Blood on their hands
The GOP cannot hide from the disaster they have helped bring upon Ukraine and the world.
Effective deterrence matters. Had Vladimir Putin foreseen the strong American leadership that has brought crippling sanctions and global condemnation upon Russia, his calculus would have been different. Now he is committed to his path. Ukrainians are dying. A new cold war is here. Putin will not lose power, but he will have to tighten his grip, returning an old familiar barbarism to the Kremlin.
Why was our deterrence not effective? How could Putin have failed to see what our response would be?
The inescapable answer is that the American right misled him, as it misleads us at home. Donald Trump, Mike Pompeo, FOX TV, and the entire American right are drenched in Ukrainian blood, and they have no one but themselves to blame for the additional costs we all must bear to preserve freedom.
Start with Donald Trump. He spent four years undermining NATO, refusing to arm Ukraine without a political quid pro quo, and tilting the balance of American foreign policy towards Russia. His political philosophy, adopted by the party he leads, is simple: the purpose of power is to rule. His ethically challenged Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, made foreign policy partisan by hosting what he called “Madison dinners” at the State Department. These were taxpayer funded dinners that introduced foreign leaders to his political allies. When the US State Department invites foreign leaders to dine with Laura Ingraham, Karl Rove, and GOP mega donor Ken Langone it is painting a dangerously misleading picture of who we are. Pompeo undermined American diplomacy by supporting the shadowy operation run by Rudy Giuliani to recall our Ambassador to Ukraine in order to bend that nation to partisan politics here at home. When asked about it at the time, he shouted at NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly, “Do you think Americans care about Ukraine?” and challenged her to find the country on a map. When she did, he left the room. How could Putin look at any of this and imagine there would be consequences if he attacked Ukraine?
Nor did the impression that the United States would be weak in its support for Ukraine come to an end when Americans voted Donald Trump into retirement. Unlike any President in American history, Trump refused to concede, and his big lie has weakened our country and left foreign nations in doubt as to our commitment to freedom and democracy. As if that general harm were not sufficient, both Trump and Pompeo praised Putin in the lead up to the invasion, calling him a genius. If Putin was looking for signals of American intentions, he could find advocates of appeasement in our former leaders.
But appeasement does not go far enough to describe what Putin saw on “America’s newsroom.” Night after night, morning after morning, FOX news broadcast the same lies about our country that were coming from RT and from Russian bots on Twitter and FaceBook. Joe Biden won the election, but undermining his legitimacy was a goal of Russian disinformation- one gleefully shared on FOX. Here again, subtle undermining of America was not enough. In the months leading up to Putin’s decision to invade, FOX hosts like Tucker Carlson made a point of promoting Victor Orban, the autocratic ruler of Belarus, and going further to praise Putin himself.
Had any Republicans in Congress stood up and objected to the messages from the President we voted out, from the Secretary of State that most analysts have said was among the worst in our history, or even had they objected to the lies and the autocratic bent of their favored media, Putin might have better understood our country’s resolve.
Instead of crediting Joe Biden with the kind of courageous and intelligent leadership he has shown in this crisis, Republicans have universally sought to portray him as a senile fool. Nor even was that enough. In the days before Mr. Putin crossed the border into Ukraine, GOP Senator Ron Johnson held a widely publicized panel on COVID where he promoted the lie that vaccinations have weakened America’s military.
After undermining Ukraine as a matter of policy while in office the GOP chose to use their opposition to undermine the deterrent effect of American leadership and power.
In a moment when effective deterrence could have saved Ukraine, spared thousands of lives, preserved the rule of law, Republicans did all they could to undermine confidence in resolve. Their hands are drenched in Ukrainian blood, their hearts should be heavy with shame.