Why Putin miscalculated the Ukrainian resistance: the Maidan spirit endured

 On this anniversary of the first year of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, one of the historic miscalculations of this century's first quarter was Putin's misreading of the degree of Ukrainian resistance and the West's resolve to stop him.   His spies and his advisors forgot why Ukraine turned West in the first place. It was the spirit of Maidan, which Ukrainians call the Revolution of Dignity, a street revolt that began in November 2013 when their President Viktor Yanukovych refused to join the EU and instead announced his intentions to strengthen ties with Russia. Between February 18-20, 2014. Ukrainians rose up, demonstrating in large numbers in Kyiv's Maidan Square. (Sidebar: Yanukovich had been elected to office with the assistance of an American political consultant, Paul Manafort, later the campaign manager of Donald Trump, who pardoned Manafort's criminal conviction in the US). Yanukovich attempted to quell the demonstrators with tanks and sniper bullets. Over a hundred demonstrators were killed. So inflamed were the demonstrators,  on February 21, Yanukovich fled to Moscow, where he resides now awaiting Putin to restore him to power. In his wake, the Maidan demonstrators found evidence of his extravagant living and his corruption. They reacted for the next 8 years by beginning to strengthen the westward ties to the West and to pressure their government to weed out corruption. In the meantime, Russia annexed Crimea with barely a slap on the hands from most of the West. In March 2014, in the Donbas area, elements secretly supported by Russia began to fight to join Russia,  a conflict that continued into the invasion by Russia in February 2022.  Between Maidan and before Russia's invasion,the US  had done more than reacted with sanctions against Russian oligarchs who were friends of Putin. The US sent Javelin anti-tank weapons and retrained the Ukrainian army,  reforming it to the western model of greater independence of master sergeants to execute tactics without awaiting some general's approval. That top-down was the Russian style of military organization. This US aid effort began in the Obama administration. To Trump's credit, it continued, though Trump was impeached when he implied in an infamous phone call to Zelensky that an increased supply of Javelins was a condition for the Ukraine president to find dirt on Hunter Biden. Trump was not found guilty in the Senate on a close vote, and the Javelins were still delivered. The retraining gifted the Ukrainian army with a form of guerilla warfare that destroyed the strung-out Russian supply lines and forward attackers, which were exposed like sitting ducks, thinking they would be parading in Kyiv in a few days. This military aid and training proved to be a critical element that led to Ukraine's ability to stop and roll back the Russian attempt to march into Kyiv to set up their puppet regime. The Ukrainians had had eight years to test the flavor of Western economies and democracy. The majority favored continuing that path to the West despite the very close cultural ties dating for centuries with Russia. The rest is history as their TV actor turned president, Volodymyr Zelensky,  refused to flee to the West with western offers of evacuation. Instead, he ignited a country to resist with: " Don't send me transportation; send me weapons". As Biden put it so well in Poland in an address  February 21, 2023,after his return from Kyiv: " If Russia stopped invading Ukraine, it would end the war.  If Ukraine stopped defending itself against Russia, it would be the end of Ukraine". 

Biden also knows that it is not just we should admire Ukrainians for valuing democracy, the spirit of Maidan,  and the valiant defense of the homeland from Russian brutality. It is also in America's national interest. To say Russia is weakened (thanks to Biden's efforts to rally NATO and supply Ukraine with aid and weapons), so we can reduce aid to Ukraine, as DeSantis and others are foolishly advocating, is naive and a danger to USA's national security interests.At this time, the fighting is at a stalemate and neither side, Russia or Ukraine, is ready to negotiate an end. It is in the US interests to keep a military conflict from spreading to the rest of Europe and Formosa by teaching Russia a lesson now and eventually involving us more directly is widespread war in a nuclear age.  It is a stitch in time to save nine. 

The Maidan spirit is also erupting elsewhere.  Pro Russian actions in Georgia sparked massive street demonstrations.  https://www.newsweek.com/pro-russia-power-grab-georgia-thwarted-massive-street-protests-1787791?utm_source=push_notification&utm_source=pushnami&utm_medium=Push_Notifications&utm_campaign=fullauto&utm=1678961580051 

The following is also repeated in a stand alone blog posting of 3/5/2023. Those who do not study history, are doomed to repeat it. Here is a lesson within my lifetime: In March 1938 Hitler completed joining Austria with Germany,  Next on Hitler's list was Czechlovakia's Sudentenland and a few other smaller areas Chamberlain declared "peace in our time" as he made the deal with Hitler (he failed to read Mein Kampf) re: Czechoslovakia. Within a year, Hitler had completed his takeover or placed Nazi Hungarians in charge of all of Czechoslovakia and marched into Poland.  World War II had begun..  Those who think Putin who has declared his intent to reassemble Russian influence in the USSR years over eastern Europe or that Chi in China is calculating US resolve to protect Taiwan from their publicly stated goals are kidding, do not be a fool or a historical ignoramus. 

