How Did Putin Get Here?

My wife believes, and I think she is correct, that what made Trump such an enormous danger to our country and the world in general is that no one ever stopped him.  He got away with everything–the lies, the impeachments, the fraud, the opposition from within his own party, and now, so far at least, an act of treason, i.e., an attempted coup.

In short, he got “on a roll,” the momentum of which convinced him that he was invincible.

The author of the meme here is suggesting that the case with Putin runs in parallel.  Suppose Trump hadn’t been elected, and Putin had remained a figure of only moderate importance in world politics.  It’s a sure bet that he wouldn’t have conducted a blatantly illegal invasion against a sovereign country and found himself leading a nation of suffering people whose army of dejected soldiers is getting spanked by a relative speck.