From here on, I’m calling them ‘Trumpublicans,’ and they’ve lost their way on Ukraine | Opinion
It’s not true that the congressional Trumpublicans -- as I’m from here on calling members of the party that Donald Trump now more wholly owns than most of the buildings with his name out front -- are getting nothing done.
Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland recently ticked off a pretty good list of what keeps them busy: “All the Republicans do now is fratricidal, internecine warfare. And expulsions. And impeachments. And censure motions,” for a guy who pulled a fire alarm, which reminded me of the day in kindergarten when I had to sit with tape over my mouth all afternoon because just for fun I’d flicked off the lights in the hall. (Yes, Mrs. Barefield knew how to get my attention.)
“That’s what it’s come to,” on that side of the aisle, Raskin went on, among “an utterly cannibalistic group of people.”
Which is accurate but incomplete, because when they’re not fighting each other just to keep their skills up, members of the former national security party are hard at work undermining democracy around the world.
To Russia, with love
Pro-Putin Trumpublicans in the Senate gave their man in Moscow an early Christmas present this week by blocking the aid to Ukraine that our allies there desperately need before the end of the month.
“America’s Ukraine-funding failure is yet more wind in Putin’s sails” was the apt headline on this week’s ‘The Intelligence’ podcast for The Economist.
“History’s going to judge harshly those who turn their back on freedom’s cause,” President Joe Biden warned, to which the unserious Rs in the former “world’s greatest deliberative body” said haha; whatever.
To them, “freedom’s cause” means never having to mask up, not ending Putin’s attempt to put the empire back together.
It involves easy access to weapons of war without a background check, but no more aid of the kind that could save us from ever having to put American boots on the ground in Europe if Ukraine were to lose and Russia were to keep right on marching.
As Biden said, “If Putin takes Ukraine, he won’t stop there.”
All Trumpublicans used to know this; remember a whole 21 months ago, when we all flew those little blue and yellow Ukrainian flags, and woke up every day praying that Zelensky had survived one more night? But now even Lindsey Graham has forgotten -- who again was John McCain? -- as Josh Hawley did long ago.
“This is Europe’s backyard, this is Europe’s issue, first and foremost,” Hawley said on Laura Ingraham’s show on Fox. “We have to be honest with the world that it’s time for Europeans to take the lead on defense of its own continent, not least because we need to look to China, our biggest overseas threat, and we need to secure our own southern border, and that brings me to my biggest beef here; we don’t have any money to do anything for Americans. We can’t see to any of our national security imperatives and yet we have unlimited money, apparently, according to Joe Biden, for Ukraine. It’s crazy.”
China is watching
So crazy I barely know where to start, but I’ll give it a shot: Ever hear of NATO, Josh? Europe’s problems are very much our problems. You’re ignoring that China is also watching us to see how we handle Ukraine, and that those cues will inform how they handle Taiwan; the world is a small place, and the ‘cause of freedom’ is everywhere interconnected.
So what happens in Europe is absolutely our national security imperative. And when you say how sad it is that we supposedly can’t afford ‘anything for Americans,’ how does that square with the historic infrastructure package you voted against two years ago?
“It’s Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine,” Hawley said on Fox, “and I just gotta tell ya, I’m not gonna vote for a dime more until the United States security, our border security, is actually made whole and made right.”
Biden may have called the Trumpublicans’ bluff, because he has since said he’s willing to negotiate on the border. Maybe Rs will take ‘yes’ for an answer, but do they even want a compromise? Since they’ve never enacted comprehensive reforms when they could have, I’ll hold off on considering this a done deal.
Rs don’t believe in government, and so see failing to govern as a kind of success. But if they’re not, as Biden charges, “willing to literally kneecap Ukraine on the battlefield” in the process, now would be the perfect time to prove him wrong.
This story was originally published December 8, 2023 at 5:15 AM.
