Putin’s Intentions Are Clear

A talking head on today’s U.S. morning news went on at length about the situation with Russia’s assemblage of troops on the Ukrainian border.  “We can’t trust what Putin says about his intentions,” he warned.

True, it doesn’t matter what he says.  But it’s perfectly clear what Putin intends nonetheless, and that’s the further devastation of the United States. Moreover, he’s proved himself remarkably adept at it.

Right now, his goal is best accomplished by engineering a second term for Trump, and his tactic is to make Trump look as good as possible, while making Biden look bad.  Does anyone think it’s a coincidence that this is happening now, rather than at any time during Trump’s administration?

If Putin can somehow get Trump back in the White House, there is a good chance that American democracy will have suffered a lethal blow.  Keep in mind that Trump came fairly close to achieving this in the aftermath of the most recent presidential election.  He went to incredible lengths to overturn the 2020 results, and then to stop the certification process.

Keep in mind as well that the damage Trump did to our democracy is far from recovered.  His “Big Lie” is still very much alive in American culture; most Republicans continue to believe that the election was rigged/stolen, and so have no faith in the validity of our elections.  This idea persists, of course, despite the fact that 60+ judges who reviewed this situation saw no evidence of significant voter fraud.

No one knows precisely the complete set of effects that reinstalling Trump would have on this country, but if it happens, the damage a) will certainly be huge, and b) will come at the sheer joy of Vladimir Putin.