Woke Democrats and Environmentalists will scare off our allies.

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The Russian invasion of Ukraine has set off radical changes in international relationships. The US and other (not all) European nations have imposed severe sanctions on Russia designed to destroy its economy. The precedents set are not all positive. First Ukraine has defined corruption for years. The Biden family and even Mitt Romney’s family got positions on a Ukrainian gas company’s Board for lots of money and no work except influence. The “Maiden Revolution” in 2014 was engineered by the Obama CIA. It expelled a pro-Russian president duly elected in an election probably more honest than the US 2020 election. Not all agree that it was an honest process.

As Ukraine’s political crisis deepened, [Victoria] Nuland and her subordinates became more brazen in favoring the anti-Yanukovych demonstrators. Nuland noted in a speech to the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation on December 13, 2013, that she had traveled to Ukraine three times in the weeks following the start of the demonstrations. Visiting the Maidan on December 5, she handed out cookies to demonstrators and expressed support for their cause.

The extent of the Obama administration’s meddling in Ukraine’s politics was breathtaking. Russian intelligence intercepted and leaked to the international media a Nuland telephone call in which she and U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Geoffey Pyatt discussed in detail their preferences for specific personnel in a post-Yanukovych government.

Ukraine has remained an economic basket case in spite of the change to a pro-western government.

The furious reaction to the invasion by US officials has alarmed some nations that have remained neutral. Some of them have been our allies, or at least friendly.

In a development that suggests trouble ahead, China’s basic approach—not endorsing Moscow’s aggression but resisting Western efforts to punish Russia—has garnered global support. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa blamed the war on NATO. Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, refused to condemn Russia. India and Vietnam, essential partners for any American strategy in the Indo-Pacific, are closer to China than the U.S. in their approach to the war.

Western arm-twisting and the powerful effect of bank sanctions ensure a certain degree of sanctions compliance and support for symbolic U.N. resolutions condemning Russian aggression. But the lack of non-Western enthusiasm for America’s approach to Mr. Putin’s war is a phenomenon that U.S. policy makers ignore at their peril.

The dominant role played by the “Woke” left and the Green New Deal enthusiasts in the Democrat Party has concerned many of them. Right now, Democrats hold all three branches of government, although narrowly.

Opposition to Russia looked like a global slam dunk to many in the West. World opinion would so robustly oppose Moscow’s attack that countries like China would pay a high political price for failing to jump onto the anti-Russia bandwagon.
That is not how it is working. Some countries, like America’s disheartened and alienated Middle East allies, worry about backing a withdrawing Washington against an ascendant Russia.

Biden’s rhetoric about Saudia Arabia has resulted in the refusal to accept his phone calls begging for more oil production.

While enthusiastic Western liberals hail the imposition of sanctions on Russia, the increased willingness of the Western powers to weaponize the global economic system horrifies leaders in many countries who think the West is too powerful already. Many Brazilians have long feared that Western environmentalists intend to block the development of the Amazon basin. They worry that climate activists might force the Federal Reserve and other Western banks to “save the planet” by imposing sanctions on Brazil. Policy makers in India and elsewhere share many of these fears as they see environmental campaigners using global economic institutions to impose their agenda on countries with different priorities.

Much of the Democrat Party’s social agenda is anathema to other countries with traditional beliefs.

Mr. Putin’s claim that an overpowerful West seeks to use its economic and institutional leverage to impose a radical worldview on the rest of the planet strikes Western liberals as self-serving propaganda, but his arguments resonate more widely than most liberals understand. The Trump administration’s unilateral imposition of tough sanctions against Iran heightened international awareness of how much power the global economic system gives the U.S. But woke Democrats using economic sanctions to impose their views on climate, gender and other issues are even less welcome in many countries than Trumpian populists.

The use of powerful economic weapons risks the possibility that they could be turned against us or that “unanticipated results,” so common to the economically illiterate Democrat Party, will punish us in turn. The skyrocketing gas prices are only one simple example.

37 thoughts on “Woke Democrats and Environmentalists will scare off our allies.”

  2. a minor correction, cofer black, who had richard grenell fired from the romney campaign, was a sort of dark vizier, not a relation to him, interesting how the whole coffee clatch that burisma hosted in monaco with european and even american bigwigs didn’t have that much direct feedback, they are still buying Russian oil in large part, no

  3. Some wise counsel on Russia. It is governed by paranoia and inferiority concerns.

    George Kennan had in mind Russia’s colossal inferiority complex when he called the expansion of NATO “the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-cold-war era.” Kennan counseled “the adroit and vigilant application of counterforce.” Kennan knew that Russia was America’s enemy. But he understood, especially in a nuclear world, the importance of knowing Russia.

  5. “Mr. Putin’s claim that an overpowerful West seeks to use its economic and institutional leverage to impose a radical worldview on the rest of the planet strikes Western liberals as self-serving propaganda, but his arguments resonate more widely than most liberals understand.”
    This is what is so bizarre to me–literally just a few years ago the left agreed uniformly that “an overpowerful West seeks to use its economic and institutional leverage to impose a radical worldview on the rest of the planet”–it was standard dogma on that side! None of them disputed it! CIA was bad, America was bad, etc., etc. And now they’re so divorced from reality that they can’t see that now they’re the baddies, and most people want absolutely nothing to do with them. It’s the craziest thing.

