Putin's Passionate Negotiators

I want to write about art, but this crap just keeps happening.

Breaking News: The much touted Ukrainian ceasefire talks have just been tilted defintively in Putin’s favor.

Negotiations of any consequence rely on the knowledge and determination of each adversary’s negotiating team in relation to facts on the ground. As anyone could see from the live newscast this afternoon from Washington, the bad news for liberal democracy is that Putin has a skilled, determined and personally invested negotiating team for the Russian position. The bad news is that his negotiators are Donald J. Trump and J.D. Vance who happen to be the President and Vice President of the United States.

Trump appeared pissed, red-faced and shouting at the Ukrainian representatives in the Oval Office, in front of the entire international press. Except of course for the journalists at AP, who have been disinvited because they have a dispute with Trump over the name of the salt water north of Yucatán.

Trump made it clear in his rant that Putin is already the obvious winner. And if we, the United States of America, want to help end the war, we apparently prefer that Putin surrenders nothing and Ukraine surrenders the territory already conquered, plus the very earth they have been burying their dead in for the past three years, which will be negotiated over to some as yet unnamed private mining company that will be persuaded somehow to hand over its profits to the US treasury.

And most importantly, Volodymyr Zelenksyy will be obligated to kneel before Donald J. Trump and thank him for the support provided by, well… provided by former President Joseph Biden, who President Trump insulted several times during his on camera tirade.

Vice President Vance, speaking characteristically from a sofa, also demanded a bigger “thank you” from Zelenskyy for all the military aid we’ve sent to the defenders of Ukraine, the aid that was provided over the objections of a minority in Congress, including the former Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio, who voted against sending it.

A small note of dignity was provided by Marco Rubio, who sat silent throughout the whole scene, perhaps finally realizing that he’s been appointed Secretary of State for WrestleMania.

The whole embarrassing spectacle may have been a set-up. Zelenskyy may have been sandbagged by Trump and Vance. Or maybe that’s just conspiracy thinking. But it doesn’t matter. To humiliate a leader of a democracy that the American people supported through their Congress, in the White House demonstrates that Trump and the gang think they were elected to do whatever they want.

What did we expect from a twice impeached executive with a felony conviction and a documented record of compulsive lying so egregious its slipping from the grasp of passionate editorializing into harmless folklore? When friend and enemy agree that no one takes his “facts” seriously, are we not trivializing the very concept of truth?