Interesting article by Lynn Berry and Calvin Woordward of The Associated Press about White House adviser Fiona Hill. A British person who briefed Donald Trump about Putin’s Russia during his presidency is the daughter of the British miner. She argues that both Donald Trump and Wladimir Putin, as well as British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, have come to power through the destruction of heavy industry in the United States, Russia and Great Britain since the 1980s and the decline of the industrial class. Because of the nihilism and the broad feeling of having forgotten that that triggered it.
Hill, who speaks and understands Russian fluently, observed these powerful as the proverbial ‘fly on the wallpaper’ who is ignored but who sees everything at ease – and sees through. The men literally did not notice her and she made good use of this by listening very carefully in their vicinity, remembering everything and writing it down.
The changes in the three countries are strikingly similar, partly due to the destruction of heavy industry. The result has been what she calls a “crisis of opportunity” and the emergence of populist leaders like Putin, Trump and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, able to address the fears and grievances of those who feel disadvantaged.
She said she was worried in the White House about what Russia was doing and came out after she became fully aware of all this that the problem was really the United States… and that the Russians were just the situation were exploiting.
Hill calls Russia a cautionary tale, “America’s Ghost of Christmas Future,” if the US is unable to end its internal political divisions.
“There Is Nothing for You Here,” her book released last week, unlike those of other writers on the Trump administration, isn’t obsessed with the scandals. Like her measured but compelling testimony in Trump’s first impeachment, the book offers a more sober, and therefore perhaps more disturbing, portrait of the 45th president.