It May Shock You to Discover That The Ukraine Situation Is All Trump’s Fault – Opinion

This morning, we woke up to reports of military attacks in Ukraine as Russia drops all pretense of “peacekeeping” (or, perhaps they just have a different definition than I do) and invades the nation.

These are the same people who for a while have assured us that Joe Biden would hold Vladimir Putin responsible if he launched an attack. Now they’re nodding their heads and declaring that it is all due to Donald Trump.

Of course, you knew it was going to happen, but it’s somewhat shocking to see nonetheless. Here’s Matthew Dowd on Tuesday, teeing it up.

Please take the American flag down from your house or on social media and replace it by the Russian flag. We will all be able to see where your stand.

— Matthew Dowd (@matthewjdowd) February 22, 2022

Biden who lifted sanctions on Nord Stream 2 and fought against Congress not acting on them any further is not responsible for Russia’s bravery in advancing on Ukraine. Donald Trump is the sole person responsible for Russia’s aggression on Ukraine. He is currently not in office.

Here’s an example.

One thing worth keeping in my mind today: There’s a straight line from Russia’s attack on the US election in 2016 to 1/6 to today’s new invasion of Ukraine. Russia caused so much chaos with Trump’s election, it has made us weaker that Putin is confident about invading Europe.

— Garrett M. Graff (@vermontgmg) February 24, 2022

Because Trump was elected, America was thrown into chaos and that’s why Putin is invading Ukraine more than a year after Trump left office. John Harwood also weighs in, because Harwood prefers to attack Trump than acknowledge reality.

Garrett’s point can be stated in another manner:

Donald Trump became president by helping the Russian thug attack Ukraine. He believed this would make such attacks easier to execute.

In the short-term, he was correct

longer term, TBD https://t.co/HuRWEzMayR

— John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) February 24, 2022

Harwood flirts with Harwood’s theory that Trump won because of Russia and not Hillary Clinton. The argument is that Trump’s actions destabilized America so that Americans were forced to choose a new leader who could deal with the current situation.

We need to be clear: the system wasn’t all that unstable. Trump wasn’t as lenient on Russia than the media and left would have you believe. Perhaps he was a little too friendly with Putin at times. At least, that’s my opinion. He kept the existing sanctions in effect and enacted even more. Things remained largely unchanged.

Putin’s designs on Ukraine have been forming for a decade or more, at least. However, it wasn’t Trump’s presidency that encouraged him to move ahead with his plans. It seemed that he hesitated to take on any responsibility while Trump was the most unpredictable president of all time. Trump’s attitude and agenda changed at times daily. You don’t mess with that kind of unpredictability, you avoid it.

What then prompted Putin to take the next step? Afghanistan.

That wasn’t Trump’s fault. Joe Biden, who was determined to get troops out Afghanistan by September 11, did not listen to any of his intelligence or military advisors. It was a series of incredible blunders that resulted in Americans and their allies being still stuck in Afghanistan today. Within days, Afghanistan was under Taliban control. This was an extensive retreat that looked chaotic and panicked.

It was unclear how the U.S. would respond to an invasion by Russia of Ukraine. Russia was not in danger from Europe’s rest. Germany was, at that point, still dependent on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline and even when Russia backed the two Ukrainian “independent” states, the best Germany and France could do was muster up disappointmentThis despite the fact that almost everyone would see it as another excuse for Russia to send its troops in.

Europe could not deter Russian movements into Ukraine. This was always going down to the U.S. being tough enough to stop it from moving further. Putin increased his speedy plans as Afghanistan demonstrated that we were not strong enough.

That’s not to say that Russia is doing this because of anything happening in Washington. It’s simply to say that the last barrier to doing it was the U.S. and Biden completely tore down that barrier himself.

So, no, Russia didn’t get Trump elected, much less as part of a plan to take over Ukraine. And, no, Trump isn’t responsible for what’s happening now. Putin was able to rely on the U.S.’s weak leadership at the moment.