So … since I was last here, we’ve seen the earliest presidential debate in history, the Democratic Party go through an all-too-familiar psychodrama, and an attempt to murder Donald Trump (yes, murder; even killing Trump would fall well outside the range of justifiable homicide).
Yet with all of that swirling around (and yeah, that’s a lot), Trump himself kept his eye fixed on appeasing his patron in the Kremlin. Thus, the GOP nominee picked the running mate most likely to make his Moscow benefactor happy: Senator JD Vance.
How Putin-friendly is Vance? Before he was even elected, he decided to insult 70,000 of his own voters by insisting, “I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or another” (Business Insider [1]).
Since his term began last January, he’s been as bad as his word, to the point of lobbying House Republicans to oppose aid to Ukraine’s effort to repel Russia’s invasion (Ohio Capital Journal [2]). He’s spewing of misinformation about the war has been so odious that even fellow Republican Lindsey Graham called him out on it.
When Trump selected Mike Pence as his Vice Presidential nominee eight years ago, it was widely (and rightly) seen as an offering to social conservatives. This time, Trump didn’t need to do that. Instead, he chose to show his fealty to Vladimir Putin once more.