Vladimir Putin is brilliant. Without firing a single nuclear missile, without dispatching a team of assassins to murder American leaders, without even sending a nuclear submarine to lurk near our shores, he has managed to inflict significant damage on our country.
Putin must be smiling at his astonishing success. He interfered in the 2016 presidential election and helped into office a narcissistic sociopath who not only admires Putin but also does his bidding. President Donald J. Trump is a would-be despot who, for reasons we may never know, carries out Putin’s wishes — destroying democratic values, exacerbating civic division and, of course, trashing Ukraine.
But Putin’s victory did not end there. Because Trump has completely taken over the Republican Party, so has Putin. His GOP lackeys are going around repeating the discredited propaganda that Putin must have whispered into Trump’s ear: that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 presidential election.