The Treachery of Donald Trump
Donald Trump keeps topping himself. On Tuesday, while Vladimir Putin was putting his final touches on his invasion of Ukraine, the former Narcissist-in-Chief praised the Russian autocrat. Trump told Clay Travis and Buck Sexton on their conservative podcast, “I went in yesterday, and there was a television screen, and I said, ‘This is genius.’ Putin declares a big portion of Ukraine — Putin declares it as independent. Oh, that’s wonderful.”
In a predictable move he often uses when receiving pushback for his remarks, a few days later, Trump took one step back from his full-scale admiration of Putin and two steps forward. Calling the Russian President’s invasion of Ukraine “ruthless,” he then said, “The problem isn’t that Putin is smart. Of course, he’s smart. But the real problem is our leaders are dumb.”
He declared Putin wouldn’t have invaded Ukraine if he were still president. And, in part, this may be true, but not for the reasons Trump believes. It’s thought that Putin thought Trump was too unpredictable. Donald also seemed ignorant of all the missteps his administration took with the region, including encouraging President Zelensky to ignore talks with the breakaway areas of Ukraine, Donetsk and Luhansk, as the Minsk Agreement (which diplomats created to de-escalate tensions in the region) required. Instead, as reported by the anti-war group, CodePink: “Trump began sending weapons to Ukraine… as if Ukraine could recover its lost territories by force.” So, instead of promoting détente, Trump raised tensions.
Once again, when people’s lives are at stake, Donald Trump couldn’t care less about the citizens of Ukraine — just like he didn’t care about Americans dying of COVID during his time in office.
Trump loves Putin. He served as an example of personal opportunities here at home: power, control, and personal wealth. As Mother Jones reported, Trump was grateful for Russia’s disinformation campaign in our 2016 elections. To him, Putin represented all Trump wanted to be: an authoritarian who amassed a fortune through his political prowess, unquestioned, and feared (and the Republican Party continues to be eager to oblige this twice-impeached president). In fact, he couldn’t stop saying nice things about the dictator.
In 2013, during Trump’s Miss Universe pageant held in Moscow, he was very interested in building another Trump Tower there. But to do so, he needed the blessings of Putin. That fell through when Russia invaded Crimea in 2014. Yet in 2015, while he was running for president (and unbeknownst to American voters), Trump once again wanted to build a tower in the Russian capital, making him hundreds of millions of dollars.
The lovefest continues. He spent his four years as President acting like a repressive authoritarian. And, even after being forced out of office, he continues to put his love of Putin ahead of democracy. His values have never represented the pillars our founders created for our country. And his allegiances don’t either. As a former American President, that isn’t just heresy, it’s treachery.
This poster is part of a series of posters about the sorry state of American political discourse. Jeff Gates does these under the guise of the Chamomile Tea Party. This poster is part of a group of images he’s been doing since the beginning of 2020 about the election, the pandemic, and social justice. Download a high resolution copy of this poster for free. In fact, all Chamomile Tea Party posters are free to download under a Creative Commons license.
Follow the history of our country’s political intransigence from 2010–2020 through a seven-part exhibit of these posters on Google Arts & Culture.