No other president would bully Ukraine to surrender areas not already occupied by Russia

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..not other president would have withheld military assistance while Russia advantaged that pause to brutally attack civilians.

No other president would hang Ukraine out on a limb, after Russia invaded, like Trump has.

No other president would need Europe to come to the U.S., flanking the victim of Russian attacks to protect him from their dishonest bullying of our ally.

No other president would blame Ukraine for Russia's brutal, deadly bombings of civilians.

No other president would insist Ukraine should have given up their land to Russia before they were attacked, channeling Neville Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler which just emboldened the German dictator to take more territory.

Speaking after talks between US and Russia on ending the war, the US President told Ukraine: “You should have never started it, you could have made a deal … I could have made a deal that would have given them almost all of the land.”

After his meeting with Mr. Putin, Mr. Trump has dropped his demand for an immediate cease-fire and believes a rapid peace treaty can be negotiated, so long as Mr. Zelensky agrees to cede the rest of the Donbas region to Russia, even those areas not occupied by Russian troops.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/16/world/europe/trump-putin-ukraine-land-swap.html

[Sneederbunk]

1. No other president is named Krasnov.

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2. fair

...

[RoeVWade]

3. The controversy we would actually be having if Trump wasn't a traitor, insane, conman or whatever hell is wrong with him

The most likely debate would be over...

- isolationist
-anti-war
- stay with Ukraine.
-just weapons'

In a way we have all that, but I've never seen this insane combo: Trump treating Putin BETTER than he deserves and Ukraine and Europe like an adversary.

Fuck Donald Trump and the idiots who support him who don't constantly point this out.

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5. and republicans arguing against funding a defense of our national security abroad

...oh, how they've changed since Trump became their papa.


from February:

____Republican members of Congress have been some of the strongest critics of Russia and its president, Vladimir V. Putin, keeping in line with their party’s traditional hawkish views about the United States’ role in upholding freedom and democracy around the globe. For years, that also translated into strong support within the G.O.P. for aiding Ukraine in its fight against Russian aggression.

But recently, as President Trump has cozied up to Mr. Putin and moved to normalize relations with Russia, Republicans who once vowed to uphold Ukraine’s sovereignty have stayed silent or moderated their tone. Mr. Trump has proposed that Ukraine trade away a 50 percent stake in its mineral resources, an idea its president, Volodymyr Zelensky, rejected last week.

On Wednesday, as representatives of the United States and Russia met for their most extensive conversation in years, to agree to work on a peace settlement without Ukraine’s presence and to discuss the possibility of American oil companies doing hundreds of billions of dollars in business in Russia, several Republican senators dismissed the talks as preliminary.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/19/us/politics/trump-putin-senate-gop-ukraine.html


from 2024:

The Republicans Who Sold Their Souls to Vladimir Putin
The Russian strongman has yet to topple Ukraine, but he’s conquered the GOP.

In American politics, a presidential campaign cannot coordinate with its associated political action committee. The campaign can wink and nod publicly in the press and on its official website, but a direct line of communication is, technically, illegal. In much the same way, Donald Trump cannot coordinate with Russia. He cannot call up Vladimir Putin (as he once famously called up Volodymyr Zelenskiy) and ask for help swinging the election. Still, when it comes to winking and nodding, everyone is on safe, legal ground.

It was ostensibly legal, for example, when Donald Trump encouraged the Russians to find Hillary’s emails in 2016; or when, in 2018, he sided with Putin over the U.S. intelligence agencies. And it’s ostensibly legal for Trump to help Putin when he can—as in his recent order to Republican congressmen to block aid to Ukraine. But the legality of Trump’s behavior doesn’t make it any less galling when the former president says things like he would “encourage [Russia] to do whatever the hell they want” to any NATO countries that don’t pull their financial weight.

These were astounding remarks—a break with a Republican dogma established by Ronald Reagan, who called NATO “the core of America’s foreign policy and of America’s own security.” And yet, these winks and nods at Putin are not a new feature of Trumpism. Then-candidate Donald Trump made an eerily similar remark in July 2016, telling The New York Times that he would tell NATO states who haven’t paid their dues, “Congratulations, you will be defending yourself.” Trump has viewed NATO as a protection racket for as long as he’s been a politician. He’s admired Putin for even longer.

https://newrepublic.com/article/179393/republican-vladimir-putin-2024-shift

[maxsolomon]

4. He is a narcissistic sociopath

who views life in black and white, with dominance being the goal.

He is the worst person on the Planet except for Putin (and maybe Xi).

[karynnj]

6. Even beyond how disgusting this is, consider the future

Russia wants to be given land that they haven't captured because Ukraine was able to defend for years a line they have not succeeded in crossing. Russia's proposal would cause them to lose this fortified line and Russia is very likely to want to take more, possibly all of Ukraine. So, Trump proved himself to be Putin's puppet.

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7. nothing short of appeasement

...and people talk about comparisons to Yalta where the allies believed they needed Russia to help win the war against Japan, three weeks before Hitler surrendered.

But this is so much more the Munich Agreement with Chamberlain ceding territory to Hitler in the naive hope that a dictator determined to expand his territory would be satisfied with the chunk offered up to them - basically rewarding Hitler and solidifying his military gains.

In Trump's case, he's offering up land Russia hasn't conquered yet, in exchange for a 'security agreement that looks a lot like NATO.

Here's and idea for him. Instead of further acceding to Putin's phony pretext for invading that Ukraine was joining NATO, how about just letting Ukraine in, right now?

After all, Putin isn't directly attacking actual NATO-protected countries, he's attacking one that doesn't have that protection; demanding a lesser force; and for what, to undermine short of fully confronting the U.S.?

Why let him have that option, all for invading Ukraine?

It's insidiously enabling of Trump to even be considering any of this, all accommodated by this president withholding aid and refusing to retaliate when Putin broke the ceasefire; basically advantaging his appeasement strategy off of Putin's continued bombing of civilians.