Was President Donald Trump a Russian asset all along? Does Russian President Vladimir Putin, as anti-Trumpers allege, have some kind of kompromat on him? Does Trump simply prefer dictators to Democrats? Or has he borne a grudge against Volodymyr Zelensky since attempting to coerce the Ukrainian president into investigating then-presidential candidate Joe Biden in 2019?
It could be any of the above or all or none. After the events of the past week, frankly, who cares? Trump has acted exactly as he would if he were a Kremlin puppet. Whether he has been blackmailed or flattered into doing Putin’s bidding or whether he is following his own instincts, he has effectively put the diplomatic weight of the United States at the disposal of a man who hates the West and everything it stands for.
I wanted to stay off the subject of MAGA. Trump’s early decisions on the Department of Government Efficiency, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the diversity racket were inspiring. I felt like cheering after Vice President JD Vance’s speech in Munich. And, in any case, unless someone finds some way around the two-term limit, there is no point in being an anti-Trumper anymore.
But I never imagined that the leader of the world’s strongest democracy would line up with the autocracies against NATO. I don’t mean simply that he has withdrawn support for Ukraine. The U.S. has every right to stop funding an overseas war — although exercising that right, after guaranteeing Ukrainian independence, is hardly honorable.
No, the truly shocking thing is to see Trump become Putin’s propagandist and ally. Isolationism is a consistent and respectable position, though not one I happen to share. This is something else. This is switching sides.
“Zelensky better move fast or he is not going to have a country left” is a line better suited to a mafia capo than to the leader of the world’s greatest republic.
Every claim that Trump makes about the Ukrainian leader is demonstrably false. Zelensky did not provoke the war — except in the sense that FDR provoked the Japanese by refusing to sell them oil or George W. Bush provoked Osama bin Laden by maintaining troops on the Arabian Peninsula. Putin chose to attack a peaceful neighbor which offered Russia no threat.
Nor has the U.S. been Ukraine’s main financial backer; Europe has given it more aid. Zelensky’s approval ratings are not 4%. Yes, they are down from their 90% peak in 2022, but most agencies still show him polling in the 50s, a little ahead of where Trump is.
It is true that there have been no elections since the invasion, just as Winston Churchill held no elections during World War II, but that does not make either man a dictator. Russia wants elections in Ukraine so as to slow the talks up and optimize its territorial position in advance of a final settlement. Trump is backing Russia’s demand as he is doing across the board.
So, by implication, is the entire U.S. government. The way in which Trump’s groupies copy his every twist and turn no longer surprises me (though it still sometimes disgusts me). MAGA cultists have unhesitatingly followed the new party line as Western communists did after the Hitler-Stalin pact.
This, though, goes well beyond online noise. Secretary of State Marco Rubio had spent his entire career opposing Putin, Castro, and other dictators. As recently as 10 months ago, he was writing to President Biden accusing Russian military intelligence of seeking to assassinate American officials. Yet now, with that wan expression we so often see on the faces of people who have won the victory over themselves and come to love Big Brother, he stutters out nonsense about “the incredible opportunities that exist to partner with the Russians, geopolitically on issues of common interest, and frankly economically.” That’s the Trump effect.
Stand back and look at the regime America is backing. Unlike Ukraine, Russia has completely abandoned democracy. Opposition politicians are exiled, jailed, murdered. Journalists are assassinated. Lying is a way of life, from Putin’s denials that he had any aggressive intent toward Ukraine to Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s ludicrous claim, even as drones and missiles rained down, that Russia never targeted critical Ukrainian infrastructure.
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Putin has carried out acts of war against the West, ordering assassinations on British soil, buzzing NATO airspace, and launching cyberattacks. He makes no secret of his belief that liberal capitalism is his enemy and that autocracy is cleaner, nobler, manlier.
That is the country that Trump is now backing — no, the country that the United States is now backing. God help us.