Posted on 09/17/2025 10:04:05 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
On February 28, 2025, Donald Trump hosted Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House, where the following (abridged) exchange occurred (emphasis mine):
Vice President JD Vance: The path to peace and the path to prosperity is, maybe, engaging in diplomacy. ... What makes America a good country is America engaging in diplomacy. That’s what President Trump is doing.
President Zelensky: Can I ask you? [snip]
Vance: Sure. Yeah.
Zelensky: You know that we had conversations with [Russian President Vladimir Putin]. ... And we signed with him, I signed with him the deal. I signed with him, [French president Emmanuel] Macron and [former German chancellor Angela] Merkel. We signed ceasefire. Ceasefire. All of them told me that he will never go. ... But ... he broke the ceasefire, he killed our people, and he didn’t exchange prisoners. We signed the exchange of prisoners. But he didn’t do it. What kind of diplomacy, JD, you are speaking about? What do you mean?
Vance: I’m talking about the kind of diplomacy that’s going to end the destruction of your country.
Six months — and tens of thousands of deaths — later, I think we all know how that turned out.
Fast-forward to August 16. Trump meets Putin in Anchorage. Here is what we were told would happen when Donald met Vladimir:
Vladimir Putin will face “very severe consequences” if he does not agree a ceasefire in the war in Ukraine at his summit with Donald Trump in Alaska.
Three weeks later, we know how that turned out, too. So, permit me to ask: “President Trump, What kind of diplomacy are you talking about?”
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Nineteen seventy-seven was also the heyday of “détente” — basically, accepting the Soviet Union’s permanent existence as a rival superpower and “going along to get along.”
And 1977 was the year that a certain California governor was asked what our policy vis-à-vis the Soviets should be. His reply? Four words: We win. They lose.
Four years later, Ronald Reagan would be inaugurated as the 40th president of the United States — and virtually immediately begin implementing a deliberate plan that would, less than a decade later, consign the Soviet Union to “the ash heap of history.” (You can read the details here.)
Ronald Reagan was a man of clarity, vision, and above all principle, a man who could see the rot destroying the foundations of a totalitarian dystopia that “the experts” could not, did not fret over how to get the Russians out of this or that country. He focused on the head of the snake and did not entertain the fools who argued that what he was determined to do could not be done.
Put simply, the difference between Donald Trump and Ronald Reagan is the difference between a president committed to “we win, they lose,” and one who just wants to “make a deal.”
I love Reagan but don’t ever want to get as close to a nuclear exchange as we did in 1983.
“””””I love Reagan but don’t ever want to get as close to a nuclear exchange as we did in 1983.”””””
If you had asked me in 1979 the status of the Russian threat, I would have said that their big window to attack would be in 1983/4, that if they missed that then it would be at least a decade or more before they would have another favorable window.
Reagan got elected in 1980 and went all out to close that window.
The Perpetual War caucus have gone to this PR well too many times. Constantly claiming perpetual war someplace in the world is a necessity to “save UW” is no longer believable.
So no matter how often this propaganda is published, there little to no support from US voters for this “Always War” agenda.
Cold War is over, we won. Time to evolve.
RE: Bullshit!
Well, that’s not very helpful, please elaborate.
Nope. Pretend for a minute that you're a Ruskie looking across the pond at your cold war adversary. Who would you be more afraid of?
1. A) A U.S. President who won 44 states then 49 states in re-election? Or B) a U.S. President in which your comrade Dims were so deep stated against him that Trump had to win 3 times to serve twice in the WH?
2. A) A president of a culture where even most young people still believed in America, or B) a president in a newer culture brainwashed into hating themselves, hating their country, but embracing Russian communist teachings all while stupidly claiming they hate Russia! Russia! Russia!
3. A) A president of a culture that hadn't quite adjusted to the welfare state and most working age people thought that welfare was an insult? Or B) a president of a gimme gimme gimme America in which not only does a higher portion of the people collect welfare, but even of the workers less than half pay income tax?
