In a post last week I mentioned Principles First, an alternative convention to the CPAC sycophants dancing with Trump last week. The participants at the counter meeting yet have no tent. They're hoping not to become Democrats. They know a third party fares poorly, but the Trump side-show isn't the same Republican Party that they can relate to. But even the most disenchanted among them couldn't have imagined the Trump/Zelensky meeting on Friday.
By late Friday afternoon, all the click-baiters on media and the social media undercard were analyzing the brawl. Those on the right side of the ring said that Zelensky wasn't respectful and appreciative. Those on the left side said that Trump and Vance tag-teamed their guest. Assuming that the European and world media would be more objective about what happen, most, with Hungary being the exception, agreed that Zelensky was the abused party.
Getting back to the Principles First tent looking for a label. I think that after hearing the Lindsey Graham types rattle on Friday night that Zelensky should resign, some more thoughtful Republicans will be coming out of their zombie trance and start looking toward the future. The super-partisans are praising Trump for putting America first, and his peace before endless wars. That raises the question, was the ambush coming Zelensky's way, regardless of what he said or didn't say? Either way, Trump's tantrum(s) lowered our esteem on the world stage. Trump later trying to defend himself after the meeting in a red hat, may have been a sight too far, even for the partisans.
What happened is that President Trump sees little value in negotiating with Vladimir Putin and is forcing Ukraine into capitulation as the easiest path for him and his goals. Trump is shifting all of the blame for this war to Zelensky, portraying him as an "obstacle to peace", to cover up for his own disaster.
ReplyDeleteIsn't Trump supposed to be a "Mater Negotiator" ? Isn't he supposedly be able to work with difficult people? Get them to compromise, the "Art of the deal" ?
Apparantley not. All he does is bully people. And if bullying doesn't work, then he ignores them.
I fail to see how the Ukraine/Russia situation is a Trump-created disaster. Please explain.
DeleteDemocrats were all in favor with Zelensky the day before his meeting witj President Trump.
DeleteIt's inconceivable that after three years of war and the loss of millions of young men and women On Both Sides, that the continuation of this slaughter is the right path to peace.
Have we become savages?
Well, there is a lot going on here. For whatever reason Trump has elected to side with Russia. In many conversations in the past, before the meeting with Zelinsky happened, Trump was saying that Putin was not such a bad guy; that he admires him, and that Putin knows how to do things.
Deletein 2018, at the Helsinki Security Summit, Trump sided with Putin against US intelligence services about Russian interference in the 2016 US election. And most dramatically, just a few weeks ago at the United Nations, Trump instructed our ambassador there on the third anniversary of Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine you had Donald Trump to vote against the resolution chasticizing Russia along with North Korea, Iran and various other bad contries. Even Communist China elected to abstain, but the United States under Donald Trump, sided with the dictators against the world's democracies.
So far, if you look at everythig that has happened, Donald Trump has been demanding ; threatening, and hectoring Zelensky in every possible way, and has not said a single thing to Putin. If he's trying to get Putin to do something, he should be jumping up and down, hectoring and threatening Russia as well. He has not said a single thing.
There has not been a moment where Donald Trump or any of his people have demanded anything of Russia. So if they were hoping for peace, then why would they not be criticizing Putin for incrasing the level of bombing of Ukraine's cities and killing civilians in Ukraine while this supposed peace negotiation has been going on ?
It seems that everyone has been trying to thread the needle through some tiny little hole to make it look like there is some strategy here that Donald Trump is doing something right. But there is not one single element of reality that supports that.
What we see happening is that Trump is siding with Putin; siding with the agressor; siding with the victim on every possible way. There is no way to unpack that and look like there is some Grand Strategy hree, because it does not appear that there is.
Your interpretation is appreciated. Trump has already stated he’s spoken with Putin often and recently. Neither one of us knows, nor should we know, what those two are saying.
DeleteI don’t see Russia as an enemy. You do. I see Russia as a competitor, at least for now.
Regardless of past history, I firmly believe Trump is right in demanding the killing stops. In refusing to fund hostilities, and in trying to maintain/create a productive relationship with Putin. I further believe America serving as a ‘backstop’ to European globalist actions against Russia is far too risky. The globalists can do what they want, but share full responsibility for their own bravado.
Thanks again. From a voter registered as No Party.
Doubt that President Trump could win the majority vote including 7 swing States with Bully tactics
DeleteMore likely that We the People heard him and are pleasantly over whelmed with results to date.
Furthermore Russia, Russia, Russia was getting a tad too old.
