I see in the readers’ comments on Post Alley that Donald Trump is “betraying America and the West.” Another reader writes that the United States “is now allied with Mother Russia, North Korea, Hungary, and Belarus.” Several Post Alley readers darkly suggest that Trump has been “recruited or cultivated” as an “asset” by Moscow’s Federal Security Service (FSB) or by the secret police of the former Czechoslovak Socialist Republic.
One reader suggests that past Russian investment in Trump properties means that “they own big chunks” of our president. When right-wingers talk this way, mainstream media dismiss their tales as “conspiracy theories.” I’m inclined to do that here, but talk like this does tell you something about how people think — and, in this case, how a lot of Trump-haters think.
For those of us old enough to remember the war in Vietnam, it’s eerie how familiar all this is. Then it was the left that wanted peace, and the right that denounced them as pinkos and commie lovers. Now the left denounces our right-wing president as a fascist and a Putin lover. The slander has changed sides.
The right was wrong about the Vietnam War — not about communism, which is as bad as they said it was, but about trying to snuff it out in Southeast Asia with M-16s and napalm. We didn’t need to be in that war. It was, in capitalist terms, a bad investment.
So is the war in Ukraine. In three years, the front line has hardly moved. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians and Russians, most of them young men forced into service, have been maimed or killed. Thousands of young families have lost fathers. Whole towns have been wrecked. Millions have fled their homes. And there is no light at the end of the tunnel. None.
Why should we pay for more of this? Because Ukraine is a democracy? Don’t be so sure; it hasn’t had a free election in a long time. Even if it did hold an election, how much would that be worth to us? Another hundred thousand dead? Not our dead, to be sure, but Ukrainians and Russians ought to count for something. The cost to us has been tens of billions of dollars burned up on the battlefield, plus the ruin of our relations with Russia, whose nuclear-armed missiles are aimed at us.
Joe Biden refused to talk to Vladimir Putin. Maybe he wasn’t up to it. Anyway, he talked only to the side he was comfortable with, the side that gave his son a directorship in the Ukrainian gas company. When Biden became President, he promised his Ukrainian client, Volodymyr Zelensky, to do “whatever it takes” until the Russians bled out — a reckless promise that Zelensky now urges Trump to renew. Trump, who ran on a different promise, tells Zelensky, “You don’t have the cards.” Zelensky’s high card, Biden’s promise, expired on January 20.
Ukraine begins to bleed out. Trump calls Putin on the telephone and proposes a settlement. Putin talks to him. Putin is delighted to talk to him. The reaction from Trump’s critics on the left is dismay and abuse. Setting aside the nasty stuff quoted above, there remains the charge that Trump is motivated only by money. One commenter on Post Alley writes sagely, “The adage from the Watergate era, ‘Follow the money’ should always be applied in trying to understand Chump’s decisions. I believe he will do whatever is asked of him by whoever will line his pockets.”
Follow the money! For years I have heard this ten-cent wisdom repeated like a Gregorian chant. My colleagues in the Seattle press said of Tim Eyman that he ran Washington state ballot measures only to enrich himself. (Losing his house disproves that, don’t you think?) They said of Trump that he was a businessman running to enrich himself. (Trump a businessman? I don’t think so.)
Last year, when I wrote about the Ukraine war here on Post Alley, one of my readers replied that it was a mistake to talk of Vladimir Putin as the leader of Russia. The correct way to look at Putin, he wrote, was as “a former St. Petersburg street thug” who itches only for graft and bribes. Elon Musk, who CNN says is “the world’s richest man,” has joined Trump in order to pile up more money.
Accusing one’s political opponents of being motivated by money is a perennial chestnut, a lazy man’s way to win an argument without doing any work. It’s an ad hominem, a rhetorical trick. If your opponent is only in it for the money, his political arguments are noise. You have no obligation to listen to him. You’re good!
Let’s not do that here. The war in Ukraine is too important for rhetorical games. Whatever he was years ago, Putin is the leader of a great power — the power that started the war. Putin styles himself as a nationalist out to Make Russia Great Again. He aims to look out for Russia first.
Zelensky is looking out for Ukraine first, and Trump, in his mind, is looking out for America first. You don’t have to like these guys, but they are the players. If you think Trump is wrong to talk to Putin, tell us why continuing the Biden policy will get better results. If you want the war to go on, as Zelensky clearly does, make the argument. Tell us why this war is a good investment.
