(Dobbs) How Much WORSE For Ukraine If Trump Were Still Around?
The answers are spine-chillingly clear.
Here’s a spine-chilling question about the war in Ukraine: How much worse would things be if Donald Trump were still president?
If history is any guide— if as Shakespeare wrote, the past is prologue— they would be immeasurably worse.
Exhibit A: When he was president— even before he was president— Donald Trump never showed any inclination to doubt Vladimir Putin, let alone challenge him. So when Putin assured the world— before Russia invaded Ukraine— that Russia would not invade Ukraine, Trump most likely would have taken Putin at his word. Remember their Helsinki summit? U.S. intelligence had concluded that Russia had meddled in the presidential election, but when Trump was asked if he believed that assessment, he stood with Putin, declaring, “President Putin says it’s not Russia,” effectively throwing his own intelligence agencies under the bus.
Therefore it is a safe bet that if he were still president, Donald Trump would not have done what Joe Biden did so effectively, publicly revealing the extraordinarily accurate assessments by U.S. intelligence about Putin’s plans for Ukraine, potently shining a bright light on his lies. It’s more likely that Trump would have left the gate wide open for Putin.
Exhibit B: When Putin’s troops did launch their attack, what was Donald Trump’s first reaction? “This is genius,” he said. “Putin declares a big portion of the Ukraine… as independent, and ‘we’re gonna help keep peace.’ You gotta say that’s pretty savvy.”
Did we hear any words of condemnation for a superpower pummeling an outgunned neighbor? Not a one. Only the envious admiration of a wannabe American authoritarian for an authentic Russian authoritarian. No surprise, since President Trump had nicer things to say about the likes of North Korea’s Kim Jong-un (“We fell in love”) and Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte (who he congratulated for “an unbelievable job” for having drug dealers murdered) than anything he said about America’s closest allies.
Exhibit C: Donald Trump never showed any inclination to support Ukraine.
To the contrary, in 2014, before Trump even became president, the Russian ruler invaded Ukraine’s Crimea Peninsula and made it part of Russia, which came right on the heels of Russia’s Olympics in Sochi. Shortly afterwards, Trump made a speech at CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference, and had nothing but praise for how Putin pulled off that unlawful land grab. “So he has the Olympics, the day after the Olympics he starts with Ukraine, the day after, how smart, you know, he didn’t want to do it during the Olympics, boom, the day after.”
Was there an ounce of outrage from the eventual President of the United States? Not for a moment. Like a tool for the Kremlin’s own propaganda machine, Trump later said on ABC’s This Week, “The people of Crimea, from what I’ve heard, would rather be with Russia than where they were.” In case the point is lost, “where they were” was Ukraine.
Then, of course, there was Trump putting pressure on Ukraine’s President Zelinsky to dig up dirt on the Biden family by withholding some $400-million worth of military aid that Zelinsky needed to fight the insurrection in eastern Ukraine, which has now blown up into a full-on war. Remember his so-called “perfect call?”
It was all in pursuit of his own selfish and arguably unpatriotic political ambitions.
What this said to Ukraine was, “The President of the United States does not have your back.”
Not then, and if Trump were still in power, not now.
Exhibit D: Think about President Biden’s tenacious campaign to create a coalition to punish Russia, rallying a range of nations to put the pain to Putin. He united nations threatened by Russia and nations that weren’t, nations democratic and undemocratic alike. Plainly put, even if Trump had tried, he’d have failed, because although our European allies sometimes humored him, they didn’t like him and certainly never trusted him.
That takes us to President Biden’s trip abroad late last month, which underscored his success in regaining the trust of our friends in America’s most essential alliance, NATO. The president of the European Council— comprised of the heads of state from the European Union— told Biden, “Your presence here and your participation in this European Council meeting is a very strong signal.”
Imagine if that were Trump, not Biden. Nicholas Burns, an American ambassador to NATO under George W. Bush, wrote in The Atlantic while Trump was still president, “Trump… seems to relish going after the Europeans in full view of the rest of the world.”