The part of the discussion that was relevant was that Trump was trying to save Ukraine as a country. Zelensky want to fight on and it will be the worse outcome of 2 evils. The rest is just so much ammunition for more media meaningless nonsense.,
ReplyDeleteExactly right. Trump has made it quite clear he wants to see the killing of both Ukrainians and Russians. Thus, he wants no part in funding the continuation of, what I call, carnage for political and financial gain.
DeleteSorry, my 7:25 post should have read “Trump wants to see the killing STOP. I apologize for my mistake.
DeleteReliable reporting indicates before the Oval Office event, Zelensky met with Democrat Senators and former Obama officials who coached him to not accept the mineral deal without American security guarantees. They told Zelensky Trump would crumble. Did they really believe that? Of course not, but they got what they wanted didn't they, an opportunity to divide the Republican Party and weaken Trump. That hasn't happened has it? There are two reasons for this, firstly, there are far less Trump haters holding high office, secondly, even the remaining Trump haters see the Democrats as the bigger problem here. They understand that for self serving political reasons the Democrats sabotaged an opportunity for peace and the possible conclusion of death and destruction in the Ukraine. Who wants to stand with a party as grasping and soulless as those who would do this?
ReplyDeleteThe Trump/Zelensky dust-up in the Oval Office isn't the real issue.
ReplyDeleteTo those supporting continuing the fighting in Ukraine, I’ll ask again:
1) What’s the end goal of continuing to support Zelensky's desire to keep the war going? Is it pushing them back to the pre-2022 borders? The pre-2014 borders? Going into Russia and toppling Putin?
2) How much more money (that we don’t have) should we continue to spend?
3) What additional weapons do we give the Ukrainians to accomplish what you want to do?
4) Should we let the Ukrainians use those weapons on targets inside Russia and risk escalation?
5) Do we put U.S. advisors and soldiers on the ground to accomplish your goals?
6) How many more years do you want the war to drag on and what benchmarks should the Ukraine have to reach in order for U.S. support to continue?
7) At what point should Zelensky hold an election in his “democracy”?
Those are questions that should have been asked and answered three years ago. Until they are answered, we shouldn't spend another dime in the Ukraine.
RGR
You have a country that is defending itself, Ukraine, and you have a country that is attacking, Russia. And you have countries that are allies of the victim in Europe. And the United Sttes used to do that also. We were an ally of Ukrane. Our job as allies of the victim used to be whatever we could up to putting our own soldiers in harm's way to help the Ukranians defend themselves from this unfair, unjustified war of aggression.
DeleteThat is what we were doing until this past weekend, as the Trump Administration has pulled out and Europe, who has much more at stake than the United States, because they don't have an ocean separating themselves from Russia, is doing everying they can to contine to help the victim against the aggressor. It's as simple as that.
I don't know what is not black and white about this. There were battalions of Russian tanks that rolled across the boder of a soverign country that wasm't theirs in an act of aggression killing many people along the way, innocent people, and many soldiers; they weren't invited; they weren't provoked; and they did so on the basis of a complete propaganda frenzy that Putin had put together for one simple reason: Wars help dictators stay in power.
Putin is a dictator; he has been in power for a very long time, and he is desperately afraid of losing his power. If he loses power, he ends up getting arrested, having all of his money confiscated, and dying.
This is very simple to understand. It has happened before. And will happen again. This is the action of a dictator, and if nothing is done about it, he will continue to roll into other countries.
The United States that I grew up in and helped to defend used to try and stop these things. Now, under Trump and MAGA, that no longer appears to be the case.
The real issue here actually is Donald Trump and what he has done in the short time he has been back in power.
DeleteTrump has completely frazzled the relationship between the United States and our NATO allies. Its not totally destroyed yet, because there is some chance because we didn't have Donald Trump and J.D. Vance shouting at Macron, or Starmer or the new German President, thank God. However, at this stage of the game, the United States has clearly indicated that they have no appitite to support Ukraine any more.
There have been other speeches, especially Vance's speech at the Munich Security Conference that he basically insulted Europe and didn't say anything bad about Putin, but basically insulted Germany, the UK, Romania and other places.
The heads of state are going to try and spin all this because the cost of having the United States split from NATO is dreamatically high, but it is pretty obvious what is happening right now and there is only one saving grace in this whole situation. That is that Trump is such a volatile character that he could change his mind about NATO and Ukraine, he could change it again; anything can happen. He gets mad about something then takes it as a personal grievence, then acts out on that. And that is really the only hope for some sanity here is that Trump somehow will turn around and change his mind.
Look at Marco Rubio and during the Presidential campaign he called him some discusting names, and now he is his secretary of state. So anything is possible in this Trump world of geopolitics because he can turn around on a dime, for reasons no one but him understands.
