The Tribune

THIS morning is American Thanksgiving. Sadly, many Americans will be framing their views about this wonderful, joyous, and yet sobering holiday around the caustic current politics of the nation.

There’s a feeling that’s hard to escape on this uniquely American day of feast, family, and festivity. The next general election will mark the unmistakable, inevitable ebbing of the current president’s strong grip on the Republican Party and on the levers of American government and military power.

Things don’t look good for Donald Trump at the moment. There’s no relief that he promised on the cost of living for Americans. In fact, his corrosive tariffs regime is broadly seen as cruelly and unnecessarily amplifying the inflationary price trends in the US economy that doomed the Biden/Harris candidacies just a year ago. The tariffs epitomize Trump’s economic malfeasance.

There are other issues that work against Trump. One is certainly his defensiveness on the whole Jeffrey Epstein issue. But even more important for us and the world is his stubbornness on Ukraine. It’s helpful to seek perspective in considering this, away from the cloying familiarity of Washington.

Well beyond the Washington DC beltway, the air seems fresh. There’s a crisp bite to any breeze these days, as winter rolls toward America’s Mid-Atlantic region. Out in far western Virginia, in the shadow of the Appalachian Mountains and the Blue Ridge Parkway and the Shenandoah River, it feels more distant than simply a couple of hours from the capital.

Old friends Reggie and Mary live there and recently welcomed holiday guests from Washington DC.

Reggie and Mary were enjoying a leisurely coffee with old friends and--despite nearly everyone warning against it because the subject has become so divisive in the US--they were talking politics and trying again to figure out what is in Donald Trump’s head.

Mary has never been able to tolerate Trump. She quickly looked up old friends in Toronto when he was shockingly elected in 2016. She wanted to vent to them and see if they might sponsor her and Reggie on a move to Canada. But her long-time pals had recently passed.

Reggie sees himself as a pragmatist. ‘Give me the situation, and I’ll try to figure out how to manage it, so we come out ahead or no worse than we began,’ he is fond of saying. He tries to see the benefit of Trump’s presidency, but admits that it’s been hard to do in recent months, as this second Trump term lurches toward the first quarter pole.

Once her guests were settled, Mary spoke fiercely. “Can anyone honestly tell me what Trump is doing in Ukraine?” she demanded. No one replied right away, so she continued.

“This stupid war has now been underway for almost four years. Counting Putin’s illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014, it’s actually been going on for almost a dozen years! The whole enterprise is supremely illegitimate. Russia has no business whatsoever doing what it is doing, and yet Trump continues to support the Kremlin and turn his back on Ukraine, a nation fighting for its freedom like America did 249 years ago!

“The US is going to celebrate two-and-a-half centuries of independence next summer. At the same time, it appears it will still be actively hindering efforts to assist Ukraine in its own fight for independence from rapacious Russia. What is this even about?”

Reggie glanced around the room quickly, as if trying to gauge the willingness of his guests to engage in another spirited review of the current president’s mystifying myopia when it comes to Russia and its president Vladimir Putin. No one raised their eyebrows in response, so Reggie dipped his toe in the discussion, almost immediately regretting doing so.

He began quietly, almost reluctantly. “Dear Mary, I assume you are hoping one of us can crack the code of this president and offer you a reasonable explanation. I’m going to try. If your questions were rhetorical and not looking for answers, this would be a good time to let me know and we can talk about football or Taylor Swift’s upcoming marriage.”

Mary didn’t reply, nor smile, and their guests seemed vaguely engaged, if only to see where things turned out between their long-time friends.

“OK, here goes nothing,” Reggie said with a smile no one returned. “I’ve done some reading and thinking about Trump and Ukraine, because it doesn’t make any sense to me either. I’ve concluded that there are probably two explanations for Trump’s love affair with Putin. Both are consistent with Trump as I understand him.”

Mary looked over at her long-time partner with a puzzled curiosity. He didn’t usually speak this way. She considered for a moment when she realized that he really had been thinking about this. She had just been shouting into the wind, venting fruitlessly as she and her friends so often did. But Reggie looked thoughtful, serious, and full of something to say. She sat still and waited.

Reggie paused, took a breath, and began.

“The first reason has to do with Trump, Biden, and Ukraine. Remember Trump’s attempts in his first term to withhold aid to some other countries until they launched investigations into Joe Biden and his son Hunter? Trump correctly deduced, and often spoke publicly, about the threat to his re-election that Biden represented. He tried to smear his future opponent in any way he could. Here are a few conclusions that I found from the report of the House Intelligence Committee:

"President Trump, personally and acting through agents within and outside of the US government, solicited the interference of a foreign government, Ukraine, to benefit his re-election... President Trump conditioned official acts (delivering military and other assistance) on a public announcement by the new Ukrainian president (Volodymyr Zelensky) that Ukraine would initiate an investigation into alleged improprieties by Joe Biden. In pressuring President Zelensky to carry out this demand, President Trump withheld critical US military assistance to fight Russian aggression in eastern Ukraine."

Reggie reminded his listeners that in January 2020, the Government Accountability Office, a non-partisan watchdog, found that the White House broke federal law by withholding Congress-approved military aid to Ukraine.

“Zelensky refused,” Reggie continued. “Trump lost to Biden in November 2020. And Trump never forgets and he never forgives. So, it’s entirely possible that Trump’s otherwise inexplicable behaviour--as he tries so hard to stack the ceasefire deck in favour of Russia--is simply retribution for Zelensky’s refusal to engage in a political scam six years ago. 

“I think that’s entirely consistent with who Trump has repeatedly revealed himself to be during his decade or so in public political life,” Reggie concluded. “Now let’s stretch our legs and have a drink of something, take a break. There’s more.”

The others left Mary to her thoughts. After a few minutes, her friends returned and found her still sitting there, looking off into space. Reggie started slowly again, carefully choosing his words.

“I think the second reason for Trump’s bromance with Putin is what has long been rumoured. I think Putin may have something profoundly embarrassing for Trump that the president fears might be released. My hunch is that whatever it is, I think this scary information would reveal a side of Trump that he fears could also be exposed by the release of the Epstein files.”

No more trance for Mary. She sat up and looked directly at Reggie. “I always wondered about that,” she said. “Are you thinking about Trump’s time in Moscow during the Miss Universe pageant that he staged there in 2013? I remember hearing a lot of speculation about that when Trump was running for president for the first time, and even then, his positive fascination with Putin was hard to understand or explain.”

Reggie thought for a moment. “It might be that. It could be anything, really. But Trump has also often referred to Roy Cohn as a mentor. Cohn was Senator Joseph McCarthy's chief counsel during his infamous investigations of suspected communists in the 1950s. There is still much speculation that Cohn was gay. If Putin has something on Trump, it could relate to some sex-based embarrassment either from Cohn, Epstein, or someone else.

“Where there is smoke, sometimes there really is fire.”