I just posted this to Facebook…let the games begin…
Sorry, y’all…I made it over 4 years since I’ve posted anything political, but there is just too much happening right now to just sit idly by and not at least participate in the discussion.
I am really trying to remain objective and open-minded when analyzing specific issues happening in the world. I do my best to gather information from various sources that provide the arguments from all sides and attempt to remove opinions and bluster from the equation as best I can. But I am having a little trouble with the whole Russia/Ukraine war situation. I just can’t wrap my brain around why Trump is so obviously aligning with Russia and, more specifically, with Putin…and why so many of his supporters are following along with it.
Unlike a lot of people on social media, I’m not going to pretend that I am an expert on the historical details of the various conflicts between Russia and Ukraine (far from it, admittedly), but I believe I have a little understanding and general timeline of major events from about the time the USSR collapsed and individual parts formed their own, independent, sovereign nations up until today. Please, let me know what I’m missing and where I’m going wrong with my analysis.
In my view, it’s pretty clear to me who the “good guys” are in this war and who the “bad guys” are. Throughout the last 100+ years, we have spent a lot of resources in blood and money to push back against authoritarian and dictatorial nations around the world. Among other instances, it was with great sacrifice in blood and treasure that we succeeded in stopping the spread of such regimes in WWII. After the war, we allied with other democratic, freedom-loving nations around the world in order to prevent such a senseless war from ever happening again. Since then, this alliance (NATO) has succeeded in that mission and has probably been one of the most successful peace-keeping alliances in the history of mankind.
The biggest challenge in the NATO mission was in keeping the USSR (the biggest authoritarian dictatorship threat in the world after WWII) from expanding it’s territory and spreading it’s communist influence around the world. Thus, the Cold War began. There were some very serious and tense times during the Cold War where tensions could have resulted in mutual destruction. Bomb shelters and bomb drills in our schools were a real thing in those days.
The collapse of the USSR 35ish years ago was an incredible victory for freedom-loving people all over the world (and one that Republicans were extremely pleased about and were proud to give President Reagan the credit for). It marked the end of the Cold War and moved more of the world away from authoritarian governance and toward free, democratic societies. This was (and still is) obviously great for world peace and prosperity. The USSR broke up into various individual nations… some moving quickly to more western, democratic systems of government and some remaining more authoritarian.
Russia, for it’s part, retained the USSR mindset (and inherited most of the vast nuclear arsenal from the USSR). Since the fall of the USSR, Russia (under the leadership of Putin since 2000), has maintained its authoritarian, imperialistic, Soviet Union mentality, intent on restoring it’s former glory, power, and influence. Putin has stated that the collapse of the USSR was “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century” and has sought to restore Russian dominance over former Soviet states, like Ukraine, ever since.
Shortly after the fall of the USSR, Ukraine declared its sovereignty in 1991 with over 90% of its people supporting the separation from Russia and the other former USSR territories, but remained closely allied with Russia in its early independent days. In 1994, Ukraine agreed to give up its nuclear arsenal (the third largest stockpile in the world, at the time) in exchange for agreements with the United States, the U.K., and Russia that its independence, sovereignty, and security would be assured.
When, in 2014, Ukraine finally pushed aside the Russia-aligned leadership and more fully embraced the western democratic ideals, Putin, of course, was not happy about that. Understandably, there were many pro-Russia factions that remained in Ukraine, especially on the eastern side of the country, which obviously creation ongoing tensions and conflicts. Using the argument that many people in Eastern Ukraine were still more favorable to Russia then to the new pro-western shift and that Ukraine was persecuting them, Putin broke the 1994 agreement and militarily invaded the sovereign nation of Ukraine, conquering and annexing Crimea, claiming it as part of Russia. Also in not living up to the 1994 agreement, the United States and the U.K. essentially did nothing to protect Ukraine from this aggression or restore Crimea to Ukraine. They placed sanctions against Russia and used some strong talk and some increased weapons support for Ukraine, but ultimately it was not enough to prevent Russia from building up it’s forces and invading Ukraine again in 2022 in another attempt to further expand (or regain) its control and territory. Of course, that effort continues today.
After Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the United States led a coalition of nearly every free and democratic nation in the world to condemn Russia’s invasion. The coalition applied increased sanctions against Russia, and provided direct support to Ukraine in the fight to push back against Russia’s aggression. Again, this included all of our long-term allies that we have worked for over 8 decades to cultivate good relations with in order to hold authoritarian aggressors of the world in check. The free world (aka “the good guys”) agreed that Russia had no business invading an independent, sovereign and democratic nation and its reasons for doing so were not valid. Furthermore, this was not only President Biden’s position on the situation, but also was the position of the vast majority of the U.S. Congress which gave overwhelming bipartisan support to Zelensky and the people of Ukraine. And yet, after Russia’s invasion, Trump did not condemn it, but rather, he praised Putin’s strategic expertise in executing it, which was at odds with pretty much every non-authoritarian in the world.
Here is a list of the major countries that support Ukraine’s efforts to fight back against Russia’s aggression:
Albania
Australia
Austria
Belgium
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Brazil
Bulgaria
Canada
Colombia
Croatia
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Denmark
Estonia
Finland
France
Georgia
Germany
Greece
Iceland
Ireland
Israel
Italy
Japan
Jordan
Kenya
Kosovo
Latvia
Liberia
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Malta
Montenegro
Morocco
Netherlands
New Zealand
North Macedonia
Norway
Poland
Portugal
Qatar
Romania
Slovakia
Slovenia
South Korea
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
Taiwan
Tunisia
Turkey
United Arab Emirates
United Kingdom
What is the common denominator with these nations? For the most part and with a few exceptions, these are all of the freedom-loving, democratic nations of the world. In other words, the good guys of the world.
In contrast, here are the major countries that support Russia in its invasion of Ukraine:
Belarus
China
Iran
North Korea
Venezuela
Syria
And what is the common denominator of these nations? Like Russia, they are all authoritarian dictatorships. In other words, the bad guys of the world.
In my view, there is a pretty distinct pattern here.
So, after nearly a century of very successfully cultivating alliances with other democratic nations and encouraging and directly supporting many nations (like Ukraine) to transition from authoritarian to democratic systems…after holding ourselves up to the world as the “shining city on the hill” example of freedom-loving people…after leading the push-back of totalitarianism and authoritarian dictators around the world time and time again during the United States’ rise to the top of world leadership (something, by the way, that Republicans used to be very proud to brag about on a daily basis)…after all of that, through President Trump, we are now aligning ourselves with Russia and the rest of the bad guys of the world, while extorting and berating our democratic ally, even calling the democratically elected Zelensky (who won a landslide victory of over 74% of the vote in his 2019 election) a “dictator” and blaming Ukraine for starting the war (while never saying a negative thing about Russia or Putin’s actions)? It’s bizarre. And very concerning…a huge red flag, one might say.
And Trump’s voters are cheering all of this, seemingly now perfectly happy to go along with Trump in siding with Russia and the authoritarian dictator Putin and the rest of the villains of the world.
And this is where I’m confused…
Why do people support this?
So far, every rationale I have heard, such as the idea that Zelensky and his regime are Nazis, Ukraine is a threat to Russia because of its desires to become part of NATO (a peace-keeping alliance), Zelensky is a fraud and is stealing all of the money that we are sending over there, there is no benefit to the U.S. in supporting Ukraine and we shouldn’t get involved in these things, Hunter Biden something, something, something…none of these hold any water, in my opinion, after analyzing the full scope of the issue. But all of them are coincidentally direct talking points put out by Russia. So, again, what am I missing?
It seems very clear to me that this is one more example of how Trump, his administration, and his supporters are all moving us away from democratic ideals and toward an authoritarian government, separating ourselves from all of our allies and friends in the world and cozying up to all of the authoritarians and dictators. I can list at least 20 more specific, fact and evidence-based actions from Trump that are very worrisome red flags and provide even more evidence of this apparent march to authoritarianism. Maybe I’ll do that in another post, I don’t know.
