The former president isn’t in office—but is still dictating U.S. policy.
Donald Trump, who is not the president, is using a minority of Republicans to block aid to Ukraine, to undermine the actual president’s foreign policy, and to weaken American power and credibility.
He had meetings with Putin without anyone else present while being president. That alone should disqualify him from holding any public office, let alone becoming president again.
The article makes is all very obvious but the author is too cowardly to spell it the obvious conclusion: the only one who benefits from all this bullshit is Putin. The only rational explanation is that Trump is acting in Putin's interest against the US.
At best it's because it's because he doesn't want Joe Biden and the Democrats to look good before the upcoming election. At worst it's because he's Putin's bitch doing whatever his master says.
Personally, I believe he's a piece of shit traitor and so too are all the Republicans that follow and listen to him.
There have been so many examples of Trump protecting and sweet talking Russia and Putin, and he has been surrounded by Russians in all kinds of situations, financial and his security, that there is no reason to believe there are 2 options here. Trump is a traitor to USA, pure and simple.
There are a number who aren't, like Liz Cheney. It's possible to disagree almost completely with somebody on policy, and still recognize that they're not a traitor.
Not that the rest of the Republican party accepts them or will allow them to win a primary anymore.
I mean, that line of reasoning can get a bit dicey. Given that they're in the electoral majority, I think that technically makes the Democrats traitors.
Why does the article focus on the small minority of Republicans when the rest of the Republicans are complicit in blocking the aid too? Only a few Republicans need to vote in favor of the aid to pass.
That’s the proximate cause. The ultimate cause is that the Republicans stand no chance if they alienate Trump’s base. Many of them would prefer it if he went away but they can’t make it happen.
AFAIK Democrats had the option to elect a moderate Republican as speaker, but instead they allowed Johnson to be elected. So Democrats could as I see it, have prevented the shitshow the House is now.
It's allowed because Democrats failed to prevent it. And instead allowed the MAGA crowd to control the House with their majority among Republicans.
Because the Republican House Reps listen to him and want to appeal to his political base. And because right-wing news media pushes a ton of Trump-friendly media advocating against further funding of the Ukraine War.
If you really get under the hood of this thing, the Republican positions is that Americans should be allied with Russia and at war with Ukraine because Ukrainians are gay woke liberal pedophile soyboys, while Russians are Based Western TradCath Chads. What gets even nuttier is that Republicans still despise China, and believe they need to ally with Russia against China in a war over the South Pacific.
Trump's not even really leading on this issue so much as echoing what the right-wing press regularly puts out. The real hand behind the throne is a cartel of industrialist billionaire hold-overs from the John Bircher movement of the 1960s, plus their larger network of talk radio, TV, newspaper, and social media talking heads parroting their message.
It highlights the fact that the Republicans control a majority of the House of Representatives. That's on the state legislators who gerrymandered the districts
Yeah, because it typically works that way, that just someone has to say something with courage and the weak president is too afraid to say something against it...