Mediaboss Marketing

In thirty-three years of diplomatic service, Marie Yovanovitch was never one of those Washington creatures aglow in self-regard. The big public profile wasnt her thing. Indeed, if you told her that she would end her diplomatic career by being fired by Donald Trump and testifying in his first impeachment proceedings, she would have been mortified.

Masha, as almost everyone calls her, was in my college Russian class years ago, though her skills were, as the pitiless transcripts reveal, infinitely better than mine. She served in Embassies in Somalia and Russia; in various roles at the State Department; and then as the U.S. Ambassador to Armenia, to Kyrgyzstan, and, from 2016 to 2019, as an Obama appointee, to Ukraine.

In Kyiv, Yovanovitch spent much of her time trying to cajole Ukrainian officials and businesspeople to move beyond a culture of corruption, an impulse that earned her some influential enemies. In 2019, she fell victim to a smear campaign organized by, among others, corrupt officials in Kyiv, Trumps lawyer Rudolph Giuliani, and the right-wing media. Deemed disloyal to Trumpa stooge, according to Giulianishe was summoned back to Washington and summarily fired. Meanwhile, Giuliani and others were trying to get the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, to dig up dirt on Joe Biden and his son Hunter, who had business dealings in Ukraine. Trump, in his fateful telephone call to Zelenskya crucial milestone in the chain of misdeeds that led to impeachmentsaid that Yovanovitch was bad news. Yovanovitch, in her testimony to Congress, four months later, said, Our Ukraine policy has been thrown into disarray, and shady interests the world over have learned how little it takes to remove an American Ambassador who does not give them what they want.

[Get the in-depth analysis and on-the-ground reporting you need to understand the war in Ukraine. Subscribe today ]

Yovanovitchs parents emigrated from Europe to Canada after the Second World War and then came to the U.S. She grew up in Kent, Connecticut. After her appearance before Congress, she became a kind of Trump-era folk herothe modest professional diplomat turned whistle-blower. Her memoir, Lessons from the Edge, will be published in mid-March. We recently spoke about events in Ukraine and Russia, as well as her experiences with the Trump Administration. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Masha, it must be painful to watch as Putins Army invades a place you lived in and cared about so much.

This is now an overused word, but its devastating. Its devastating for me on a personal level. More importantly, its devastating to so many of the people whom I know in Ukraine and who are bravely fighting the Russian military.

Are you hearing from those friends?

I am. Im also hearing from friends who were lucky enough to be able to leave Ukraine. And Im hearing from people who are now in Poland, who are trying to help refugees or trying to provide supplies to Ukraine. Its a desperate time.

Did this take you by surprise?

On the one hand, Putin has been signalling this for a long time, both in his rhetoric and in his actions. There was that speech in 2005, when he said that the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century was the breaking apart of the Soviet Union. There was his calling out of NATO, in 2007, at the Munich Security Conference. And there was his invasion of Georgia, in 2008, which was a seminal momentand where we reacted, perhaps, not strongly enough. Putin is a bully. If he isnt met with strength, hes gonna keep going.

Was there intelligence that Putin could invade Ukraine?

Well, I retired from the State Department back in 2020, so I dont have access to the intelligence anymore. But, yes, Im sure that there were all sorts of privileged communications. One of the things that the Biden Administration has done, which I cant remember seeing before, is quickly declassifying intelligence and sharing it with the world. Im sure not everything was declassified, but an awful lot of it was, and it took away some of the element of surprise.

Putin has a litany of resentments and reasons for his actions. They include the eastward expansion of NATO, and whatever the U.S. intelligence agencies may or may not have done to help foment the collapse of the Soviet Union. He also points to our actions in Kosovo and Iraq, the sense that the U.S. acts with impunity. A lot of people who are horrified by the invasion point to these factors, too. How would you respond?

Well, thats certainly the Russian narrative, Putins narrative. But what should we have done differently? What should we have said to the countries of Central Europe, who had fears of their own, and fears that they would be left in a no mans land? Should we have said, Yeah, were just not interested? I think that wouldve been a mistake. You know, the thing about the United States and NATO and the European Union is that we have ideas. We are about democracy and freedom and capitalism and security, as well as individual liberties. Its a fact that people are better off under democracies.

And, since World War Two, that has been the single most important driver of American influence and power. Yes, we have a big military. Yes, we have a strong economy. But its our ideas that attract others. Russia under Putin doesnt really have that power of attraction. He only has the power of coercion, and we are seeing that now in Ukraine in a brutal way.

