Help Wanted: Freedom’s Protector

Trump answered the ad a long time ago but has failed at the job. The world knows it and must try its best to fill in.

The Resistant Grandmother (TRG…)

It would be nice if the “leader of the free world” knew how or wanted to be the leader of the free world.

But after a disastrous Friday tete a tete in Alaska, Trump showed again at a critical juncture he’s not up to it. If it were ever in doubt, Trump is not just failing, he’s actively helping the other side at our expense.

When people tell you who they are, believe them
It’s obvious. Trump went into the meeting in the kind of cavalier, “what will happen, will happen” attitude that invited the always-prepared Putin to take advantage of the never-prepared Trump. But for someone who approached the ramp-up for the meeting casually, that casualness was not reflected in the pomp and circumstance he used to greet and host the Russian Federation president at the site.

Trump welcomed Putin warmly, pressing not just the hand but the forearm in a mini embrace. And he didn’t just meet him at the airport, but rolled out the red carpet—literally.

Pimp my ride
Similarly, Trump just didn’t provide Putin with a ride to the meeting, but invited him into the American presidential limousine. In there, the criminal who has killed and brutalized innocent Ukrainians for the last two and a half years basked in the glory of being in like Flynn with the President of the United States.

The result? Political historians and analysts slammed Trump’s people-pleaser host personna as being wildly inappropriate and tone-deaf to the responsibilities of the American presidency. Protestors at rallies against the capital takeover by armed ICE thugs and national guardsmen now had new material for posters. One “save democracy” protester’s sign read, “Putin invades Alaska; Trump surrenders!”

Except for Trump’s followers and the alt-right media sphere, Trump again looked weak, and Putin strong—just like Helsinki in 2018. And just like Helsinki, Trump appeared not to realize how bad he looked, or cared.

Not a good job fit
It also doesn’t occur to or matter to Trump that his toady-up routine would backfire, as it did.

Trump echoed Putin’s terms for peace, upending a spring and summer’s worth of previous agreements with Western allies.

After Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance’s disastrous humiliation of President Zelensky in the Oval Office with Secretary of State Marco Rubio looking on, Zelensky retreated to Western Europe where leaders treated him royally–incuding a warm meeting with King Charles–and respectfully.

Then came Trump’s being invited to Europe for meetings and agreements to undo the damage and set things straight. Between March and May, Trump entered into a number of agreements joining some he made in 2018 at a NATO summit in Brussels. All of them represented democratic values as they pertained to the Ukraine crisis, including:
* No negotiations for peace until and unless the Russians agreed to a ceasefire
* Any agreements between the parties would be backed up by tight security,
guarantees of more weaponry, boots on the ground of European soldiers if necessary to provide needed muscle to a dwindling and increasingly exhausted Ukrainian
military.
* Continuous Western pressure on Russia in the form of sanctions, weaponry, and
diplomatic efforts to end the conflict.
* Continuing to treat Putin as an outcast, so as not to normalize the violence and
cruelty he’s inflicted on Ukraine.

Trump signed on to these understandings. But during Friday’s Alaska Summit, the old pro-Putin Trump was firmly in control. As for trying to make amends for treating Zelensky so shabbily by ostensibly realigning himself with our Western allies in the spring and early summer, Trump undid all that last Friday—insulting Zelensky all over again in his Magical Thinking One-Day Alaska Tour.

It was then the old Kremlin talking points regained ascendency:
* Ukraine was somehow at fault for Russia’s invasion
* Good times were ahead for Moscow and (assumedly) an annexed Ukraine if that
worn-torn country would just accede to Russian wishes
* Russia should not be accountable or be punished in the least for the cruelty
and death inflicted on the Ukrainians and for thousands of kidnapped children
taken to Russia and adopted out to Russian families.

We get our information now from Russia
Did Trump actually sign off on those ideas? The answer is yes, apparently, although we have only the Russians’ word for it, as the only statement of agreement has been released by the Russians, not the U.S.

Following the conference, Dmitry Medvedev, former Prime Minister of the Russian Federation and now Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council, issued the statement. It included five items supposedly agreed to between Putin and Trump:

1) There will be restoration of bi-lateral relations with Russia, with Putin owning up to no accountability for his invasion of Ukraine. How Trump’s deal with Putin betrays previous Trump/EU agreements: At the July 2018 NATO Summit in Brussels, Trump agreed to present a united front against Russian aggression.

While Trump often spoke about having better relations with Putin, including inviting him back into the G-7 group of Western economic leaders, the NATO Summit stressed the commitment among Western leaders to maintain a strong stance against Russian aggression in that area of the world—especially after Russia had already annexed Crimea by force.