And don’t assume negotiation means surrender. Zelensky may not hold a winning hand, but he has Europe behind him, and much of his country behind him. Zelensky’s men have held on to four-fifths of Ukraine’s territory for three years, and have spilled much Russian blood. Putin does not hold all the cards.
So, let’s see what our deal-making president can do.
Thank you Bruce. I also came of age during the Vietnam War years (I still have my draft card). It requires humility, clear-sightedness, and pragmatism to recognize – and appreciate – that a leader one finds despicable on many counts – may have some good ideas. It would be no small thing for Ukrainian and Russian families to have sons and fathers and spouses around to grow old with.
Some have argued Russia won’t stop at Ukraine, citing The Domino Theory.
Another lesson of the Vietnam War may apply here. Former Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara said his belief in The Domino Theory had been a mistake.
But even if the theory were applicable in Ukraine, why wouldn’t the prudent action be to engage in diplomacy to encourage a settlement between Ukraine and Russia now?
Some have argued that Ukraine’s membership in NATO would have deterred the invasion. If this theory were correct, then why would it be likely that Russia would invade Poland or some other NATO country if it ended up occupying all of Ukraine?
Some believe NATO expansion may have actually encouraged the invasion.
https://www.internationalaffairs.org.au/australianoutlook/why-nato-expansion-explains-russias-actions-in-ukraine/
“If you think Trump is wrong to talk to Putin …” How about if I think you are wrong, to twist the issue in that deceitful way?
Trump’s crime is not to “talk to Putin”, it’s to essentially capitulate. Europe might be able to step in to deal with the missing support from the US, but it’s very unlikely they can do it on the schedule dictated by Trump’s abrupt withdrawal. The withdrawal of intelligence support was the worst, and it would be interesting to know how it came about that the intelligence is reportedly back.
What Ukraine needs is military support to keep Russia from rolling over it, and it needs some long term guarantee that Putin won’t be back at it when he feels like it. Anything less, is capitulation, to conquest by a rogue power. And that’s what Trump is handing over, to his Russian friends. Readers may have “darkly suggested” that he was recruited by the Russians in the ’80s, but we weren’t making it up.
Why that’s a good investment? Because that’s the world we want to live in, a civilized world alliance that doesn’t tolerate conquest. We have less to lose as that falls apart, because we’re bigger than Canada or Mexico, but we will be worse off as Putin marches through Europe. We will be worse off as China seizes Taiwan, who knows what’s next, Philippines maybe. And maybe because we have some remaining self respect.
Bruce, I value your financial savvy but not your whitewash of Trump and Putin. Putin invaded a neighboring country and allowed his troops to behave as barbarians, committing war crimes. Trump appears to have excused the aggression for whatever reason, maybe in response to Russian oligarchs owning a portion of his businesses, maybe not, but seemingly in fealty. Meanwhile Trump mistreats Western allies, slapping on tariffs which, as you yourself have noted, carry great risks. This is scarcely a replay of the Vietnamese War nor of Tim Eyman except that all are regrettable.
I am a Washingtonian living in Europe. You seem to want to compare Ukraine with Vietnam and at the time I was just a child. Fine, and nobody wants War (except maybe Putin) but we are in a different situation, surely. I am proud of the big part my country (the USA) has played in the world during my lifetime. Putting the planet first , puts America first when looking ahead, not money, power or glory first. Trump and Putin are the players, you say, are we just going to go along with these kinds of players because they have the power to bully? Biden wouldn’t talk to Putin. Do you think that Trump actually talked to Zelensky and the European leaders like an adult would, much less the President of the US?? Has he ever recognized the truth about who started this war. Trump’s actions have probably encouraged Europe to unite and become more independent for their freedom. A good thing. You question Ukraine’s democracy at this time? Shame on you. With the courage that the Ukrainian people of shown to keep theirs.
I agree with Amelia’s sentiments expressed above, but also want to fact-check an aside that you tucked into this poorly-reasoned commentary:
“My colleagues in the Seattle press said of Tim Eyman that he ran Washington state ballot measures only to enrich himself. (Losing his house disproves that, don’t you think?)”
It was proved in the courts – the documentation is extensive – that Tim Eyman did run initiatives to enrich himself. That’s not the “only” reason he ran initiatives, but he certainly wanted to make money from them. He even infamously told Dave Ammons this in 2002 after being caught taking money from his own donors for his personal use:
“I want to make a lot of money doing it.”
