- Joined
- Jun 18, 2018
- Messages
- 53,596
- Reaction score
- 49,888
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Progressive
"A month ago, Trump’s close friend and supporter Sean Hannity tried repeatedly to coax him to call Vladimir Putin a bad person or admit his slaughter of civilians was wrong. Trump kept refusing. …After Trump declined again and boasted of his closeness with Putin, Hannity tried suggesting Russia was an “enemy” Trump was strategically keeping close. …Last night, Hannity tried again. Referring back to their previous conversation, he asked Trump if Russia’s invasion was “evil.” Trump declined, instead ranting about the weakness of NATO: “I think in a hundred years, people are gonna look back and they’re going to say, ‘How did we stand back, and NATO stand back?’ — which, in many ways, I’ve called a paper tiger.” He did not concede Russia was morally wrong to invade.
Russia hawks within the Republican Party have tried to cast Trump as the true Russia hawk, and they have turned his obsessive attacks on NATO into evidence he was cleverly trying to strengthen the alliance all along by prodding fellow members to increase their defense spending. His rant last night ought to dispel that notion. NATO allies have increased their military spending in response to Russia’s invasion. But rather than acknowledge this success — the outcome he supposedly wants — Trump continued to bash them as worthless leeches.
…Trump’s priorities would be to ensure cheap gasoline and keep Ukrainian refugees out of the country.
Trump’s anger at the “deep state” was not mere paranoia. The bureaucracy often thwarted his goals — most notably around Ukraine, where his efforts to withhold military aid and extort Volodymyr Zelensky into smearing Joe Biden ultimately petered out. But a reelected, or reinstalled, President Trump would have a much freer hand. Had 44,000 votes in Georgia, Arizona, and Wisconsin swung the other way, Zelensky would probably at this moment be in exile, in a Russian prison, or dead."
Link
I suspect many Americans would find a dead Zelensky a small price to pay for a cheaper gas and a "resolution" to this issue. The issue being the complicated matter of saving liberal democracy, which is not so clear that they are for.
Russia hawks within the Republican Party have tried to cast Trump as the true Russia hawk, and they have turned his obsessive attacks on NATO into evidence he was cleverly trying to strengthen the alliance all along by prodding fellow members to increase their defense spending. His rant last night ought to dispel that notion. NATO allies have increased their military spending in response to Russia’s invasion. But rather than acknowledge this success — the outcome he supposedly wants — Trump continued to bash them as worthless leeches.
…Trump’s priorities would be to ensure cheap gasoline and keep Ukrainian refugees out of the country.
Trump’s anger at the “deep state” was not mere paranoia. The bureaucracy often thwarted his goals — most notably around Ukraine, where his efforts to withhold military aid and extort Volodymyr Zelensky into smearing Joe Biden ultimately petered out. But a reelected, or reinstalled, President Trump would have a much freer hand. Had 44,000 votes in Georgia, Arizona, and Wisconsin swung the other way, Zelensky would probably at this moment be in exile, in a Russian prison, or dead."
Link
I suspect many Americans would find a dead Zelensky a small price to pay for a cheaper gas and a "resolution" to this issue. The issue being the complicated matter of saving liberal democracy, which is not so clear that they are for.