Russian forces are converging on Kyiv this morning. The Ukrainian capitol could fall to Vladimir Putin within days, sources tell CNN. President Biden has dispatched another (symbolic) 7,000 U.S. troops to Germany. A retired U.S. general told MSNBC Thursday night that Putin’s invasion will mean U.S. troops will be permanently stationed on his border in the Baltic states and in Poland. Foreign policy experts reassure us that Putin is making a historic strategic mistake.
Those assurances will be little comfort to Ukrainians this morning. Especially since statements condemning Biden and/or supporting Putin by Americans, including Republican members of Congress and a former president, are being rebroadcast by Putin’s state media in Russia.
“Why do Democrats want you to hate Putin?” Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson asked viewers Tuesday while implying the real objects of their hate should be non-conservative neighbors on their streets. Carlson et al. are the smart girl playing dumb so the boys will like her. The “boys” in this case are MAGA-style insurrectionists.
Other Trumpish Republicans “want to capitalize on some of the energy and ideas of Trumpism, but their shame is too strong or their stomachs too weak to debase themselves,” writes David Graham in The Atlantic. They bring a “gotta hand it to them” attitude to authoritarians like Putin for the same reason Carlson and Fox News do.
A third group consists of the remainder of what were “establishment” Republicans:
The problem for this group is that the most influential figures in the party are in the other two groups, and they’re most interested in fluffing Trump’s profile and playing footsie with Putin. During the Cold War, when Republicans were staunchly anti-Russia, there was a pithy term for people who for their own domestic political reasons defended Communist leaders and arguments in the West. The Soviet Union is gone, but the term is still handy for describing Putin’s American cheerleaders: useful idiots.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton writes this morning (also in The Atlantic) about Republicans braying about Biden’s weakness while giving comfort to Putin:
Republican leaders are abandoning core tenets of American democracy even as the stakes in the global contest between democracy and autocracy are clearer and higher than at any time since the end of the Cold War. They are defending coup-plotters and curbing voting rights while Russia tries to crush Ukraine’s fragile democracy and China menaces not only Taiwan but democracies everywhere, from Australia to Lithuania.
Putin watched as the Trump-inspired, antidemocratic insurrection proved a sizable slice of Americans yearn more for an authoritarian strong man than for democratic self-rule at home. Putin thought, Why would Americans defend it now in Ukraine?
This morning, Putin still has reason to ask that.
Clinton and co-author Dan Schwerin continue:
Whether Putin continues testing NATO’s resolve, and whether the trajectory of our competition with China veers toward conflict, will in part be driven by Russian and Chinese perceptions of America’s decline or resilience. When our democracy looks weak, our country looks weak, and as Reagan said, that only invites aggression.
And it has.
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