The Washington Post reported on the current divisions in the GOP. I thought this was most interesting:
Tony Fabrizio, a prominent Republican pollster who has done surveys for Trump and a range of Senate and gubernatorial candidates, said there have been sharp changes in the party’s outlook on foreign policy in recent years. “China is clearly seen as the bigger threat,” said Fabrizio, who was Trump’s main pollster in 2016 and 2020. “And the party is split down the middle with roughly half being isolationists, which is a significant shift from 15 years ago.”
A recent Quinnipiac poll found Republicans evenly divided over Biden’s decision to send troops to bolster NATO allies in Eastern Europe, with 47 percent opposed and 43 percent backing the move — a split Fabrizio said he has found in his own polling this week. He said his polling showed even less Republican support for military support, and that Republicans viewed China as more of an “enemy” than Russia…
In the White House, Trump was resistant to criticism of Putin because he “thought the guy had valid points and was generally right about the things he would rail on,” said a former senior administration official who regularly discussed Putin with Trump. “He was always saying that Putin has his points, I understand him, we have a good relationship. I think he believed it. Putin played to his vanities and did it superbly. The same thing with Kim and even Xi,” this official said, referring to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Trump was not alone in expressing admiration for Putin this week. Stephen K. Bannon, Trump’s onetime chief strategist, and Erik Prince, the former head of military contractor Blackwater, emphasized in a Thursday discussion aired on Bannon’s show that Putin had taken a hard line on social issues. “Putin ain’t woke,” Bannon said. Fox News host Tucker Carlson told viewers they should ask themselves, “Why do I hate Putin so much?”
True isolationism is one thing. But note that for all their shrugging over Russia, with its strongman leader, they still see China as an enemy and I would bet they’d be thrilled to back any war with a country run by someone who doesn’t look like them. (And even then — after all, just last week they seemed to be ready to invade Canada.)
I will never buy that these right wingers are truly isolationist. They have no principles. They like authoritarian dictators, they always have — as long as they’re white.
As for Trump, that paragraph is exactly that. They flattered him and because he is such a vain narcissistic fool, he bought it. They were more than content to let him strut around and bluster his nonsense. He was doing their work for them,