The sudden death of Alexei Navalny has made me more and more aware of what is happening in our Country. It is a slow, steady progression, with CROOKED, Radical Left Politicians, Prosecutors, and Judges leading us down a path to destruction. Open Borders, Rigged Elections, and Grossly Unfair Courtroom Decisions are DESTROYING AMERICA. WE ARE A NATION IN DECLINE, A FAILING NATION! MAGA2024!
With those words, written on his Social Media platform more than three days after it happened somewhere in the cold of the arctic circle, Donald Trump, the likely choice of the Republican Party in the upcoming 2024 presidential election, finally acknowledged the death of Alexei Navalny.
No mention of Navalny’s heroism.
No mention of the physical attacks, arrests, harassment, or the 2020 Novichok poisoning that nearly killed him.
No mention of a simple condolence message to his wife, Yulia Navalnaya, who has borne her husband’s ordeals and the constant threat of his murder for the last 15 years with grace and dignity, a dignity which was on full display at last week’s Munich Security Conference hours after learning of her husband’s death.
No mention of Vladimir Putin, the man who bears full responsibility for Navalny’s attempted assassination, imprisonment and, now, death.
No mention of any of that. Only me, me, me, which is the story of Donald Trump’s life.
Alexei Navalny was the face of Russian opposition to the dictatorship of Vladimir Putin, and had been so for at least the last ten years. He was a constant and sharp thorn in Putin’s side, a brilliant political strategist whom the Russian Thug-in-Chief could not allow to live. Even from one of the darkest, coldest spots in Russia, Navalny was a problem. Something had to be done.
This is not the first time Trump has displayed a craven disregard of Navalny’s torture by Putin’s thugs. In 2020, when Navalny was poisoned and taken to Germany for treatment, where he nearly died, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said it was “beyond a doubt” that this was “an attempted murder with nerve agent.” Navalny was “the victim of a crime intended to silence him.” Trump, the man who spent half his time in the White House texting, never wrote (or said) a word about it.
On Sunday, during an interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” South Carolina’s long-time Republican Senator Lindsay Graham, said, “Navalny was one of the bravest people I ever met. When he went back to Russia he had to know he was going to be killed by Putin, and he was murdered by Putin.” He then suggested the U.S. designate Russia a “state sponsor of terrorism,” making it the fifth country to be so labelled along with Cuba, North Korea, Iran and Syria. The designation comes with a battery of sanctions, including restrictions on foreign assistance and a ban on defense exports and sales.
But when pressed, Graham would not say a word of criticism about Trump’s refusal to join with other world leaders in condemning the treatment of Navalny.
Like Graham, other Republican politicians have condemned Putin for orchestrating Navalny’s death, most notably Senator Tom Tillis (R-NC), but none have called out Trump for his continued bromance with the Russian President. If Trump were to win November’s election, what would this blindered look do to our international standing with our European allies? What would it mean for Ukraine, already hobbled by America’s inaction? Would people like Graham and Tillis continue to criticize Putin?
The only Republican politician of any stature in America to in any way condemn Trump for his callous, selfish, egomaniacally narcissistic comment was his primary opponent, Niki Haley, former Governor of South Carolina and UN Ambassador in the Trump Administration, who called him, “weak in the knees” when it comes to Putin. She was the only one. This is the level to which the Party of Abraham Lincoln has sunk.
This is all you need to know about the 45th President of the United States. This is all you need to know about the Republican Party of 2024.
Honor has left the room.
