> I still find it wild that so many people are trying to frame these decisions through a political lens.
Why? The decisions are pretty well politically aligned with the ideology which detests the size and scope of the government (realistically, those aspects which the ideologues feel are not in their interest). What is unexpected is the swiftness and the brutality of action, but revolutions tend to be messy, and make no mistake, this is a revolution.
> This is the actions of a foreign bad actor
Now this sounds like a coping strategy: everything is so preposterous it couldn't possibly be homegrown. Foreign influence and underhanded actions are as old as human interactions, but IMO outright plants can't succeed without a massive economic and power asymmetry between the adversaries.
They are not. Trump is no libertarian or small government guy. The build the wall guy is the opposite of that. Even with stuff like social security he usually at least rhetorically claimed to be for more benifits (as long as it goes to "real Americans") and he is all for increasing police and military spending. And generally spending more on stuff that gives him money. Plus giant tax increases (tarrifs). He doesn't care much if government is dismembered as long as it owns the libs and gets rid of the public corruption prosecutors/others who might stand up to him
Trump's actions towards Putin are highly irrational. Maybe he's being blackmailed, maybe he's being bought, maybe he just has likes Putins style but there is a reason people suspect him despite it being unlikely in the general case.
> He doesn't care much if government is dismembered
This is exactly the process that conservatives take to privatise services into their own friends pockets. Destroy services until they're ineffective and use it as an excuse to privatise it.
There's no such thing as small government, only large sprawling private services that the government hands money to.
lol, coping strategy? I'm not American and have no reason to 'cope' with anything. There is enough evidence to make a strong allegation about Trump being a Russian asset.
The entire world seems to be able to 'cope' with that assessment.
Why? The decisions are pretty well politically aligned with the ideology which detests the size and scope of the government (realistically, those aspects which the ideologues feel are not in their interest). What is unexpected is the swiftness and the brutality of action, but revolutions tend to be messy, and make no mistake, this is a revolution.
> This is the actions of a foreign bad actor
Now this sounds like a coping strategy: everything is so preposterous it couldn't possibly be homegrown. Foreign influence and underhanded actions are as old as human interactions, but IMO outright plants can't succeed without a massive economic and power asymmetry between the adversaries.