Well, OK. What are his credentials as an expert on Trump?
He isn’t putting himself forth as an expert on Trump.
He is just bouncing off his impression of Trump’s statements.
Want quotes? Here you go. All from that self-same article:
[QUOTE=Stephen F. Cohen]
Trump speaks eliptically [sic]. You’ve got to piece together what he says. But he seems to want a new American policy toward Russia. And considering the danger, I think we as American citizens, deserve that debate, and not what we are given in the media today, including on the front page of the “New York Times.”
[/QUOTE]
[sic] mine. So what Trump said isn’t really what he said, it’s a new ‘peace for our time’ message.
[QUOTE=Stephen F. Cohen]
Vladimir Putin wants to end the 'New Cold War – and so do I.
[/QUOTE]
Except that Putin wants Russian hegemony, and presumably this guy doesn’t.
[QUOTE=Stephen F. Cohen]
I end by saying, that this reckless branding of Trump as a Russian agent, most of it is coming from the Clinton campaign and they really need to stop.
[/QUOTE]
Right, because it was the Clinton camp that ‘jokingly’ called for the Russians to commit espionage on us.
Yeah, thanks, I won’t take this guy as an expert on anything. But then I’m just some random person on the internet, I couldn’t possibly know what I’m talking about or comprehend what I read. YMMV.
Looking at his wiki, the guy has published nine books on Russian politics/USA-Soviet relations as well as contributing to many articles and debates on the subject. He has a PhD in government and Russian studies from Columbia. He was a Princeton professor in Russian studies for 30 years. For the last 18 years he’s been teaching the same at New York University. But on the other hand, he disagrees with Johnny Ace so I am at a loss as to who is the expert here.
Translation: “Trumps words don’t make an iota of sense. So I’ll just interpret them to mean whatever I choose.”
The man is obviously dove-ish on the Russia question and does not like the idea of a new Cold War. He was given the opportunity to speak to that with Trump’s comments as a pretext. He said a bunch of times in the interview that he’s not associated with Trump and is not defending him.
I don’t know if you heard the news Will, but Putin is already threatening the independence of a Baltic state. If he doesn’t want to threaten the independence of a Baltic state, he should probably get his troops out of East Ukraine.
Hey - speaking of Russian aggression toward Ukraine, it turns out that Trumps “Foreign Policy Advisor” was in Moscow, giving speeches criticizing American foreign policy.
There’s video of the speech at that link above.
Shortly after that speech, Trump’s people convinced the GOP to soften their condemnation of Russia’s Ukraine activities in the GOP Party Platform. It was the one and only change that Trump wanted in the platform.
This is the only thing that Trump has any firm ideas. He wants to abandon our decade old relationships and allies and cozy up to Russia in hopes of getting US access to Russian energy money.
Of course, Carter Page’s ties to Gazprom, Russia’s energy company are well noted and long standing. Page himself, claims that he stands with Russian economic students at the Moscow New Economic School.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/07/2016-trump-putin-russia-gop-platform-214074
In his defense, maybe Page was thinking about American incarceration rates, police profiling, growing income disparity, voter ID rules and campaign finance laws.
Maybe. I’ll take Page’s own words on the topics under discussion… seems to be a better source, right?
Maybe. There are certainly plenty of things to criticize about America and also, liberal means something specific in an economic contrast.
But it’s one thing to say, “America struggles to balance its liberal and conservative impulses, and I think they’ve strayed too far from their liberal ideals.” and another thing to say, “I’m with you Russians who think America is just being hypocritical about their “liberal” democracy”.
When the speaker is an advisor to a Republican presidential candidate, as is the case with Carter Page and Donald Trump - it’s reasonable to question the sort of advice that Page is giving Donald. It’s also reasonable to ask Donald if he agrees that America’s commitment to liberal democracy is just a hypocritical club to beat up our rivals.
American imperfections do not logically necessitate concessions to Russian geopolitical ambitions.
Which words are you talking about? Everything quoted above from Page is generic “we’re not all peaches and cream back home”. The hypocrisy and lack of liberty/democracy could have easily been hinted at by any lefty. So sure, it’s fair political game to try and drag out what he actually meant. However, this doesn’t seem a very damning story to neutral eyes. At least, not since Trump himself has already been public about being soft on the Crimea thing already.
Page listed the topics on which he spoke. I don’t know why you claim he was speaking on different topics.
At least we got some stuff to be hypocritical about! Russia doesn’t even have that! And not even half of our people are drunk. We have ideals we have yet to fully realize, no doubt, but when is a virtue ever easy? Well, OK, chastity is easy for some people, but still, you see what I mean?
I don’t claim that. There are a bunch of different ways a lefty, righty or centrist could find hypocrisy in America’s outward international stance on social liberty, business liberty or democracy. I just dont see a “i hate america” smoking gun here.
No. Russian citizens are not the same as Putin. Only a hardcore ideology could lead a blurring of the two.
The second paragraph reeks of ignorance. Russia is already much friendlier with the EU, especially Germany. The US government is the driving force behind their demonization and isolation. The EU had to be dragged into supporting the sanctions.
Stephen Cohen disagrees with Merneith. Who do you have on your side beside John McCain, Victoria Nuland, and a whole lot of neo-Nazi would-be ethnic cleansers.
What’s that about the Russian and energy?
Which ambitions are those? Cite please.
You seem intent on impressing us with your expertise, but you are unaware of any such thing? If they are all fictitious, are you aware of the fictions?
… I have the actual presence of Russian troops in Ukraine and Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
I mean, we were just all laughing at Donald for saying that Russia wasn’t going to attack Ukraine, only to be reminded that Russia was already currently attacking Ukraine.
I don’t know why you think it’s more persuasive when Stephen Cohen comes stating that there’s no evidence that Putin wants to reclaim the historically Soviet territories. It’s like watching Napoleon capture Vienna and then asserting that “there’s no evidence - none whatsover - that the Tyrant of Europe wants to end the independence of the Germanic states.”
Isn’t it amazing what partisanship can do? Russia used to be the evil communist country that threatens world peace. Now its the best because our turd of a GOP nominee says so and conservatives are doing backflips on Jesus’s grave trying to be apologists for them.
Just accept a Clinton presidency. It’ll be better than Trump. He’s done more damage to conservatism and the Republican brand than 20 years of Clinton could possibly do. Come over to the good side 