Because he’s such a has-been, I’ve mostly refrained from thinking about — much less commenting on — the Former Guy in recent months.
Donald Trump was forced from the White House in an overwhelming electoral loss and the hope was that he would simply disappear into the swamp that is Mar-A-Lago.
Well, there are hopes, and then there are fears, and of course he kicks and screams about, well, everything, but the sounds are fairly muted over here across the continent.
I don’t watch the television shows that his stormtroopers apparently invite him on, and I don’t open the emails that he daily sends to the members of the press — why would I? It would be precisely akin to choosing to read a missive from prison from Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber. The rants are of no interest to me.
Latest subject line from Swampy: “Putin is playing Biden like a drum. It is not a pretty thing to watch!”
Which brings me to why I am forced to bring him up.
Hear ye, good conservative Southern Californians: Your entire political lives were based on opposition to the worldwide horror show that was the Soviet Union. Richard Nixon was right to engage in the Kitchen Debate in Moscow with Nikita Khrushchev, saying the Soviet leader, as they walked through the appliance wonderland of American color TV sets and fine refrigerators, “should not be afraid of ideas.” Of course Tricky Dick was confusing Frigidaires with philosophy, as we Americans will sometimes do, but whatever. He wasn’t wrong to goad the Kremlin boss. Nor was John Kennedy wrong to, a couple of years later, force the Soviets to back off when they brought nuclear missiles into Cuba. Forcing Russian expansionists to stand down is what good American presidents do.
Which is why, good conservative Southern Californians, the events of the last week have shown you that you cannot support the threatened return of Donald Trump to the White House, or even to the presidential nomination of the Republican Party. Because you know, the same as I do, that most American voters will not support for president a man who immediately before the Russian invasion of Ukraine described Putin’s aggression as “genius” and then added that the would-be czar of a new Soviet empire was “very savvy” for calling the troops he massed at the Ukrainian border before moving them in as “peacekeepers.”
Again, right before the invasion, from Trump: “Putin is now saying, ‘It’s independent,’ a large section of Ukraine. I said, ‘How smart is that?’ And he’s going to go in and be a peacekeeper. That’s the strongest peace force I’ve ever seen. There were more army tanks than I’ve ever seen. They’re going to keep peace, all right.”
When you see that line of rabidly un-American thinking, you can finally agree with me, conservative Southern Californians, that Donald Trump is no conservative. He’s just a troubled person with a fixation on international strongmen who, like himself, have no political ideology. That’s not the kind of president you want to see back in the White House, leading America.
My friend Max Boot, the conservative, Russian-born Washington Post columnist, noted last week what may be even more dangerous about allowing a Trump return, seeing as Trump himself is not exactly schooled in geopolitics: the people around him. Trump’s Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently called Putin “a very talented statesman,” “very shrewd,” “very capable,” and said, “I have enormous respect for him.” Max again: “Trump went on to rhapsodize about his relationship with Putin — ‘He liked me. I liked him.’” Isn’t that special?
Larry Wilson is on the Southern California News Group editorial board. [email protected].