The second largest country in Europe has just been invaded by the largest country, Russia. The reason is to restore the grandeur and scope of the old USSR, one piece at a time.
The 44 million people of Ukraine live in a country that became part of the Soviet Union exactly 100 years ago. After President Ronald Reagan won the Cold War, Ukraine re-emerged as a nation in 1991.
Post-Soviet Russia is really just an oil company with an army. When did you last buy appliances, cameras, computers, clothes, cars or furniture from Russia? Never. Their economy is the size of underdeveloped Brazil but Donald Trump thinks Putin is the greatest thing since sliced bread.
Most embarrassing to those of us few Republicans who think Russia is a menace (having grown up during the Cold War) is our past president’s view on February 22 that:
“This is genius. ‘Putin declares a big portion of the Ukraine … Putin declares it as independent. Oh, that’s wonderful,” Trump said in an interview on “The Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show.”
What got Donald Trump excited is that Putin set up two alternative governments in Eastern Ukraine, just like the alternate slate of illegal Trump electors in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, despite their official governments having declared Trump the 2020 loser. Praise flowed from a U.S. president that could be as enthusiastic as that from the president of Belarus!
Later in February our former president said: “So Putin is now saying, ‘It’s independent,’ a large section of Ukraine. I said, ‘How smart is that?’ And he’s going to go in and be a peacekeeper. That’s the strongest peace force I’ve ever seen. … Here’s a guy who’s very savvy. … I know him very well. Very, very well.”
If this is a peacekeeping mission then Trump doesn’t really know the Butcher of Ukraine. Rather than a violation of international law when one country invades another (like Hitler in Poland in 1939), Trump sees this as merely a land deal when he said “it is a great piece of land with a lot of people, and just walking right in.”
It is very unnerving that a man who was once our commander in chief sees the bombing and slaughter as “just walking right in.”
Those Republicans with yellow Don’t Tread on Me stickers and “fighting for freedom” slogans on their cars should have the consistency to side with Ukraine and not Putin and Trump. You choose either democracy and sovereignty or an invading dictator cheered on by Putin’s puppy.
Call me what you will, but I am a Reagan Republican not a Trumputin Republican.
How about you?
Chuck Douglas is a former Republican U.S. congressman from New Hampshire who was sworn into office when Ronald Reagan was president.
