No Collusion! (Trump Just Likes KGB Thugs)

Donald Trump is at the G-7 economic summit making news by acting, as he has done so many times before, as chief spokesman and apologist for Vladimir Putin.

Here is a video clip of his response to a direct question about the reason Russia was expelled from the former G-8, namely the annexation of Crimea:

Notice how Trump, Mr. Tell-it-like-it-is, begins by completely evading the gist of the question, which was “Do you think that Crimea should be recognized as Russia at this point?” — in other words, should Russia simply be allowed back in this prestigious group of economically elite nations in light of the fact that nothing has changed concerning the reason they were expelled in the first place, the occupation of a neighboring country’s territory against the collective will of the entire civilized world? Trump’s answer — “ask Obama” — reeks of sophistical deflection.

In short, Trump could not care less about Crimea, or more precisely about Putin’s thuggery. He wants his pal Vladimir — I love the way Putin pointedly calls Trump “Donald” in interviews, a potent reminder of the hold he clearly believes he has over the Orange McConnell — to be with him at this economic summit. Presumably, since for Trump everything is about his fame and glory, he regards the other leaders at the summit as too insignificant a group of players to justify his precious screen time. “How dare you cast me in a show with a bunch of nobodies!”

But there is also something slipped in toward the end of Trump’s full answer to the question that is revealing. Here is the relevant text:

You have to ask President Obama, because he was the one that let Crimea get away…. And he was the one that let Russia go and spend a lot of money on Crimea because they’ve spent a lot of money on rebuilding it, and I guess they have their submarine port there, etc. But Crimea was let go during the Obama administration, and, you know, Obama can say all he wants but he allowed Russia to Crimea. I may have had a much different attitude, but, so you’d really have to ask that question to President Obama…but with that being said, it’s been done a long time.

It has “been done” since 2014 — four years ago. That, for Trump, apparently constitutes “a long time,” such that it would be meaningless to continue this Euro-bickering about ancient history. That is the kind of argument — the exact argument, in fact — that you would expect from an unprincipled, power-infatuated admirer of all the world’s tyrants and bullies. “I mean heck, they did it, no one stopped them, so I guess they won that war — let them have it and move on.”

“So that big kid took your pencil case? Well, you didn’t have the guts to fight him at the time, so you’re just going to have to let him keep it, as well as letting him borrow anything he asks from your new pencil case too.”

And why, precisely, should the G-7, the supposed economic leaders of the alleged free world, let bygones be bygones regarding Russia’s very recent aggression? (Four years doesn’t seem so long to those of us working with more than a brain stem.) 

Trump’s implicit answer to this question tells you all you need to know about his moral outlook, his intellectual underpinnings, and, I would suggest, the extent to which his G-7 advocacy for Putin is a position for which he was literally prepped by friends of Russia: “they’ve spent a lot of money on rebuilding it, and I guess they have their submarine port there.”

Once Putin and his oligarch buddies moved in and invested, the land became theirs forever. No historical or political arguments avail against the force of a government-corporate occupation. “I guess they have their submarine port there”! A submarine port means the Russian navy has occupied this strategically significant territory precisely as a convenient way of expanding the reach and diversifying the positioning of their military — that is, of an American enemy’s military. And this is the fact Trump cites as justification for letting them have Crimea and forgetting the whole thing.

In the very same context, the imbecile actually has the audacity to say, with regard to the annexation, that if he had been president at the time, “I may have had a much different attitude.”

Right. If Trump had been president, perhaps all of Europe would be Russian territory now, with Trump defending Putin’s aggression, as he is today, by saying, “Gee, that was four years ago already! Can’t we just accept that he’s put a lot of money into building military bases in Spain and the Netherlands? That’s all settled now.”

When Obama made his inadvertently-recorded promise to Dmitry Medvedev that he would be freer to give Putin what he wanted after the 2012 election, a lot of conservatives started whispering the word “treason.”

With Trump, the same people are talking about 87-dimensional chess, negotiating genius, and how the Mueller investigation is a “deep state witch hunt.” 

If Trump is not somehow owned by friends and associates of Vladimir Putin, then he is certainly as great an actor as “reality television” has ever produced, as he is performing the role of Russian stooge perfectly.

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