Photo: kremlin.ru - Wikimedia Commons
Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin - Helsinki 2018
Republicans thought they were cruising to victory in the midterms. The media kept reporting the party losing the presidency always does better in the midterms than the new president’s party. Then that darn Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine starting a war against the United States and every democracy in the world.
That wouldn’t have been a problem for Republicans in the old days. Republicans used to be fierce, Russia-hating anti-communists. That was before Putin and Donald Trump became political allies.
Putin helped Trump defeat Hillary Clinton in 2016 with an enormous propaganda campaign spreading lies about Clinton on social media. It was conducted by Russian trolls disguising themselves as Americans and it worked like a charm.
Trump repaid Putin by championing Russia’s interests on the world stage. He did his best to break up the NATO military alliance defending European democracies from Russian aggression. His first impeachment was over his threat to withhold $400 million in military aid Congress appropriated to help protect Ukraine from a Russian invasion.
It's obvious now how desperately Ukrainians needed those weapons and military equipment to protect its own citizens. Fortunately, Putin’s pal Trump is no longer president. President Biden is now leading the response by world democracies to try to stop Putin’s lawless destruction of Ukraine.
Sparking a Wider War?
This is a perilous moment threatening to embroil Europe in the most widespread conflict since Nazi Germany’s defeat more than 75 years ago. That’s the biggest problem in the world right now, the frightening possibility one wrong move on either side could spark World War III.
No one’s surprised Republicans would use the crisis to attack Biden. But it’s still shocking when Trump, the former Republican president of the United States, and his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who also fancies himself a Republican presidential candidate, appear separately on Fox News to denounce their own country’s president and praise Putin’s “political genius” and “shrewd leadership” while their nations are at war. It’s the equivalent of Americans siding with the Nazis in the last world war.
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That wasn’t a surprising point of view on Fox, the rightwing television network providing much of the thinking for Republicans. Fox hosts have parroted Putin’s anti-Ukraine propaganda from the start. Tucker Carlson has demanded to know why Americans hate Putin so much when all he’s doing is protecting his country from all those threatening Ukrainians across the border. Somehow, Russia invading Ukraine is just like Trump’s racist claim building a wall would protect America from hordes of murdering rapists from Mexico.
Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell is getting nervous about prominent Republicans publicly gushing over Putin. But Republicans have boxed themselves in. They don’t want to alienate Trump and his most offensive supporters because they believe it would hurt Republicans chances in the midterms. It’s just as likely Trump and his most offensive supporters will be the ones who hurt Republicans chances in the midterms. Aiding and abetting the enemy is not popular in wartime.
Articulate Defender of Democracy
Biden’s image is already getting a political boost from his daily exposure as a forceful, articulate defender of democracy. Biden has never remotely resembled the cruel cartoon caricature Republicans invented of a babbling, old fool sinking into senility. Trump was always the one who had difficulty completing a coherent sentence.
The world is fortunate the U.S. now has a competent, experienced president responding to Putin. By publicly sharing U.S. intelligence, Biden was able to accurately predict every aggressive move Putin made leading up to the invasion. Now Biden’s organized democratic nations controlling half of the world economy to punish Russia economically for Putin’s murderous assault on Ukraine.
With Putin already waving his nuclear capability, this is the kind of frightening moment in history that brings civilized nations together. The U.S. and its allies will use every forceful alternative sanction they can to prevent military escalation of the conflict.
The only ambiguous question in this country is whether Republicans will ever be able to come together behind their own president. The defeated president’s campaign against his successor and the gullibility of so many Trump supporters who apparently believe his lie Biden stole the election continues to undermine democracy. That’s not only a problem for the country. It’s a problem for the Republican Party.
Republican leaders, intelligent ones, have to know the party eventually has to move on from the most divisive, unpopular president it’s ever had. They were running through the halls of the Capitol from Trump’s supporters too. Republicans need to become an American political party again.
Supporting their country in wartime to defend European democracies from Russian military aggression would be a good time to start. Their fellow Americans would welcome their support.
