MAGA says ‘break’
Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.) visited Ukraine this month and met with President Volodymyr Zelensky, who she describes as “clear-eyed and clear-voiced.” But he’s faced with a “make or break moment” in his country’s fight to remain a free country. Donald Trump wanted (and failed) to build a wall on our southern border. Vladimir Putin wants to rebuild the Iron Curtain.
Spanberger shared her thoughts with Jennifer Rubin (Washington Post):
Spanberger is candid about the Biden administration refusing the initial request from Ukraine for critical equipment, waiting for Europeans to act and then, finally, acceding. “Initially, I was willing to concede they were being careful,” she said. The risk of elevating the war to a major-power war is not zero. However, “we have demonstrated that Ukraine is abiding by the parameters” we set, she argued. The rigmarole leaves us consistently at least “a few months behind” Ukraine’s urgent requests.
Intelligence Committee Chairman Michael R. Turner (R-Ohio) pledged to Zelensky that the aid bill would “get done.” Just how to pass it over MAGA Republican objections is the question.
MAGA Republicans’ indifference to Ukraine — evidenced by their shrug at Trump’s recent invitation for Russia to invade Europe — incensed Spanberger. “What are they missing? We saved the world from fascism. We ended the Holocaust. We freed Europe. That was us,” she said, her voice rising with emotion. Now, these Republicans “want to remove America from the world,” she says. Russian President Vladimir Putin, she continued, “is on the precipice of destroying the world order we put in place through the deaths of thousands of Americans.” And, yet, it seems, they cannot be bothered to “explain this to their constituents or fend off a primary challenge” to defend our vital interests, she declared. Instead, they meekly follow their isolationist cult leader.
She recalled that the day after 9/11, our NATO allies invoked Article 5 for the first time. “They went to war for 2o years for us. For our war.” In a word, she said, she finds Republicans’ disregard of America’s vital interests “shameful.”
Spanberger’s being diplomatic.
Ah, remember the days when the Bushies told us we needed to invade Iraq? How they fed us a flood of raw (and bogus) intelligence about it? Iraq was a clear and present danger to our national security? We needed to fight them over there so we didn’t have to fight them over here?
Ukraine’s ask is not even that. We’re being asked to supply Ukraine with weapons to sustain their fight so We don’t end up in WWIII over there. France supplied the Colonies with weapons in their fight against the British, so it’s a kind of pay-freedom-forward ask, and a damn sight cheaper and cleaner (for us) than a war between NATO and Russia. Not to mention a jobs program for American arms manufacturers. You’d think the party of big business would consider it a sound investment with a yuge ROI.
But that was before the Christian right’s crush on Putin, and before white nationalists discovered Russia as their “beacon of salvation” in a diversifying West. Because Russia-so-white, Christian, and anti-gay. The extremist’s ditching freedom and all that predates Trump’s flowering bromance with Putin. Almost makes one miss Cold War Republicans.
Re: Spanberger. My last Democratic congressperson was a Blue Dog. We’ve had a string of rather notorious Republicans since January 2013, including Mark Meadows and Madison Cawthorn. So while others may give side-eye to centrist Democrats, my view of Spanberger is tempered by that experience.
Spanberger has chosen not to return to Congress so she can run for Virginia governor in 2025 instead. So I wish former former CIA agent, former Blue Dog, and current Problem Solver Caucus member bon courage.
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