Most people have given up the concept of being on the "good side".
That's how Trumpism can gain any traction at all. The amount of international engagement Russia had as Putin made himself tsar was embarrassing, and to a person with no scruples if the money is right - like Trump - it just illustrates that the guardrails aren't really there.
> Most people have given up the concept of being on the "good side".
“The revolution eats its partisans” is the most accurate description of it. People on “the good side” turn against their peers for not being on the good side enough. To wit, people who turn away don’t generally first notice that the good side isn’t so good; they first notice being bullied by that side, then they reflect on what it means to support the good side’s points of view (spoiler: A crime against humanity).
Oh, it's elsewhere, too. There are plenty of illiberal candidates winning elections across the West.
There's also an argument to be made that Europe more or less sold themselves out for cheap natural gas. Nordstream 2 was constructed after the Russians (at that point, under Putin's puppet Medvedev) had invaded Georgia.
That's how Trumpism can gain any traction at all. The amount of international engagement Russia had as Putin made himself tsar was embarrassing, and to a person with no scruples if the money is right - like Trump - it just illustrates that the guardrails aren't really there.