“I went in yesterday and there was a television screen, and I said, ‘This is genius.’ Putin declares a big portion of the Ukraine, of Ukraine, Putin declares it as independent. Oh, that’s wonderful.”
I’m no fan of Vladimir Putin, but I will give him credit for one thing.
When he purchased Donald Trump, whether through use of a carrot or a stick, he got his money’s worth.
No one who saw their joint press conference after their private meeting could have failed to notice Putin’s exuberance and Trump’s unhappiness. It was as if Trump had been meeting with his boss and had gotten a bad evaluation.
His relationship with Russia has always been a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma, to use the words Winston Churchill used in 1939 to describe Russia. Trump himself said he had no business with Russia and no money from Russians, but sons Don Jr. and Eric were quoted as saying they had plenty of business with Russians and got all the financing they needed from Russia.
If one thing is truly bizarre in all this, it’s the evolved change in attitude by Republicans toward Russia, in particular toward Putin. People who have a history of being anti-government seem to have fallen in love with the authoritarian Putin.
The fact is, when Trump was running for president in 2016, the one trait most prevalent among his followers was a belief in authoritarianism. Much of that fits in with a strain of Christianity known as dominionism,, a belief that Christians are chosen by God to rule over the world.
Of course, it’s difficult to imagine any leader less evocative of any sort of religion, let alone Christianity, as Donald Trump.
This is a man who said his favorite Bible verse is an eye for an eye, but completely ignores the fact that it’s about proportional response, not overwhelming revenge. Of course, this fits in perfectly with the dominionists, who seem to care far more about punishing homosexuals and preventing people from enjoying sex than they do about any message Christ actually believed in.
Too many people have gone off the deep end when it comes to politics. Too many people — particularly on the right — seem to have come to the conclusion that their lives are horrible, so all they want is for other people’s lives to be horrible too.
“Owning the libs” is more important to them than a successful country.
Trump and his superior, Vladimir Putin, will be more than happy to oblige them.