Donald Trump lashed out at the democratically elected Ukrainian president today, calling him “a dictator.”
Forget that this is a lie, just like Trump’s insinuation that Ukraine “started” the war with Russia—a claim that is the geopolitical equivalent of saying a rape victim started it by, well, being rapable.
But I don’t want to talk about the lie. You can defend Trump by telling me that it’s sort of true because elections are overdue in Ukraine. They are! You know why? Because the entire country is mobilized for a war it didn’t start and about a fifth of it is occupied by a country led by an actual dictator who targets children’s hospitals and sanctions rape, child abductions, and mass slaughter by its troops. But if you don’t have something better than that, don’t even bother trying.