Im not saying that the U.S. has always acted perfectly. Weve certainly made our share of mistakes. But NATO is a defensive alliance. It does not pose a threat to Putin or Russia. In fact, the leaders of Europe and President Biden were trying to ratchet down tensions before all this.

How far will Putin take this? The invasion hasnt gone the way he wouldve liked, but maybe time is on his side. The sheer volume of arms is on his side. What does he want here?

I think he wants to control Ukraine. When I was in the country, from 2016 to 2019, I always felt that he didnt really want to own Ukraine, because then theres at least a modicum of responsibility. He would have to provide services. But he wanted to make sure that Ukraine didnt have the power of self-determination. He wanted to keep it in his sphere of influence. What he discovereddue, ironically, to his own actions, particularly the annexation of Crimea and the invasion of the Donbasswas that he is the single biggest driver since independence, in 1991, of bringing the Ukrainian people together.

See the article here:
Marie Yovanovitch, the Former Ambassador to Ukraine, on Putins Intentions and Trumps Pressures - The New Yorker

click to enlarge

Alexander I (left) and Thomas Jefferson

With Russian forces having invaded Ukraine, the world's democracies roundly condemned Vladimir Putin's recognition of the separatist regimes of Donetsk and Luhansk. But Donald Trump liked what he saw. "This is genius," declared the former president of the United States in assessing Putin's strategy of declaring the independence of the eastern Ukrainian separatists. "How smart is that?" gushed Trump about the deployment of Russian troops as "peacekeepers" on Ukrainian soil.

Trump's praise of Putin echoed his time in the White House, where he pursued a conciliatory approach to Russia. Trump is certainly not the first U.S. president to express admiration for Russian rulers. But unlike his predecessors, the Trump-Putin love fest is not a marriage of convenience born of a common enemy; it's a true bromance between like-minded individuals, who disparage democracy and embrace authoritarianism.

The fight against the common enemy of Nazi Germany brought together the odd couple of the New York socialite FDR and the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin in the 1940s. But more than a century earlier, Thomas Jefferson and Tsar Alexander I shared an even more unlikely friendship as the French Emperor Napoleon threatened to conquer all of Europe.

While George Washington was the "Father of the People," our third president self-consciously styled himself as a "Friend of the People."

Jefferson abandoned the monarchical trappings of the presidency he walked to his inauguration and eschewed wearing a sword and embraced an everyman persona. In one carefully choreographed episode, he received the British ambassador at the White House while wearing slippers and a dressing gown. Jefferson had lived off the labor of enslaved people his entire life, but his political brand was about rejecting monarchy and entrenched Old World privilege.

Alexander I of Russia was about the most autocratic person in all of Europe in the early 1800s. Jefferson most famously took aim at King George III in the Declaration of Independence. But compared to Alexander, George was a raging democrat. Great Britain was a constitutional monarchy. The Crown governed through Parliament, which included the elected House of Commons.

The tsar of Russia faced no such constraints. Russia had no representative institutions to check the power of its ruler. Moreover, it was home to millions of serfs peasants bound to the land of a feudal lord until 1861. Russia was an extreme example of monarchy and entrenched Old World privilege.

Despite the deep ideological chasm that divided Jefferson and Alexander, the president proudly displayed a bust of the Russian tsar at Monticello, reflecting his "particular esteem for the character of the Emperor." Opposite the bust of Alexander faced that of Napoleon. While Jefferson lionized the former, he vilified the latter as "a cold-blooded, calculating unprincipled Usurper, without a virtue."

The president had served as U.S. ambassador in Paris during the early years of the French Revolution, and he had celebrated the emergence of a new sister republic, which he believed shared the United States dedication to liberty. Napoleon betrayed the republican revolution in France, installing himself as dictator before becoming the self-proclaimed emperor of the French in 1804. By 1809, Napoleon was the master of Europe, with the French Empire and its satellites extending from Spain to modern-day Germany.

Jefferson's celebration of Alexander was more about his hatred of Napoleon than it was about the tsar's "enlightened" rule. Unwilling to accept the leading role that Britain played in anchoring the numerous military coalitions of European states arrayed against Napoleon between 1803 and 1815, the president fixed upon Alexander as the savior of Europe.

Russian military power promised to rescue the United States from its awkward position as a neutral power squeezed between the belligerent British and French empires. And for this reason, Jefferson admired Alexander. The two leaders were not kindred spirits, but they did share a common foe in opposing the expansionist ambitions of Napoleon.

