I Am Struggling, Now -- Angry That Four Tangerine Years Of Appeasement Led To Putin's Aggressions -- Decimating Freedoms In Ukraine

Honestly, this anger has been rising in me, for about a week. Tangerine has been openly praising the murderous Putin (likely in hopes of finding a back channel way to have his real estate portfolio still be able to get bank loans, from Russian oligarchs, since the rest of world is turning its back on Baby-T -- and sanctions are in place against the Russian banks so, is it to be Monero-, or Bitcoin- denominated?) in ways that would have been unthinkable even a few years ago, for any former preznit.

But his calling Putin "a genius", playing right into his hands -- on the world stage, and encouraging his minion Candace Owens to suggest Putin's state media address. . . is the proper place to gather one's analytical opinions about how "the US is in the wrong" here. . . is Orwellian in the extreme.

I'll quote a lil' EmptyWheel from yesterday morning, since my words are largely failing me now, on this:

. . .Republican members of Congress genuinely came to believe — because they had to! — that criticism of Trump’s refusal to spend the money in support of Ukraine they had appropriated was just another Democratic attack on Trump and not an attempt to save the integrity of American democracy. All this culminated in Stop the Steal. . . a literal attack on American democracy; Republican fealty to Trump forced them -- more reluctantly at first and driven in large part by real terror — to defend an assault on Congress.

By February 13, 2021, the date the Senate voted to acquit Donald Trump of inciting an attack on Congress, Republicans had put loyalty to Donald Trump over defense of the country and the Capitol in which they worked.

Sure, Putin didn’t get Trump to carve up Ukraine as President. But he got so much more from Trump’s presidency. . . .

Putin did get Trump to do real damage to NATO. He got Trump to largely abandon Syria. Trump made a humiliating deal with the Taliban that would result in the US withdrawing its military from Russia’s back door. After years of Russia having to work hard to highlight American hypocrisy on human rights, Trump did things like pardon war criminals, forever tainting America’s claim to be exceptional.

And through it all, Trump created his own authoritarian-supporting militias, heavily armed troops inspired by resentment who have the ability to make the United States ungovernable. Trumpist Republicans are making localized efforts to dismantle democracy. Trump’s Supreme Court nominees have abandoned legal precedent. . . .

Which brings us to this moment. . . .

So true. We should not send our troops to die in Ukraine -- that is something of which I am fairly convinced (the human cost of defeating Putin will be. . . too high there -- despite his bluster, he's actually seizing oil fields, mostly).

But perhaps we should offer Tangerine and Owens a relocation package -- to Moscow, permanently. It seems they'd prefer. . . life there. Me? I'm all for it.

नमस्ते