[Aug 31, 2025 — Keep in mind that this article was posted Oct 29, 2024, BEFORE the election. All the things I report Trump saying regarding Putin, Russia, and Ukraine then have only become WORSE since being elected. Perhaps there will eventually be an updated post on that.]
I was a Trump supporter in 2016 and 2020. I am a conservative Reagan Republican, and agree with everything Reagan stood for.
There’s almost nothing Harris and the Democrats are promoting that I support, EXCEPT ONE THING… And for that Democrats don’t even do that well, but they’re 1000X better than Trump/Team MAGA. And that one thing dwarfs all others.
This will require a little context. Bear with me…
Right, Wrong, Good, and Evil
History rightly regards Hitler, the Nazis, Stalin, the Soviet Union, Mao Zedong and his communist China all as irredeemably, unspeakably evil. Most of this was pretty clear during the height of their reigns, but far more so in hindsight.
History is also clear in recognizing the victims of these evil regimes…
- The millions of Jews imprisoned, tortured, and executed
- The 50+ million dead in WWII
- The two million or so deaths in the Soviet Gulags
- The thousands of British civilians killed in the 6 months of Nazi bombing raids on England
And history is equally clear in recognizing and honoring the heroes who opposed and defeated the Nazis starting with D-Day/Normandy.
But monsters, victims, and heroes are not only things of the past.
Evil Today: The Russian Invasion of Ukraine
In today’s world evil is as vibrant and active as at any time in modern history.
On February 24, 2022 at 5:00AM local time in Ukraine air raid sirens screamed out nationwide as Russia initiated an all out military assault. I WAS THERE. I HEARD THE SIRENS and the EXPLOSIONS.
Ukraine, a country with the area and pre-war population approximately equaling that of Spain or Texas, a country whose national borders had been internationally recognized since 1991 when it gained its independence from Russia, had come under a barbaric assault.
Here in America we generally assume that the largest modern countries follow accepted norms of warfare, like those declared in the Geneva Conventions… Rules that prohibit the targeting of civilians, torture, rape, and governs things like the treatment of POWs.
Russia has never followed any such conventions.
In its invasion of Ukraine, Russia TARGETS civilians. Civilians are easier – they don’t shoot back. Russia BOMBS schools, hospitals, churches, and apartment buildings. They TORTURE, RAPE, and EXECUTE prisoners – including CIVILIAN prisoners. Russia SEIZES Ukrainian children from areas they capture and forcibly send them to Russia for re-education and placement in Russian families (20,000 children are estimated to have been abducted from Ukraine during the war).
It should be noted that none of these things are isolated, occasional occurrences for Russia. They are mainstream, standard-operating-procedure. They are the norm, not the exception.
In the first month of the war Russia captured Bucha, a suburb of Kyiv. When the Russian troops were finally driven out, the scenes they left behind were horrifying… Many civilians (Bucha was ALL CIVILIANS) were found laying face down with their hands tied behind their backs and bullet holes in the backs of their heads. Other random civilians were just shot as target practice. Many sites had been converted to torture chambers. Women AND CHILDREN are frequently RAPED.
Check out the wikipedia entry, or Google Bucha Massacre to fact-check me if you think I’m exaggerating (you’ll find that I’m actually understating it).
Another month or so later, the entire Azov Sea coastal city of Mariupol – a city of a half million residents – was bombed off the map. For all practical purposes it no longer exists.
But none of this stuff is new for Russia. It has always been Russia’s normal military practice. It is a DARK, EVIL country and ruled by a DARK, EVIL, CRUEL man.
As for the heroes of this story, there are many. MANY Ukrainians voluntarily joined the military to defend their homeland. And I mean actually VOLUNTEERED. They didn’t just “voluntarily” report for duty when summoned. They SOUGHT OUT recruitment centers to enlist.
When a Ukrainian soldier is injured in battle, the injury usually qualifies him for a medical discharge. But in many cases these soldiers do not take the discharge. If they are capable, they insist on returning to battle.
Consider President Zelensky, Russia’s #1 target of the whole invasion. On the first day of the invasion Joe Biden offered Zelensky safe passage out of Ukraine to govern his country safely from abroad. Zelensky declined, answering instead, “I don’t need a ride, I need ammunition”. He REMAINED in Ukraine with a target on his back instead of fleeing to safety abroad.
