The shame of American policy with regard to Ukraine is coming complete with the 28-point Trumpian Surrender Proposal: Biden because he failed; Trump because he is poised to succeed on behalf of his handler, V. Putin. Can there really be any doubt that DJT is a Russian asset? Cowardly and corrupt of tragically historic proportions. With an equally cowardly and corrupt and feckless Republican House and Senate. Alas, there is no shame among them.
Nostra culpa, nostra culpa.
There are Tomahawks and there is talk of Tomahawks. “We may do it. We may not. But we may do it.” “Maybe, maybe not.” These were the big, beautiful, decisive words of TACO Don, just before he became TALKO Don. After consulting with his model tyrant and possible handler/blackmailer, Vlad Putin the First, TALKO decided against supplying Tomahawks to Ukraine. No surprise. Trump Always Lets Kriminals Off.
So, now, Donald Trump’s puppet-master in Russia has provocatively launched some drones into Poland. What will the putative leader of the free world do? Probably nothing. Why? Any number of reasons.
Again, my inference is that Putin has him somehow by the short hairs. No national leader can be so geopolitically ignorant, so lacking in self- and national-respect, and so uncoercedly servile as to misunderstand Putin’s behavior and contempt for this President of the United States. Trump must have no choice but to take it like a simp.
Second, Trump sees nothing in it for himself—anymore. They don’t give out a Nobel Prize for Surrender, which is how a bone-spurred draft-dodger seems to understand peace-making in Ukraine.
Third, the spirit shown by President Zelensky and Ukraine—intrepid, innovative, resilient, and fundamentally decent—is not only foreign to Donald Trump, it’s a standing rebuke to how he understands the world and lives his life.
Any energy, leadership, or creative initiative in support of Ukraine will originate elsewhere than the Oval Office. There remain a few senatorial Cold War holdovers in the RINO Party who might be able to join with Democrats to counter Putin’s most recent aggressions. Perhaps Europe will assemble a backbone. Such are the non-despotic paths to resistance. As they should be.
The deference that Trump pays to Vladimir Putin does not, to my eye, require genuine empathy or admiration. (I have my doubts that Trump has any genuinely positive regard for anyone but himself.) He might envy Putin’s power and position and might even respect the ruthlessness exhibited to get there, but Trump’s complimentary attitude, like all Trumpian attitudes, is a purely self-serving performance. Putin must have something on Trump—there are so many possibilities! Trump bows, scrapes, and fawns because really, he has no choice. Putin owns him.
Commander-in-Chief Bonespurs has set a deadline of 50 days for Vladimir Putin to conclude a peace with Ukraine. (That’s like, “forever” in Donnie time.) Given the Furor’s lack of adherence to self-imposed deadlines for diplomacy generally, tariffs and tariff deal-making, and 24-hour war-stopping, I don’t suppose Putin is overly concerned with Comrade Kompromat’s recent “change of tone.” Nor should he be. It is probably just the media jawboning of a compliant monkey who’d otherwise surrender outright if he could. Indeed, while he promised weaponry that should have been delivered months ago, he also proscribed using it on Moscow. How’s that for tough talk.
On the other hand, it would be wonderfully ironic if the source of Donald’s newfound attitude were Melania’s early memories of the good old Soviet Union. There is hope, it seems, but always from where you little expect.
On the campaign trail last year, Herr Trumpf claimed that if elected president, he could end Russia’s imperial war on Ukraine in twenty-four hours. He never explained how he might do that. Even surrendering unconditionally usually takes longer—which was my sense of his grand plan. His treatment of Ukraine and President Zelenskiy, so petulant and shoddy, his obsequious regard for Putin, and his hopes for post-war lucre in Russia all signaled a rather ignominious capitulation as the best that could be expected from Trumpist policy. He can’t even do that, thankfully. Two thousand four hundred and forty hours later, there is no peace, not even a cease-fire agreement, in Ukraine, with his Secretary of State threatening to walk out on peace talks. Peace, apparently, is harder work than anyone in this administration ever thought—if “thinking” is the correct term for the invertebrate neural processes that direct U.S. government activity these days.
Concern for Ukraine is as genuine and sustained among those of us who care as it has ever been, but Trump and his Republican gofers dither on Ukraine while they ramp up economic hostilities on the rest of our friends and allies. You are not alone, Ukraine. The U.S. soon may be.
American history will know no more selfish and craven a traitor than Donald Trump. His Republican enablers and his voters have no shame, none. Tens of thousands of Ukrainian patriots have lost their lives in commitment to, and defense of, their country, a commitment and a defense that served American and western interests as well. In terms not only geopolitical and military, but moral and spiritual. And the President of the United States dismisses their heroic example and sacrifice as the consequence of having made a bad real estate transaction. He sickens.
In the contest between Putin, a proven autocrat, and Donald, the shambolic kiss-ass wannabe, the proven autocrat appears to have taken the upper hand. Apparently, kissing autocrat ass did not train Trump in autocracy. Go figure. Instead of inviting Canada to become the 51st state or annexing war-torn Gaza, Trump could have offered Ukraine 51st statehood, gained access to all those strategic minerals he craved for free, established Black Sea resorts to his heart’s content, and incorporated a valiant nation of proven heroes into a country whose virtue and intelligence appear to be flagging—if presidential elections are any clue.
Long Live Ukraine!