Why would they want to help someone get elected that would cost them money?"
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Posted on 02/14/2018 2:17:08 PM PST by GoldenState_Rose
Many analysts dismissed “the Kremlin list” the Trump Administration released two weeks ago as a bad joke or worse and thus failed to recognize the extent to which its contents in fact have made Moscow far more afraid of the US president than they were before, according to Liliya Shevtsova.
First of all, “by publishing practically the entire list of members of the Russian government and Presidential Administration, the White House shifted from the traditional Western effort of trying to divide the Russian elite into pro-Western and anti-Western factions..."
Instead, it properly treated the entire kleptocratic elite as being linked to Putin and that represents “a very serious blow to the entire Russian political class.”
Second, she continues, the list wasn’t about sanctions but rather about those against whom sanctions could be imposed. “As the practice of introducing sanction regimes has shown, the threat of sanctions is much more dangerous than the sanctions themselves.”
Third, by approaching the problem of the Putin regime in this way, Washington avoided a confrontation with European powers who don’t want to extend sanctions now but who also don’t want to break with the US either.
Fourth, by its actions, “the Administration agreed with the principle of secondary sanctions which strike at the interests of those corporations, physical persons and structures [in Western countries] which somehow are connected with the economic interests of the Russian political elite.”
“This is very serious,” because it creates a mechanism “that undermines the personal integration of the Russian political class into Western society and begins to gradually prepare a platform for the destruction of what has been a powerful Western lobbyist structure which over 20 years has secured the legalization of the kleptocratic interests of Russia, China...and other states in the European and American space.”
(Excerpt) Read more at windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com ...
I think oil is Russia's number one revenue generator so, yeah, that has to worry them.
Which reminds me, the best reason to dismiss any suggestion that Russia was working to get Trump elected is the fact that Trump was pushing for the Keystone XL Pipeline and to open up offshore drilling in the US.
Why would they want to help someone get elected that would cost them money?
Is H->! on the list?
Slick?
Hussein?
They might be saying to themselves that it looks like Trump is intent on reviving the Arsenal of Democracy.
Also, the Middle East is being hammered financially because the opening of vast new natural gas fields (thanks to “fracking”) means the USA becomes less dependent on the Middle East. And all that surplus natural gas explains why coal is falling out of favor for power plant fuel.
Ok.
So why would Russia interfere with our elections to get Trump in office?
Zackly. I’d forgotten that before you hit oil, you hit natural gas.
And the one thing a nation desperately needs if it wants to fund a massive arsenal of democracy is a scary external threat.
Follow the money.
Liberals don't seem to be capable of asking this simple question. Of course the Russians would MUCH rather have Mrs. Bill Clinton, who is well known to be grossly negligent with Secret and Top Secret information, as president.
Why the Hell would the Russians want America to be great again?
With Ubama they managed to snag The Crimea, something the Russians have been wanting back desperately since the end of the Cold War.
They interfered to help Trump, and they did that by putting out stories that Trump hired prostitutes to piss on Obama’s bed (no word on where HE was supposed to sleep that night).
And also to help Trump they suppressed the Uranium one bribes they paid to Trump’s opponent. One would think those two things would help Hillary, wouldn’t you?
(forget for a moment the CIA “Umbrage” program exposed by Wikileaks that collected tools and techniques to make cyberattacks look like they came from any nation the CIA chose to)
It makes no sense does it? I think this must be more of that 3D chess they are always talking about. So if it seems like all the “Russian” cyber attacks always tended to help Hillary, and our intel community was in a plot to help her, and they had the secret ability to blame cyber attacks on whoever they chose, and THEY say Russia did it... well, don’t worry about it, ok? They don’t want you to think too much about that. Trust the FBI, especially the rank and file.
They “meddled” but Russian troll hackers are not the reason why swing states the likes of FL, PA, OH, and WI went for Trump. It was voters in THOSE states who determined the election and fate of the free world. (And God.)
Election meddling is not even the worst or most tragic thing Russia engages in. The best way to put it, I think is:
- Russia has had a very difficult time rebuilding after the collapse of the Soviet Union and so, rather than committing to the lonely, arduous task of building strong democratic institutions - they revert back to old habits and resentments. They want to believe themselves to be the same superpower of yesteryear. If they can’t be liked, at least be feared.
- Since they can’t outright dominate or destroy the West, they can at least stir some chaos/disorder in efforts to be relevant and also: by revealing the corruptions inherent to the systems of Western countries, they can distract their own people from the overt dysfunctionalism of their own. That’s what election meddling accomplishes.
Actually: it fits the Kremlin narrative better if Hillary would have won. That way, they can prove to their people: “See? Elections are rigged in America too!”
With regard to money interests: Russian elite/oligarchs have this painful conundrum of at once resenting the West yet wanting all its perks at the same time.
And natural gas has one huge advantage: the cost of emissions control is a tiny fraction of burning coal. No need to expensive filters and traps to remove particulates, sulfur particles and heavy metals, for starters. Small wonder why China signed that huge deal with Russia to eventually import a lot of natural gas so the Chinese can phase out coal burning to generate electricity.
Why would they want to help someone get elected that would cost them money?"
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“Also on the list are 96 “oligarchs.””
Trump knows how rich people are about their social standing, and how they will mobilize their political influence to get their way.
Sure there are serious threats to businesses and overseas assets. But it really starts to hit them at home when their family starts getting excluded from the International billionaires club activities. What if their daughter has to be pulled from school in Switzerland, or gets blocked from transporting her dressage horses to a function with the other billionaire girls? Dad is going to hear about it, and try to get it fixed through his political connections.
A hundred billionaires working against you is a lot to manage. Light a fire under them, and let them do the work.
Bingo. And you’re especially describing the lifestyles of Russian oligarchs when referring to the schools in Switzerland, England, et al. They want so badly to be “part of the club” — all the while banking off a system fundamentally set on undermining it. It’s about time they get a taste of their own medicine.
“Moscow Far More Worried about Trump than Many in the West Think”
...As well they should be. MAGA was not merely a campaign slogan, it was a battle cry.
Enemies, foreign AND domestic, ignore at your own peril.
“...old habits and resentments. They want to believe themselves to be the same superpower of yesteryear. If they can’t be liked, at least be feared.”
“We were all Boyars once!!”
Did you hear about the school shooting?
Given the way Putin screwed him over by conspiring with Hillary and Obama over the dossier, Trump must be getting more than a little annoyed. That is presumably one of the reasons that he okayed the bombing of the Russian formation in Syria, and the provision of Javelin anti-tank rockets to Ukraine, to be followed up by even more equipment useful against the Donbass separatists aka Russian units deployed to the Ukraine.
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