Exhibit E: If you’re known by the company you keep, Donald Trump keeps company with disciples who have supported Putin’s unprovoked attack and skewered the United States for coming to Ukraine’s defense. The likes of Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, commentator Tucker Carlson, and white nationalist Nick Fuentes, along with their fellow travelers.
In Greene’s case, after Putin claimed that his “special military operation” was for the “de-Nazification” of Ukraine, she tweeted Moscow’s talking points about Ukraine’s “possible Nazi militias that are torturing innocent people, especially women and children.”
Fox’s Carlson has regurgitated claims from Russia’s state-owned television network RT about bioweapons labs in Ukraine, among other things, which RT has then dutifully re-aired in Russia. Fuentes has praised Vladimir Putin for “liberating Russia.”
All self-professed fans of Donald Trump, as he has proved himself fans of theirs.
Exhibit F: Trump’s not finished. In an internet interview last week, in the midst of the ongoing slaughter in Ukraine, his sole self-serving focus was on presidential son Hunter Biden’s past business dealings there, and whether they were corrupt. It might be a legitimate issue for sure, but for Trump, it was the only issue. ”I would think Putin would know the answer to that,” he said, virtually appealing to the butcher of Ukraine for help. “I think he should release it. I think we should know that answer.” As if that’s all we need to hear right now from Vladimir Putin.
Exhibit G: Putin’s not finished either. A host on Russian state television last week urged Americans to “change the regime in the U.S…. and to again help our partner Trump to become President.” They’re not even hiding it any more.
And no wonder. Trump and Putin operate from the same playbook. The core of both men’s support is ultra right-wing and rural. They both appeal to ideologues zealously hostile to homosexuality and abortion. They both charge their detractors with “fake news” and show their disdain for freedom of the press.
Yale professor Timothy Snyder, the author of On Tyranny, recently compared Vladimir Putin’s deceptions to Adolf Hitler’s: “Tell a lie so big that people will not believe that you would ever try to deceive them on such a grand scale.”
Not to equate Trump to Hitler— that would be unfair and a vulgar affront to the millions murdered by the Nazis— but is it irrational to compare Trump’s Big Lie about the 2020 election to Putin’s about Ukraine, as lies “so big that people will not believe that you would ever try to deceive them?”
So how much worse would things be for Ukraine if Donald Trump were still president? Would he be more likely to stand firmly and act strongly to punish Putin for waging an unprovoked and merciless war? Or would he be more likely to stand with his base and broaden his bromance with Vladimir Putin?
If history is any guide, the answers are spine-chillingly clear.
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 -
It is refreshing to see that Donald J Trump still provides material for those who cannot write on matters of importance. The pure inanity of this poorly written article is only surpassed by its irrelevance.
It is worth noting that Trump was, in fact, able to identify the insane, self-inflicted vulnerability of the Europeans putting their mouths on the end of Russia's gas pipe and sucking. The old boy warned them.
It is worth noting that Trump kicked Nato in the ass and convinced them to meet their obligations under the Atlantic Charter as it related to defense spending. Had Trump not sounded the tocsin, Nato would have been even more ineffectual.
It was not Trump's weakness or failure to respond to Russian provocations of moving massive amounts of troops to the border of Ukraine that invited Puffer Coat Putin to invade; that was Biden.
It was not Trump's energy independence that funded the Russian war machine; it was Biden's disastrous and ill-advised War on Energy that made a barrel of Russian oil 5X in value.
Wouldn't it be handy to have that 900K barrels of Canadian oil and $20/bbl oil and $1.50/gal gas right about now? Yes, it would.
When you cannot write something worth reading about the weakness of this admin, the incompetence of this President, by all means trot out the Trump Stalking Horse and give us 1000 words of fanciful knee jerk TDS blathering.
Other than lowering the IQ of any person who is struck by your literary land mine, you have contributed nothing to the debate; and, it is really poorly written.
Have a great day. Go #Heels
JLM
www.themusingsofthebigredcar.com
If Trump were president it would have been better or worse, but too unpredictable.