With Trump and Putin, the situation that existed between Jefferson and Alexander I is reversed. The United States and Russia seem to share few common geopolitical goals in the 21st century. Putin is bent on extending Russia's sphere of influence over its former imperial possessions by restoring 19th-century politics in Europe. The United States is more concerned about the future of rising Chinese power in the Indo-Pacific region.

What draws Trump to Putin is more about idolatry than ideology; more lizard brain impulse than an appreciation of whatever academics might call the Putin Doctrine. Putin is the autocratic strongman that Trump has always wanted to be. Putin is a mirror in which Trump views his own reflection. And if there is one thing we know about the former president, it's that there is nothing in the world that he loves more than himself.

Lawrence B. A. Hatter is an award-winning author and associate professor of early American history at Washington State University. These views are his own and do not reflect those of WSU.

Continued here:
Way before Donald Trump's bromance with Vladimir Putin, Thomas Jefferson was enamored with another Russian dictator but for very different reasons -...

New research by a pair of social psychologists suggeststhat Donald Trump's presidency unleashed racial animus and white supremacist ideology in ways that will shape American society for years or decades to come.

The study by Benjamin C. Ruisch of the University of Kent in England and Melissa J. Ferguson of Yale, published last week in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Human Behaviour, is entitled "Changes in Americans' prejudices during the presidency of Donald Trump." The authors summarize their findings this way:

In 13 studies including over 10,000 participants, we tested how Americans' prejudice changed following the political ascension of Donald Trump. We found that explicit racial and religious prejudice significantly increased amongst Trump's supporters, whereas individuals opposed to Trump exhibited decreases in prejudice.

Ferguson and Ruisch explain this by referencing the power of "social norms," which, they say,

do not exert a uniform effect on people's attitudes. Rather, adherence to social norms occurs largely along group boundaries: People primarily assimilate to norms that are held by 'social reference groups', that is, individuals and groups that they personally respect and admire. In the highly polarized political landscape of the United States, this translates into the prediction that Trump's counter-normative behaviour should not have uniformly affected the attitudes of all Americans. Rather, it should have increased expressions of prejudice primarily amongst those who view him positively, that is, his supporters.

RELATED:From "crack pipes" to "critical race theory": GOP's 2022 midterm strategy is overt racism

The authors offer additional details about how prejudice against Muslims, Black people and other minority groups changed during Trump's term in office, and on the impact of support for him on those dynamics:

The previous nine studies demonstrate that prejudice in the United States changed during the presidency of Donald Trump. Critically, however, the direction of this change differed dramatically as a function of support for Donald Trump. We find that Trump supporters not only deviated from the widely documented societal trend towards decreasing expressions of prejudice but also showed significant increases in prejudice towards a range of minoritized groups. Those who were opposed to Trump, conversely, showed significant decreases in expressed prejudice over this same time period. We next turned to examining the mechanism behind these effects. Our interpretation of the correlational changes in prejudice that we observed is that Trump's political ascent may have changed the social norms (that is, standards) for expressing prejudice, leading his supporters to feel that prejudice against minoritized groups had become more acceptable. [Emphasis added.]

Ferguson and Ruisch advance the ominous conclusion that "the presidency of Donald Trump may have substantially reshaped the topography of prejudice in the United States."

Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course.

What else do we also know about the role of race and racism in the rise of Trumpism and the American neofascist movement that he symbolizes or leads?

It was never accurate to describe Trump's voters as predominantly belonging to the"white working class,"with which mainstream news media became so obsessed. In reality, the average Trump voter in the 2016 Republican primaries had a household income of $72,000, substantially above the national median at the time. Moreover, researchers have shown that Trump's followers who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, were more likely to be from suburban communities experiencing "demographic change" than from economically disadvantaged working-class communities.

We also know that white Americans who believe that white people are "victims" of racism and, even more fantastically, that white people are more "oppressed" than Black and brown people are significantly more likely to support Trump and his movement. Social scientists and other experts have demonstrated that a large percentage of white Trump supporters are willing to give up democracy for authoritarianism in order to avoid sharing political or social power on an equal basis with Black and brown people.

Trumpism, like other forms of fascism, is largely driven by social dominance behavior, hostile sexism, a yearning for "tradition" and the "good old days" when the in-group had supposedly uncontested power over society, an attraction to violence and what psychologists describe as the "dark triad" of human behavior (sociopathy, narcissism and Machiavellianism).

