Trump « George Lakoff

From the FrameLab Newsletter:

While Putin has stalled in Ukraine, he appears to be making significant gains here in the United States of America.

On February 20, federal authorities revealed that the man at the heart of scurrilous allegations against the President Biden — Alexander Smirnov — admitted to having lied about Biden at the behest of Russian intelligence. Smirnov’s lies, designed by Russian intelligence agents, became the basis for Republican investigations targeting the president and his son, Hunter Biden.

While Putin has not been successful in conquering Ukraine, he’s clearly had more luck conquering the Republican Party. The alignment between Trump’s GOP and Putin’s Russia becomes clearer with every passing day. Thanks to the Smirnov affair, we now see how quickly and easily Putin’s lies become Republican talking points.

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From the FrameLab Newsletter:

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis broke a major rule of authoritarian politics at the very moment he launched his 2024 presidential campaign. Now his campaign is going broke, stalling in the polls and laying off staff. His most enthusiastic supporters, like the Fox channel’s Rupert Murdoch, are abandoning him. The political press, having served to build DeSantis up over the past few months, is now deconstructing his failures.

DeSantis certainly did his best to emulate — and, in some cases, exceed — Trump’s use of deliberately cruel strongman politics to attract media attention. But DeSantis was only an imitation Trump — a cheap facsimile of the man who now exerts cultish control over the Republican Party.

By trying to run against Trump, he broke a cardinal rule: He betrayed Trump. This violated a central tenet of the moral system underlying Republican politics.

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