Consider the millions of Ukrainian civilians who, to this very day – more than 2.5 years into the war – live through air raid alerts almost every day. While most incoming missiles, rockets, and drones are intercepted, some get through and destroy a nearby hospital or residence. Yet Ukrainians face this evil every day with courage and hope.
I point all this out because the magnitude of evil involved in this invasion is essential to the main point of this post. There are no other mitigating circumstances that make any of this somehow justified or in any way less evil. Nothing here makes anything less black and white.
This is the clearest global scale good vs. evil event of our lifetime.
Yeah, but Ukraine is so far away… Why should I care?
Well, let me start the answer to that question by first pointing out that Nazi Germany was also far away (AND long ago). When learning of mass executions of six million Jews do you ask “Why should I care?” If so, then with all due respect, the remainder of what I say may be over your head.
But just as with the atrocities of Nazi Germany 80 years ago, regarding Ukraine today you can at least call out Russia’s barbarism for the evil that it is, RIGHT? That costs nothing. It only requires the most rudimentary recognition of basic right vs wrong and good vs evil. And THAT is the central point of my post here.
BUT, since you ask, here’s the thing… In 1994 – three years after Ukraine gained its independence from the collapsed USSR – it had the 3rd largest stockpile of nuclear weapons in the world behind Russia and the U.S. In an effort to reduce nuclear arms worldwide, the US and UK went to Ukraine asking them to surrender their nukes to RUSSIA in exchange for the promise that if Ukraine was ever violated by Russia, the U.S. and U.K. would come to Ukraine’s defense. Google “Budapest Memorandum” or just read my page on that subject at Budapest Memorandum.
Had Ukraine not trusted us to honor our agreement, they would now be nuclear-armed and would NOT have been invaded by Russia.
Honoring our agreement would cost less than 0.5% of our national budget mostly in the form of sending Ukraine our old artillery shells and trench warfare crap that we’ll never use to enable Ukraine to defend itself against the barbarian horde.
But some politicians don’t even recognize the evil being perpetrated by Putin, let alone being willing to honor our agreements.
Trump
Trump is one of those politicians.
Trump cannot seem to so much as subtly imply that he even slightly disapproves of Putin’s industrial scale evil. And, while he never states clearly what he would do to end the hostilities, it’s not hard to connect the dots from what he and his top surrogates (JD, Don Jr., MTG, et. al.) do say. He would clearly condition continued U.S. aid to Ukraine on Ukraine giving up territory illegally seized by Russia.
Besides being unconscionably immoral, this is the surest way to provoke further, greater, and more widespread evil, even realistically leading to world war.
However, as obvious as the implications are, admittedly Trump has not SAID he would withhold support from Ukraine. But he HAS said a lot of other stupid shit that reflects an absolute inability to recognize right from wrong, good from evil, and to actually speak out against evil.
Trump has been asked multiple times his position on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the clearest things he says are things like “It’s horrible what’s happening there… all the dying… ON BOTH SIDES… I want the dying to stop…” Ever notice that he NEVER mentions who is CAUSING THE DYING?
NEVER is the perpetrator even IDENTIFIED, let alone BLAMED.
Lest you doubt me, let’s look at some actual quotes.
… I said, “This is genius.” Putin declares a big portion of Ukraine. Putin declares it as independent. Oh, that’s wonderful…
So, Putin is now saying, “It’s independent,” a large section of Ukraine. I said, “How smart is that?” And he’s gonna go in and be a peacekeeper. That’s strongest peace force… I’ve ever seen. There were more army tanks than I’ve ever seen. They’re gonna keep peace all right… Here’s a guy who’s very savvy… I know him very well. Very, very well… You gotta say that’s pretty savvy…
Source: Full Interview: President Trump with C&B from Mar-a-Lago
In this interview Trump never so much as criticizes the invasion.
In his only debate with Kamala Harris, Trump said this about the war…
I want the war to stop. I want to save lives that are being uselessly — people being killed by the millions… I think it’s in the U.S. best interest to get this war finished and just get it done. All right. Negotiate a deal. Because we have to stop all of these human lives from being destroyed… [If I were president] Putin … wouldn’t have lost 300,000 men and women …
Source: Harris-Trump presidential debate transcript
Note the constant use of the passive voice, “lives that are being killed by the millions… we have to stop all of these human lives from being destroyed” Gosh Donald, are they being killed/destroyed by natural disasters? Earthquakes? Disease? Drought? Famine? Who or what is doing the killing? And Trump is very concerned that PUTIN “lost 300,000 men and women”. Did Putin misplace them?
