Subject: Re: Trump and the USA
To the extent that folks on these boards have been pro Trump, I'd love to learn the other side. Frankly, IMO, there is no other side. Putin wants to resurrect the USSR, and there is no negotiation possible with him, the only way to win is to push Russian forces completely out of Ukraine, and that is likely going to mean a lot more equipment and maybe even NATO boots on the ground.

The "Trump is a Russian asset" or "Trump is Putin's puppet" stuff is not and has never been true. Arguments that use these as a premise to claim that Trump's diplomatic strategic consists of "favoring Putin" or something similar are flawed and don't really demonstrate an understanding of the diplomatic process or the facts on the ground in the Ukraine.

In terms of your post: Trump was never under any illusions that Putin is a good guy. Never had them. The fact is that he told the Europeans back in his first term to stop buying energy Russia. They laughed at him.

Let's go over what Russia and the US/Ukraine/EU/etc. all want here:
-End to the war
-Restoration of Ukrainian territory
-Repatriation of Ukrainian kids and detainees back home

The only way to start talking about these things is to get Putin to the negotiating table. Before we go there let's look at the facts on the ground:

-Ukraine lacks the dudes, the guns and the money to push the Russians out
-The front is essentially at a stalemate with neither side able to make sweeping gains
-The Ukrainian economy is essentially at zero
-Munitions expenditures are 3x anyone's projections
-The sanctions that the rest of the world have put on Russia aren't slowing down the war. Ergo, somebody else is bankrolling things. That would be China, who is buying up all the Russian oil and gas they can get.

Trump needs Putin to come to the table. Is the best way to do that to call him names? No.

So Trump tried and found out that Russia is comfortable enough with the status quo to let it go on indefinitely (because he's being bankrolled by China and to some extent the Europeans themselves).

Russia thus has zero incentive to stop the war, give up any of the territory it's seized and return any of the Ukrainians it's kidnapped. Now it's time for Plan B.