TAMPA BAY TIMES
Mona Charen. Sept 17
At the moment when freedom-loving people around the world are elated (if on tenterhooks) at the progress of Ukrainian forces in pushing back the Russian invaders, Heritage Action, the political arm of the conservative Heritage Foundation, has joined with other self-styled conservative groups to oppose helping Ukraine fight for its life.
I know, I know, the Trumpification of the GOP [US Republican Party] has been a fact for six years, and yet this heel turn is remarkable. It’s as if People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals announced that they support puppy mills for medical research.
The pro-Putin, pro-authoritarian voices in the GOP are not yet a majority — about a quarter of House Republicans and 11 of 50 senators voted against the $40 billion aid package for Ukraine in May — but they’re not a small minority either, and the wind is at their backs.
CPAC [Conservative Political Action Conference] has all but canonized Hungary’s strongman Viktor Orban, and in the first hours after Putin rolled into Ukraine, Donald Trump reveled in the murderer’s “savvy” and “genius.”
The 2022 election could bring more authoritarian-friendly Republicans to Congress, and meanwhile, hatcheries of conservative orthodoxy like Fox News and The Federalist are doing the spade work of persuading the base that Kremlin propaganda is more trustworthy — pravda, if you will — than The New York Times.
Just two weeks ago, Tucker Carlson, Putin’s favorite American broadcaster (clips from his show are routinely featured on Russian state TV), told viewers that President Joe Biden’s steadfast support of Ukraine was absurd: “Biden is calling for an unconditional surrender from Vladimir Putin. Here’s the weird thing: By any actual reality-based measure, Vladimir Putin is not losing the war in Ukraine.”
Poor timing. But that’s the least of it. It was bad enough to excuse Putin before Feb. 24 on the risible grounds that he represented some sort of Christian champion and scourge of wokeness.
But after? That a spokesman for a so-called conservative TV network can cheer the rape of a free country (Carlson has said he “roots” for Russia to win) is not just morally depraved, it violates the basic tenets of what used to be conservatism.
American conservatives once believed that freedom was our most precious inheritance. We were friends to all freedom-loving people and foes of all tyrants. Speaking on the 40th anniversary of D-Day, Ronald Reagan said this to the aging soldiers who had scaled the cliffs of Pointe du Hoc:
“You were here to liberate, not to conquer, and so you and those others did not doubt your cause. And you were right not to doubt. You all knew that some things are worth dying for. One’s country is worth dying for, and democracy is worth dying for, because it’s the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man.”
Now it’s goodbye to all that apparently. J.D. Vance, Trump’s hand-picked candidate for a U.S. Senate seat in Ohio, has said he doesn’t care one way or the other what happens to Ukraine. The Federalist denounces Mitch McConnell (who traveled to Ukraine to show support) and other “swamp creatures” for putting Ukraine’s security needs ahead of America’s.
The vapidity of this new “conservatism” is bottomless. They haven’t bothered to consider that brutal aggression by a larger against a smaller state invites a Hobbesian international disorder in which no one is safe.
A number of Republicans have seized on the talking point that Biden is more concerned with Ukraine’s border than with our southern border. Blake Masters, the Peter Thiel-conjured Republican nominee for Senate in Arizona, sneered that America’s leaders are “buffoons who hate you so … they’ll keep defending Ukraine’s borders while turning their backs on ours.” Rep. Mary Miller and her ilk found this irresistibly witty and repeated it.
As if thousands of would-be immigrants attempting to cross the Rio Grande for work represent a comparable threat to tanks and missiles destroying cities, murdering men, women and children, creating millions of refugees, and cutting off food and electricity. This talk of “invasion” of our southern border was always hyperbolic, but to cling to it at a time when our screens are full of images of a true invasion becomes vile.
These supposed conservatives are strangers to the most important themes of traditional conservatism. They dishonor the name. Conservatism was a worldview intimately bound up with opposition to tyranny. Of course we fell short of our aspirations from time to time, but love of freedom was in our DNA — or so it seemed. Our hearts were with oppressed peoples from Lithuania to Tibet to Tehran.
We cheered the fall of the Berlin Wall because the USSR was a comprehensive, seven-decade assault on human dignity. We hated it for its repression of speech, thought, religion, movement and enterprise. We hated it for its torrent of lies.
Putin’s Russia differs from the U.S.S.R. in ideology, but in repression and rapacity, it is comparable. And it’s scarcely believable that the “useful idiots” who make excuses for it today — who actually root for its success — are “conservatives.”
— Mona Charen is policy editor of The Bulwark and host of the “Beg to Differ” podcast. Her most recent book is “Sex Matters: How Modern Feminism Lost Touch with Science, Love, and Common Sense.”
These so called conservative republicans should drop dead with the guy whose ass they kiss. I’m a conservative, a proud Reagan conservative. These animals who wish to call themselves conservatives are a fuckin humiliation to the party and to the values of true conservatives.
