TLDR; No, please read this. I'm going to speak in full and complete paragraphs so you understand exactly what I mean, and can't misread me. Or if you don't want to read this, you'll thank yourself later by spending some time this Saturday afternoon reading the linked Senate Intel report.
I think Trump shouldn't have been parroting Russian propaganda for years and working with Russia to help himself get elected. I think he should have taken the White House meeting with Zelensky and given him the allocated weapons as required by law instead of illegally withholding them and using them to extort a bribe which would help himself politically, again with his election. I think his party should have held him accountable for this and shouldn't have defended him on his "right" to do this, when the House managers proved their case beyond a reasonable doubt.
I think that at Helsinki, Trump should have shown strength and called out Putin to his face about the fact that Putin hacked the the DNC and interfered in the 2016 election to help Trump win, instead of taking Putin's side. We know why he said that because he was glad for Putin's help. He told us as much and said he would accept more if it were to come his way.
I think if at any time in the last 6 years Trump and the Republican establishment had shown any kind of backbone when it comes to Putin, maybe on the order of how they posture against the Chinese, we wouldn't have an invasion today because there would be no question about America's position regarding Russia. Instead, with top Republican leaders making pilgrimages to Moscow on Jan 4, and top Republican media being broadcast on Russian state TV unedited because it's just that on-message... well, there's still no question on where one of America's top political parties stands on Putin/Russia when they call him a "savvy genius" for invading countries like Hitler.
By the way, Putin reads and watches as American media is crowing that this same pro-Putin political party will be taking over the US Congress in 10 months. This same party signaled it would be putting members in charge of very powerful committees, members who have been very vocally pro-Putin, and who have themselves personally pushed Russian propaganda straight from the Kremlin on the floors of the House and Senate. There are Republicans who still say Ukraine, not Russia, was responsible for hacking the 2016 US Presidential Election.
This is what the Republican majority Senate Intel Committee found regarding 2016:
"The Committee found that Manafort's presence on the Campaign and proximity to Trump created opportunities for Russian intelligence services to exert influence over, and acquire confidential information on, the Trump Campaign. Taken as a whole, Manafort's high level access and willingness to share information with individuals closely affiliated with the Russian intelligence services, particularly Kilimnik and associates of Oleg Deripaska, represented a grave counterintelligence threat."
"The Committee found that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the Russian effort to hack computer networks and accounts affiliated with the Democratic Party and leak information damaging to Hillary Clinton and her campaign for president. Moscow's intent was to harm the Clinton Campaign, tarnish an expected Clinton presidential administration, help the Trump Campaign after Trump became the presumptive Republican nominee, and undermine the U.S. democratic process." [0]
Read: The Trump campaign willingly worked with Russian intelligence (aka Vladimir Putin) and gave them confidential information, on purpose with the intent that Russia would aid Trump's presidential election, and it threatened national security. Collusion. Think about that and then remember that Trump pardoned Paul Manafort, who went to jail after he reneged on his cooperation agreement with Mueller to turn on Trump. Manafort is a free man today.
What did they do about this thing they said represented a "grave counterintelligence threat"? Nothing. They went on TV and said "No collusion, it's a hoax, the Ukrainians did it!" and held a party for Trump. Vladimir Putin read that report, I guarantee you. He sees the weakness. It is palpable. He knows Republicans know what he's up to, and he knows they will not only sit on their hands, but they will publicly deny everything they wrote in that report. Try to get a Republican to admit that Russia hacked the 2016 election today. It's like pulling teeth. Republicans tried harder to get the American public to believe that Ukraine hacked the 2016 election! They will never admit that to you even though they wrote the above words in black and white in an official government product of the US Senate. Because they know people don't read the 1000 page 5 volume reports. They watch Fox News and Fox News didn't run the above quotes (and if I missed it, I must have blinked).
And if you think I'm only against Trump/Republicans for this I think Obama should have been 1000% harder on Putin after the 2016 election and the 2014 invasion of Crimea. That was a got dang travesty the way he was let off the hook for that and is another reason why we are here today. I have plenty to say about them but not today.
Because that's not where the history books will start the story of how this war began. The story starts with the Trump Russia scandal. Why? Because whether or not that pushed Trump over the edge, Trump still owed Putin. The deal was laid out at the Trump Tower meeting between Manafort, Kusnher, and Don Jr. The terms were: hacked material in exchange for relaxed relations. The hacked material came, and the relaxed relations followed. Slow walked and nominal sanctions, but a Putin-approved secretary of state who happens to be a Oil executive who was personally awarded the Order of Friendship by Putin, the highest civilian honor in Russia. White House meetings with Russians inside of the Oval Office, a place Zelensky never got to meet with Trump. That has meaning and value.
Trump spent 4 entire years of his presidency pumping up Russia, gaslighting the US public by claiming his collusion was a hoax, and of course Russia was pleased when Ukraine started taking the blame instead of them.
But most of all, to Russia's great delight, Trump spent 4 years weakening the NATO alliance by questioning its Article 5 obligations. The NATO alliance was at its weakest in history the day Trump left office. But then Joe Biden was elected, and I am no Joe Biden fan, but NATO started getting stronger from that day forward if just for the fact that Trump no longer had the power to use the US Government to make it weaker intentionally. So Putin had a choice: invade now when NATO is at its weakest and covid is still a problem, or wait 4 years to see if Trump is reelected, and if he's not then it's 8 years and NATO would be stronger than ever at that time. And who knows if Putin would still be in power at that point or even alive!
This is really the best chance he's ever going to get, and it's all thanks to Trump doing what he did the 4 years he was in office. Because as much as you may hate Hillary Clinton and Lord knows I do, this would not be happening right now if she were elected President instead of Trump in 2016. It simply would not because there would have been no oval office visits, and no gaslighting of the public to be pro Russia, and Ukraine would have gotten the weapons as scheduled delivered to the western front where they were desperately needed to be deployed against Russians. I do not like Clinton but she had the good sense of foresight to have Putin pegged for Hitler in 2014, and I respect that. She may have played fast and loose with government policy and should be held to account for that, but at least she can recognize a psychopath when she sees one. She was right about Putin and she was right about Trump and her legacy at long last is going to be "I told you so", which good for her.
[0] https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/docu...