  6. no, now they have a foothold in most of the institutions in the West, it’s like with crt/die, they tell you exactly how they feel about all of Western culture, but pointing it out is paranoia, same with the Great Replacement, they ratchet every step to dissolve borders, and peoples, then noticing it, makes you the problem

  7. And now they’re so divorced from reality that they can’t see that now they’re the baddies, and most people want absolutely nothing to do with them. It’s the craziest thing.

    They got hold of the handles and are now in control. Trump was a threat but now the Vichy Republicans will roll over. Notice the silence from the GOP on the Jan 6 political prisoners ?

  8. Yeah, I know the way it is…just like the “Free Speech Movement” was nothing to do with free speech, they and their intellectual heirs are the ones advocating most vociferously for crushing free speech. They’re bad people, period, commies mostly, and it’s not that they’re not self aware, it’s that they’re just genuinely bad. It’s a good thing they’re so stupid and clueless, or else they’d be even more dangerous.
    “Notice the silence from the GOP on the Jan 6 political prisoners”
    Yeah, Graham, Romney, McConnell, et al, need to be purged with extreme prejudice. This fall is going to be an electoral bloodbath, we need to make sure that in every race the craziest possible people get elected, no more GOPe can be tolerated, either you know what time it is or you have to go.

  12. The single thing that pisses me off about the destruction in Ukraine is the helicopters that likely will never be now. The UN-1N (the naval Huey) was supposed to go into production in Odessa and make brand new older version birds, under license with the tooling from the Fort Worth plant. The Marines liked the idea so much that they’ve ordered some. (They would rather not have Blackhawks, for a variety of reasons.)
    Background here:
    https://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htairfo/20210507.aspx

  13. On the environmental front, the news is that the Russian “Climate Envoy” has quit and fled the country in order to protest the war in the Ukraine. The “Climate Envoy”!

    Imagine the panic that must be running through Russia right now. Imagine how badly the American people would react if John Kerry quit his position as “Climate Czar”.

    Oh wait! Isn’t “Czar” a Russian term? Doesn’t that mean Kerry is a Russian agent?

  17. More economic war. Beats me what it all means. It’d be nice if I had any faith that the idiots in charge of the West had any better idea than I do…
    https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/putin-says-russia-will-start-selling-gas-unfriendly-countries-roubles-2022-03-23/
    Russia plans to switch its gas sales to “unfriendly” countries to roubles, President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday, responding to a freeze on Russia’s assets by foreign nations over events in Ukraine that he said had destroyed Moscow’s trust.
    …”An understandable and transparent procedure of making payments should be created for (all foreign buyers), including acquiring Russian roubles on our domestic currency market,” Putin said.

  18. The freaking commies have taken over everything and are explicitly trying to destroy the oil and gas industries:
    https://www.reuters.com/business/sustainable-business/exclusive-dutch-bank-ing-ends-financing-new-oil-gas-projects-2022-03-23/
    ING Groep NV (INGA.AS) will no longer finance new oil and gas projects, its energy chief said, becoming the biggest bank yet to commit to such a step in the fight against climate change. The move by the Dutch financial services firm raises pressure on peers to heed a call by the International Energy Agency (IEA) for a halt to funding for new fossil fuel projects

  22. Republicans are doing what they can to help Biden hide his disasters.

    Given a blank check by their ostensible political opposition to turn the page from their own domestic disasters and to demonize Putin and Russia as the source not only of a potentially catastrophic military conflict abroad but also soaring prices at home, the White House wasted no time in pivoting to the “blame Putin” theme. When confronted with uncomfortable questions about energy prices going through the roof, however ludicrous the explanation was to anyone paying attention over the last 15 months of runaway federal spending and massive expansion of the money supply by the Federal Reserve, the mantra is that we should blame Putin. “I can’t do much at the moment,” Biden responded to a reporter’s question on soaring prices at the pump just two weeks after Putin’s Ukraine invasion. “Russia is responsible.”

    Their bellicose stance ensured that Republicans were not in a position (even if they had the inclination) to push back against that ridiculous narrative. Given their complicity in both the unprecedented deficit spending of the last year and their crucial role in pushing the administration further in the direction of an all-out economic and military conflict with Russia, ostensibly aimed at toppling Putin from power, how could Republicans call him out for goading Russia now?

    I pretty much agree. The “red wave” in November may be weakening.

  23. Nah. Dems gonna get obliterated in November. No one takes “Blame Putin for gas prices/inflation” seriously. The goal is to elect the craziest GOPers we can, no squishes, no Romneys, etc., only those who know what time it is, and who’s on what side. If there’s an uncontested election near you, you should run. There’s gonna be tons of people like that NJ truck driver who will win races no one expects.

