MAGA’s Ukraine Delusion
How Populist thoughtlessness regarding Ukraine mirrors Democrats ignoring the border until it's too late.
America’s sovereignty depends on both a secure US border & security abroad. So far on both fronts, Russia and its de facto owner China must be happy to see high levels of dysfunction as most Democrats ignore the former and MAGA Republicans ignore the latter.
It is ironic, however, as the two problems occur primarily from little understanding among those who ignore them due to a lack of proximity. To much of the US congress, not to mention the American people, Ukraine is a completely alien concept. With the Democrats, current border security measures have been a miserable failure thanks to in no small part their lip service to far left causes.
Yet when it comes to the border issue, Florida governor Ron Desantis’s brilliant idea of sending illegal migrants to “sanctuary cities” like New York has finally resulted in the NIMBY politicians like New York City Mayor Eric Adams rescinding on such acts of nobility. Even Democratic New York governor Kathy Hochul has now called for a “Limit On Who Can Come Across the Border” so the pressure is on when there’s direct exposure to the problem.
Unfortunately, short of sending an army of drunk Vatniks to Tucker Carlson’s country club, the great divide will remain between populist Republicans and the problems that will occur down the line should Ukraine fall to the Russians. In this way there is little difference between Tucker Carlson today and Kathy Hochul before she saw the result of her party’s choices playing out in real time.
What is the environment where such choices remain justified before getting your nose punched in with the truth, and can anything truly be done about it?
Traitors or Useful Idiots?
For days, members of the Republican House Freedom Caucus said “no” to the short-term government spending agreement set to last until November as they rallied against what’s become the normalized rise of funding many bills in one go rather than voting on them on an individual basis.
While concerns about transparency and accountability in government spending are to be applauded in any other case, it's been the funding of Ukraine’s war effort that’s been a primary motivator for the Republicans to block this spending agreement along with pushing for much needed border security. Yet at the end of the day, a spending agreement was indeed reached to extend the budget until Mid-November, but it excluded both support for Ukraine as well as border-security measures that the Republicans wanted so much.
$16 billion in disaster relief aside, this was a Pyrrhic victory for the loudest minority within the Republican party but a refreshing one for those on the far left like Alexandra Occasio-Cortez having thwarted “last minute anti-immigrant hijinks” and showing no sign of concern for Russian aggression. This is not surprising as the far left had to be bribed into supporting the war effort through Student loan forgiveness and Climate Change action while their heart lies much more with Useful Idiot Third World-ism. Neither is it hard to see why populist Republicans would adopt an anti-war position which looks morally superior on the surface while bringing more attention to internal problems ignored by a virtual signaling establishment.
There have been calls of “traitor” towards these Republicans by Ukraine supporters, but such would only ring true for those who are smart enough to understand the trouble America will find itself in when allowing Russia to invade its neighbors, yet value getting elected more. Mostly, however, the die hard anti interventionists seem to be composed of people with selective historical amnesia so “useful idiot” would be a much better descriptor.
Rise of the Stupid
From either the left or right perspective, a shallow view of our current situation would understandably cast those who support sending aid let alone jet fighters to Ukraine as “war pigs” with profit and control as the sole motivator. But the key word is shallow as it takes little effort to be in favor of peace when you turn your mind off to the long term consequences of your actions. The same can be said of appeals to amnesty for border jumping migrants where “no human is illegal'' as we cannot digest all the poor countries entirely for our system to function in any way. Even if we were to assume that every migrant was beneficial, it would still be like trying to eat ten nutritious breakfasts in a row.
What this latter example shows right leaning dissidents is that a sizable portion of our educated class has been brainwashed into making emotionally driven decisions with history being distorted or ignored altogether to suit a woke political narrative. Add to this complaints about social media reducing our attention spans and you’ve got the making of a society where blind lead the blind.
Only what these right leaning dissidents fail to see on account of their own blindness, is that they’re just as much a product of historical ignorance as their opposition, albeit from reacting to America’s past failures in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan rather than embracing social justice. Algorithms drive up stories reaffirming one’s position while giving nary an inch to the opponents regardless of whether they’re right or wrong.
As in Alcoholics Anonymous, the first step is admitting you have a problem, unless of course one assumes that being a dissident against war pigs and such gives you resistance to a problem everyone else faces.
England saves the day again
Unlike the Americans and Western Europeans, England has at least shown a greater capacity for historical memory regarding World War II which underpins its commitment to helping Ukraine. Back then, Britain was the lone Western nation fighting an expanding Nazi Germany until the Americans lent their assistance and such a stand is not easily forgotten. At least not by the responsible elites in charge right now.
Most recently, this has been seen in the under-reported plan to send NATO boots on the ground of Ukraine in the form of training as recently disclosed by the new Defense Secretary Grant Shapps. Should this plan be carried out, it will be the first time an official foreign military presence makes itself known in the country, thereby solidifying Britain’s commitment to stopping Russian advancement. And in taking this action, the United Kingdom will play a significant role in preventing a recurrence of its past ordeal, when the relentless advance of the Nazis combined with European war fatigue rendered those beautiful mutual defense treaties worthless.
