When Putin Is Smiling
Opinion by Ben Everidge for Thomas
Photo Credit: Adobe Stock by Piotr
And Most assuredly he is …
So, how do you know when an American policy is making the leader of Russia happy? When Vladimir Putin is smiling, of course.
As MAGA Republicans and Democrats jockey for the American electorate’s attention and support, it is of critical importance that we, as a nation, not permit groveling policy changes favorably benefit adversaries like Russia, China, North Korea, or any nation-state that is led by a dictator or authoritarian.
We have heard a lot of allegations about what may or may not be undermining American democracy in 2025. To make it much easier to judge which policies harm the United States’ most vital interests more accurately, I suggest we see who is smiling about those policies and ask ourselves why. And because of whom? What benefit will they receive if so?
The appearance that our Constitution is being undermined by the United States Senate’s unimpressive advise and consent duties during the confirmation hearings for President Donald Trump’s 47 Cabinet members is a valid concern when you consider how inexperienced and flawed some of these nominations were in these initial days of the President’s second term.
The U.S. House’s lack of anxiety over the President’s challenge to their constitutional duty to manage spending for our nation adds to many a person’s angst. For example, what and why is Elon Musk accessing private personal records at the Internal Revenue Service and the Social Security Administration?
Should Congress not authorize or oppose the closing of whole agencies of the federal government rather than the White House and its so far unauthorized Department of Government Efficiency known as DOGE? Is or was the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) or the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) as corrupt as Mr. Musk would have us believe?
Why, after all of these years now, can we not definitively answer the question for those who still do not believe that the 2020 presidential election was not fake and that the January 6th attack on the United States Capitol was not a protest but an illegal attack on democracy?
So, Republican or Democrat, or Independent, what policies and actions would make Mr. Putin, Xi, or Kim smile at us?
