(Dobbs) Applauding Putin Undermines America
Trump aids America's enemies... and not for the first time.
How low can they go? I’ve stopped asking.
Yesterday, the ex-president who has tried to tear down our government propped up Putin’s.
“This is genius,” he said in an interview about Russia’s authoritarian president after he’d sent troops and tanks into Ukraine, a sovereign nation, under the guise of peacekeeping. “That’s the strongest peace force I’ve ever seen,” Trump added, with admiration in his voice. “How smart is that?”
Trump with his podcast interviewers Tuesday in Mar-a-Lago
It is one thing to argue that going to bat for Ukraine is not in America’s interest, although I’d argue otherwise, because a weakened ally means a weakened America. But arguing to let Putin be Putin is one thing. Actually applauding him for what he’s doing is quite another.
Praising Putin’s “genius” undermines the foreign policy of the United States. Many Americans opposed the invasion of Iraq— and they were right— but at the same time they didn’t praise its dictator Saddam Hussein. For the most part, American dissidents of the war in Vietnam didn’t also lionize Ho Chi Minh.
But Trump trashes tact and tradition, and he has help from his cult.
Like Texas Representative Ronny Jackson, Trump’s White House doctor (who you might recall was denounced by the Defense Department’s inspector general for drinking on duty and sexually denigrating a female subordinate).
Evidently Jackson had no time yesterday to show support for President Biden’s sanctions against Russia (as even deep-ender Ted Cruz did) for its illegal invasion of eastern Ukraine. He only had time to send a tweet calling for sanctions “on senior officials in the Canadian government,” apparently for breaking up the economically costly cross-country anti-vaccine protests by truckers.
First things first, doctor?
Or Trump’s former White House senior advisor Steve Bannon, who asserted on his podcast yesterday that “whether you like it or not, history exists,” parroting Putin’s perfidious points in his television appearance Monday from Moscow that Ukraine never had “real statehood” because actually it is part of Russia’s “history, culture, spiritual space.”
In other words— ignoring the past 30 years of international recognition and sovereignty— Ukraine really always belonged to Russia (like the United States really always belonged to England?). Which led Bannon to the conclusion that “this crisis is a hundred percent created by the actions of the Biden administration.”
So the crisis today is not Putin’s fault, amassing close to 200,000 troops on Ukraine’s borders, then sending some in as “peacekeepers,” but Biden’s.
And of course there’s Fox commentator Tucker Carlson. On his program last night, he argued that Ukraine “is not a democracy” as if, after defending the insurrectionists from January 6th, he treasures democracy himself. His evidence? “Ukraine's president has arrested his main political opponent. He has shut down newspapers and television stations that have dared to criticize him.” There is some truth to that, but here’s the other half of the story that cultists like Carlson forget to mention: Russia’s president, who they defend, does all that and more. Exhibit A: Putin poisoned his political rival Alexey Navalny in 2020, then when Navalny came back to his homeland last year, had him arrested and imprisoned for violating probation, and now has put him on trial a second time for fraud and contempt of court. Exhibit B, as I’ve mentioned before from my own time covering Russia: after a brief flowering of freedoms when the Soviet Union fell apart, Putin slowly whittled them down and effectively outlawed opposition to his rule.
But Trump takes Putin’s side on Ukraine and his cult falls into line. He gushes with adoration for Putin, and the cult follows suit.
No surprise here. Remember after Russia forcefully annexed Crimea from Ukraine and Trump parroted Putin’s talking points, not those of his own government’s intelligence agencies? “The people of Crimea, from what I've heard, would rather be with Russia than where they were.” How he could then claim yesterday with a straight face that the Russian invasion “never would have happened with us” is beyond comprehension.
Republican Representative Liz Cheney, a principled conservative despite her banishment by her party, yesterday told it like it is. “Former President Trump’s adulation of Putin today— including calling him a ‘genius’— aids our enemies. Trump’s interests don’t seem to align with the interests of the United States of America.”
To the contrary. They seem to align with Russia’s.
That’s scary enough even with Trump exiled to Mar-a-Lago, considering the number of disciples who follow his lead. But imagine if somehow he wins enough votes to be president again. Then it gets scarier. Then, autocrats like Vladimir Putin will have free rein to run roughshod over weaker adversaries because, if history is any guide, Trump will say they’re “smart” and “geniuses” and won’t raise a finger to stop them.
Today, the Pentagon— which along with other arms of U.S. intel has proved to be right about Russia’s intentions— says of the possibility of a full-scale assault by Russian troops on the Republic of Ukraine, “They’re ready to go.” To which Donald Trump and his henchmen might then say, “Here are the keys.”
Over almost five decades Greg Dobbs has been a correspondent for two television networks including ABC News, a political columnist for The Denver Post and syndicated columnist for Scripps newspapers, a moderator on Rocky Mountain PBS, and author of two books, including one about the life of a foreign correspondent called “Life in the Wrong Lane.” He has covered presidencies and politics at home and international crises around the globe, from Afghanistan to South Africa, from Iran to Egypt, from the Soviet Union to Saudi Arabia, from Nicaragua to Namibia, from Vietnam to Venezuela, from Libya to Liberia, from Panama to Poland. Dobbs has won three Emmys, and the Distinguished Service Award from the Society of Professional Journalists.
Greg, Great commentary on Putin. Even without his puppet Trump in power, Putin is not deterred by American and European objections. Curt Freed, MD
What is it about totalitarians? Russian, Chinese, American.....one thing for sure, is they can't handle truth. Whatever they say, it's pretty clear that the opposite is the truth. Much needed essay, Greg. Thank you.