  24. and they will do the darnest (resort to stronger cognate is almost irrestible,) to block vance and masters and other sensible candidates, since everyone else is trying for the bigger Ukrainian flag

  25. The uniparty GOP is doing what it can to help Biden.

    Prolonging the war runs the risk not just of leaving tens of thousands of Ukrainians dead and millions homeless, but also of handing Putin something that he can plausibly present at home as victory. Betting on a Russian revolution is betting on an exceedingly rare event, even if the war continues to go badly for Putin; if the war turns in his favor, there will be no palace coup.

    As for China, I believe the Biden administration is deeply misguided in thinking that its threats of secondary sanctions against Chinese companies will deter President Xi Jinping from providing economic assistance to Russia.

    The whole thing is worth reading.

  26. Establishment Republicans are complicit with what BidenCo. is doing. They’re the ones that put him where he is. Do not expect them to “rescue” us from the effects of their own machinations.

    There’s no real dichotomy between establishment Democrats or Republicans; the real division between political interests here in the US is completely invisible to the average person; it’s very much the dividing line between “connected” and “the rest of us”. Look at how they rolled the Tea Party if you doubt me. Trump went into office, trusting that the establishment Republicans would help him man his administration. Instead, they seeded it with saboteurs who undercut everything that he tried to do, because “outsider”. The political establishment in Washington DC and nationally is far more concerned with protecting their turf than they are in doing things in the interest of their constituents, who exist to pay taxes and vote for them and their policies. This isn’t getting fixed so long as these people are running things, and “those people” are all the politicians and their supporting staff.

    The Republic was doomed the moment it allowed a permanent, “professional” political class to come into being. We should have “term limited” every citizen such that the most they could do in terms of political work at every level was a fraction of their lives. Professional politicians are anathema to any sort of good governance, because they don’t govern so much as they feather-bed and loot.

    I guarantee you that if they ever do a forensic audit on Congress, you’re going to see so much corruption come out of the woodwork that it’ll take a hundred years just to run the indictments through the courts, let alone the trials and appeals.

    The system has just built up so much entropy in terms of entrenched interests and sacred rice bowls that it’s not even funny. The ossification and sclerosis of the system is mind-boggling.

  27. “worry about backing a withdrawing Washington against an ascendant Russia”
    Ascendant, what have I missed? Before the present fiasco, Russia was barely tottering along. Their sole aircraft carrier is sitting, damaged, rusting away because the only dry dock they had capable of holding it was sunk. They are incapable of either fixing it or replacing the dock. They had to buy it from Sweden in the first place since they are no longer capable of building substantial ships. They had bought two modern helicopter carriers from France but the original invasion of Ukraine put the kibosh on that deal and the ships ended up in Egypt.

    Every functional entity in Russia is totally dependent on Western expertise and often financing. Now that most of that is withdrawing, expect to see Russian production declining almost immediately. Long term, that’s an unavoidable danger to Europe, whether or not Putin curtails supplies punitively. Assuming he does make the conversion to Rubles stick, he’ll make a few Russians richer but the oil companies won’t be able to buy what they need with Rubles. What they need isn’t available in Russia for any price.

  28. Europe hasn’t cut their purchases of Russian gas and oil by a single penny. (They have pressured countries like India to do so, though.) You think they’re going to let the Russian oil industry collapse? Come on, man, let’s be serious.
    Russia’s no superpower, but they can, and will, inflict massive economic pain, and Western governments have barely tried to prepare people for what’s coming.

  29. they are smashing every functioning institution to bits, and preventing basic repairs to those they have corrupted see the sec related links, which cripple us in ways I couldn’t imagine, (wait there was a michael thomas financial thriller the rope spinner conspiracy, about a financier who was blackmailed into being a soviet agent,

  32. Europe hasn’t cut their purchases of Russian gas and oil by a single penny. (They have pressured countries like India to do so, though.) You think they’re going to let the Russian oil industry collapse? Come on, man, let’s be serious.

    Russia has announced that it will require payment in rubles for gas. Another “unintended consequence” for the Biden regime.

  34. So the regime is planning to just order companies to produce more electric car batteries?
    https://theintercept.com/2022/03/24/biden-defense-production-act-green-energy/
    THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION is drafting an executive order invoking the Defense Production Act to alleviate shortages of key minerals needed for the technology to store clean energy. The act, which would bolster the manufacturing capacity of electric vehicle producers in particular, indicates that the administration is open to using executive power to achieve progressive policy goals as Congress remains reluctant to pass key parts of his green energy agenda.

    Freaking commies.

  35. “alleviate shortages of key minerals”

    The shortages exist because of the greenie agenda of Biden*’s handlers. How much of the required minerals come from sanctioned Russia — or from other countries which have quite clearly declined to get on the Biden* “Hate Russia” bandwagon?

    Freaking incompetent commies.

    But they all have great credentials from Ivy League schools. Our real enemy is inside the gates.

  36. like the ones we surrendered to the Taliban in Afghanistan, you can’t produce what you don’t have possession of, or access to,

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