A while back Trump was praising himself for the increased spending by NATO countries that has happened during and after his time in office. Just to make sure he got a lot of air time, he threw in a gratuitous comment about how he would not defend and in fact encourage Russia to attack NATO countries that did not pay their fair sure. Predictably, this worked like a charm and all the shrieking Karens went around talking about what a bad man he was and how horribly irresponsible he was.

All they accomplished by all this caterwauling was to further convince the poorer economic classes that Trump was their man. All your working class people heard in all that screeching was a defense of NATO free riding on the poor working class taxpayer. And why should they pay for the defense of those effete snobs when the border is wide open and food prices are sky high?

Those attacking Trump fell right into a trap. Even the supporters of NATO acknowledge that many NATO members have been free loading off of the US. The dwindling military abilities of most NATO members has been a serious concern for serious military thinkers in the West for a long time now. And what has American’s feckless leadership class done about the issue all this time?

Contrary to Trump, I think the improvement on this front (slight as it has been) has more to do with Putin then Trump. But this quibbling about small details is not a productive way to counter Trump. Especially when any fair-minded review of recent history will show that while serving as president Trump brought more attention and pressure to bear on this issue than any other President in the post cold-war era. I think he did this mostly because his strategy is the find the weak points in the ruling classes that shun him and hammer them for all they are worth then him having an particular strategic concerns. Nonetheless, the fact remains that he did more on the issue then his contemporaries.

The below video gives a pretty fair overview of the situation including quoting Trump in all his glory….

Regardless of what you think about the above facts, those running around outraged by what Trump has said are doing nothing to improve the national discourse. But those running around being outraged by the ruling class are not doing any better either. All too often their arguments boil down to simply repeating that the ruling class is stupid and corrupt and trying to imply that all the problems with the world would be so much better as long as their messiah was made president. What is missing is people trying to explain the issues and facts involved. What is missing is people arguing about an issue instead of personalities. And that is where Republican Representative Mike Turner has taken steps to improve the situation.

In his role as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, he has publicly called on President Biden to declassify certain intelligence regarding a Russian threat. In so doing he seemed to have made the liberal supports of President Biden a little uncomfortable as they seem to feel that this might be some kind of trick to make Biden look weak. But by far most of the attacks have come from the Trump supporters and the far left. Both of these groups have been arguing that this is some secret underhanded ploy to whip up anti Russian hysteria and support the Ukraine aid package that Trump supporters and the far left want to see fail.

I don’t know much about Mike Turner and I don’t know what the intelligence is. What I do know is that the ruling class laying their cards on the table and saying “this is why we think Russia is a threat” is an improvement over saying “trust us bro” or leaking various whispers to favored reporters. Regardless of whether Turner is truly afraid of what the intelligence shows or if he is trying to build support for Ukraine, the effect of his request is to put cards on the table. If his request is honored, people will be able to judge for themselves what those cards mean and how reliable they are.

I can’t help but feel that most of the anger from the Trump supporters over this is that they are afraid that Turner will complicate simple narratives and make achieving their desired goals harder. But even if Turner is secretly doing this just to complicate the desired goals of Trump supporters, he is still going about this the right way. It is far better to bring facts into the discussion then to run around talking about why Trump is “irresponsible”. And regardless of the quality of this intelligence, it is a fact that the intelligence is being used to inform the opinions of the “deep state” so why not let the common man see it and make up his own mind?

To be fair to the Trump supporters, I doubt Turner will get his request. We are likely to be treated to lot of leaks and whispers about what this intelligence is about but odds are we will not find out its actual nature for a long time if ever. And there are honest reasons why facing this shadowy campaign of whispers might frustrate people who think that Turner should be on their side and should know what the results of his request will be. But I can’t help feel that this entire affair shows that Trump supporters are more afraid of facts then they are of the outrage of the Karens. If only the Trump’s opponents would take note of this and start arguing on facts instead of outrage the world would be a better place.

The problem is that while the ruling class is more knowledgeable then the average voter, they are also big cowards. They are afraid of the consequences of Ukraine losing and they are afraid of the consequences of Ukraine winning. So they try to split the difference by giving Ukraine enough aid to keep Ukraine from losing but not enough that it could seriously threaten Russia. The elites are afraid to let the Houthis go unchallenged but they are afraid to confront Iran or enrage the Arab street. So they try to attack Houthis enough to discourage them without attacking them to the extent that the Arab street is outraged or Iran is seriously threatened.

This fear of ever making a hard choice carries over to how the ruling class interacts with the American public. They don’t want to talk about facts that might support their case for fear that Americans will overreact to them one way or another. So they would rather talk about platitudes like democracy or the death of civilians than about Russia’s Poseidon program. The problem with this is that American public knows very well that civilians are dying around the world and America does not do a thing to stop it. And of course, if democracy was such a big concern Saudi Arabia would not be such a key American ally. The end result is that Americans translate all these platitudes into “Russia doesn’t matter and we should focus on more important issues.”

I bring up the Poseidon because I think it likely sheds some light Turner’s fears and illustrates the broader problem with Russia that goes beyond “democracy” or “Ukraine”. The idea of an autonomous underwater vehicle that has a large nuclear warhead would make me uncomfortable if it was made by American engineering and quality control. The idea that it is being made with Russian engineering and quality control is downright frightening not so much because of what the Russians might do on purpose as what might happen by accident. I suspect that the secret intelligence that has Mr. Turner so afraid has a similar mad scientist feel to it.

What drives Russia down the mad scientist route is that it is a declining power. Their rhetoric about taking back what is theirs is an open admission that they have lost a lot over the last thirty years or so and will lose even more if they don’t do something different. This is what drives them down weapons development paths that the old Soviet Union would have regarded as irresponsible and too destabilizing. It is what has led them to invade Georgia and foment civil war in Ukraine. And of course, it is likely behind the current war in Ukraine as well.

The fear for the educated ruling class in the west is twofold. What how far will Russia go if they are not stopped and what will they do if their decline gets even worse. I have already covered how that two fold fear causes them behave in terms of foreign relations. But the point for today is how that two fold fear also impact how they behave towards Americans as a whole. They don’t want to have an honest conversation about the subject of Russia because that might frighten the American public or enrage the American public into some action that ruling class feels is rash. On the other side of coin, the populists don’t want the complexity of world to complicate their simple narratives so they have no incentive to challenge this state of affairs.

For these reasons Turner’s request is likely to go nowhere and nobody is likely to try to drag American political discourse back from its addiction to outrage. But we talk so much about what is being done wrong in American that I thought it worth noting when someone tries to do something right even it is just a small thing that will likely never happen.