MAUREEN DOWD: Zelenskyy and Trump: Two performers, one hero
Monday, March 7, 2022 -- Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy both played leaders on TV shows and then became leaders in real life. They both used social media to gain power. And they both had zany acting gigs. ... But after they ascended to power, the would-be president of "Sharknado 3" and the Ukrainian voice of Paddington Bear took on very different roles. Trump became a blackguard. Zelenskyy donned a white hat. Trump tried to overturn American democracy. Zelenskyy tried to save Ukrainian democracy.
Posted — UpdatedHistory is full of strange odysseys and intersections.
Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy both played leaders on TV shows and then became leaders in real life. They both used social media to gain power. And they both had zany acting gigs.
In 2015, Trump, who had a cameo in “Home Alone 2: Lost in New York,” debated whether to play a president in “Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No!” or actually run for the presidency.
But after they ascended to power, the would-be president of “Sharknado 3” and the Ukrainian voice of Paddington Bear took on very different roles.
Trump became a blackguard. Zelenskyy donned a white hat. Trump tried to overturn American democracy. Zelenskyy tried to save Ukrainian democracy.
Trump was always a faux tough guy who bragged about grabbing women and loved all things military except serving in it. Cadet Bone Spurs. Courage was an alien concept to this spoiled brat; he has always been a bully who let other people do the fighting for him.
Trump, in a nimbus of selfishness and narcissism, inverted revered American ideals. He soiled the image of his country and reshaped it around his grievances and inadequacies.
Rep. Adam Schiff and other Democratic leaders of that impeachment say people can now see how wrong Trump was to try to withhold aid to Zelenskyy, then in office only two months.
The claim by Trump and his sycophants that his relationship with Putin had kept Russia out of Ukraine is ludicrous. He was Putin’s poodle and Putin would have rolled over him; he was biding his time as Trump weakened NATO.
Trump praised Putin for an act of “genius” even as the rest of the world was watching in horror as the mad Russian president prepared to order the bloody march through Ukraine and suffocated the remnants of a free press in Moscow.
By standing up to the Evil Empire, Zelenskyy could earn comparisons to another performer turned pol, and that should grate on Trump as much as having his vice president turn on him.
Ronald Reagan helped lift the Iron Curtain. Zelenskyy is trying his best to stop it from slamming down again.
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