international rules-based order apparently meant that few politicians could imagine that order ending. When President Trump threatened to take the United States out of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a key guarantor of global security, Congress responded by passing a law in December 2023 that prohibits a president from withdrawing the U.S. from NATO without the approval of two thirds of the Senate or separate legislation passed by Congress. Then-senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) was a co-sponsor of the bill.
Now, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio overseeing the dismantling of U.S. support for our allies and a shift toward Russia, Republican senators appear to be discombobulated. As Joe Perticone reported Tuesday in The Bulwark, there appears to be consensus in Congress that “Russian President Vladimir Putin is a war criminal, NATO is critical to European and global security, and the United States has led the common defense. But Republicans just backed a presidential candidate and voted to confirm several key cabinet officials who do not accept those realities. Confronted with the consequences of their support for Trump and votes for his nominees, Perticone notes, Republican lawmakers are apparently shocked."
Letters from an American Historian
Hideous tragedy fueled by endless greed and massive delusions of grandeur and a terrible and sadistic vindictiveness. His tabloid mudslinging attacks on Zelensky; the shameful betrayal of Ukraine and NATO, for a murderous dictator who we know attacks our elections. All known quantities and predictable. And still he finds ways to top his awfulness with more stupid and potentially catastrophic humanitarian disasters. I thought he was supposed to be the anti-war isolationist? Now he's a flagrantly rapacious 19th century imperialist, carving up Ukraine and the Middle East like Europe carving up Africa in 1885. His nonchalant remarks about driving out the Palestinians and turning Gaza into a resort were monstrous. Republicans shrug. He shuts down consumer protection, fires IGs, cuts off medical research, and threatens drastic cuts to health care and social security. By the way-- everyone knows this, right?-- workers pay for social security through payroll taxes. It's retirement insurance. What's parasitic is slashing government services so you can have another tax cut; or profiting off over $20 billion in government subsidies and then trashing working people seeking health care or education and the basic public infrastructure that makes possible a decent life. And if there is only one key conceit in this tragedy it is the cultish thrall in which the electorate regards rich celebrities like these two buffoons, imagining because they have accumulated billions in business wealth they know how to govern the country best, when what they know best actually is how to get rich. That's it. They obviously have no idea how to make us all rich nor would if they could. And what happened to "draining the swamp," anyway? I thought there was a rule about voters not liking it when pols renege on or abandon their campaign promises? Is this another rule or norm he smashes? He's a King now; and you're a humorless drudge if you don't like that. I absolutely did not have "fascist dictatorship" on my America's future bingo card. And if asked to imagine one before 2016 I would have never guessed this orange Reality TV boss from hell; or the evil fascist Tony Stark on ketamine. I saw this news program about Hungary's Viktor Orban the other day. I don't agree with any of his blood and soil, Christian nationalist, paleo libertarian-conservative bullshit, but I saw better what a shrewd technocratic tyrant he is and how his illiberal movement is still on the rise in the EU. Now we have these two evil clowns trying to apply his playbook, Project 2025, to the US. Tip: They're not "saving" the country, they're destroying it for their own personal gain!
For now, I'll have to leave it to more understanding souls to try to talk supporters off the ledge. My dishonor roll for this monumental disaster: Grump, Leon, republicans, billionaires, petty dictators like Orban and Putin, social media, Fox, Christian nationalists, bigots, and economists and journalists who provide cover for all the neoliberal economic predations of the last half century.
My rant for this morning. Have a nice day.
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