As America’s election season kicks into high gear, one thing has become abundantly clear: the Republican Party is walking, or rather sprinting, away from Ukraine. With a resurgent Donald Trump having swept through early primary contests in Iowa and New Hampshire, and only Nikki Haley still standing among his Republican rivals, it appears the former president will claim the nomination, yet again, and with it total control over the GOP’s foreign policy priorities.
Despite facing 91 felony charges, Trump’s grip on the Republican Party appears to be rock solid, and this is already translating into a bonanza for Vladimir Putin, and a victory for his brutal imperial aspirations for Ukraine. With Trump dictating the GOP’s foreign policy to his whipped congressional underlings, and blocking crucial American security assistance to Kyiv, Putin must feel his investment in Trump is paying off handsomely.
For Putin, Donald Trump is the gift that just keeps on giving.
He’s not only still tearing at the fabric of American democracy at home, but also leading efforts to extinguish American aid to our friends in Kyiv, who remain trapped in an existential battle for their survival. Clearly, the Kremlin couldn’t ask for a better ally, someone to smash democracy in Washington and clear the way for violent Russian expansion abroad.
Thus, Trump has pushed congressional Republicans, newly led by Mike Johnson and a clique of far-right Freedom Caucus acolytes, into abandoning our Ukrainian allies in their life-or-death struggle against Russian aggression, ceding the moral and geopolitical high ground to our enemies in the Kremlin. Ronald Reagan must be turning in his grave, along with what’s left of the old Republican Party, as Trump delivers for Moscow.
Meanwhile, Beijing will be paying close attention, noting the depth of American fecklessness, and the meaninglessness of our promises. Undoubtedly, our cowardice and dysfunction will enter into Xi Jinping’s calculations vis a vis Taiwan, and his own revisionist ambitions there, further raising the prospects of a Chinese invasion in the near future. Apparently, Vladimir Putin was correct in his assessment that an internally divided and distracted United States was no longer a reliable partner in upholding the postwar global order Washington herself designed, and implemented for the last eighty years.
Indeed, the loss of American credibility is music to Xi and Putin’s ears, along with their allies in Pyongyang and Tehran, all of whom long to see the American order dismantled and demolished for good. For these vicious foreign dictators bent on reshaping the global order in their own authoritarian image, it’s priceless.
Border bluff
House Republicans are in the process of torpedoing a $118 billion compromise bill negotiated in the Senate, despite the fact that President Biden offered to shut down the southern border, in return for about $60 billion in funding for Ukraine, along with another $14 billion for Israel. For months, Republicans have demanded action to solve the crisis at the border, and then they immediately rejected the bill out of hand.
In a televised speech today, President Biden lashed out at House Republicans for their brazen hypocrisy, calling on them to “show some spine.” Still, he acknowledged the bill was likely dead. “Why? A simple reason. Because Donald Trump thinks this is bad for him politically.” Trump “would rather weaponize this issue than actually solve it.”
Republicans are claiming the bill doesn’t go far enough on border security, though it includes many of the restrictions they’ve long demanded, and is supported by conservative groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page, and the National Border Patrol Council. In reality, Trump’s been campaigning against the bill to prevent giving Biden a political win, while also offering Vladimir Putin a major prize: American withdrawal from the most consequential conflict since World War II, and the future fate of Europe.
In his speech, Biden said “Republicans have to decide. Who do they serve? Donald Trump or the American people.” Unfortunately, it seems most Republicans made that decision long ago, serving the former at increasingly steep costs for the latter. Sadly, Republicans are meekly falling into line, per usual, betraying our allies in Kyiv on behalf of a man who is openly coddling our bitterest enemies, embracing vicious dictators abroad while trying to become one himself at home.
It’s nauseating, a “vivd portrait of congressional dysfunction,” according to Peter Baker from the New York Times. At a bare minimum, though, it should enable Democrats to exact a steep political price, and President Biden has promised to do exactly that, saying “I’ll be taking this issue to the country.”
“Every day between now and November, the American people are going to know that the only reason the border is not secure is Donald Trump and his MAGA Republican friends.”
President Biden essentially called the GOP’s bluff, offering to sign the most restrictive border security measure in years, something Republicans have clamored for incessantly, but now appear ready to squander on behalf of the former president. They look ridiculous, at best. At worst, they look duplicitous and utterly enfeebled, trapped in a Faustian political bargain with Trump that they can’t seem to escape.
Thus, Speaker Johnson declared that the bill was “DEAD on arrival” in the House. Instead, he forced a failed vote on $17 billion in security aid for Israel separately, while holding absurd impeachment hearings for Alejandro Mayorkas today, Biden’s DHS Secretary, for his alleged mishandling of the southern border. Both the separate aid and the impeachment were voted down, dealing a major blow to Johnson and the entire Republican caucus, which looks not only craven, but also inept.
