Tarnishing the Presidency and the Nation

Tarnishing the Presidency and the Nation

                        Robert A. Levine   1-14-25

So we have a felon as president. In addition to the New York charges, part of the special counsel Jack Smith’s report was just released, showing that Trump was definitely responsible for the riots and attacks on the capitol on January 6. Trump did everything he could to overturn the valid results of the 2020 election and remain in the White House. He did not want to be labeled as a loser even if it required criminal actions. Now, because he was re-elected president by an uninformed electorate, he will not be punished for his crime of insurrection in 2020. A sitting president can escape prosecution for virtually anything he does.

One cannot really blame Trump for his actions. He is driven by his emotions and his gut, instead of his brain. He does not carefully think things out before making statements and announcing policy. Though Biden’s age and mental capacity have been questioned, Trump has also shown signs of cognitive impairment, mixing up names of people and nations. He was not terribly smart to begin with, and the ravages of time, his diet and lack of exercise have probably caught up to him.

Trump’s immediate goal is to enact revenge on those people who opposed him in the past and currently, in and outside of government. That will happen after he is inaugurated. These so-called adversaries acted in good faith to do what they considered as benefiting the nation. But Trump doesn’t see it that way. He believes that loyalty to him is more important than allegiance to the Constitution. And who knows now what crazy schemes he will pursue once he’s in office. Will the military be used to occupy Greenland and invade Panama? Perhaps also Canada. Will Bitcoin replace the dollar to increase Trump’s wealth? Will vaccines be prohibited?

The travesty of Trump’s election does not rest on Trump’s shoulders but on those of the American people. Instead of investigating all of Trump’s purported crimes and odd behavior, they took Trump’s words as gospel and believed what he said while campaigning, as well as before and afterward. Billionaires will certainly benefit from Trump’s tax cuts as will corporate entities. The middle class not so much. And the poor will suffer even more. Trump has no feelings of compassion and may cut programs that helped the poor and middle classes, like Medicaid, Obamacare, SNAP and so forth. Our national debt will also balloon because of the tax cuts. Trump talks about tariffs replacing taxes, but really has no idea how effective they will be and how much suffering they will cause the American people.

America’s standing in the world will plummet with Trump as president as people globally will wonder how Americans could have elected Trump as president. Our alliances will be destroyed with NATO probably the first to be dissolved. Uninformed about the repercussions of another Trump presidency, the people have spoken. Now we will have to await the consequences.

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Putin, Russia and War

Putin, Russia and War

                     Robert A. Levine March 22, 2022

When the Iron Curtain finally came down in 1991, it appeared that a new dawn had arisen for mankind, with autocracy trending downward and democracy on an upswing. Certainly, China was still on an autocratic path, but its economic interdependence with America and the West offered some possibility of liberalization in the future. And with the Soviet Union having disintegrated, Russia under Boris Yeltsin provided hope for the establishment of democratic change. And all the Soviet vassal states were now free, with most of them opting for a liberal democratic form of government.

However, those who saw the future ascension of liberal democracy in the world were grievously mistaken. Democracy in Russia was a mirage, with deep corruption as state assets were sold off to private businesses and individuals in converting to a capitalist-style country. Wealthy oligarchs became engrained in the system of government with the majority of the populace neglected. Yeltsin turned out to be an incompetent drunkard who was unable grasp the power inherent in his position and what he could do to stabilize and improve governing. One of his advisors was Vladimir Putin, an ex-KGB officer. Finally, in 2000, Yeltsin surrendered his position and handed the reins of government to Putin who was approved by the Duma (Russian Parliament).

From the moment Putin assumed the presidency of Russia, its flight from democracy accelerated with an autocratic, personalist ruler in change. Since Putin became Russia’s leader, he has tightened his rope around the neck of any dissenting forces, assassinating some opponents and imprisoning others. Freedom of speech and anti-government rhetoric has gradually been banned, with long prison terms for those who flout the law. With term limits in the Russian constitution, Putin allowed his associate Dimitri Medvedev to be president for one term in 2008, with Putin as prime minister. Putin was reelected president in 2012, being perceived as in charge of the Russian state for over two decades, for even while Medvedev was nominally president, Putin held the power. A referendum in 2021, allowed Russian presidents to remain in office for more than two consecutive terms, which means Putin will likely be Russia’s leader until he dies or is deposed, the latter very unlikely.

Putin sees himself as someone in a long line of strong Russian leaders going back to Czarist times and including Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great, Stalin and himself. He has said that the fall of the Soviet Union was the greatest geo-political disaster of the 20^th century and he is trying to reverse its effects through military action. In 1994, Russian troops invaded Chechnya, a breakaway republic, to return it to Russian control. In 20 months of war, an estimated 100,000 Chechnyans were killed. Yeltsin was nominally in charge then and Putin’s role is unclear. However, the second Chechnyan War occurred under Putin from 1999 to 2009, with Islamists calling it a holy war. Grozny, the capital city of Chechnya was leveled and the war waxed and waned for a decade, with tens of thousands or more of Chechnyan civilians killed as well as numerous soldiers on both sides.

Georgia was next for Putin in 2008, with a short destructive war and seizure of the regions of Ossetia and Abkhazia, claiming Georgian genocide against the two republics. Disinformation from Russia was rampant with statements that the Russians were peacekeepers who had come to save Russian citizens. Putin also launched cyberattacks and blamed Georgia for starting the war.

In 2014, he grabbed Crimea from Ukraine and sent Russian troops into Donetask and Luhansk, to fight the Ukrainians, often disguising his military fighters as volunteers or local soldiers. Putin claimed he was protecting ethnic Russians and his troops were peacekeepers.

Then in 2015, after supplying the Syrian government with weapons since 2011, he had Russian forces enter the conflict on the side of the Syrian dictator Bashar al Assad. The Russian Air Force and missiles pounded the opponents of al Assad as well as civilian populations, hospitals and medical facilities. In addition, either the Russians or Syrian forces or both attacked civilians and opposing fighters with chemical weapons. Will Putin follow this formula in Ukraine?

The recent invasion of Ukraine which Putin calls a special military operation employed the same pattern of lies and destructive tactics he has used elsewhere. However, Putin did not expect to meet such fierce resistance from Ukrainian troops. Unable to capture any cities thus far except Kherson, Russian troops have targeted civilians, destroying residential buildings and non-military structures to try and break the will of the Ukrainian population. He talks of de-nazification of the country when a Jew is the president and seems not to care how many of his own troops and Ukrainian civilians are killed.

The question that must be asked is what will Putin do if his troops continue to be stalemated by the Ukrainians. Will he turn to chemical or biological weapons, or even consider the use of tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield or against Ukrainian cities? Here is a man dedicated to restoring Russia’s empire, an imperialist who considers himself a great leader. Can he handle the thought of losing in Ukraine without resorting to even more horrific tactics? And how will he deal with nations in the West who support Ukraine with weapons and financial sanctions? It is hard to read the mind of a paranoid narcissist.

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