Trump Helsinki Summit: His Servility to Vladimir Putin Is Unbecoming of a President - 0 views
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In a sign of the poverty of our historical imagination, Trump’s performance is frequently compared to Neville Chamberlain. But this is unfair to Chamberlain, who, although deeply wrongheaded, was in fact a serious and patriotic man. Trump’s performance in Helsinki was something else altogether, a performance so servile that we struggle to place it in context, because there are no parallels in the history of the American presidency.
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So what are we to make of our president, who relishes insulting and humiliating the leaders of western democracies, but truckles to dictators? We simply do not know (and it remains dangerous to speculate) whether the Russians have “kompromat” on Trump. Perhaps the reality is worse; maybe Trump really believes all of this and genuinely admires what Putin represents.
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Monday in Helsinki reminded us that as valuable as the court may be, it’s not worth it; not worth the mendacity, the pusillanimous appeasement, the debasement of the presidency, the castration of the Congress, the mockery of decency, the assault on truth, the air of thuggery and corruption in Trumpian politics, and the diminishment of our role in the world.