Instead of taking this golden opportunity to fix our broken border, House Republicans embraced empty political spectacle, in service to the conman leading their party, though their hypocrisy is so blatant they may end up paying a political price later.
Speaking of empty political spectacle, Tucker Carlson is currently being feted in Moscow, having been spotted at the Bolshoi theater for a showing of the “Spartacus” ballet. Today, Carlson teased what he said was a forthcoming interview with Vladimir Putin, though the Kremlin has yet to confirm that.
However, a friendly interview with Putin would occur even as Russian troops continue to eat away at Ukrainian frontlines around Avdiivka and elsewhere, amid an increasingly severe spate of “shell hunger” among the Ukrainian military. It would likely be a chance for Putin to reach out to a friendly Western audience, and further erode American military support for Ukraine, perhaps raising the prospect of a negotiated peace deal.
In any case, Tucker Carlson is at least honest about his affection for Putin, unlike most House Republicans, who prefer misdirection and political hide-and-seek to an open embrace of the brutal Russian dictator. This was always Vladimir Putin’s bet: friendly elements within the American government would eventually bail him out of the massive strategic blunder boiling on his border. He didn’t need to win on the battlefield, just survive long enough for Trump and his compatriots to regain power and block crucial U.S. assistance with a wink and a nod.
Quid pro quo
In the grim aftermath of Ukraine’s ill-fated counteroffensive last year, Russia appears to be in a strong position to consolidate gains, particularly if American support continues to dry up. In short, Russia’s military outlook is looking better and better, even as Ukraine’s is darkening by the day. With American military assistance likely being the decisive factor allowing Ukraine to continue to effectively resist Russia on the battlefield, the end of American support would be catastrophic for Kyiv, and spell disaster for Europe.
Ultimately, Russia could win the war, perhaps taking another run at conquering Kyiv, or merely slicing off the entire Donbas, and leaving Ukraine a broken rump state to be swallowed at a later date. Ukraine’s military situation will grow increasingly desperate without U.S. support, that much is clear. Meanwhile, Russia’s learning from past mistakes, and adapting on the battlefield, as the human toll mounts ever higher.
For his part, Donald Trump is likely expecting some additional political help from the Kremlin again, much like he received in 2016, and Vladimir Putin is likely to deliver it to keep his prized asset in place. Trump simply needs to continue to serve the Kremlin’s needs via the Republican Party, and Putin can be expected to return the favor with another robust election interference campaign.
Perhaps Trump will offer Putin the gift of NATO’s dissolution next, assuming he retakes the presidency in 2024, an idea he’s long toyed with. Regardless, the fate of U.S. democracy, Ukraine’s survival, Taiwan, and global security and stability all hang tenuously in the balance, caught in this poisonous alliance between these two aging tyrants, and the partnership that serves them both at such a staggering cost for the rest of us.
The Republican Party has become impotent. There is no unity except within small factions that adore trump or hate him. Consequently, they’ve lost the ability to govern.
trump is still calling all the shots. He says “JUMP!” and his track stars fall in line. Always willing to sacrifice their honor and pay homage to their god, they will do trump’s bidding despite the personal cost. Cowards. Traitors to America. Useful idiots for Putin’s glory as well as trump’s.
I’m old enough to remember when our elected leaders understood America’s value to the entire world. They understood the importance of valor, commitment, humanity, support, and justice.
Those days are long gone. We cheer Zalenskyy (those of us who still have our humanity), and cross our fingers that with enough worldly support the Ukrainians, World War III nightmares will subside.
So here we are. At the precipice of another cliff the Republicans placed us on, as they decide whether or not they should push us off.
I guess they’re waiting for the signal from the boss man. Again.
That sums it all up 👍 ty.
I do wonder why such a small number of Republicans have the guts to stand up and be counted like Romney and Cheney. Does someone have a dossier on each of them with which to blackmail and potentially lose their lucrative donations from the likes of the gun lobby.
I also wonder how so many Americans don’t have the common sense to see through all the lies and manipulations. But what do you expect with a system not fit for purpose.
How can you have a partisan judge, by definition a judge is impartial yet, for example, the Supreme Court is completely biased one way or another. Life appointment 🤷♂️
Partisan mainstream news 🤷♂️ News should be information not a opinion, yet here we are. No controls on truth, evidence or interference.
And funding 🤷♂️using the NRA gun lobby as an example, politics are bought regardless of their true opinion about it, nor the opinion of a majority of Americans. How many are killed by guns, including school children massacred, compared to let’s say abortions.
Fund me this, fund me that, pay me bills, pay my fines, pay my lawyers. What the hell is a Super PAC🤷♂️ and why is it a thing.
If you have enough money you’re likely to win, even if it’s just by delaying judicial process long enough for the other side to run out of money, or circumstances change.
The President can appoint people who they have no right to have a choice of. Anyone who is in charge of the checks and balances of government can be replaced by another who will follow orders not the law.
The whole system is designed to be corrupted,