Vladimir Putin is a vicious, unprincipled thug whose goal is nothing less than the humbling of the United States by any means necessary.
He is not only the enemy of western civilization; he’s the enemy of human civilization. So why is Donald Trump cheering this gangster on?
He is “pretty smart,” Mr. Trump said on Wednesday at a Florida fund-raiser, assessing the impending invasion like a real estate deal. “He’s taken over a country for $2 worth of sanctions,” he said, “taking over a country — really a vast, vast location, a great piece of land with a lot of people — and just walking right in.”
No doubt Trump has his own reasons to say nice things about Putin, and one of them is certainly that it’s causing the heads of his political enemies to explode. For his own amusement and that of his supporters, Trump frequently acts the contrarian — and the media and left fall right into his trap every time.
But most Republicans — including Trump supporters — have condemned the invasion and Vladimir Putin.
When former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke at CPAC on Friday, he made it quite clear whose side he was on in the Ukraine conflict.
During an interview with Fox News on the sidelines of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) Friday, Pompeo criticized the Biden administration’s foreign policy approach but said he is only hoping for their success.
“I am rooting for the Biden administration to be successful — in spite of my critique and my enormous concerns about the policies that they’ve chosen,” Pompeo told Fox News. “I want them to be successful.”
In January, Pompeo made some realpolitik observations about Putin and his capabilities. Was this praise? Or an honest assessment of Putin’s abilities?
“He is a very talented statesman. He has lots of gifts,” Pompeo told Fox News in January. “He was a KGB agent, for goodness sakes. He knows how to use power. We should respect that.”
Pompeo, unlike Trump, didn’t enthusiastically and admiringly praise the Russian president. Biden obviously underestimated Putin, believing that threats of sanctions would deter him. But because of Pompeo’s close association with Trump, the former secretary of state was condemned anyway.
The former CIA director and secretary of state has come under fire for mixing some praise in with criticism of Vladimir Putin in a recent podcast interview. That is enough, in some corners of Twitter, to be called a traitor. Other critiques have been slightly more sophisticated, like the Lincoln Project’s Steve Schmidt, who wrote that “Pompeo is an American Gerhardt Schroeder,” referring to the former German chancellor who became close to Putin and profited enormously from it. Continuing, Schmidt said Pompeo is “a self dealing blusterer whose grift, vanity and ambition have twisted him into a smiling shill for Vladimir Putin.” Denunciations quickly followed on Morning Joe.
Just being a Republican is enough to be tagged with the “traitor” moniker.
That’s par for the course these days, when critics of President Joe Biden’s handling of the Ukraine crisis can quickly face vilification from a chorus of American voices quick to accuse other Americans of disloyalty. For example, Matthew Dowd, the former George W. Bush political strategist, tweeted recently, “If you are blaming Biden today for what Putin is doing in Ukraine please take down the American flag from your home or social media account and replace it with the Russian flag. It will help us all know where you clearly stand.”
The entire Republican congressional leadership has condemned Putin and the invasion. Most mainstream GOP media outlets have supported the Ukrainian government in their war for survival.
Related: Biden Update Does Not Inspire Confidence in Ukraine’s Future
Criticizing Joe Biden for his milquetoast sanctions on Russia is not the same as rooting for Putin and Russia. Pointing out steps the president could have taken before the invasion that might have caused Putin to hesitate isn’t treasonous.
But there are enough notable Republicans who have decided, for whatever reason, to admire Putin in his bid to crush Ukrainian independence. Because of that, the left has been given an opening to attack the entire GOP. Guilt by association can be a potent political weapon, and Republicans walked right into it.
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