For those who are in full support of Trump and his alignment with Putin, is this really what you want? An authoritarian regime? Because it’s quite clear to a majority of Americans and to the rest of the free, democratic nations around the world that we are running headlong and full speed toward that end. Do you really not see any of the authoritarian tendencies and actions?
And for those who just really don’t pay any attention to any of this because “politics is boring”, or “that could never happen in America”, or “oh well, there’s nothing we can do about any of it”, or “they are all bad, so why bother”, what will it take to nudge you out of your apathy and complacency and realize what’s happening?
Which leads me to the ultimate point of this writing…I believe that what we witnessed last week was one of the most disgraceful acts that has ever occurred from the Oval Office by a President and Vice President in the history of the nation. To attack the victim, a democratic ally, of an invasion by an aggressive dictator for “not wanting peace” and “not being grateful enough” (not to the American people, but to Trump himself) and being disrespectful because he attempted to push back on the implication that he was the problem in the ongoing invasion of his sovereign nation, was shameful, embarrassing, dangerous to world order, and, frankly, un-American to the core.
If this is what is meant by “Make America Great Again”, we are in very serious trouble.
Trump and Vance chastised Zelensky for not being conciliatory and nice to Putin, the person who ordered the invasion, death and destruction of his country and people. They were enraged at Zelensky for not simply bowing to Trump and thanking him for concocting a peace deal (which Ukraine didn’t even have a seat at the table in negotiating) that essentially amounts to Ukraine surrendering to Russia, ceding all territory that Putin took to Russia, and seemingly gaining no concessions from Russia whatsoever. On top of that, Trump insists that Ukraine give the U.S. much of its rare earth minerals for, I guess, brokering the “deal” that Ukraine was not even involved in negotiating. This was not so much a “deal” for Ukraine, but rather, an ultimatum from Trump. Vance then had the gall to lecture Zelensky about diplomacy. This, coming from the guy currently berating a friendly, democratic ally in public from the Oval Office. Diplomacy? Really? This, from the administration that is threatening our friends and allies and trading partners with ultimatums (do what we say or face damaging tariffs) without attempting to come to diplomatic, mutually beneficial agreements. This, from the administration that is threatening to annex Canada, and Greenland, and Panama. This, from the administration that is threatening to leave NATO, the world’s most successful peace-keeping alliance of freedom-loving democracies.
We are isolating ourselves from every friendly ally that we have developed such good relations with and aligning ourselves with the authoritarians…and Vance wants to chastise Zelensky about diplomacy? And when Zelensky attempted to explain how diplomacy was utilized time and time again, and how security assurances failed, time and time again, and that all he is asking for now is better assurances of security this time, Vance and Trump doubled-down on their attacks on him.
I guess some would say that I must not know or understand the real history of the conflict between Ukraine and Russia and that “the media” and the Democrats are simply lying about Zelensky and Ukraine being the good guys. I guess I’m supposed to ignore the determination of all of the free, democratic nations of the world, including the current stance of the United States as determined by the vast majority of the U.S. Congress (and the very strong support for Ukraine that our current Secretary of State provided not so long ago but now seems to have forgotten for some reason). I’m supposed to ignore all of that and believe the version of events put out by Putin, his state propaganda machine (which was invited into the Oval Office, btw), the previous pro-Russia Ukrainian leaders that were ousted in favor of a more pro Western democracy? I’m supposed to believe Russia’s allies like China, Iran, North Korea, Syria, Venezuela? All because Trump is a genius who is playing 30 dimensional chess or something…while he stands in front of the world and laments about how tough it’s been for Putin because he had to go through the terrible “Russia, Russia, Russia hoax” (but at least they were able to suffer through it all together…I guess)? Yeah, poor Putin had to endure so much!
Sorry, but that’s all just too irrational to wrap my brain around. But please feel free to educate me. Really, I’m serious…because this is all just so bonkers to me that I really hope that I’m missing something that will make it all make sense. But if you do want to refute anything here, please start with an explanation of what Trump’s actual peace plan consists of? What are the details of the plan? Compare and contrast what each side gains and loses from the deal, and then feel free to explain what I’m missing.
Thanks to the person that read this far. 🙂