Note again, NO CONDEMNATION or even identification of the perpetrator! Not so much as a hint that he thinks anyone DID anything wrong, only that “all these lives are being lost”.
And Trump wants a “fair deal” between Ukraine and Russia, and brags about his “very good relationship” with Putin (source: Trump says he wants ‘fair deal’ between Ukraine and Russia).
And while NOT being critical of Putin at all, Trump regularly CRITICIZES ZELENSKY (“Every time that Zelenskyy comes to this country, he walks away with $60 billion. He’s the greatest salesman ever” – Biden-Trump debate transcript).
Has Trump EVER said ANYTHING even a little negative or disparaging like this about Putin? EVER? EVEN ONCE?
Putin’s level of evil rivals the greatest in world history: Hitler, Stalin, Mao… yet Trump can’t find ONE negative thing to say about him, and only criticizes his victims.
This would be EXACTLY like someone in 1940 praising Hitler for being so smart, bragging about having a good relationship with him, hoping to get a fair deal between him and the UK and the rest of Europe, while at the same time mocking and criticizing CHURCHILL for being a short, fat smoker.
When someone even points out that “Putin is a killer”, giving Trump a perfect context to clear up any misunderstandings, TRUMP DEFENDS PUTIN!!! Check this out…
Bill O’Reilly: But [Putin] is a killer…
Trump: We’ve got a lot of killers. What, do you think our country’s so innocent? You think our country is so innocent?
O’Reilly: I don’t know of any government leaders who are killers.
Trump: Well, take a look at what we’ve done too. We’ve made a lot of mistakes. I’ve been against the war in Iraq from the beginning. A lot of mistakes. A lot of people were killed, so, a lot of killers around. Believe me.
Source: Donald Trump Super Bowl interview transcript with Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly | Feb 5, 2017)
So basically Putin isn’t really that bad… everyone is a killer, right? I mean really, who hasn’t ordered the torture and slaughter of millions of people?
Trump follows the exact same pattern when discussing Chinese president Xi Jinping:
Trump: We’re dealing with the smartest people. President Xi is a brilliant guy. Xi controls 1.4 billion people with an iron fist. He’s a brilliant guy. Whether you like it or not…
Joe Rogan: It doesn’t mean he’s not evil, and it doesn’t mean he’s not dangerous.
Trump: Of course not. But, actually, we have evil people in our country…
Source: Joe Rogan Experience #2219 – Donald Trump | PowerfulJRE | Oct 25, 2024
So, again, Xi Jinping isn’t so bad. We’re all evil.
OK, OK, so what SHOULD Trump say? I mean if he’s going to need to eventually deal with these tyrants it’s not going to be productive for him to speak publicly of them like they’re monsters, right? That wouldn’t exactly set the mood for constructive dialog, right?
This is the argument some of my MAGA friends offer.
I might start by pointing out that for a guy whose caustic tweets are a great source of pride for him and entertainment for his followers, none of that approach is ever used with regard to the most evil people on the planet. Of them he only speaks kindly, affirmingly, admiringly, even adoringly… “Brilliant”, “the smartest”, “savvy”, “genius”, and so on.
Well, let’s look at how another American president addressed such things…
The Reagan Answer to Evil…
In 1983 when a Soviet fighter jet shot down a Korean civilian airliner killing 269 on board when it accidentally flew over Soviet air space, President Ronald Reagan said,
I’m coming before you tonight about the Korean airline massacre, the attack by the Soviet Union against 269 innocent men, women, and children aboard an unarmed Korean passenger plane. This crime against humanity must never be forgotten, here or throughout the world. …
But despite the savagery of their crime, the universal reaction against it, and the evidence of their complicity, the Soviets still refuse to tell the truth. They have persistently refused to admit that their pilot fired on the Korean aircraft. Indeed, they’ve not even told their own people that a plane was shot down. …
Make no mistake about it, this attack was not just against ourselves or the Republic of Korea. This was the Soviet Union against the world and the moral precepts which guide human relations among people everywhere. It was an act of barbarism, born of a society which wantonly disregards individual rights and the value of human life and seeks constantly to expand and dominate other nations.