Ultimately, Ferguson and Ruisch's research serves as further confirmation of the damage that Trumpism and the American fascist movement has done and is still doing to American society. How much worse the damage will get, and how or whether it can be repaired, remains to be seen.

The American news media and the larger political class, along with the public as a whole, need to accept the frightening reality that the fascist movement energized by Trump will be a fixture on America's social and political landscape for years to come. Those who support real democracy need to develop and then enact a plan to defeat them.

America does not need another "national conversation" about race and racism. That "conversation" has continued for centuries, with no just conclusion in sight. What America and specifically white America really needs is a degree of clarity, sobriety and introspection regarding the destructive forces of racial authoritarianism it has birthed, nurtured and unleashed, which not only inflict harm on Black and brown people but white people and the entire society.

White Americans must confront a final and terrible question: Do you love white privilege and white supremacy more than you love democracy? I suspect I know the answer, yet I still maintain the perhaps-naive hope that a different answer may emerge in the 21st century than ever has in previous centuries. The future of America rests on that question.

Read more on the toxic effects of racism:

Continued here:
Trump unleashed the poison of racism and new research suggests it will linger for years - Salon

Over Memorial Day weekend in 2011, a caravan of journalists chased her up the East Coast during a six-day trip from Washington to New Hampshire, believing she might use the occasion to announce that she would run against Mr. Obama. The trip also included a dinnertime stop at Trump Tower, where she and its most famous resident stepped out in front of the paparazzi on their way to get pizza.

She wouldnt reveal her intentions until later that year, in October. And when she did, she broke the news on Mark Levins radio show not on Fox News. It was a slight that infuriated Mr. Ailes, who had been paying her $1 million a year with the expectation that it would pay off with the buzz and big ratings that kind of announcement could generate.

There were signs at the time that Mr. Trump was starting to fill the void in Foxs coverage and in conservative politics that would exist without Ms. Palin center stage. He had been getting a considerable amount of coverage from the network lately for his fixation on wild rumors about Mr. Obamas background.

One interview in March 2011 on Fox & Friends the show known inside the network to be such a close reflection of Mr. Ailess favorite story lines that staff called it Rogers daybook was typical of how Mr. Trump used his media platform to endear himself to the hard right. He spent an entire segment that morning talking about ways that the president could be lying about being born in the United States. Its turning out to be a very big deal because people now are calling me from all over saying, Please dont give up on this issue, Mr. Trump boasted.

Three days after that interview, the network announced a new segment on Fox & Friends: Mondays With Trump. A promo teased that it would be Bold, brash and never bashful. And it was on Fox & Friends where Mr. Trump appeared after his pizza outing with Ms. Palin in the spring, talking up his prospects as a contender for the White House over hers.

Mr. Trump and Mr. Ailes were, at first, seemingly well matched.

Though he had financial motivations for promoting sensational but misleading stories, Mr. Ailes also seemed to be a true believer in some of the darkest and most bizarre political conspiracy theories.

In 2013, Mr. Obama himself raised the issue with Michael Clemente, the Fox News executive vice president for news, asking him at the White House Correspondents Dinner whether Mr. Ailes was fully bought-in on the conspiracies over the presidents birthplace. Does Roger really believe this stuff? Mr. Obama asked. Mr. Clemente answered, He does.

See the original post:
Where Fox News and Donald Trump Took Us - The New York Times

Donald Trumps incendiary call at a Texas rally for his backers to ready massive protests against radical, vicious, racist prosecutors could constitute obstruction of justice or other crimes and backfire legally on Trump, say former federal prosecutors.

Trumps barbed attack was seen as carping against separate federal and state investigations into his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results and into his real estate empire.

Trumps rant that his followers should launch the biggest protests ever in three cities should prosecutors do anything wrong or illegal by criminally charging him over his efforts to overturn Joe Bidens victory, or for business tax fraud, came at a 30 January rally in Texas where he repeated falsehoods that the election was rigged.

Legal experts were astonished at Trumps strong hints that if he runs and wins a second term in 2024, he would pardon many of those charged for attacking the Capitol on 6 January last year in hopes of thwarting Bidens certification by Congress.

Former Nixon White House counsel John Dean attacked Trumps talk of pardons for the rioters as the stuff of dictators, and stressed that failure to confront a tyrant only encourages bad behavior.

Taken together, veteran prosecutors say Trumps comments seemed to reveal that the former president now feels more legal jeopardy from the three inquiries in Atlanta, Washington and New York, all of which have accelerated since the start of 2022.

