Trump vs. recent history

By Norman Zanetti

Sen. John McCain, Democrats leaders, and a totally melted down broadcast and print media have slammed President Trump’s performance in Helsinki during a press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin as the worst by an American president.

Let’s put some historical prospective against the narrative of “worst summit performance by an American President and a Soviet/Russian leader.” Start with the Democrats’ most revered leader, Franklin D.Roosevelt. After a summit with Josef Stalin in 1943, FDR told his administration and the press he agreed to give Stalin everything he wanted in hopes this gesture would end the war, and bring peace to post-war Europe. His ambassador to the Soviet Union, who had lived in Moscow for two years, was critical of this and told FDR that Stalin was a tyrant who could not be trusted.

Rightly so, as the war ended, the Soviets annexed Poland and 14 other satellite countries along its border. The national media never challenged FDR’s wisdom and decision making. FDR passed away two weeks later.   

Let’s move forward to John F. Kennedy, another revered Democrat. Let’s even overlook the disaster of the Bay of Pigs and move on to more substantive stuff. In June 1961, President Kennedy traveled to Vienna to meet with the Soviet Union’s Nikita Kruschev. Kennedy told the Washington Post he got his concerns across to Kruschev about occupation and human rights, but was overpowered on continued U.S. presence in Europe. Two months later, the Soviets started building the Berlin Wall, and, in August 1961, started sending long range missiles to Cuba. Some summit performance by Kennedy.

Moving forward again, in March 1983 President Ronald Reagan was ridiculed by Democrats who were against funding Pershing missile deployment in Europe. Reagan then famously called the Soviet Union “the Evil Empire”. Democrats went ballistic. You can’t intimidate them like that, they said, it’s a precursor to hostility. Then Reagan announced the Strategic Defense initiative, better known as Star Wars. Ted Kennedy, another revered Democratic leader who survived his Chappaquiddick tragedy with the help of the party, police and friends in high places, threatened to move that the the Senate not agree to fund it. Well, this gesture by the President, turned out to be the silver bullet that brought down the Soviet Union. Their economy was close to insolvency. They couldn’t police all of their satellite countries. Poof, the end of the Soviet Empire. 

In the years under President Barack Obama, he and his administration with the blessing of his majorities in Congress, began the process of defunding our military, while the Middle East, under his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, was exploding and mass migration into Europe had begun. Now the Democrats are against controlling our borders, and vetting immigrants from Central and South America, and from Muslim countries where terrorists are being armed. 

Historical perspective is important. The media and Democrats — but I repeat myself — have a short memory. Trump is not everything everyone might want in a president, but he’s not what the media are accusing him of being. This was far from the worst summit involving an American president.