To republicans, and Trump, but mostly to republicans, Zelensky and Ukraine are essentially Democrats
...until we can vote in a Dem majority, we're all just waiting in vain for republicans to break as were watching them bend over backward as one plank after another of republican dogma gets corrupted and bastardized by Trump's opportunism and consolidation of power.
Consider the never-Trimp republicans who have set themselves up as truth-tellers, who have all but repudiated conservatism but still hold tightly to the improbable insistence that it's something other than what republicans used to con the rubes into voting for them that they, as former republicans, really stand for.
No republican after Ronald Reagan actually cared about foreign affairs outside of their 'evil axis' military-industrial complex scheme where they invented wars to blow up million dollar bombs so that the former employers of the military-industrial complex warriors inside of the Bush administration could allocate more money for more bombs and weapons from their former employers.
They still cared enough, though, to vote to sanction Russia before Donald Trump made Ukraine their political cudgel against Democrats, against Joe Biden, by falsely accusing him and his son in 2019 of improperly benefiting from Ukrainian business relationships.
The scandal came to light when a whistleblower report revealed that President Trump had asked Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy in July 2019 to investigate Joe Biden, Trump's political opponent in the 2020 presidential election, his son Hunter Biden, and company CrowdStrike, to discuss these matters with Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani and Attorney General William Barr. The allegations were confirmed by a non-verbatim summary of the conversation released by the White House.
Trump admitted he had told Zelenskyy "we don't want our people like Vice President Biden and his son contributing to the corruption already in the Ukraine." According to the whistleblower, the call was part of a wider campaign by Trump, his administration, and Giuliani to pressure Ukraine into investigating the Bidens, which included Trump's cancelling a scheduled trip to Ukraine by Vice President Mike Pence, and Trump withholding $400 million in military aid from Ukraine.
This very same president who was impeached for the above is so very transparently and obviously keeping American military policy and our national security interests in defending against Russian aggression in Europe teetering on the edge of his own pursuit of personal retribution, or rehabilitation for that blatant and arrogant criminality which was fomented throughout the U.S. by the very same people (Guiliani) in the very same effort to illegally influence the presidential election in Donald Trump's favor.
Trump, speaking at a rally Saturday in Erie, Pennsylvania, said no additional weapon shipments should be authorized until the FBI, Justice Department and Internal Revenue Service provide "every scrap of evidence" they have of possible misbehavior by Biden family members.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/ukraine/2023/07/30/ukraine-russia-war-live-updates/70494113007/
It's just insidious, because this president has been using Ukraine as bait and as a stalking horse for his intention to absolve himself of what so many Americans have forgotten or ignored about the weaselly ways he's sought to absolve and rehabilitate the active war criminal in Moscow, along with rehabilitating and attempting to absolve himself for the embarrassingly scandalous and amateurish attempt to bribe Ukrainian president Zelensky into helping him defeat Joe Biden; much like he solicited dirt on Hillary Clinton from Russia.
Sure, there are monumental issues and concerns in the Ukraine conflict which affect the U.S. and Europe, but it's all convoluted by Trump because he still thinks Ukraine is or should be a U.S. patsy; his personal patsy.
Moreover, he appears compromised by Putin's seemingly successful Kompromat play on his own questionable past; probably longing to emulate that Russian extortion play against Ukraine to make him feel less like a simp.
But none of this makes sense, because neither Trump or republicans actually care about foreign affairs beyond their own personal grifting, which will never match the man's who they gifted with the presidency in his own accumulation of billions trading off of the influence and actions of his office and our government.
All the Trump complaints about money going to Ukraine is an epic pout that he hasn't gotten a slice of the pie; no dirt dug upon Joe Biden; no mineral rights in Ukraine on land that's, anyway, in Russian-held territory that he's 'negotiating' right now to give away to Russia; and Zelensky's still the president of Ukraine.
They don't want to fight 'Biden's war' because, they acquiesced to the defense of Trump's miserable, treasonous scandal where he used arming Ukraine as a political weapon against Democrats. They can't let go of that hook without revealing their utter capitulation to all of Trump's defensive scrambling.
To republicans, and Trump, but mostly to republicans, Zelensky and Ukraine are essentially Democrats they still need to repress to maintain the political advantage they've enjoyed by allowing Russia to attack and repress Zelensky and Ukraine.
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