“I’m Not Russian”

In 2015, when Trump first started to make idiot noises about running for President, local goobers would ask me “How do you feel about Donald Trump?” 

My answer was always “He’s got nothing for me.  I’m not Russian and I don’t care about billionaires” and that would almost always end the conversation.  Usually, the questioner would walk away in a huff and, at best, I’d never have to speak to that moron again.  A big part of retiring, for me, was downsizing.  And A big part of downsizing was getting rid of paper books: a lifetime collection of paper books that once filled five 7-foot-tall bookshelves and an entire wall of our living room.  If we had kept that collection, it would fill an entire bedroom of our current home, including closing off access to a close or filling the closet.  Today, I still read A lot but I use my local library as my storage facility and most of what I read is on ebooks. That sometimes means I wait A long time to work my date way down the patron list before I get to check out and read A book I’m interested in.  an example of that would be Craig Unger’s House of Trump House of Putin: The Untold Story of Donald Trump and the Russian Mafia.  This is A 2018 book that I put on reserve, a year or two later, and justice now got. That isn’t A particularly onerous Handicap, because I usually have a dozen-to-fifty books on reserve and always have something on my E-readers waiting for me to finish whatever it is I’m currently reading.

However, House of Trump House of Putin was a surprise, even given my long-held opinion of Donald Trump.  My assumption of Trump’s Russian connections was not only confirmed in Unger’s book, but those connections were multiplied; exponentially.  The fact that Donald Trump is president and not in prison is evidence of, at least, 40 years of law enforcement failure.  From Ronald Reagan through Barack Obama, Trump’s business and personal connections to organized crime has been tested and proven in and out of court.  And while that has often cost him money in civil court, Trump’s ability to stay out of jail, even when convicted of felonies, is glaring evidence that our legal system needs an overhaul.  Obviously, “justice” for a rich white man has A completely different definition than it would for the rest of us.  And if that is “too woke” for you, I suggest you go fuck yourself.

At least for me, one of the bigger surprises in House of Trump House of Putin was the tight connection between the Russian mob and the Israeli mob and Mossad.  If the United States ever does A 1930’s-style political house cleaning, we will break all connections to Israel.  It is not possible to morally justify Being attached to a country that is, literally, organized crime throughout its political and economic system. 

“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. […] They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us.  They’re bringing drugs.  They’re bringing crime.  They’re rapists.  And some, I assume, are good people.” (Time Magazine 2015)  You can multiply statement that by whatever exponent you feel comfortable tacking on, When it comes to Russia, their former Eastern bloc compatriots, and Israel.  Except, for the most part I think it’s unreasonable to assume many of these immigrants are “good people”.  Like Ivanka and Melania Trump, a whole lot of them were not legal immigrants, either.

Every move Trump has made, especially since January 2025, has been to degrade US national security and our national criminal justice system.  Obviously, all of those moves are to Russia’s and, particularly, Putin’s advantage.  Firing experienced FBI, CIA, and State Department experts (especially Russian experts) couldn’t be a more obvious present to Putin and our enemies in general.  There has never been a moment in Donald Trump’s life where he expressed or demonstrated a micron of patriotism or loyalty to any aspect of the US Constitution and, yet, his cult remains convinced he will “Make America Great Again.”  I might be inclined to ask what their definition of “great” is, but I have lived among these deadbeats, vipers, gangbangers, and fools my whole Midwestern life and I already know the answer.  The closest thing to an answer to that question was illustrated in “Idiocracy.”