I am russian born (thats just for context). I feel incredibly fortunate that this war happened when Trump is no longer in office.

I think were it happen while Trump was actively disparaging NATO, sowing discord among allies, ridiculing soft power of liberal democracies, all happening against a backdrop of deferring to tyrants and dictators, a spinning rotating door of chiefs of staff and secretaries of state at the White House, self-pitying rallies of sycophants, daily scandals, active sabotage of long-standing institutions of government with loyal figureheads, holding military aid to Ukraine hostage for political blackmail, questioning the need of foreign aid for populist points, the pattern of denial, shifting responsibility, blaming others as a response to pandemic… Need I go on?

I don’t think Putin would’ve needed much more than that to tip the scales in his favor.

In my opinion Putin either tremendously miscalculated the timing of the invasion to after Trumps term in the office, or was expecting his second term to bring about even more fertile conditions.

Disparaging NATO by making sure other countries increased their spending that they skimped out on? His goal was to increase NATO defenses against Russia.

All administration staffing and mean tweet problems aside, there’s a reason Putin waited until Trump was out. Trump was very unpredictable and that alone prevented this from happening years ago.

Right, it wasn’t astonishing incompetence, fluent morality, and unrestrained narcissism, but rather a strategically clever display of unpredictability to keep the enemies off-balance and guessing.

It’s like Roosevelt said, “yell whatever comes out of your mouth and carry a big retinue of inexperienced but loyal sycophants” diplomacy. Thanks, Throwaway!

Firstly, because it wasn’t “asking” - it was a populist performance for the benefit of supporters. The unprecedented sanctions against Russia you are witnessing now are result of appropriate diplomacy that was conducted skillfully and effectively. Just to point out the difference.

Secondly, Bill Barr has gone on record to claim that it was a pretext of pulling out of NATO entirely if Trump was going to win a second term. You don’t believe Bill Barr, fine, but I don’t see why he is any less believable than Trump.

Thirdly, I’ve stated a dozen of things that point to Trumps capacity to inflict damage to international coalition that allows US to wield influence, including withholding military aid to Ukraine to pressure them to implicate Biden for political gain, the same Ukraine that figures in the latest events in case you didn’t notice. However the poster did not bother addressing any of that - why should I treat their response with any more rigor than they afforded me?

I’ve made it pretty clear that not only do I “not like the guy”, but I think he is unfit to lead US, has tremendous character flaws, reflects poorly on the nation as a whole, and is detrimental to US standing in the world. Some of it, if it wasn’t obvious before as a somewhat known celebrity host and a prolific racist-ish and misogynistic tweet author, became incredibly clear during his shit-show of a presidency.

“That’s just, like, my opinion, man.” But if the events of January 6th (among countless other incidents, tweets, things said and done, then and since) have not made the truth of my assertions abundantly clear to you - I doubt that any amount of requested “proof” I could produce will.

If it at all redeems me as a “leftist” I’ll share with you that I am not overly fond of Obama either, but I’ll take any past Republican contender, be that Romney or McCain and give them two terms each if that meant that I paid my dues not to see anything like Trump near the White House ever again.

We don’t usually coin a new pseudo-medical term for your run-of-the-mill sociopath. Can you name any other one?

I guess you have to bigly take it to new heights.

To me - a leader’s character matters. But it has become obvious to me that it isn’t as common a trait as I would have expected. Coincidentally, curious - where do you stand on Putin?

> We don’t usually coin a new pseudo-medical term for your run-of-the-mill sociopath. Can you name any other one?

It was first coined as Bush Derangement Syndrome and was also used to describe the rabid irrational hatered that opponents of Obama displayed. If you want to pretend that this is something new, you do you.

> Coincidentally, curious - where do you stand on Putin?

I don't think Trump is as evil as you do, so I probably support Putin? Get a hold of yourself.

> rump showed a fondness for Putin but didn't do anything that would benefit Russia, quite the opposite.

I would count photo ops with Putin and Kislyak in the WH as a win, but not as big as Trump blackmailing Ukraine or openly floating a U.S. pullout from NATO. We're talking about the same Trump, right?

The Russians and Ukrainians I have met in the U.S. all bring up corruption, not the failure of socialism. They tend to be pretty clear on their politics.