The contrast between the cartoonish buffoonery of Trump’s administration, and the sober, steely, empathetic one of President Biden’s couldn’t be more stark.
The situation in Ukraine - in advance of Putin’s illegal invasion - was the biggest foreign policy challenge and opportunity to protect democracy on the world stage: Trump failed miserably.
His only instinct was for self-enrichment, beginning with his infamous and impeachable caveat ‘I would like you to do us a favor, though’.
The ‘us’ in that statement was of course Trump’s re-election campaign.
As we now know, Trump occupying the executive branch was merely a way to bolster the profit margins of his properties - and siphon off dollars from MBS and Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund and funnel them into Jared Kushner’s hedge fund and Trump’s golf tournaments.
US foreign policy decisions were the coin of this dark realm; both Trump and his adult children were involved in filling their pockets. Ironically, the same behavior they make up wild conspiracy stories about, to accuse Biden and his son of the same thing.
When nothing could be further from reality.
That is apparent in President Biden’s surprise visit to Ukraine on President’s Day.
Biden is everything the Republicans pretend to be when it comes to being a strong leader.
As was President Carter, I might add, but the GOP messaging machine used the same mental jujitsu to make an actor appear to be the embodiment of strong American interests while the guy who achieved the historic Camp David Accords was somehow weak on US foreign policy.
Trump had no concern for the interests of the American people in any of his dealings while in office and a large cadre of sycophants and venal cabinet members went along with the grift to further their own political and financial aspirations.
Think Mike Pompeo or Bill Barr’s jowly jaunts across Europe with Durham to try and dig up dirt on Biden to aid Trump’s re-election.
Giuliani dined out on this sort of for profit subterfuge for Trump’s entire term. Rudy even had a name plate he would put down at a table in the Trump Hotel’s steak house everyday and he would hold court as if it was his private office, with the added bonus of never-ending martinis and foreign nationals looking to do business with the Trump administration.
To use the vernacular of the street, ‘these motherf*kers didn’t even try and hide it’.
This is to say nothing of Trump’s 2016 campaign ties to Putin - and Trump’s campaign chairman, Paul Manafort working on behalf of Putin’s proxy president, Viktor Yanukovych.
Paul Manafort made millions off of Putin’s efforts in Ukraine. He even briefly went to jail for his crimes before being pardoned by Donald Trump (along with Manafort’s life-long co-conspirator, Roger Stone).
Does anyone believe Trump would be doing any differently right now if he were still in office?
Men like Giuliani would surely be sifting through the ashes making sure no spare change was left behind and the path was clear for Putin to continue his invasion.
All of the corruption that Trump’s cronies had participated in regarding Ukraine surely informed Trump’s demeanor towards the sovereign nation and it’s newly elected President Zelensky; a man who has since become a giant on the international stage and a symbol of bravery that will live on through the ages.
They will be singing songs about Volodymyr Zelensky in his homeland a hundred years from now and rightly so.
Trump on the other hand, fired his own incorruptible US Ambassador, Marie Yovanovitch.
Yovanovitch had her life put in danger and had to leave Ukraine for no other reason than running afoul of Trump’s interests and by extension, the interests of Vladimir Putin.
The Trump Organization had basically been a subsidiary of the Russian mob and a launderer of oligarch funds for decades.
Selling condos for cash to LLCs - set up by Russians looking to take vast sums of cash out of the former Soviet Union - became the backbone of Trump’s business beginning in the early 90’s.
This was also conveniently when Trump’s former associates in the Italian mob families were being locked up by Giuliani - and the much more ruthless and powerful Russian mobsters came into power in NYC, displaying an outsized interest in Trump-branded properties and casinos.
This was a poorly kept secret going back to the ‘Celebrity Apprentice’ days and the reason Trump’s lawyers were willing to lie to investigators about his close ties and business interests in Moscow during the 2016 campaign.
Trump had hoped his reward for becoming POTUS would be a shiny new tower in the heart of Moscow.
Paid for with oligarch cash.
