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Tuesday, July 17, 2018

Abbreviated pundit roundup: World in shock as Trump chooses Putin over America



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We begin today’s roundup with Michelle Goldberg’s excellent piece in The New York Times analyzing Donald Trump’s shameful submission to Vladimir Putin yesterday:
Trump’s behavior on Monday recalled his outburst at Trump Tower after the violent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, when he insisted there were “very fine people” among the racist demonstrators. Both times, everything Trump said was in keeping with things he’d said before. The shocking part was his frankness. Then, as now, it forced, if just for a moment, a collective apprehension of just what a repulsive abomination this presidency is.
It’s always been obvious that Trump does not hold Russia’s hacking of the 2016 election, which he publicly encouraged and gleefully benefited from, against Putin. None of us yet know the exact contours of Trump’s relationship with Russia, whether Putin is his handler, his co-conspirator or just his hero. But it’s clear that Trump is willing to sell out American democracy for personal gain. After all, on July 27, 2016, he publicly called for Russia to find Clinton’s emails, and, thanks to Friday’s indictments, we now know Russia started trying to hack the domain used by her personal office that very day. Trump’s collusion with Russia has always been out in the open, daring us to recognize what’s in front of our faces.

Anton Troianovski at The Washington Post says Putin’s views took center stage:
Responding to a question here about interference in the 2016 election, Russian President Vladimir Putin distilled his worldview: “You can’t believe anyone.”
For once, Putin had a Western leader standing next to him who rejects his critics in the same way. [...] But beyond Putin’s tactical gains, the Helsinki meeting highlighted the global ascendance of Putin’s ruthless approach to politics and to facts — the posture that any truth can be an illusion, that any journalist or public servant is likely pursuing an ulterior motive.
 
The New York Times on the matter:

There has been no sign that the United States has derived any benefit from Mr. Trump’s obsequiousness toward Mr. Putin, though Mr. Trump himself has now at least gotten a shiny new soccer ball.
Here’s Ed Kilgore’s take:

[U]nless some big developments quickly obliterate the images from Helsinki, it is going to be difficult ever again for Trump and his allies to suggest that his administration has made America Great Again by impressing friends and enemies alike with the bristling courage and plain-spoken nationalism of Donald J. Trump. After crashing through Western Europe, insulting America’s oldest and strongest allies, the 45th president confirmed that he has a weak spot for a Russian leader who is a real authoritarian bully-boy, not just someone who pretends to be tough on television or the campaign trail. It’s not a good look for the man who claims to put America First.
Robin Wright at The New Yorker:

Trump accomplished little in the way of substance in Helsinki. “Putin wanted to communicate that a new era in U.S.-Russian relations had begun, something Trump was all too happy to associate himself with,” Haass told me. “Trump engaged in moral equivalence in blaming both countries for the poor state of relations. As was the case in Singapore, he exaggerated what had been accomplished by the summit. Most egregiously, he criticized the Mueller investigation and refused to back his own intelligence and law-enforcement agencies.” The one positive development may be movement on outstanding arms-control issues, although neither leader provided any details.
James Fallows at The Atlantic says Republicans must stop enabling Trump’s destruction of American values and security:

[E]very hour that elapses after this shocking performance in Helsinki without Republicans doing anything, the more deeply they are stained by this dark moment in American leadership.
And, on the most important point, John Nichols sounds the alarm for Republicans to step up and secure our elections:

Complaining about the signals that this president is sending with regard to election integrity, even suggesting that Trump’s comments might encourage interference in the 2018 and 2020 elections, is just talk. It means nothing unless words are matched with deeds. No matter what anyone thinks about Trump, or about Putin, or about US-Russian relations, or about how direct and how ambitious outside interference may have been in 2016, or about what details of that interference may tell us about the legitimacy of Trump’s presidency, or about where the Mueller investigation is headed—it is simply absurd that affirmative steps are not being taken to secure the electoral processes of the United States going into this fall’s midterm elections and heading toward the 2020 presidential election.

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