Back In The USSR Timeline Part 27 — Battle for Democracy
There are two Russian fights going on right now. One is in Ukraine and the other is in America. Russia attacked Ukraine with its military. It attacked the US via cyberspace which got Trump elected. Americans have yet to understand just how close they came to losing it all without being bombed or shot at.
Putin put Trump in power to lift sanctions and get the US out of NATO to weaken the west and make Russia more powerful. It was really easy to get Trump to do whatever he wanted. They did it in secret but right in everybody’s face. Trump guaranteed Putin that the Mueller Report was a hoax. He called Putin himself and briefed him on the report while Congress continued to demand that the unredacted report be released to them.
Trump took shots at all the world leaders except for the ones in Russia, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Israel.
Putin’s primary foreign policy goal for the US was to cripple NATO, alienate the US from its allies, give Ukraine to Russia, and reinstate Russia to the G-7.
Trump said of Russia, “We’re the most powerful nation. They’re a very powerful nation. Why would we not be dealing with each other?”
Trump’s first secretary of state, multimillionaire and former CEO of Exxon, Rex Tillerson served for a little over a year, from February 2017 until March 2018 when Trump fired him in a tweet. He was chosen because of his close relationship to Putin. 60% of the top diplomats resigned after he came on. He left those positions open. Applications fell by 50% because people didn’t want to work for Trump’s State Department. He didn’t appoint ambassadors to different countries which made the US slow to respond to crises. That was great for Putin. Tillerson moved to close the department’s cyber office (WTF? After being attacked by Russia he wanted to get rid of the team that would investigate that?) and eliminated other offices such as the one that tracked war crimes. He cut his own budget by 30% and brought people in who he knew personally and had no experience in government which hurt employee morale. He weakened the State Department for a generation. Rex Tillerson’s legacy is being the worst secretary of state in history and calling Trump a fucking moron. He failed America but he didn’t fail Putin (except for not making it possible for Russia to sell more oil to Exxon…..)
James Mattis was the secretary of defense from 2017 to 2019 but he left in disgust. Trump appointed Mark Esper in 2019 and then fired him in 2020 after he told Trump he couldn’t use the US military to attack citizens. He appointed Christopher Miller (the fourth person to head the Pentagon during Trump’s reign) to be acting defense secretary to get around the Senate having to confirm him. He came in handy on January 6.
The Pentagon feared that Putin’s path to world dominance meant taking down the United States. Trump making a mess out of the Pentagon almost made that possible.
Trump filled the executive branch with corrupt people. He made many of them temporary so he wouldn’t have to be vetted and approved by the Senate. He blew up all 3 branches of government and most of the institutions that held the government together. Then he tried to overtake the US government and install himself as dictator, just like his hero Putin did in Russia.
Former national security adviser John Bolton believes that Putin did not invade Ukraine while Trump was president because he was counting on Trump to withdraw from NATO — something he was sure would happen if Trump was reelected or had succeeded with the coup.
“Putin got just what he wanted from Trump: a hugely weakened western alliance, help with Ukraine and Iran and North Korea, a ruined US global reputation, divided US democracy, weakened sanctions. Trump got what he wanted: the White House and huge gobs of laundered rubles. No collusion? I call BS.” — Laurence Tribe
Democracy is hanging by a thread in both the US and Ukraine because of Putin.
Putin’s puppets have been knocked out of power in both countries by the citizens of each country. New leaders have been elected — Volodymyr Zelensky and Joe Biden. Zelensky has the faith and support of his people and the world. Joe Biden is doing a hell of a job keeping the thread from snapping, without much support. He has to deal with the damage done by Trump, the threats that still exist with Russia, and the enemy within — the Republican party.
Putin’s battle right now may be in Ukraine, but his war is against democracy.