They deny the deed, but in their conflicting and misleading protestations, the Soviets reveal that, yes, shooting down a plane — even one with hundreds of innocent men, women, children, and babies — is a part of their normal procedure if that plane is in what they claim as their airspace. …
… But we shouldn’t be surprised by such inhuman brutality. Memories come back of Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, the gassing of villages in Afghanistan. If the massacre and their subsequent conduct is intended to intimidate, they have failed in their purpose. From every corner of the globe the word is defiance in the face of this unspeakable act and defiance of the system which excuses it and tries to cover it up. With our horror and our sorrow, there is a righteous and terrible anger…
Source: Address to the Nation on the Soviet Attack on a Korean Civilian Airliner, September 5, 1983
Damn!!! Reagan needs to read Trump’s “Art of the Deal”! And THIS was in response to 269 deaths, 62 of whom were Americans. But for such a “small” tragedy such STRONG words of open accusation, outrage, and condemnation… BLACK and WHITE — NO GRAY AREA.
Then of course there was the famous “Evil Empire” speech in which Reagan harshly, clearly, openly, directly condemned the Soviet Union, by name, more generally as the “Evil Empire”:
Yes, let us pray for the salvation of all of those who live in that totalitarian darkness [the Soviet Union] — pray they will discover the joy of knowing God. But until they do, let us be aware that … THEY ARE THE FOCUS OF EVIL IN THE MODERN WORLD.
… [Don’t] ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong and good and evil.
Source: Remarks at the Annual Convention of the National Association of Evangelicals in Orlando, FL (March 8, 1983)
Damn, wouldn’t that kill the mood for constructive dialog in the future?
In 1986 a terrorist bombing of a night club in West Berlin killed TWO PEOPLE, one of whom was an American soldier, and injured 230 more, 50 of whom were U.S. military personnel. When it was discovered that the attack was ordered by Libyan president Muammar Qadhafi, Reagan ordered air and naval strikes on selected strategic targets in Libya. Afterward he made an announcement. Part of it went as follows:
Colonel Qadhafi is not only an enemy of the United States. His record of subversion and aggression against the neighboring States in Africa is well documented and well known. He has ordered the murder of fellow Libyans in countless countries. He has sanctioned acts of terror in Africa, Europe, and the Middle East, as well as the Western Hemisphere. Today we have done what we had to do. If necessary, we shall do it again…
Source: Address to the Nation on the United States Air Strike Against Libya (April 14, 1986)
Note the absence of the passive voice. Reagan doesn’t say “many died… so many lives lost… so terrible…” No, he BLAMES the guilty party, BY NAME. Qadhafi is the ENEMY. Qadhafi ORDERED THE MURDER… Qadhafi sanctioned acts of terror…
When Reagan encountered evil, it ANGERED HIM. He didn’t speak gently and kindly toward it, let alone admiringly as does Trump. He spoke directly, condemning it, blaming the guilty and standing with the victims. He NEVER just brushed it aside with pathetic exercises of moral equivalence (“but we’re all killers…”).
The contrast could not be more stark.
For comparison, an average of over 330 Ukrainian CIVILIANS have been killed PER MONTH since the start of the February 2022 invasion (Source: Statista.com). Basically a “Korean Airliner” per month for 42 months (as of the date of the report). But this is how Reagan spoke of ONE “airliner”, and an airliner that DID accidentally drift off course into USSR air space. Many of the Ukrainian civilians are just murdered in their own homes in their own country while they sleep.
Reagan’s “Art of the Deal”
Above I acknowledge that one MIGHT offer as an explanation of the obvious absence of any moral compass on the part of Trump as just his “negotiation style”… that any open, public criticism of Putin’s barbarism would not smooth the way for future negotiation.
I also immediately above point out how Reagan seemingly had the OPPOSITE strategy: Criticize them openly, harshly, and repeatedly until they straightened up!
Peggy Noonan reports that after several of Reagan’s harshest speeches about the Soviet Union in his early presidency…
Anatoly Dobrynin, the Soviet ambassador to Washington, complained. He told Al Haig, the secretary of state, that the Soviets were unhappy about the harsh things Reagan had said. He hinted that they were interested in reopening arms control talks. Haig told the president. The president said to tell Dobrynin that his words were meant to convey a message: The White House was under new management, and it was informed by a new realism toward the Russians, and unless they changed their ways there would be more.
Source: Peggy Noonan, When Character Was King: A Story of Ronald Reagan (New York: Viking, 2001), p. 212.
NOTE that the Soviets were basically arguing for the “softer touch”, essentially saying that if he’d cool it with the tough talk, they might be willing to reopen arms control talks – something they KNEW Reagan REALLY WANTED.
Reagan said, basically, “NOPE, not until you clean up your act”. He’d rather speak the truth, call out evil for what it was, than to soft pedal it in the hopes of “getting a deal done”.