Waking the blind Useful Idiots
While lacking Britain’s immediate predicament of being within distance of the Nazi war machine, the US finally ended their policy of isolationism when war came to its shores in the form of the Attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese. While such an occurrence should never be hoped for, the tragedy underscores an important quality within a representative government like the United States…
Politicians care about staying in power and would not risk alienating their base unless a problem gets too overwhelming. So was the case with the aforementioned Governor Hochul and Mayor Adams who changed their tune when they saw how costly the border migrant crisis would be, both for their state and city as well for their own jobs. The same would be the case for the pundits and politicians that preach appeasement only when Ukraine loses and the war expands into Poland as well as the Baltics. This would be an incredibly tough situation both for the US and Western European budget as well as the rising embers of what can rightly be called World War III and all the carnage that comes with it.
Much like the pre World War II treaties were not worth the paper they were written on, there is no use in threateningly waving around Article 5 which “assures” protection through a united NATO front in the case of a country like Poland being invaded. All the more so, if Russia (and China) see Western weakness in response to Putin’s current aggression, there’s no reason why they would not proceed further… Article 5 might as well be a white flag by that point.
The hope to wake up without such a rude awakening remains with countries like Britain to sound the alarm, as well as creating a united front over issues that make sense to pay attention to. That Britain’s new Defence Minister ruled out diversity “quotas” in the military and insisted that UK migrants should learn English and “be a productive part of society” are positive signs of such a front occurring. Just as well are there good signs of this in the aforementioned responses of politicians when exposed to problems at the border in their own backyard.
While it's too early to say that those trying to appeal to the far left have exchanged short term political gain for long term national stability, we have nothing to lose in getting more people to understand historical precedent as we know what the alternative will be.
Over time I've come to the view that most of these "useful idiots" are less blind to the truth -or severity of their actions, and more simply acting in bad faith. Regarding the previous article, I commented citing the blanket "I'm not Pro-Russia, but-" statement that is often used. However, most of these people ARE just pro-Russia.
For example, only a complete moron (which is a lot of the MAGA/Q-anon crowd being courted by the "Freedom" Caucus) would unironically think that enforcing our nation's laws --and deporting illegal immigrants, is mutually exclusive with aid to Ukraine. That is we can only have one, but not the other. If that we only stopped funding Ukraine's defense -the Biden Administration would be free to secure the border, more of your tax dollars would be in your pockets, and that gas/food prices (and inflation in general) would magically disappear
Or that the Republicans -or Trump, if he wins in '24 would magically end the war (probably by defunding Ukraine and forcing them into a defacto surrender to Russia), while securing the border that he very much DIDN'T secure during his previous four year tenure as President.
I honestly believe if you were to offer Rand Paul, Matt Gaetz, or MTG everything they wanted -strict border enforcement (which I'm 100% behind, btw), lower taxes, and a magical "anti-inflammatory" pill, in exchange for their support of aiding Ukraine -they wouldn't balk...and that's because at the end of the day most of them actually are just Pro-Russia, simple as. They don't really care about illegals -its good for business after all, nor do they care about anything else. They have become pro-Russia either for financial incentives (just look at Tucker -if you want to know why he simps so hard for Viktor Orban, look no further than his father's financial ties to Hungary), or because they genuinely fell for the Russian Propaganda -believing Putin's Russia to be a bulwark of Christian-Conservative values, against the "woke."
Sadly, the leadership in the West does little to dispel these misconceptions. A good indicator is to watch TV commercials from America and other Western Countries (its a hobby of mine), and you can see the Pozz playing out in real time. Almost makes you want to go fight for Russia, just to spite them. The whole "No Russian ever called me an [incel/racist/whatever]," argument.
Look at most of the "commentariat" on the "dissident right" and tell me they're not pro-Russia. I used to be pro-Russia myself -I'll admit it. Most of them backtrack on openly admitting it -just like they backtrack on the "Austrian Painter," but that's the rub. These people will be the first to act outraged over the standing ovation for the "Ukrainian SS" guy, or will obfuscate their intentions by saying they "support innocent Ukrainians & Soldiers" -that are being "exploited by the Zalenskyy regime." All while telegraphing their undying ire at the "Ukrainian Nazi terrorists -like that certain Regiment I will not name" (AZOV) that the Russians are merely "protecting innocent people from," (these are actual common opinions -btw). These same people -if you actually asked them what they think about WWII -or who they think controls the "GAE Regime", you'd get an interesting answer.
Keep in mind a lot of these people believe that Germany was defending itself when it invaded Poland in 1939 -that its was forced into it by an insidious Britain and France, who were so unreasonable not to just hand over Danzig to Germany -just as they did the Sudetenland (and basically all of Czechoslovakia). And we can recall the same arguments being used back then -echoing now. The same calls for "pacifism" or "minding our own business," all while conveniently blaming the victim and simultaneously failing to condemn the aggressor. Most of these types had ulterior motives then as well, and hid their true intentions behind false morality and ethics.
So, we shouldn't even give them even the slightest inch by entertaining descriptors of "pacifist," "anti-war,"or even useful idiots (especially because they know what they do). These are just the masks they wear (and I think you understand this as well). They are no more "pacifist" than they are "America First" -or "pro border security." They are Pro-Russia, simple as.
Rant over.
FYI: this doesn't apply to the common voter -who is merely ignorant, and to be honest -has little agency other than to parrot talking points and pull a lever come election day.
Neither Russia or China are a threat to the US, both are a threat to US hegemony which isn’t the same thing. And if the US wants to continue to be an empire it needs more people, probably 500 million by mid C.