Found myself imaging for a second how things would have played out with regards to Ukraine if Cheetolini were still in office. And realized that Putin would have just dropped the “denazification” angle and gone in heavily on the “illegitimate government/state” bit. He’d have played on Trump’s anger over 2016 and his belief that Ukraine was involved by claiming that there had been no legitimate elections since 2014 (when the pro-Russian pres got ran out on a rail), that Obama and Clinton had orchestrated the coup in order to get the latter elected in 2016, and Zelensky was just a puppet of a corrupt cabal who’d been put in office during a “sham” election.

And Trump would have happily ate it up, doing a total about-face on his “I’m tougher than Obama against Russia!” bit by now insisting that Russia had a legitimate beef with Ukraine and the US had no involvement in it. And when NATO allies pledged support, he’d whine even louder that they had money to give to Ukraine but not to “pay” us to defend them.