Reagan Weeps

Somewhere near Simi Valley, CA, residents are reporting strange rumblings. But it’s not an earthquake, it just Ronald Reagan spinning in his grave at Mach 1 speed.

The president who once thundered, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall” is now silently watching the man who currently occupies the Oval Office doing his level best to help Vladimir Putin and the former Communist party. It’s a turn of events that has upended the world order of the last 80 years.

I’m writing this shortly after the spectacle of an American president bullying President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, in the Oval Office, in front of the press. It was shocking, obnoxious, and a clear ploy to strong arm Zelensky into signing a questionable security deal.

In the face of being harangued, insulted, and taunted with childish comments like, “Why aren’t you wearing a suit?” Zelensky kept his cool.  This is a man who’s been in the middle of an active war zone for three years; schoolyard bullying isn’t going to rattle him.

Besides the stomach-churning global embarrassment, this stunt undid 80 years of carefully crafted international alliances. Two days later, the leaders of EU countries, along with Canada and Ukraine, hastily gathered in London to acknowledge that the U.S. was clearly on Russia’s side and they would collectively need to lead the global world order, especially concerning Ukraine.

It’s a shocking turn of events, but in Trump’s case, unsurprising, During his first administration, he regularly sided with autocrats and dictators, especially Putin. Their 2018 meeting in Helsinki was full of slobbering fealty, with Trump publicly siding with Putin in discussing 2016 election interference with the press. Like a cheap mob boss, he regularly threatens to take America out of NATO.

From the start, Trump has opposed helping Ukraine defend themselves against Russia. This was most apparent when he allegedly tried to extort Zelensky over funding that had already been approved for their defense (Impeachment #1). At this writing, he’s just “paused” another round of funding and is clearly all-in on letting Putin roll through that country. Trump has neither the interest in nor capability of understanding what that would mean to global security.

He just wants to sit with the Cruel Kids at lunch.

The more disturbing reason for his love of chaos and cruelty is Trump’s own pathology: he wants to be just like Putin, Xi, Erdo?an, Orbán, and other petty tyrants.

I’ll leave psychiatrists to untangle his damaged psychopathy, but the rest of America is now reeling with the knowledge that we are now apparently on the side of the Bad Guys. The world knows it and is rearranging the power structure accordingly.

Tragically, we are no longer Reagan’s “shining city on the hill.” At the hands of a convicted felon and con man, we are just a broken-down Atlantic City casino that reeks of stale beer, cigarettes, and corruption.

Cindy Grogan is a writer, lover of history and "Star Trek" (TOS), and hardcore politics junkie. There was that one time she campaigned for Gerald Ford (yikes), but ever since, she's been devoted to Democratic and progressive policies.