CONNOR HOFFMAN
Managing Editor
The year is 1983, and President Ronald Reagan had just given his famous Evil Empire speech to a gathering of the National Evangelicals in Orlando, Florida.
“So, in your discussions of the nuclear freeze proposals, I urge you to beware the temptation of pride — the temptation of blithely declaring yourselves above it all and label both sides equally at fault, to 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,” said Reagan.
Reagan knew just how evil Russia was. He made a point to make sure that America and the world knew that he was no friend of Russia.
Ever since Reagan made that famous speech, it would cement, at least until recently, the image of the Republican party being the anti-Russia party. The Republicans were the ones pushing for more sanctions and tougher punishments for Russia.
Let’s fast forward to 2016. President Donald J. Trump could not be more friendly towards Russia and Vladimir Putin. Trump has said multiple times that it would be a good thing to have Putin as an ally in the fight against ISIS in Syria. He has also said on multiple occasions that Putin is a very smart and effective leader.
Trump even said that Putin is a better leader than former President Barack Obama. Now, I’m not a huge Obama fan myself, but Obama is so much better than a scumbag dictator like Putin.
“He’s running his country and at least he’s a leader, unlike what we have in this country,” said Trump in a “Morning Joe” interview.
In this same interview, he further explained how he believes that the U.S. has committed atrocities comparable to Russia’s atrocities.
“I think our country does plenty of killing also, Joe, so you know. There’s a lot of stupidity going on in the world right now, a lot of killing, a lot of stupidity,” said Trump.
Yes, America has committed some bad actions in the world, but nothing this country has done is comparable to the crimes and atrocities that have been committed by Putin and his regime. Plus, how is it that the American president doesn’t hold this country in a much more positive light than a dictator?
Many believe, including myself, that Reagan’s tough tone towards Russia is one of the main reasons that the Soviet Union collapsed. In the 1980s, the Soviet economy was in complete and utter disarray, and Reagan knew this and used this to help take the Soviets down once and for all.
By announcing his plans for the Star Wars missile defense program, he made the Soviets feel obligated to compete to create their own version. This was the genius of Reagan: he knew the competition would put their economy into even worse shape.
Trump’s tone towards Russia is exactly what they want, and it goes completely against what the Republican party stands for.
Now, some might be thinking that Reagan was just anti-Russia and that he refused to work with them, but he actually worked quite well with the Soviet Union. Unlike Trump, Reagan knew the power of negotiating from a place of strength.
If Trump hopes to actually accomplish something regarding Russia, he should immediately stop his praise of Putin. If he does not, he is playing right into the Russian dictator’s hand.