Nancy Pelosi is wont to observe that “all roads lead to Russia” or that “all roads lead to the Kremlin. But what if we just brought the Kremlin here? Ever wonder what it would be like if Vladimir Putin became President of the United States? Well, wonder no more. Thanks to the efforts of Donald J Trump and his cronies, we are now able to compile a list of what life would be like if the great puppet master were to become the leader of the free world. The list is not all-inclusive, so feel free to critique or add your own items to the list.
If Vladimir Putin were POTUS:
- As a candidate, if notified that Russia was interfering in the election on his behalf, he would fail to contact the FBI and would lie when asked about it.
- He would hire an operative of known Russian oligarchs as his campaign manager.
- He would have his son and campaign manager host a meeting of Russian operatives in his own house in the hopes of obtaining political dirt on his opponent.
- He would engineer changes in the GOP platform to soften the language of support for Ukraine.
- Upon taking office, he would immediately invite two prominent Russians into the oval office, one of them a suspected Russian spy, and share top secret intelligence.
- He would appoint a known Russian asset and convicted felon to be his National Security Advisor.
- He would ask the FBI director to stop “the Russia thing” and when that demand is refused would fire the Director of the FBI.
- He would actively interfere with and resist the implementation of Russian sanctions and would recommend dropping current sanctions.
- He would aggressively search for alternate explanations (conspiracy theories) of 2016 election interference to justify retraction of Russian sanctions.
- He would attempt to undermine NATO by threatening to withdraw the U.S. or holding up financial assistance.
- He would undermine US Intelligence agencies and denigrate the CIA and FBI as “the deep state.”
- He would recommend that France leave the EU.
- He would openly support Brexit in UK.
- He would openly befriend and be supportive of other dictators such as Orban, Jong-un, Bolsanaro, etc, and support right wing nationalists such as Le Pen and Farage.
- He would, of course, congratulate himself on his own re-election as president of Russia, despite the recommendation of aides that the Russian election was fixed.
- He would go on to congratulate himself at Helsinki and declare that he had nothing to do with the 2016 election interference, in contradiction to US intelligence agencies and the findings of the US Senate investigation.
- He would defend and rationalize the Russian invasion of Afghanistan.
- He would shut down the US government for no particular reason.
- He would refuse to condemn the Russian piracy of Ukraine naval vessels and imprisonment of Ukrainian sailors in international waters.
- He would dismantle the European Reassurance Initiative to resist Russian threats on the Eastern border
- He would initiate withdrawal of US troops from Syria.
- He would halt joint military training in the South China Sea.
- He would halt US naval exercises in the Black Sea.
- He would declare that a free press was the enemy of the people.
- He would withdraw the US from the Iran treaty as a means to sow dissent with US allies and enhance Russian influence in the Middle East.
- He would withdraw from the Paris accord to further sow dissension and instability in Western alliances.
- He would withdraw from TPP, thus encouraging trade between Russia, China and Pacific Rim countries.
- He would impose U.S. tariffs on China, thus encouraging China to increase trade with Russia.
- He would again withdraw troops from Syria, this time at the Turkish border and basically cede control of the area to Turkey and Russia.
- He would lift sanctions on Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska and pave the way for Deripaska to begin development in the home state of the majority leader of the Senate.
- He would refuse to impose sanctions against Russia following the Skripal poisoning in UK.
- He would refuse to acknowledge any Russian involvement in the assassination of a Chechen Rebel in Berlin.
- He would recommend that Russia be readmitted to the G7.
- He would repeatedly have meetings with himself, out of earshot of any US government personnel.
- He would attempt to permanently imbed an oligarchy class by implementing huge tax breaks for the uber-wealthy.
- He would hold up aid to Ukraine in the face of constant Russian aggression and make it dependent upon obtaining dirt on his political opponent.
- He would continue to insist that Ukraine had meddled in the 2016 and that Russia was innocent.
- He would employ elements of the Russian military to create a fake dossier alleging that Joe Biden’s son was involved in Ukraine corruption.
- He would refuse sanctions of Turkey for Turkish purchase of Russian defense systems.
- He would countermand disciplinary orders within the US military, causing division in the ranks, and weakening the overall chain of command, thus benefiting military adversaries such as Russia.
Yikes! Good thing Vlad did not become POTUS…oh, wait…