QUESTION. IS TRUMP JUST A PROXY-PRESIDENT FOR PUTIN?

Interesting how a business-oriented president deals with matters of democracy isn’t it? It’s not on his short list. Example. Russia is showing the world that they are intent on mischief, i.e. world domination. Or at the very least, neighborhood domination. They are continuously poking and prodding at their NATO neighbors either with ‘Whoopsie our bad we strayed into your airspace with drones sorry not sorry’ or ‘Attempted assassination? Attempted bomb planting on cargo planes? Who us?’ The list goes on. They probe. They test. They look for the soft-underbelly. They wait for a serious response to these efforts that never comes. Our president has been entirely silent on the subject, but everything he says and does sends the wrong signal to the Kremlin. He just said that Canada is harder to deal with than China or Russia. He invited the Russian finance minister to attend the Group of 20 summit last week for the first time since 2022. And then on Saturday, Trump’s envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, had a chummy meeting (Witkoff’s eighth such meeting) with Putin in the Kremlin. Before going to Kyiv for the very first time. Witkoff told the Butcher of Bucha “when we retire we’ll have all these incredible stories and incredible memories and yours will be right at the top of it all.” This is gag-inducing. Trump vowed to end the Russian war on Ukraine within 24 hours of his second term. More than 18 months later, the war continues to rage.  Then, while visitors in the country Putin attacked, Witkoff and Kushner appeared to advocate for Putin. All while seated next to Ukrainian president Zelenskyy. While somehow managing to gloss over the fact that the war began in 2022 with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. During a press conference, Kushner said: “From President Putin’s perspective, I think he has certain objectives that he expresses he wants to achieve but obviously there are different aspirations that he has for his country that can also be achieve once this is concluded.” “We will continue to have a positive dialogue in order to find a pathway to get there.” He added that Trump comes from the “business world”, where “you think about things in the context of win-win”. “How do you create opportunities for both sides. War is a negative sum,” he claimed. “Everyone loses from war, whereas business and peace is a positive sum, so hopefully we can find big benefits from that in a big way.” This is some serious AI-speak. These two paramount toadies to a murderer in the name of America are right. They did make some “incredible memories.” The world will remember America cozying up to a regime intent on destroying us. We will remember the tepid response to a democracy fighting for its survival while we wait to see who might win. All the while showing exactly who we expect that to be. And considering it just another business opportunity.