Trump’s Praise of Putin is Deplorable
Ed Shaffer, Letter to the Editor, 03/30/2022
Editor,
As expected, following the invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces, it did not take long for the corrupt former president, Donald Trump, to jump into the fray. Following Putin’s illegal declaration of independence for two Ukrainian provinces and Russia's illegal attack of that country, nothing but praise emanated from Trump: “This is genius.” “Putin declares it as independent. Oh, that’s wonderful.” “How smart is that?” “Here’s a guy who’s very savvy.”
There is a history of Trump’s adoration of the Russian President. When still in office in 2018, Trump dismissed US intelligence reports of Russian tampering in the 2016 election by summarily accepting Putin’s denial of such activity. This prompted outrage from then Senator McCain: “no prior president has ever abased himself more abjectly before a tyrant,” adding: “The damage inflicted by President Trump’s naiveté, egotism, false equivalence, and sympathy for autocrats is difficult to calculate.” More recently, Representative Liz Cheney said, in reference to Trump’s remarks on the Ukraine situation: “Donald Trump was emboldening the US’s foreign adversaries.”
While in office, Trump did all he could to destroy solidarity between the US and NATO. President Biden has stepped up to the task of healing those wounds, so a united schedule of effective sanctions and NATO support against Russia can be applied to halt Putin’s aggressive plans to remake the Soviet Union. Putin has demonstrated his disdain for democratic governments, especially those in Europe where he could pull them into his autocratic fold, and “the Donald” seems quite satisfied with that position.
Face it, Putin is a tyrant! Nonetheless, he is being supported and praised by Trump and some of his Republican supporters in the U.S. Congress. Putin is being enabled by these far-right fans of authoritarian dictators. We the people must stop them before they do any more damage to our democracy and our world!
Ed Shaffer
Galien