Well before the Trump candidacy, Putin envy on the right was already widespread.
For one thing, Mr. Putin is someone who doesn’t worry about little things like international law when he decides to invade a country. He’s “what you call a leader,” declared Rudy Giuliani after Russia invaded Ukraine.
.. And many on the right also seem to have a strange, rather creepy admiration for Mr. Putin’s personal style. Rush Limbaugh, for example, declared that while talking to President Obama, “Putin probably had his shirt off practicing tai chi.”
.. what would the news media be saying if major figures in the Democratic Party routinely praised leftist dictators?
.. We know from many reports about his stiffing of vendors, his history of profiting from enterprises even as they go bankrupt, that he sees contracts as suggestions, clear-cut financial obligations as starting points for negotiation. And we know that he sees fiscal policy as no different; he has already talked about renegotiating U.S. debt. So why should we be surprised that he sees diplomatic obligations the same way?
Hostage Negotiation: The top FBI hostage negotiator teaches you the 5 secrets to getting what you want:
The idea is to really listen to what the other side is saying and feed it back to them. It’s kind of a discovery process for both sides. First of all, you’re trying to discover what’s important to them, and secondly, you’re trying to help them hear what they’re saying to find out if what they are saying makes sense to them.
Corker’s combative side will likely come into play frequently over the next two years, which could be some of the Foreign Relations Committee’s most intense in decades.
He’s balancing 47 unruly Republicans, an angry White House and an unpredictable Iranian regime.
But beneath the sharp tongue and air of disdain toward Washington is a man who believes in making a deal. A mayor and businessman before he became senator, Corker understands the value of a glib turn of phrase. But more often than not, the bluster seems like a bargaining ploy, a way of shaping the negotiations before the real work begins, out of sight and away from the microphones.
.. Corker’s combative side will likely come into play frequently over the next two years, which could be some of the Foreign Relations Committee’s most intense in decades.
A confrontation with China, and other foreign-policy complications, might force Washington to seek a rapprochement with Russia
Mr. Trump will have to find an accommodation with the Republican Party establishment. His administration’s foreign-policy and defense appointments may well become a bargaining chip in that difficult process. As a result, some very unexpected figures, including outspoken hawks, may be put at the helm of the State Department and the Pentagon.
.. On foreign policy, both Mr. Trump’s campaign and Bernie Sanders’s Democratic primary bid highlighted a renewed American proclivity toward isolationism. Large segments of the American public are tired of endless military campaigns in the Middle East, and weary of the burden of America’s foreign commitments.
.. The American political elite remains almost universally interventionist and supportive of globalization.
.. And Moscow has very little to offer to Washington at the moment. There are few areas for possible cooperation. Even if Mr. Trump does want to improve relations with Russia, he will find out when he moves into the Oval Office that the United States has little to gain from such an improvement.
.. The new president is unlikely to be willing to pay the steep domestic political price, especially since improving relations offers no tangible benefits to America.
.. The basic problems in Russian-American relations stem from Moscow’s fundamental aspiration to return to the global arena as a great power, and even to contemplate integration into the American-led, pro-Western world order only on the condition of being recognized as a great power that dominates most of its former Soviet neighbors.
.. A confrontation with China, and other foreign-policy complications, might force Washington to seek a rapprochement with Russia