2) There would be no pre-conditions, like a ceasefire, for ending the Ukraine conflict. How Trump’s deal with Putin betrays previous Trump/EU agreements: In May of this year, Trump took part in negotiations with the U.K.’s Keir Starmer, France’s Emmanuel Macron, Germany’s Frederic Merz, and others that there must be a ceasefire before any negotiations to end the war in Ukraine took place.

According to the Russian announcement following last Friday’s meeting, Trump has agreed with Russia that it need not end its attacks on Ukraine before negotiations—the direct opposite of his agreement with our allies. With neither a press conference nor a statement from the White House, the world has only the Russian version of events that shows Trump reneged on that agreement with our allies and took Putin’s side on the issue.

3) Again, according to the Russian statement of agreement after the Alaska summit, there would be no pressure on the Russians in the foreseeable future to end the conflict.

How Trump’s deal with Putin betrays previous Trump/EU agreements: Again, in recent discussions with our European allies, Trump agreed the U.S. and Europe would continue to pressure Russia to end the conflict. The agreement was meant to show the West had taken a unified stance to both maintain sanctions and diplomatic pressure with the aim of reaching a resolution to the ongoing war.

4) Negotiations to end the war will occur as Russia continues to conduct its warfare on Ukrainians. How Trump’s deal with Putin betrays previous Trump/EU agreements: Earlier this year Trump and America’s European allies announced that negotiations to end the war would occur following a ceasefire.

Donald Trump ended the Alaska summit basically washing his hands of helping Ukraine end the war that began with Russia’s unprovoked invasion of it on Feb. 24, 2022. So the deal between Trump and Putin reads:

5) The responsibility for ending the war now rests with Zelensky, even after Trump agreed to all of Russia’s conditions that made it virtually impossible for him to do so. How Trump’s deal with Putin betrays previous Trump/EU agreements: This comment represents a 180 degree shift in focus—from allies standing strong with Ukraine by bringing allied pressure against the Russians to now leaving it up to the beleaguered Ukrainian government to deal with Russia all alone.

Indifferent and unreliable
Tomorrow’s meeting in the Oval Office between Trump, Zelensky, and the panoplay of Western European leaders marks a turning point in America’s position in the world, certainly since the end of World War II.

Whereas for the last 80 years the United States has been looked up to for its commitment to democracy, America under Trump has shown itself to be not only an unreliable leader, but now even an unreliable partner in that effort. It’s a country that can’t be trusted any more.

Our oldest ally tells it like it is
French Senator Claude Malhuret captured that sense of betrayal last March. As he addressed a general session of the French Congress shortly after meeting the newly inaugurated president, his scathing assessment of the 47th president was like a shot heard round the world.

Describing the damage Trump has done to the American government, he pointed out how Trump has been the first American president to set about destroying his country—appointing Trump loyalists, not experts, to key positions and destroying a gold-standard governmental apparatus with the chainsaw cruelty and recklessness of Elon Musk.

Playing with fire
In that, Malhuret compared Trump to two of the cruelest Ancient Roman emperors, Caligula and Nero, calling the American president an “incendiary emperor” who. has flaunted his irresponsibility both to his country and the rest of the world unlike any previous person who has held the job:
“Never in the history of the United States has an American President capitulated to
an enemy. Never before has he supported an aggressor against an ally.”

Trump’s “seizure”
Malhuret added Trump’s authoritarianism was not just part of an “illiberal drift” similar to right-leaning political challenges in various European counries. Instead, Trump has set out to engage in a “wholesale replacement, a seizure of democracy”—with the intention of destroying it for America and the world.

That shield is gone
Although continuing to “have faith in the fortitude of democracy” as evidenced by energetic, ongong protests in the U.S., Malhuret did not downplay Trump’s massive danger. Speaking in March, Malhuret said:
“In one month Trump has done more damage than he had in the four years of his
previous presidency.” He added, America was once a “shield” for the protection of
freedom, “but now that shield is gone.”

As President Zelensky and the Western heads of state deplane in a Washington D.C. now taken over by an oppressive federal law enforcement presence, the description of Donald Trump as a “capitulator” and “supporter of an aggressor” may hang over the discussions as European leaders know exactly what’s going on.

The last bulwarks
Europe’s leaders may be the last bulwark for democracy against Russian agression on their continent. In the meantime on this continent, Europe apparently sees the “fortitude of democracy” resting on the shoulders of those protestors who continue to demonstrate against Trump.

—trg

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