Many men of ill repute were willing to do business with Putin on Trump’s behalf for a share of those dirty rubles, and some even went to prison for it.
You can draw a direct line between Trump’s extortion of President Zelensky and Putin’s invasion - and the subsequent human right’s atrocities and war crimes committed by Russian soldiers.
Brutality and cruelty in place of objective, a political reality in both the GOP and Putin’s Russia.
Democracy and freedom have no place in what passes for ideology in the American right. They are targeting individuals and minority groups and even trans and immigrant children.
Any party that sees fit to target children under any circumstance is no longer just a political ideology but an agent of evil.
Kevin McCarthy just turned over the January 6th tapes to Tucker Carlson’s producer so presumably they can rewrite the narrative, bending reality to Fox New’s J6 ‘false flag’ fantasy.
An egregious example of a Speaker of the House supplicating himself to outside, authoritarian interests.
Carlson is an avowed white supremacist and founder of the Daily Caller which traffics in online racist conspiracy theories and pro-Christofascist dogma.
Governor Ron DeSantis is attacking history itself down in Florida and hoping to remake the state’s educational system into some sort of white nationalist charter school operation.
That DeSantis himself is a graduate of Yale with a degree in HISTORY makes his attempted dumbing down of Floridians even more egregious - and also a thinly veiled attempt to create a permanent underclass that he and his cronies can lord over for generations to come.
All this points to how incredibly important it was for President Biden to declare America’s allegiance with Ukraine and why he inscribed into the history books our commitment to combat authoritarian aggression.
Biden’s covert trip to Kyiv on President’s Day was a strategic and mightily effective win for the forces that would protect freedom and democracy.
It also marks a moment where the Republicans are being permanently left behind in making any claim to be the ‘good guys’ in the fight for freedom.
Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has become essentially the GOP thought leader and mouthpiece, declared it was time for a ‘national divorce’ on twitter on President’s Day without a shred of irony or shame. Conveniently without mentioning that without funding from blue states, red states would fall into even deeper economic peril.
Even Florida - which has become an incubator for all sorts of anti-government rhetoric - receives a sizable chunk of its annual budget from federal funds (33.6% in fiscal year 2022).
Democrats are fighting for freedom while Republicans are trying to tear us apart: in the meantime, democratic policies are keeping the country afloat, pulling us out of a recession and boosting the economy.
At the same time, the GOP is threatening to adulterate Social Security and Medicare in an effort to hold the federal budget hostage over raising the debt ceiling. (Which was raised three times under President Trump with no alarm-ringing in the GOP).
The GOP is obstructing policy for no other reason than to hurt Biden, while promoting legislation that appeals only to a sense of cruelty and punishment for what they have trained their base to view as ‘woke’ - things such as feeding children and health care.
In my lifetime I don’t think I have seen a worse bunch of characters than those are currently occupying the GOP. Men and women completely bereft of any sort of morality and even at times, simple human kindness and character.
It makes it all the more important to recognize the genuine sincerity and empathy that Biden projects.
He is behaving consistently with America’s ideals - and returning our national sense of esprit de corps to the world stage.
When you do the right thing it shows - and it influences everything and everyone around you.
As dark as things may seem at times, with hope and compassion we, as Americans, can overcome any opposition, hate-filled rhetoric and authoritarian aggression.
Whether it comes from the Kremlin or Fox News or some bloated old fool in Mar-a-Lago and his greasy heir apparent.
In the end, truth, freedom and justice will prevail.
Keep your eyes on the prize - equality, empathy and equal protections for all Americans.
Enjoyed your take on the stark differences of Biden and Trump, and the fact that the criming was done in full view without a thought of consequences! I did a lot of yelling at the TV wondering when this outrageous corruption would stop! Thanks for being a knowledgeable voice with your eye on a just and kinder world we can have✌️
'So sad and so true. You are more of an optimist than I. I'm not thinking of the future, but only one day at a time-Mother Nature with her weapon of climate chaos will clean up the scum that you so aptly described. I can certainly see and feel it already happening....thank goodness I'm old.