Trumps anxiety was palpable when he urged supporters at the Texas rally to stage the biggest protests we have ever had in Washington DC, in New York, in Atlanta and elsewhere, should any charges be brought, a plea for help that could boomerang and create more legal problems for the former president.

Dennis Aftergut, a former federal prosecutor who is of counsel to Lawyers Defending American Democracy, told the Guardian that Trump may have shot himself in the foot with the comments. Criminal intent can be hard to prove, but when a potential defendant says something easily seen as intimidating or threatening to those investigating the case it becomes easier, Aftergut said.

Aftergut added that having proclaimed his support for the insurrectionists, Trump added evidence of his corrupt intent on January 6 should the DoJ prosecute him for aiding the seditious conspiracy, or for impeding an official proceeding of Congress.

Likewise, a former US attorney in Georgia, Michael Moore, said Trumps comments could potentially intimidate witnesses and members of a grand jury, noting that it is a felony in Georgia to deter a witness from testifying before a grand jury.

Trump is essentially calling for vigilante justice against the justice system. Hes not interested in the pursuit of justice but blocking any investigations, Moore added.

Trumps angry outburst came as three investigations by prosecutors that could lead to charges against Trump or top associates all seemed to gain steam last month.

A special grand jury, for example, was approved in Atlanta focused on Trumps call to Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger on 2 January last year, asking him to just find enough votes to block Joe Bidens Georgia victory, a state Trump lost by more than 11,700 votes.

Trumps call for huge protests prompted the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, who is leading the criminal inquiry, to ask the FBI to compile a threat assessment to protect her office and the grand jury that is slated to meet in May.

Last month too, a top justice official revealed that the DoJ is investigating fake elector certifications declaring Trump the winner in several states he lost, a scheme reportedly pushed by Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani by which vice-president Mike Pence could block Congress from certifying Bidens win. To Trumps chagrin, Pence rejected the plan.

Further, the New York state attorney general last month stated in a court document that investigators had found evidence that Trumps real-estate business used fraudulent or misleading asset valuations to obtain loans and tax benefits, allegations Trump and his lawyers called politically motivated.

Ex-prosecutors say that Trumps Texas comments are dangerous and could legally boomerang, as the prosecutors appear to have new momentum.

Our criminal laws seek to hold people accountable for their purposeful actions, Paul Pelletier, a former acting chief of the fraud section at the DoJ, said. Trumps history of inciting people to violence demonstrates that his recent remarks are likely to cause a disruption of the pending investigations against him and family members.

Pelletier added: Should his conduct actually impede any of these investigations, federal and state obstruction statutes could easily compound Mr Trumps criminal exposure.

Trumps remarks resonated especially in Georgia, where former prosecutors say he may now face new legal problems.

Aftergut noted that Willis understood the threat when she quickly asked the FBI to provide protection at the courthouse, and he predicted that the immediate effect on the deputy DAs working on the case would be to energize them in pursuing the case.

In a similar vein, Norm Eisen, a former diplomat and the States United Democracy Center co-chair said Trumps call for protests in Atlanta, New York and Washington if prosecutors there charge him, certainly sounds like a barely veiled call for violence. Thats particularly true when you combine it with his other statements at the Texas rally about how the last crowd of insurrectionists are being mistreated and did no wrong.

In addition, congresswoman Liz Cheney, the co-chair of the House panel investigating the 6 January Capitol assault by Trump followers, has stated that Trumps talk of pardons and encouraging new protests suggests he would do it all again, if given the chance.

On another legal front, Aftergut pointed out that some Trump comments at the rally might help prosecutors at the DoJ expand their inquiry. He said: Trump handed federal prosecutors another gift when he said that Mike Pence should have overturned the election.

Some veteran consultants say Trumps latest attacks on prosecutors shows he is growing more nervous as investigations appear to be getting hotter.

Trumps prosecutor attacks are wearing thin with the broad Republican electorate, said Arizona Republican consultant Chuck Coughlin. Hes trying to whip up the base for his personal gain. This is another iteration of Trumps attacks on the government.

From a broader perspective, Moore stressed that Trumps multiple attacks on the legal system at the Texas rally represent just another erosion of the norms of a civilized society by Trump. The truth has taken a back seat to Trumpism.

Go here to read the rest:
Trumps incendiary Texas speech may have deepened his legal troubles, experts say - The Guardian