21 Comments

Putin is not the only one who has studied Hitler. Chump’s has done the same, despite being uninterested in studying anything else. Of course, his mob skills were likely acquired by osmosis from his crooked, racist father. You could likely draw some interesting parallel lines in this direction. Vlad just wants his puppet back. He will continue to attract republican traitors…

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Absolutely. Trump does love his strongmen. Although he's much more Mussolini than Hitler, I think.

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How much difference is there, evil blowhards both. Betcha Mein Kampf was a chump go to. Best instruction ever on the big lie and propaganda

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Nice writing & podcast -- inspired me to dust off my copy (taped together & careworn) of Shirer's R&F3rdR ... Western Democracies must not repeat the mistake of Munich in appeasement of Fascism. Thanks for the literary art reminder; Joyce was a great master of writing in the English Language. Respect

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Thanks. I feel more optimistic about this than I did when Z and I recorded the podcast a week and a half ago. Joe seems to get it. And unlike Hitler, I don't know that Putin really wants an actual war.

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True, and I'm also guardedly optimistic. The takedown of the Islamic State warlord as a demonstration of our tactical prowess wouldn't be lost on Putin. Once upon another time in my Life I was a teaching assistant of creative writing at University of Miami (FL) where lots of important James Joyce scholarship happens. I got familiarity

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Where others use tired symbols and make no points other than to exploit fear and anger, you draw a map and then step us along the path of history and nuance. Your effort to continuously write thoughtful essays is wonderful, even when the subject matter is horrifying.

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Thanks so much, Robin!

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Look at you, Greg -- not only masterfully dropping "poppycock" into the column, but subtly changing the podcast link from Spotify to Apple. Bravo!

In my estimation, Putin has a far better chance of becoming Hitler 2.0 than Trump ever did. First of all, he's clearly much smarter, and willing to get his hands dirty. Trump will play around with "Mein Kampf" on his bedside stand, but Ivana never said she ever saw him reading it.

Like I wrote elsewhere last night regarding the new neo-Nazi Republican Party, I learned as a little boy that bullies will keep bullying until they're confronted and slapped down. Putin has had WAY too much deference (appeasement) from the U.S. over the past, almost ten years -- yeah, I said TEN years, he should have been slapped down the minute he set foot in Crimea, but neither NATO nor the U.S. said much of anything. Sanctions, sure, but with China in his backyard and also not really our friends, sanctions are not very effective. We should be doing now exactly what we're doing. I don't think Biden is going to pussyfoot (yay!) around with Putin in the long term. Vlad is in for the proverbial shellacking!

Oh, and Michael Flynn IS AN ACTUAL TRAITOR, Josh Hawley disgusts me every time he says anything, and they can both go fuck themselves for eternity -- and take Cawthorn, Greene, Boebert, Gosar, McCarthy, McConnell, et al with them.

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Ha! Thanks. I only used the Spotify link because it embeds in a cool way...but the Apple one looks even better, so good!

Letting Putin take Crimea with barely a peep was a big mistake. Fortunately, Joe has made all the right moves so far...Putin's scheme so far has backfired, as it has united NATO, not the opposite. We'll see how it plays out.

At this point, Flynn is just doing the Russians' work, and has been for so long that I don't know if he's a traitor as much as a defector. And yes, fuck JH.

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“Letting Putin take Crimea with barely a peep was a big mistake.”

Obama looked good on paper, master diplomat in many ways, but really blew it on this one

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I hope the J6 Committee and the DOJ take action on this cast of miscreants.

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To be clear, the book was an English language annotated version of Hitler’s 1941 My New Order. Ivana did see him reading it.

Trump only *said* that it was Mein Kampf, but that’s not true.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-adolf-hitler-books-bedside-cabinet-ex-wife-ivana-trump-vanity-fair-1990-a7639041.html?amp

Also, Trump likes Hitler. This is a fact.

https://amp.theguardian.com/books/2016/oct/03/hitler-speeches-published-with-donald-trump-as-cover-illustration

https://www.rawstory.com/donald-trump-hitler-quote-threats/

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Someone (probably Don Jr.'s "imprint") will eventually publish "Sein Kampf: The Great Speeches of Donald Trump." I wonder if they'll clean them up or keep all the stupidity in? The line breaks, the asides, the eternal extemporaneous nonsense that falls out of his mouth. I hope Oliver Stone is around long enough to direct the movie.

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They will clean them up, just like Rupert only showed chump in the best light possible. The cult never saw the reality, except for the racism and lib hate

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I love this: "In Texas in 2022, the tyrannical governor, deranged lieutenant governor, and criminal attorney general cannot guarantee that there will be sufficient power during a winter cold snap—an abject failure of leadership—just as Vladimir Putin cannot deliver working toilets to a sizable percentage of Russian households."

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I can't write about Putin without mentioning Russia's plumbing issues. Some leader!

Meanwhile, the Texas troika is about as horrible as it gets. You have my sympathies!

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The trio of evil. The non-stop blather of political ads is horrifying. The money fuels the propaganda train.

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What makes Hitler different from Putin is this:

Hitler employed and misused mysticism. Hitler is a dark angel who utilizes every resource to gain power for himself and his ambitions. “Raiders of the Lost Ark“ makes use of this historic reality. Hitler used, for nefarious purposes, the kinds of symbols and mystical traditions that a good person uses for beneficial purposes. So Hitler could be called a master manipulator, and Putin is just an apprentice, a mobster, since he isn’t very well qualified to use symbolism.

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Greg I fucking love you and the work you’re doing

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You have to read this Lucian Truscott essay about the current situation in the Ukraine, which includes personal material between Lucian and friend Bill Taylor, who is certain Putin won’t invade:

https://luciantruscott.substack.com/p/theory-and-reality-and-ukraine-and

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