“The pro-Putin, pro-authoritarian voices in the GOP are not yet a majority — about a quarter of House Republicans and 11 of 50 senators voted against the $40 billion aid package for Ukraine in May — but they’re not a small minority either, and the wind is at their backs.”
These putler jackboot lickers from the Trump wing are a serious threat to Ukraine and they may increase their numbers in November.
Even Ted Cruz, who has been vocal in his support for Ukraine, started using Trump cliches when putler’s holocaust began. To compound that, he made a Bidenesque faux pas: “under no circumstances should American troops be fighting Russians in Ukraine.”
Never rule things out when it comes to putler. Biden did it and look where it got him?
Cruz for reasons that are impossible to understand, became a Trump supporter. This after Trump made the worst possible allegations against him. He insulted him with the “Lyin’ Ted” sobriquet and then went on to claim that Cruz’s father was complicit in the assassination of JFK!
Arg. I’d posted a comment about this. There’s a sort of extreme “divide” occurring in American politics right now. It’s more extreme with American democrats versus American republicans, but there’s also a divide in American conservatism. Some conservatives want to think more internally about national problems. Others argue that external problems can affect American interests in foreign policy. I think I’m of the second camp, because if America isn’t helping with mutually beneficial efforts, this opens room for countries like russia or china to seize power and control.
Amen Sir Mac. Amen. Isolationism proved to be a disaster pre WW2 and in 2008 Georgia and 2014 Crimea. You can only be a fuckin idiot to not see the correlation of isolationism to further greater aggression.
I live deep in the heart of the bible belt, these types of conservatives abound. I wear my hair in long traditional Slovakian braids. Instead of traditional red or embroidered ribbons, I wear blue and yellow weaved through my braids. The looks I get when I am in town or out for a run and incredible. I return those twisted up faces with a cheeky wink and a very loud SLAVA UKRAINI. I do get big smiles and thumbs ups. When I get the opportunity, I will talk to people who think we shouldn’t support Ukraine. I tell them about The Orange Revolution, The EuroMaidan and how Ukraine has work so hard for democracy and freedom since 1991. Tell them to thank the Kossacks for what the frame work of a democratic republic that the US uses. And finally remind them that as signatories to the Budapest Memorandum, we in fact have an obligation to support Ukraine. Can someone tell me how to say ‘Kiss my a**’ in Ukrainian?
Here you go. Поцілуй мене в дупу or Potsiluy mene v dupu
I agree Sir Foccusser. Go kiss my ass!
Dakujem ti velmi pekne. Дуже дякую. Especially for the ‘latin’ pronunciation.
MM, I very much respect your steadfastness and sense of righteousness. Keep up the good work!
Just got back from a run, stopped at market to get a snack. This couple behind me started talking about me thinking I didn’t speak English. I figured I would play along. I turned around and started speaking to them in Slovak, heck they don’t know the difference between Slovak and Ukrainian. The looks on their faces!!! Then I said ‘Oops’ and started speaking English with my very American accent. I thought the first looks were something. The whole time I was thinking of the replies to my comment. Educating Conservative Americans by the ones and twos. Thank you for the encouragement!!! Slava Ukraini
I experienced people like that too, but in Germany. I speak German fluently and due to my American English, some Germans think I can’t speak their language. So, I know the type of expressions you’re talking about when you respond to their degrading remarks in their own language. 😁
Слава Украине!
Слава его героям!
By the way, it’s nice to have a Slovakian person on here. Welcome!
“Here’s the weird thing: By any actual reality-based measure, Vladimir Putin is not losing the war in Ukraine.”
By any reality based measure, Putin is not winning in Ukraine. Not winning, for Putin, however, is losing.
It should be pointed out that Charen is not a trustworthy conservative. Many calling themselves conservatives in the US, aren’t.
The quote is from tovaresh Tucker Carlson, not the writer.
Indeed, this is part of the “divide” I had mentioned about American conservatism. A good way to spot some of these fake “conservatives,” is anyone who appear to prefer doing business with china, russia, iran, or any other dictatorial/authoritarian regime, especially after being warned against that corruption. True American conservatives consider abortion to be murder, divorce to be the very LAST option for troubled marriages, and religious faith should at least be respected, if it’s not put first in the attitude of government. There’s a lot of good things that Americans have already forgotten from the spirit of the American Revolution, I am embarrassed to say. They are part of what “made America great,” as Trump urged in the “MAGA” slogan, and the other part of what made America great, was that we never gave up looking for that. From the Civil War, to the 1964 Civil Rights Act, it was all about seeking after fairness, but applied in a way that allowed outcomes to not be demanded.
Because sometimes, outcomes can’t be forced to be what we want, but we should seek after what is most likely to be good.
“By any actual reality-based measure, Vladimir Putin is not losing the war in Ukraine.”
Saying this sort of garbage happens when you have your head deeply stuck inside your anus … or the person you’re trying to support. Tucker is not a person to seek out as a reference to this war. He’s much too ill-informed.
Anyone who calls himself a conservative but supports Putin has to realize that he or she has fascist and criminal tendencies. Thus, they are not conservatives.