If there’s something we’ve discovered over the primary month of the Trump restoration, it’s that there isn’t any backside.
Simply once you suppose that the Musk/Trump/DOGE/MAGA full-frontal assault on democratic norms needs to be a minimum of someplace close to the underside, Donald Trump has now formally joined fingers with Vladimir Putin in assist of Russia’s prison assault on Ukraine.
And we’re nonetheless free-fallin’.
We’ve heard Trump repeating Putin’s absurd speaking factors on Ukraine — that Volodymyr Zelenskyy is the actual dictator, that Ukraine is definitely liable for beginning the struggle, that Zelenskyy’s approval rankings, that are, actually, a lot greater than Trump’s, are at 4% — however all that could possibly be dismissed as a lot Trumpian bluster.
Now we’ve seen the motion. In marking the three-year anniversary of the struggle in Ukraine, a number of resolutions have been launched on the United Nations.
Guess which facet the USA took.
Need early entry to
Mike’s columns?
Subscribe to get an
unique first have a look at
his columns twice per week.
Eighteen nations voted in opposition to a European-led Normal Meeting decision condemning Russia’s assault on Ukraine, condemning Russia’s struggle crimes in Ukraine, and calling for the withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine.
Right here’s the listing (with an clarification for why every of the international locations backed Russia):
Belarus. Burkina Faso. Burundi. The Central African Republic. Equatorial Guinea. Eritrea. Haiti. Hungary. Iran. Israel. Mali. The Marshall Islands. Nicaragua. Niger. North Korea. Russia. Sudan.
And the USA of America.
Add this to the listing of unprecedented shameful acts delivered to us by Trump. I’m fairly certain there has by no means been a U.N. vote through which the U.S. stood solely with this listing of 17 nations.
The decision did go simply, with 93 nations voting for it — together with almost all of what we’d have as soon as known as America’s allies — and 65 abstaining. As a result of it’s apparently nonetheless attainable, at this late date, to seek out individuals who adhere to the reality.
However the sound you could be listening to is Ronald Reagan rolling over in his grave at even the considered this vote.
The sound you could not fairly be listening to is the sound of silence from the previously anti-Putin Republican hawks in Congress.
The sound you possibly can clearly hear is Trump twisting the knife in Ukraine’s again, blaming the sufferer for the almost million lifeless within the struggle. What you additionally hear is the Republican Occasion changing into the social gathering of appeasement. Someplace Neville Chamberlain is cheering them on from his grave.
And, arguably, that’s not even the worst of America’s betrayal of Ukraine.
Whilst Trump and his henchpeople have been spreading Russian disinformation in regards to the struggle, at the same time as JD Vance was ripping European allies for not giving adequate voice to far-right, neo-Nazi political events, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was in Ukraine demanding that Zelenskyy signal a two-page doc assigning over half of Ukraine’s mineral rights to the USA as payback for the cash that the U.S. has spent in assist of Ukraine.
In a current model of a deal — which some have estimated to be value $500 billion — there isn’t any assure of Ukrainian financial or army safety in change for half the mineral rights of a nation that lies largely in wreck from the Russian assault. As a substitute, Bessent mentioned in an interview on Sunday, there was an “implicit assure” of American assist ought to Ukraine be attacked once more.
In fact, an “implicit assure” just isn’t, as college students of the English language would possibly know, a assure in any respect.
As Anne Appelbaum — the distinguished historian of Soviet Russia, present-day Russia and of the post-communism period in former Jap Bloc international locations — writes, the obvious comparability to this transfer in opposition to Ukraine is the German-punishing Versailles Treaty after World Battle I, which is often believed to have led to World Battle II.
Besides, in fact, Germany was the villain within the story on the time and Ukraine is now the sufferer of Russia’s villainy.
And but, the USA and Ukraine have apparently agreed to a minerals deal — although with few particulars out there as of this writing on Tuesday afternoon — which, we are able to hope, just isn’t as onerous as earlier variations and for which Ukraine receives some form of specific assure in return.
Nevertheless it really works out, it’s nonetheless Trumpian extortion, plain and easy.
And it’s one other instance of Atlantic author Adam Serwer’s well-known judgment on Trump — that cruelty is the purpose.
In fact, whereas demanding mineral rights from Ukraine, the proposed deal appears to chop out any such return for Europeans international locations, which as a gaggle have spent, regardless of what you hear from Trump, greater than the USA in aiding Ukraine’s struggle effort.
You may watch French President Emmanuel Macron fact-checking Trump on support to Ukraine in actual time of their current joint information convention. Macron did so whereas smiling and taking part in good with Trump — within the newest European technique on how you can deal with Trump, with flattery and delicate resistance.
Or you would watch a hilarious tackle the information convention by way of Stephen Colbert. Higher but, watch each.
In the meantime the Trump administration is negotiating straight with Russia on how you can finish the struggle in Ukraine, which was not invited to the talks. Our European allies additionally weren’t invited to the talks.
What are the percentages that Putin and Trump might give you a deal that advantages anybody apart from, properly, Putin or Trump?
If there isn’t any deal and Trump cuts off army support to Ukraine, as he has threatened, it’s arduous to say what would possibly occur. Clearly the superior weaponry despatched from the USA can’t be matched wherever else.
And but, there are those that posit that Russia is in a weaker army place than typically assumed and that Ukraine, which has fought so bravely in opposition to a superpower, would proceed to combat on, presumably with far higher contributions of monetary and army support from European nations.
However that doesn’t imply that Ukraine’s individuals received’t proceed to endure if the struggle continues. Trump is true — I say this with out hesitation — that the struggle should finish. But it surely should finish on phrases acceptable to Ukraine, which is presently being requested to surrender these mineral rights and in addition cede territory ruthlessly taken by Russia.
What sort of deal would that be?
Not only a uncooked deal, as anybody might see. Not simply one other instance of Trump’s infinite sucking as much as Putin.
However a shameful deal, by “careless individuals,” of whom F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote a century in the past in his novel, “The Nice Gatsby,” “smashed up issues and creatures and retreated again to their cash or their huge carelessness.”
And with that form of reckless carelessness, delivered to you by Trump and his craven group of sycophants and enablers, we see as soon as once more that there’s, actually, no backside wherever in sight.
Mike Littwin has been a columnist for too a few years to rely. He has lined Dr. J, 4 presidential inaugurations, six nationwide conventions and numerous brain-numbing speeches within the New Hampshire and Iowa snow. Join Mike’s publication.
The Colorado Solar is a nonpartisan information group, and the opinions of columnists and editorial writers don’t replicate the opinions of the newsroom. Learn our ethics coverage for extra on The Solar’s opinion coverage. Discover ways to submit a column. Attain the opinion editor at opinion@coloradosun.com.
Comply with Colorado Solar Opinion on Fb.
