So this is how it’s going to be. On one side, President Biden in tense consultation with our NATO allies. The entire U.S. military on high alert, with American troops mobilizing en masse, suddenly called up, saying quick goodbyes to their families and transporting in huge planes to bases in Poland and Eastern Europe. Ukraine, a potential ally, under dire threat of imminent attack. Literally tens of thousands of lives at risk. The looming possibility of a prolonged and far broader conflict that could fundamentally reshape the world all of us currently live in.
And on the other side? Donald Trump, the indisputable leader of the Republican Party, heaping fulsome praise on Putin for his “genius” and “savvy.”
As reported by Summer Concepcion, for Talking Points Memo:
In case you were wondering about how the Ukraine crisis is sitting with former President Trump, he has weighted in. In an appearance on the conservative radio program “The Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show” earlier today, the former president praised Putin’s decision to recognize two separatist regions in eastern Ukraine.
“I went in yesterday and there was a television screen, and I said, ‘This is genius,’” Trump said, narrating his experience of watching the Ukraine crisis unfold on TV. “Putin declares a big portion of the Ukraine — of Ukraine — Putin declares it as independent. Oh, that’s wonderful. So, Putin is now saying, ‘It’s independent,’ a large section of Ukraine. I said, ‘How smart is that?’ And he’s gonna go in and be a peacekeeper. That’s strongest peace force … We could use that on our southern border.”
So while many in this nation spent the last 24 hours in a state of vertiginous dread, marking the hours while Vladimir Putin prepared an unprovoked assault on a country grown too fond of democracy for his palatial taste—so confident that his nuclear missiles targeting American and European cities will forestall any NATO military response—Donald Trump was busy giving an interview to two sycophantic boobs from the right-wing echo chamber.
That’s the strongest peace force I’ve ever seen. There were more army tanks than I’ve ever seen. They’re gonna keep peace all right. No, but think of it. Here’s a guy who’s very savvy… I know him very well. Very, very well.
He knows him “very, very well.” Well, yes, yes he does. After all, they go back a long way.
Nearly every Republican running for a major elective office is in thrall to this man. He is their model, their hero, their master. This is the man they seek to emulate as they prepare to sell their sordid “agenda” to the American people in 2022. This singular person who the entire Republican Party kowtows to, thoughtlessly abasing themselves as they leap to ratify his every word and action, no matter how foul or unAmerican. His thoughts are now their thoughts; his morality is their morality.
But there’s never been an instance of American troops potentially called to stand in harm’s way where a former president has so eagerly and gleefully embraced the enemy. That is truly something new.
I guess we’ll just have to wait and see how the rest in his party respond to that.