4. A) A president of a culture that with vigor refers to themselves as Americans, or B) a president of a culture with tens of millions of invaders displaying flags of countries they left?
Love me some Reagan. But Trump is the man.
After going through two of these 20 years apart in my lifetime, the second time just before I entered the AF and had access to some really sensitive stuff, the window does not close until the Russians don’t have nukes. He did a great job psyching them out with Star Wars without triggering them but that’s not happening again.
I’m trying to understand your reasoning, but I’ll try …. Because most of Trump’s opponents today are the entitled hate your own country type of people, it is impossible to deal with Russia using the Reagan type “We win, you lose” approach?
Am I reading you correctly?
If so, how does it follow?
The nukes are always there, but in 1979 the point at which the Russians would be at their strongest advantage and America at a stagnant point before our new weapon systems and military recovery from post Vietnam and Carter would come on line, came together at 1983, that was the “window” that I was talking about, not the permanent Russian threat, but instead that optimum point that Russia would have in 1983.
Double BS.
With all the good intentions in the world it takes two and in this case three.
Sick of those who would build castles in the air full of intentions, just to get a perch to bash Trumpp.
So you’re saying the USA didn’t win the Cold War?
Intriguing revisionism from you.
Or put another way: say you could use a Dr. Who Tardis to swap Reagan and Trump to put Trump as the 1980's prez and Reagan as the 45th and 47th prez. Do you really think Russia would fear a 1980's Trump less than they feared a 1980's Reagan? Likewise, if a 45/47 Reagan had to put up with the constant lawfare and such that Trump has, would there be enough him left to tend with Russia as well as Trump is doing now?
That's strange, no other war result in history was ever in question decades later, just because the vanquished are still around. By that logic, Germany and Japan could argue that they didn't lose WWII, because they're thriving now.
The Russians very obviously lost the Cold War, and their entire government collapsed and was replaced, and they lost millions of square miles of territory. And the "Communism" that is resurgent today isn't the same, as it embraces as much Capitalism as possible, to help avoid losing the next Cold War in the same way, by stagnating their own productivity with truly stupid and counter-productive ideological ideas. They all have their tyrants, but China especially is far more Capitalist than even the US (as long as the right bureaucrats get their bribes... in the US, Capitalism is choked beyond belief by the bureaucracies and the Leftist demands on behalf of minnows and snails and birds that magically cannot find water other than in any new pool or low spot that some envirowhacko just noticed).
“””””Do you really think Russia would fear a 1980’s Trump less than they feared a 1980’s Reagan?”””””
Reagan was alone, there was no Rush Limbaugh, and talk radio, and FOX, and podcasts, even Trump opposed Reagan in 1980, he didn’t vote for him and donated to Jimmy Carter.
Our military was in shambles and weak, all of television, all of Hollywood, all of the culture was leftwing and hated Reagan, Russia had recently gained, or gained control of about 7 nations and was on the ascendancy and seen as the eventual winner of the world.
THAT Cold war is over, yes Russia is still Russia and still allied with communist China and communist North Korea, and any other bad guys of the world, but THAT Russian Empire and THAT Cold war is over, at some point people will be talking about Cold war II which is forming now.
My point is that Trump could be twice as good as Reagan at beating Russia and still not get near as much ground as Reagan did against Russia simply because Reagan didn't have to simultaneously deal with Crossfire Hurricane + lawsuit after lawsuit after lawsuit + impeachment hearings, etc.
Or another way to put it, don't say that if Trump can't win as well against both Russia and our deep state as well as Reagan did against fighting just Russia (while not having to also fight against a deep state), then it means that Trump is a wuss compared to Reagan. The difference in outcomes is more indicative to how much more the communists have infiltrated our home grounds before Trump came into office.
You sure have a strange take on all this and the 1970s and 80s and the Cold War, and Reagan, and of today.
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