Trump’s Best Tweet Ever
Here is President Donald Trump — the pseudo-alpha male, the media-obsessed mean girl, the historical ignoramus, and the shameless pitchman — perfectly encapsulated in his own words, and in his own preferred setting, namely social media:
I have been FAR tougher on Russia than Obama, Bush or Clinton. Maybe tougher than any other President. At the same time, & as I have often said, getting along with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing. I fully expect that someday we will have good relations with Russia again!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 12, 2019
He has (maybe) been tougher on Russia than any other President, he says.
Can anyone name a single “tough” thing Trump’s administration has done to Russia, or at least done without rescinding or retreating on it in short order?
Can anyone name a single important policy or strategic issue in which Russia has a vested interest, which interest was not ultimately accommodated or conceded by Trump’s White House?
Can anyone imagine Ronald Reagan spitting on his allies at a major international conference by announcing that Russia’s annexation of Crimea was a done deal, the Russians have invested a lot of money building military infrastructure there, so the world just has to accept that it’s Russian territory now?
Can anyone think of another President whose campaign and early administration had so many prominent members with easily verifiable professional connections to the Russian government, Russia’s propaganda apparatus, and Russian oligarchs?
Does anyone remember the Cold War, or what that phrase referred to? Clearly Trump does not remember, since his typical claim that he is the toughest President on Russia suggests that he is unaware that Russia used to go by another name in geopolitical circles, and that resisting the global reach, and dire nuclear threat, of that Russia-centered entity was the centerpiece of American foreign policy from 1945 until 1991.
“I fully expect that someday we will have good relations with Russia again!” the moron exclaims.
“Again”? When were U.S. relations with Russia good? Perhaps in the nineteenth century? What in the world is Trump talking about? Does he even know? Does he even care?
If he means that relations were good in the period between the so-called “end of the Cold War” and some unspecified recent moment when they went “bad” again, then would this not nullify his claims that he is tougher on Russia than Obama, Bush, and Clinton? After all, if those were good days in U.S.-Russia relations, why should those three Presidents have been tough on Russia?
In fact, those post-Cold War years were very good for Russia, in the sense that, though decimated and humbled (by those non-tough Presidents of the weak old days), they were permitted, even helped, to reorganize as a nationalist oligarchical power with a former Soviet officer as its permanent leader, through the brazen corruption of every pretense at democratic reform.
All that has ended now, of course, thanks to Trump’s tough stand on Russia, and his fearless resistance to Vladimir Putin’s provocations and renewed Russian expansionism.
NO COLLUSION! Certainly.