It should be possible, when evaluating a foreign conflict, to determine that the best course of action is not to intervene. However, in the binary political scheme around the Russia Ukraine war, supporters of Ukraine insist that everyone who is skeptical of Ukraine and its authoritarian regime is de facto a stooge of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Why doesn’t the same logic apply to other wars raging around the world?
The debate over whether or not to continue to support Ukraine highlights a seismic ideological realignment on foreign policy. Democrats, who were traditionally more skeptical of militarism and foreign adventurism, are far more aggressive and warlike than their Republican counterparts.
Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer says that the courts are the first line of resistance against Trump. By the time the slow-as-molasses courts take action in this country, anyone who is still seeking justice is already screwed.
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine appears to have become nearly the latest of a long line of American allies, many of them autocrats like himself, who were told the U.S. would always look out for them only to be kicked to the curb after they were no longer useful to the United States.
Of course it’s galling to see Donald Trump shake down his ally Ukraine for a massive share of its mineral resources. But let’s not forget, Joe Biden set the stage by offering assistance to Zelensky in the form of a loan rather than a grant.
Trump’s decision to cut weapons sales to Ukraine means that a war that would have ended up in defeat years from now will end up in defeat now, instead. Sadly, billions of dollars in weapons sales will be lost.
Democrats’ idea of “resistance” to Trump is considerably less substantial than actual resistance to fascism looked like during World War II. And it probably shouldn’t have started with a unanimous vote for neoconservative maniac Marco Rubio.
As Elon Musk’s DOGE cost-cutting brigade ordered mass layoffs and targeted entire agencies, Democrats who tried to use the cuts to rally Americans may have been surprised to learn that the trials and tribulations of bureaucrats don’t resonate with voters who don’t understand what bureaucrats do in the first place.
In many countries, politics happens 365 days a year. Citizens hold their governments’ feet to the fire when they’re unhappy. Not so in the United States. We outsource politics to the politicians and check in every two to four years to see how they’ve been doing.
Israelis are taught to “never forget” the Holocaust. In the case of Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu and his right wing followers, however, they seem to have taken genocide as something to emulate rather than to avoid.