NATO lost its reason to exist in ‘91.
DeletePerhaps we should all start asking ourselves this question, why do the Democrats want to constantly make Russia the bogeyman? Frankly there are countries that pose a far greater threat to America than Russia. China and Iran come quickly to mind. The Dems are ready to make deals with these countries and ignore their heinous activities. Why only Russia? Anyone want to make the case for them?
ReplyDeleteFor the title of this post, I didn't use Zelensky or Trump, because my marvel of the day is the blind partisanship in this country. Sycophants on both sides try to justify it with their party being correct on the issue, which of course is ridiculous. Republicans now supporting Zelensky can be counted on one hand, even if missing a few fingers.
ReplyDeleteI’d be interested in hearing what your principled, as an Independent, solution would be at this dangerous time in history.
ReplyDeleteanon@9:23: I don't purport to have the answers, but I recognize unpresidential statements when I hear them.
Deletesuch as
The Palestinians should leave Gaza and we'll build and own a beautiful resort.
The President of Ukraine is a dictator. Ukraine need not be present a negotiations. Ukraine cannot speak up or answer in the Oval office.
Mike, you only have three years and ten months left to endure a president you see as unpresidential. The rest of us have settled in with our popcorn to savoir and take it all in. Take comfort in the obvious fact that there will never be another Trump type president in our lifetime. He is clearly unique in his approach to the job. America clearly wanted a disrupter, he's doing that magnificently. Standard politicians would never have the spine to do the long overdue housecleaning he has undertaken. America knew this and put him where he is today. He was elected to do exactly what he is doing, and isn't concerned that he comes off as rude and ugly. Rude and ugly seems to be working. It's worth considering that rude and ugly is how the world is, and always has been. In the past we have had politicians put a pretty face on rude and ugly. That makes people feel better about rude and ugly, but does that make rude and ugly any less so?
DeleteScott@11:30: Unpresidential in itself doesn't bother me, it is the potential consequences of his actions and worse, his old reactions. We saw him rant about the 2016 Russian Hoax now in 2025 ...talk about baggage! Musk chainsawing away air traffic controllers. Anti vaccine Kennedy while we're facing a measles outbreak and new diseases in Africa (a plane ride away) only one Republican, Jim Lankford, questioning the emperor?
DeleteThe Russia, Russia, Russia hoax orchestrated by Hillary will go down in history as an epic failure. Never forget!
DeleteReagan terminated 11,000 air traffic controllers in 1981and all were replaced without serious consequences to air safety.
The wuhan covid fraud decimated those senior citizens with multiple comorbidities but it was not necessary to lockdown the rest of the population from birth to age 65.
Flu season resulted in 40,000 annual deaths for various contributing reasons before covids creation in China.
The Russian hoax was proved to be a hoax. In this there is no longer any doubt. This hoax is the root of the Democrats whipped up fear and loathing campaign against Trump, Russia and Putin. Now it's merely a cynical tool of political expediency for them that is now delaying the ending of further death and destruction in the Ukraine. Blaming Trump for the uptick in measles is as ridiculous has blaming him for inflation. He's only been in office for 6 weeks! Please explain how in this 6 week period he could have affected the rate of measles infections in Texas. The real blame for this lies with the previous administration that opened the border to 10-12 million illegal immigrants. Many of them remain concentrated in places like Texas. How many of them, now crowded together arrived here with the measles vaccine? It's far too early to credibly blame Trump or any of his cabinet picks for any of this. By the way, in his confirmation hearings Kennedy denied he was against vaccines. He is against what he believes are certain unecessary and potentially harmful vaccines, measles is not one of them. After the debacle of the covid vaccine many of us welcome increased vaccine oversight and the right to know what they are dictating we put into our arms.
DeleteScott@2:29: My preference for the comment section of this blog is for people to express their opinion on the topic, but not to host a back and forth chat room. However, I will respond, but not again on a follow up reply.
DeleteMy mention of the Russian Hoax reference is that Trump is still carrying grudges from 2016, which is affecting foreign policy in 2025.
I know fully well that Kennedy is not opposed to the mandated pediatric vaccines, but his overview is pretty discouraging to the world of medical science. Perhaps ask your doctor what he thinks of that appointment.
For a classic volume on an overview of Russia Culture and History: The Icon and the Axe, Billington.
ReplyDeleteFor the blue chip analysis of the recent history of the US/NATO relationship: John Mearsheimer,Ph.D., University of Chicago
For an up to the minute analysis: Jeffery Sachs remarks to the E.U., last week.
mj adams