They’re not even red in the face about it
Remember before the Brown decision when Democrats were the racist party of Jim Crow? And some long after were still “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever”? Yup, bad times. The Cold War was hot. McCarthyism was a thing. Birchers were active in the 1950s and 60s, too, and warned fluoridation was a communist plot. Better red than dead, replied some liberals. Righties branded them commies and pinkoes, unAmerican, subversives. As Archie and Edith sang, at least you knew who you were then.
The Civil Rights movement and Johnson’s Great Society changed that. The major parties’ roles substantially inverted. The solid Democratic South turned deeply red. The Party of Lincoln devolved into the anti-democracy Party of Trump. The sort of people who once warned about commies in woodpiles pose with Russian agents at NRA conferences, reveal state secrets to Russians inside the Oval Office, and meet with Russian officials in Moscow over the Fourth of July. A few decades ago, the optics of that would have made Republicans’ skins jump off their bodies and run away.
Should Republicans retake control of Congress in 2022, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) told Paul Waldman and Greg Sargent, they will hold up additional aid to Ukraine’s defenders and let Russian dictator Vladimir Putin’s invaders take the country:
As of now, Senate Republicans appear supportive of the Biden administration’s most recent request, for $12 billion to be added to a continuing resolution funding the government through September. But if Republicans were to win the House (let alone the Senate), that could change everything.
“I think there’s a real risk that the continuing resolution will be the last time we supply funding to Ukraine,” Murphy said, noting that this is more of a threat in the House, because its members are more beholden to Trump.
Trump himself has been all over the place on the topic. Sometimes he attacks the idea of sending aid. Other times he takes credit for sending aid that Ukraine has used successfully against Russia. But his admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin seems undimmed.
“Trump always talks out of both sides of his mouth,” Murphy said. “But his lieutenants in charge of disseminating the message online are kicking the crap out of Ukraine aid.”
Defense News backs up Murphy’s concerns, reporting that “The House’s No. 2 and 3 Republican leaders — Minority Whip Steve Scalise and conference chair Elise Stefanik — wouldn’t commit to their conference keeping the aid flowing should Republicans take control of the House in January, even though they both cast votes in favor of Ukraine aid in the past.”
The GOP’s growing MAGA wing stands with their Putin fanboy, the former president:
Much GOP rhetoric on this is couched in fiscal terms, saying we shouldn’t spend so much on Ukraine when needs are unmet at home. Traditional conservative groups such as Heritage Action for America have urged Republicans to vote against Ukraine aid packages, and 57 Republicans in the House voted no in May on a $40 billion aid package.
But some of the most direct pledges to cut off aid come from far-right Trumpists such as Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who are forthright about their sympathies. As Rep. Paul A. Gosar (R-Ariz.) once said, “Ukraine is not our ally. Russia is not our enemy.”
Fox News’ top anchor, Tucker Carlson, is shilling for Russia.
All this raises the question of whether the Trumpist nationalist takeover of much of the GOP will create a kind of expanded Putinist axis in the House. As political scientist Francis Fukuyama recently noted, Western democracies are seeing the development of domestic political movements that sync up globally with what you might call a growing right wing authoritarian Internationale.
This Internationale, as Fukuyama observed, is aligned to one degree or another with leaders such as Viktor Orban in Hungary, Éric Zemmour and Marine Le Pen in France and Putin in Russia. And of course there’s Trump.
There was a time in this country when conservatives frowned on that sort of thing. Before demographic change threatened their grip on power and to hold onto it they sold their souls to an amoral con man.
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