There is a much more simple reason why elected Republicans are marching in lockstep behind Donald John Trump into the expected impeachment trial in the Senate:
They’re compromised too.
“How could that be possible? The people who elected these officials are Americans. They wouldn’t stand for it, and throw them out on their ears!”
There’s a lot of rotten Russian crabgrass in the grass roots of American politics.
The attempts to subvert American democracy began a long time ago. It has spread much deeper into the fabric of the politically-weaponized Christian Conservative community, and the American Libertarian political movement, than most media outlets report, yet it is THE major story of America’s foundering democracy.
The Religious Underground
As I described two years ago, in my article at the Huffington Post, Russian money has been funneled, by the oligarchs under Putin’s orbit, by way of a common cause between American Baptist groups, and the Russian Orthodox church, who both rabidly oppose “western” or “American” liberal thinking.
American Baptists, and particular strains of Libertarians, especially those with billions, and oil interests, also have no problem cozying up to Putin, and the Russian state.
Putin, and the Russian state, see their Russian Orthodox C hurch (ROC) as a means of infiltrating other nations. The Russian Foreign Ministry and the ROC's Department of External Church Relations meet regularly. The ROC gets special privileges. Its influence can be seen in the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany and other key democracies.
They talk the same white-purity, xenophobic language that exists both in Russian, and conservative American politics.
Patriarch Kirill and Metropolitan Hilarion, leaders of the ROC, began meeting regularly with Republicans going back to the neocon days, like former president George W. Bush.
The pair also have met with politically-aggressive evangelist leaders like Franklin Graham, heir of the Billy Graham ministries, going back more than a decade.
Via those connections, Graham met with Putin in 2015. He has subsequently lauded the Russian despot as a defender of Christianity under attack by Islam. Graham bombards his faithful with Christian-xenophobic marginalization rants. He is a Trump insider, and the Graham ministries have now got a much heavier political tint.
Libertarian Linkages
Libertarians are equally vulnerable to Russia’s persuasion. More than 8M Americans watch Russia Today (RT), Russia’s English-speaking propaganda outlet. They spin a heavily anti-US government message that resonates well with big “L” libertarians. RT even has “independents” like former wrestler/governor Jesse Ventura on the payroll.
Ask yourself: How does Rand Paul, a self-professed Libertarian, call for the outing of a whistle-blower, who should be a Libertarian small “g” government hero, at a rally? Could it have something to do with his advocacy for removing Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline project from Obama-imposed sanctions against Russia for meddling in our elections? Why, when he was elected in 2010, was RT the first news outlet granted an interview?
Moscow’s Money Manna
Why does “Moscow” Mitch McConnell allow Republicans to ape talking points that Fiona Hill pointed out are pure Russian Kompromat?
McConnell moved to lift sanctions off of Russian oligarchs, just as oligarch Oleg Deripaska’s Rusal, a formally-sanctioned company, was pouring $200M into a Kentucky aluminum mill, with McConnell working diligently to get sanctions lifted.
Deripaska was also a client of convicted felon and former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort.
McConnell has also consistently blocked any meaningful funding of protections for our election system.
Coincidences, Coincidences...
Maria Butina, the convicted, released and now deported agent of Russia, and her handler, pro-Putin Russian politician Alexander Torshin, have been part of fundraisers for Scott Walker’s presidential campaign, and had conversations with Donald Trump, Jr., leading up to the 2016 election.
The two also dined with former Republican congressman Dana Rorbacher, of California, and Republican operatives close to then White-House advisor Steve Bannon, at a DC restaurant, as part of the National Prayer Breakfast, which has become, increasingly, a way for the Russian Orthodox to mingle with American Baptists.
“It may take the election of a Republican to the White House in 2016 to improve relations between the Russian Federation and the United States,” Butina seemingly presciently wrote in National Interest, the publication of The Center for the National Interest.
Every time that Trump is in big trouble, Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak appears with him at the White House. You might think that these “state” visits were the first meeting between Trump, and the Ambassador. In April, 2016, though, the same pro-Russian think-tank, The Center for the National Interest, introduced Trump to Kislyak, according to the Wall Street Journal.
It goes farther than that though.
At the senatorial level, beyond Kentucky’s Moscovized politicos, isn’t it interesting that the biggest defenders of the President, in the impeachment hearings, like Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-AL), or Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA), are also part of the pack of six Republican senators, and one Republican Congresswoman, who held closed door meetings in Russia that have no transparency, no translation, no public record?
American Baptist organizations became directly involved in crafting Russia’s anti-LGTBQ movement, and legislation, in 2014, two years before the rise of Trump.
Democrats for Sale?
Not all Russian investment may be in Republicans, although their ties to right-wing religious fundraising does make that connection easier. Presidential candidate Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) is the darline of Russian state media, only topped by their love of Donald J. Trump. Former MSNBC host Ed Shultz worked for RT, until his passing in 2018, becoming a cheerleader for the Russian state take on American politics.
Oil & Power Poison Global Grassroots.
This is not a holy war, though. It’s an oil preservation scheme. The Russians, and the Saudis, as I’ve pointed out in a prior Huffington Post essay, have trillions in oil that will devalue if the worlds’ democracies push forward with global warming legislation. Putting the UK, EU, and the US into political chaos preserves that wealth.
They use these affinities in white power culture, and demonizing of non-Saudi (Wahabbist) Islam as means to an end. Russia and the Kingdom also have developed extensive financial ties. They work the same political streams, in other countries, to affect their policy goals.
There are, by some estimates, $12.5T in foreign money that may affect our politics. Certainly, some transactions make one wonder:
- A sanctioned Russian, Viktor Vekselberg’s Remova, became private investment company Columbus Nova’s largest client.
- Stolichnaya oligarch, and friend of Saudi crown prince Mohammad Bin Salman (MBS), Yuri Shefler, on the outs with Putin, bought a small whiskey company, and decided to build a $500m whiskey distillery, hotel, and meeting center around a fledgling brand, with less than $1M in sales, that it acquired for a rumored $10M, in Central Kentucky.
- International investment group LetterOne, whose funders also own Russia’s Alfa Group, has more than $2 billion in investments in the United States.
- Vladimir Potanin‘s private equity firm, Altpoint Capital, bought a Maryland company which processes data for the state’s eligible voter roles.
- Len Blatvanik a US-Russia dual citizen, and oligarch, has made major campaign contributions to elected officials like Lindsay Graham, which may explain the Senator’s seemingly erratic rightward shift.
It All Makes Sense
As pervasive as Russian infiltration into the American sociopolitical system is, there is little wonder why the whiter, older, richer, ultra-religious, ultra-nationalist 39% of the American public line up in lockstep.
Impeaching Trump? How do you do that when the body empaneled as “the jury” in his trial may be equally impacted by Russia’s roubles.
How do you root out more than thirty years of heavily embedded relationships between grassroots groups of the U.S., and Russia?
That is a question that the next Democrat elected president better answer quickly.