Donald Trump, the Russian President
When in his latest press conference Donald Trump yet again referred to the coronavirus as “the China virus,” I decided then and there that we now have the right to change his title from “president of the United States” to “the Russian President.” What’s good for the goose, as they say.
After all, Trump publicly sought Russia’s help in the 2016 election, secretly sent his chinless dauphin, Donald Trump Junior, to Trump Tower to expressly meet with Russian operatives in the hope of getting “dirt” on Hillary Clinton, promised Russia that he’d lift Russian sanctions if elected, openly betrayed America’s intelligence community in favor of the murderer Vladimir Putin at Helsinki, and is now holding Putin’s coat for unlimited interference in the 2020 presidential election. So if Trump gets to call it the China virus, we get to call him the Russian President.
Of course, my purpose in deciding to call him the Russian President is very different from Trump’s insistence on calling coronavirus the China virus. Trump calls it that in order to achieve two things. First, he does it in order to draw attention away from his monumental failure in handling the pandemic. Second, he does it in order to inflame hatred against Asian Americans.
I call him the Russian President because that’s what he is. Trump exists as an extension of Vladimir Putin’s will. Trump gets to keep the self-dealing and trappings and golf and ego-feeding exigencies of the presidency for as long as he continues to follow Putin’s playbook. Trump is and will always remain Putin’s poodle, and his insistence that “nobody has ever been harder on Russia than me” has got to be the all time joke of his entire criminal regime.
Putin, of course, fancies himself something of a Bond Villain. He delights in his puppet mastery of Trump and the chaos Trump has sown in America. Through Trump Putin is promulgating the fondest dream of the old Soviet empire, that of humiliating and eviscerating the United States. Putin knows that another four years of Trump will mean the end of America as a world power. And I think he’s right. I don’t see how America can survive four more years of a Trump presidency.
Naturally Trump will object to being called the Russian President as a tit for tat to his calling coronavirus the China virus. Trump doesn’t believe in tit for tat. Trump believes he deserves unlimited recourse to personal insult and no one else does. His incessant whining about how badly he gets treated is a case in point.
Of course, when people attack Trump on Twitter — and lots of people do, including me — they and we lack a power that Trump has when he attacks us. Trump is surrounded by the best security detail in the world. We are sitting ducks. If Trump attacks any of us by name or by class or by ethnicity he puts our lives in deadly peril to his gun-toting base. So the game is already unfair. Trump’s particular whine is that it’s not unfair enough.
So the Russian President of the United States remains in power for now. He will happily continue to destroy America if it keeps him out of prison and in Putin’s good graces. Do you still think “Biden is just as bad as Trump”? Wrong. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris aren’t just the best thing to happen to America in four years, they are our last hope. Our only hope. So vote. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.