It was one of the most brilliant geopolitical chess moves in over a decade, and it involved doing nothing, according to Eurasia senior analyst Lauren Goodrich.
An expert on Russian politics at the intelligence firm Stratfor, Goodrich was referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin's response, or lack thereof, to the recent sanctions imposed on his country by U.S. President Barack Obama,
Instead of retaliating for Obama's order Thursday to expel 35 Russian diplomats and close down two Russian compounds, Putin insisted he would not reciprocate.
And, for good measure, he invited the children of U.S. diplomats accredited in Russia to the New Year's and Christmas parties in the Kremlin.
"Putin deciding not to retaliate and say I'm going to wait for the Trump administration, delegitimizes Obama's decision on one side and then also puts extra pressure on Trump to act more conciliatory when he comes in," said Goodrich.
In the battle of language the reactionaries won total victory on 'smug' and 'self-righteous'. They used to apply to like rich Mr. Howell types and churchy poeple respectively.
By the way to continue a convo we had last LC thread Trump's bizarre "we should use couriers because computers are easy to hack thing" is just a culmination of a huge number of absolutely insanely stupid statements by Trump about "the cyber", and we all laugh at him.
Another thing we laugh at is how MSNBC has the youngest average viewership of the cable news networks and it's still like 59 or something.
Trump is speaking these people's language and the media can't respond appropriately without insulting their audience. "Finally, someone like me", as that one article said.
(another bizarre nod to the ego of cable news is how we pretend the GOP base isn't retirees, all these conversations about trade and jobs and **** make ~zero impact on the lives of Trump's most reliable voters. That's why the War on Christmas gets more coverage than climate change or abortion, seattlelou over in the other thread explaining his "understanding" that climate change won't end humanity but what he really means is he's going to be dead by the time Miami floods either way)