And how did that ultimately go? In Reagan’s eight years he never shut up about the Soviet Union, he called them out for EVERY bad act (and there were many), criticized them steadily throughout his presidency, and in the end the Soviet Union CRUMBLED TO THE GROUND.
Noonan puts it this way:
That was the amazing thing Ronald Reagan did when he looked at the Soviet Union. He refused to lie, and with his words the fall of the ugliest dictatorship of human history began. And nine months after he walked out of the White House, the Berlin Wall crashed to the ground. Though of course it didn’t fall. It was pushed.
Source: Peggy Noonan, When Character Was King: A Story of Ronald Reagan (New York: Viking, 2001), p. 214.
That was the “art” of Reagan’s deal-making… Tell the truth, recognize and call out evil, and let the chips fall where they may.
“An Immorality So Great”
On October 27, 1964 Ronald Reagan gave a campaign speech for Barry Goldwater’s presidential campaign – a speech that thrust him into the national spotlight.
Here are links to the transcript and the video if you want to check it out.
In a 29 minute speech he spent the first 23 minutes eloquently and passionately proclaiming timeless conservative values.
But then he transitions to a topic that he says “is the issue of this campaign that makes all the other problems I’ve discussed academic…”
The topic he is about to discuss “makes all the other problems [he previously] discussed academic”. In other words, what he’s about to discuss is FAR MORE IMPORTANT than all those other bedrock conservative positions. In that final segment he said,
We cannot buy our security, our freedom from the threat of the bomb by committing an immorality so great as saying to a billion human beings now enslaved behind the Iron Curtain, “Give up your dreams of freedom because to save our own skins, we’re willing to make a deal with your slave masters.”
Source: A Time for Choosing Speech (October 27, 1964)
Video: YouTube
It is quite clear that Donald Trump COULD and WOULD commit such an immorality as saying to Ukraine under daily/nightly air attacks, “Give up your dreams of freedom, make a deal, give away some of your land…”.
I can already hear my MAGA friends explain why it was different then… That it was a different world, and that Soviet Communism was the threat Reagan was opposing.
This is a pathetic argument. Reagan consistently referenced CORE, TIMELESS, UNCHANGING principles. This is extremely clear in most of his speeches.
For instance, he said “We must not ignore the suffering of the innocent, and must NEVER remain silent and inactive in times of moral crisis” (04/11/1983, Address to the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors, Capitol Centre, Landover, Maryland).
There he is speaking in 1983 in a context related to the Jewish Holocaust 40 years earlier.
In another speech, in words that could almost directly apply to Ukraine today, he said,
… On distant islands in the South Atlantic young men are fighting for Britain. And, yes, voices have been raised protesting their sacrifice for lumps of rock and earth so far away. But those young men aren’t fighting for mere real estate. They fight for a cause — for the belief that armed aggression must not be allowed to succeed … If there had been firmer support for that principle some 45 years ago, perhaps our generation wouldn’t have suffered the bloodletting of World War II.
Source: Address to Members of the British Parliament (June 8, 1982)
Video: YouTube
Again, here he’s speaking in 1982 about an event happening then, the principle upon which it was based (that “armed aggression must not be allowed to succeed”), and lamenting that this principle wasn’t recognized 45 years earlier (i.e. the end of the 1930s when Nazi Germany was invading Czechoslovakia and Poland). He also speculates that HAD that principle been recognized then — if the West (US, UK, France) had not allowed Hitler’s armed aggression to succeed — WWII may not have happened.
I have curated many of Reagan’s speech highlights at Reagan Quotes where you can see that pattern over and over. READ THAT, then tell me that Reagan would abandon Ukraine to Putin today, or 1000X worse, defend Putin, and insist on making a “fair deal” between the barbaric invader and the innocent victim.
Trump WOULD do these things. He WOULD abandon Ukraine to Putin. He DOES defend Putin. He DOES push Ukraine to “make a deal”. He DOES criticize the innocent victim.
Morality Matters
Trump’s complete inability to recognize right from wrong and good from evil, or even worse, his penchant for expressing fawning adoration for evil people while disparaging their victims is my red line.
As I said, I’m not a Democrat or a liberal, but at least on this issue, the biggest issue of our day, our own “1938-1939” (What happened in 1938-1939?), many Democrats can at least identify the “good guys” and the “bad guys” and is far less likely to cheer evil on while it attempts to wipe an innocent country off the map.