Trump and allies defend or repel Putin’s invasion; Was Romney right?

For decades, it has been the Republican Party She stood up for being cruel to communism, and Democratsfairly or unfairly, they are often criticized for taking a softer approach.

But now the entire deck is scrambled.

Many Republican Party leaders, such as Mitch McConnell And the Lindsey Graham, they support President Biden in lining up NATO allies to impose sanctions on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. Some say Biden didn’t go far enough — criticism fueled by the president’s decision to impose only limited sanctions, apparently because the Russian military has entered only two rebel provinces so far.

Senator Lindsey Graham, R. S., speaks during a news conference at the Washington Capitol.
(News agency)

But there is another Republican faction, which is generally allied with a certain ex-president, and doesn’t particularly care about Ukraine, and thinks that its base doesn’t care much either.

They showed no objection when Donald Trump He said Russian President Vladimir Putin He is a “genius” and “extremely smart” for dealing with Ukraine and portraying the invasion as a “peacekeeping” mission (which is, of course, an outright lie). Notably missing from Putin’s praise in that radio interview was even the least moderate rejection of one country using force to seize territory from its sovereign neighbour.

A massive uprising against the noisy Democratic Party

Ukraine was, of course, at the center of the first impeachment process, when Trump withheld military aid while pressuring the country’s leader to voice dirt on Joe Biden.

Politico He says “a minority in the Republican Party on and off Capitol Hill – represented by Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Fox News host Tucker Carlson and Ohio Senate candidate J.D. Vance, among others — have taken a third course, actively arguing against any US involvement in the region while still reading Biden. They argue that expanding the United States’ commitment to NATO is a mistake, and that the president should instead focus on confronting China and securing America’s southern border.

Hawley, for example, is one of about a dozen Republican senators who did not support legislation last week that urges sanctions if Russia invades Ukraine.

“It’s not a split on the right. It’s showing you the New Right, or the new Republican Party, versus the neoconservatives that are still there,” says Steve Bannon, a member of the Constitution for what Politico calls the “America First” crowd. “We have no interest – no one in the Trump movement has any interest whatsoever in the Russian-speaking provinces of eastern Ukraine. Zero.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin gives his thumbs up while attending a groundbreaking ceremony for the third reactor of the Akkuyu nuclear plant in Turkey, via video link in Moscow, Russia on March 10, 2021.
(Reuters)

Mike PompeoTrump’s secretary of state told Fox last month that Putin is a “credible and powerful statesman,” but this week said he is the “aggressor” of Ukraine.

The Washington Post noted that Vance, the Ohio Senate candidate, tweeted that “what’s happening in Ukraine has nothing to do with our national security, but it distracts our stupid ‘leaders’ from focusing on things that matter to our citizens. Security, like securing the borders and stopping The fentanyl flux that’s killing American children.”

An era of endless debates, from Ukraine to vaccines to Russia

I received criticism from Biden. I have an argument that Ukraine should not be a top US priority. I don’t get to abandon NATO and indifference to a military takeover of what was once a Soviet country. And I don’t get praise for Putin, the man who imprisons and calls his opponents and makes all kinds of slanders to justify his invasion, for the second time in eight years that he has tried to take over part of Ukraine – which he didn’t even consider it a legitimate country.

There was, of course, one Republican who warned against this a decade ago.

This was in an interview with Wolf Blitzer Mitt Romney, In running for president in 2012, he declared Russia “without a doubt our number one geopolitical enemy.”

Criticism exploded when Barack Obama, in their last debate, told Romney that “the 1980s, they are now calling to claim their foreign policy again because, you know, the Cold War is over for 20 years.”

This was in the midst of bringing Obama back to Moscow, and Romney was widely derided as a relic who did not understand that al-Qaeda and Iran were America’s greatest enemies.

Senator Mitt Romney, Utah, speaks during a press conference on October 15, 2020, near Nevis Canyon, in Salt Lake City.
(News agency)

“Romney may have forgotten the decade he was in,” the Boston Globe said. The New York Times op-ed said Romney’s comments “show either a shocking lack of knowledge of international affairs or just cowardly politics. Either way, they are reckless and unworthy of a leading presidential candidate.”

Columnist Tom Friedman said it appears that Romney has gotten his foreign policy from the IHOP.

But now, CNN’s Chris Celisa says… “It’s time to admit it: Mitt Romney was right about Russia.” good for him.

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At the time, Celisa called Obama’s strike “the best line of the three debates.”

Some media liberals, Democrats such as David Axelrod and Representative Ted Lieu, also acknowledge Romney’s foresight.

Most lawmakers will be all over the airwaves with a winning margin, but that’s not Romney. I asked twice from the Utah senator’s office for comment and received no response.

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Romney has been more favored by the media in recent years as he has become a vocal critic of Trump’s vote for impeachment. Perhaps it’s also time to admit that not only was he right about Russia, but it wasn’t the heartless hedge fund capitalist who became his indelible image in that campaign.