Straight from the horse’s mouth, Bruce.
And he did make a lot of money running initiatives… for a time.
He created a PAC exclusively to serve as a “compensation fund”, he was taking a salary from his other main PAC, and he got kickbacks from his primary vendor, “Citizen Solutions.”
But he did not manage his money well and he did not follow the law. He knowingly put himself in legal jeopardy by violating the Fair Campaign Practices Act over and over and is now paying the price for his bad choices.
As for the family house, your comment about that indicates you are still a sympathetic reader of Eyman’s email missives but you don’t know what actually transpired. The Eyman family home in Mukilteo still belongs to Eyman’s family. Eyman’s ex-wife’s family, the Williams family, put up the money to buy out Eyman’s share of the house; that money went to Eyman’s estate and was divvied up in Chapter 7 bankruptcy proceedings. Though there was a case to be made that the house had been originally purchased with Williams family money and was not really community property, the Williams family had the financial means to bypass having to litigate that issue, and they made an agreement with the other parties in the bankruptcy case – to Tim Eyman’s benefit and to his creditors’ benefit. As a result, Karen Williams is now the sole owner of the property.
Karen stated in court depositions that she was not aware Eyman had used the home as collateral for loans to finance signature drives for some of his initiatives. Eyman had said for years that he and Karen did it jointly. That was a lie.
You simply cannot believe anything Eyman says; all of his statements have to be fact-checked. All of them.
“Only” was the key word. Yes, Eyman was trying to make a living from running initiatives. During many of those years, I made a living from the Seattle Times. They paid me. Does that mean you could dismiss everything I wrote by saying I was writing “only” for the Blethen family’s money? All the key players in politics are paid, either by clients or out of public funds. They all like being paid — who doesn’t? — but mostly they have other motives. When people say, “He’s just in it for the money,” it’s a put-down, a way of not giving the respect of answering them (not doing what I’m doing right now in answering you).
As for the statement, “I want to make a lot of money doing it” — Eyman does love to goad his enemies (including you). Get under their skin! Piss them off! He really gets a charge out of it. And, no doubt, back then he did want to make a lot of money running initiatives. But if that was the principal reason for his activism, he would have given up when it quit working. And when his activism ate up his assets, he didn’t give up. He’s found other people to fund him. Political activism is his life’s work. You don’t have to agree with what he does, but at least acknowledge that.
My article is not about him anyway, about the war in Ukraine. My larger point is that in public affairs, people attack their opponents instead of arguing with them. And that’s what people are doing if they denounce any thought of talking to Vladimir Putin. If people say, “I hate war, but you can’t trust Putin” — and I hear this all the time — what they’re really saying is, “I prefer war. Let’s fund some more of it.”
What they’re really saying is, “you can’t trust Putin.”
If your proposition for ending the war depends on trusting Putin, then yes, I guess that does mean war will continue while we look for another answer.
If you have an idea how we can “talk” to him and end the war, without trusting him, that would seem to mean either
– we will put safeguards in place that protect Ukraine against Russia, or
– we walk away saying we help end the war by giving Ukraine to Russia, with everything that means (cf. Bucha.)
What’s really needed here, is the Ronald Reagan strategy – use our economic strength to break Putin, like we supposedly broke the Soviet Union. It’s a miracle he’s still hanging on (and by all accounts he’s well aware of that.) If there’s going to be a time when we’re close to being able to topple that turkey, this is it. Trump won’t like that, because it would mean a loss of one of his principal supporters, but maybe the chest beating opportunity will appeal to him as compensation. Make Putin lose big in Ukraine, toss away a million Russian lives and bankrupt the country for nothing. See how long he lasts after that.
Russia is not a “great power”. As has been often said, Russia is a “third world country with an oil well”. The only reason to deal with them is their nuclear arsenal, which by the way, we need a new round of nuclear arms reduction talks, this time involving China. Russia’s GDP is about 2 trillion dollars and shrinking. Ours is about 24 trillion and the EU is about 22 trillion. Russia’s army has lost about 800,000 troops and half its modern tanks, is spending about 20% of total income on defense and inflation is over 12% . It’s lost 40% of the Black Sea fleet to boot. It serves Putin just as much as Ukraine and the West to settle this war. Ok freeze in place, then let Ukraine proceed to join the EU with European troops helping to support the 4/5 of Ukraine that doesn’t exist under Putin’s boot.