To the surprise of few, Russian President Vladimir Putin was completely undeterred by vague threats of “severe consequences” from a President who can barely string a sentence together or answer questions without handlers.
Last night Russia launched a full scale attack on Ukraine days after moving additional troops into the nation’s two Russian-backed breakaway regions. Explosions have been reported on Kyiv, and dozens have been reported dead so far. Global stocks are selling off, with Russia’s stock market down over 50% from its peak, and oil has surged above $100/barrel for the first time since 2014. Ukraine has imposed martial law in response to the attacks.
Domestically, the American left’s response has been to spawn the narrative that any criticism of Biden’s inability to combat Putin is somehow an endorsement of Putin himself!
Kyiv and Kharkiv are being bombed. The largest invasion on our planet since WW2. Republicans are rooting for the Russians. God be with Ukraine and democracy.
— Rep. Eric Swalwell (@RepSwalwell) February 24, 2022
While the left is now spending their time getting mad at Republican caricatures they made up in their head, the narrative shift comes after the denial that there would be any invasion at all. MSNBC regular and former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul predicted just five days ago that Biden’s actions were some form of Jedi mind trick where he was actually trying to goad Putin into “embarrassing” him by not invading!
Biden has given Putin a brilliant off-ramp. By announcing to the world that Putin plans to invade, Putin can now embarrass Biden by not invading and blaming the West for beating the "drums of war." Take it Mr. Putin. Embarras my president! (Small price to pay for avoiding war.)
— Michael McFaul (@McFaul) February 19, 2022
Nailed it.
Following the invasion, Biden promised more of the same “further consequences” that didn’t stop Putin in the first time.
Meanwhile, the former President who saw no Russian encroachments of Ukraine’s territory under his watch also spoke out during an appearance last night on Laura Ingraham’s show: “It’s a terrible thing. The way it started, I don’t believe he [Putin] wanted to do this initially. I think he wanted to do something and negotiate it and it got worse and worse. He saw the weakness—when it really started with the weakness in Afghanistan. The way they pulled out of Afghanistan. I really believe that’s where he started to think he could do this.”
Watch the full exchange below:
Due to the possibility of social media’s “fact checkers” flagging this article due to Trump’s comments about election integrity in the above video, I’m required to totally-not-sarcastically note that the 2020 election was not only the freest and fairest election that ever occurred not only in American history, but in the history of the entire world, universe, and perhaps even in other dimensions.
Matt Palumbo is the author of The Man Behind the Curtain: Inside the Secret Network of George Soros