It can be argued that the West's failure to object strongly enough to Putin's advancement and war in Georgia and his takeover of Crimea sent the message that his takeover of Ukraine would be met with the same slap on the hands.  This defacto appeasement by weak response did not prevent Putin's invasion of Ukraine, but only greenlighted him. Vladimir Putin’s Russia: Trying to Rebuild the Soviet Era? (thecollector.com)

What Putin did not know was time had not dampened the spirit of Maidan, the uprising the Ukrainians called the war of dignity. Those Ukrainians who had even leaned toward Russia consolidated their support in defense of their country once Russia's brutality in its invasion in 2022 was revealed. What once was a 50-50 split became 80-20% in favor of continued resistance even though it was a David v Goliath chance they could succeed. Putin's timing was terrible: he had waited until after Donald Trump was defeated and Joe Biden became president. Biden's 60 years of foreign policy experience, much during the Cold War, no doubt contributed to his understanding of another holdover from the Cold War and ex-KGB officer, Vladimir Putin, who wanted to reassemble the Russian sphere of influence at the height of the old USSR's power. Putin had publicly stated his desire to take back into the Russian fold their former Eastern European satellites. Putin's banner was not the old Marxist communism but Russian nationalism and pride of former glory. The result was the same kind of imperialism. Biden looked into Putin's eyes and was not taken for a fool. His years of personal connections with western European leaders led to his ability and desire to reinvigorate the unity of the NATO alliance, which Trump had attempted to weaken successively by ending the pledge of mutual defense.

How did we get here? Was Putin irrational? No. He saw the USSR'S former satellites from the Baltics to the Balkans that bordered Russia joining NATO, and he feared Ukraine would join someday. The time was ripe to take back Ukraine.  He also saw NATO in disarray, divided and weakened by Donald Trump's demanding members pay more for their defense and advocating the end of the key purpose of NATO, mutual defense. He thought he could keep the European members of NATO dependent on Russian natural gas and therefore their dependence would keep them from protesting his invasion.  Ukraine's president was just a TV comedian, a weak leader in a divided country. His intelligence services reported that many Ukrainians were still loyal to their Russian cultural ties. The only fly in the ointment was that Trump was not re-elected and an elderly old Cold Warrier, Joe Biden, was in the White House with very low approval ratings and past his prime as a leader. The only tool in the US toolbox was sanctions and Putin calculated he could forge ways around sanctions . Russia had plenty of oil money in the bank and untapped foreign customers to make up the difference. 

 Putin was wrong in every respect except sanctions, which have not yet made a dent in Russia's living standard and he forged new oil markets and tapped weapons suppliers from Iran and now China. Europe was able to wean itself from Russian gas and find other energy sources. Putin so far has maintained the support of the Russian people who are happy with their living standard,  and in fact increased their support of the Ukrainian invasion, even in spite of their young men being used as cannon fodder. 

 What is driving Putin? While we cannot get in his head, we can take his public words seriously. In Putin's eyes, Ukraine historically was not a sovereign country. It owed its independence from Russia to the end of World War II boundaries. Even the West had miscalculated the intensity of resistance and forecasted the fall of Kyiv in a few days. Only the US intelligence agencies had predicted the threat of an imminent Russian invasion was no bluff and warned even the disbelieving President Zelensky. Neither Ukraine nor NATO had even dreamed of or threatened a military attack on Russia, and nothing was even remotely threatened, much less imminent. However, Russia claims Ukraine provoked the war and started it. If so, the reasons have nothing to do with a military attack on Russia but Ukraine's long-standing refusal to be the first victim of Putin's imperialism and his conceived weakness of the Western alliance to stop it.  

Above all, Putin did not foresee Biden's ability to rejuvenate NATO.  Donald Trump was responsible for Putin's belief that NATO was broken. The only time NATO's mutual defense clause had been invoked was 9/11.  NATO's purpose was to deter any Russian expansion and time showed that role had been proved. Trump had seen Russia as no longer a threat. He saw Russia as a business opportunity before he became president. Before and during his candidacy, he had attempted to develop Trump Towers Moscow. Trump openly admired Putin as a strong leader and even announced in Helsinki he trusted Russian intelligence operators more than he did the USA. A Department of Justice special counsel Robert Mueller had established credible evidence that Russian special operations had helped Trump get elected.

_______________________________

Notes:The dates and details from Maidan are factual. As a person with close ties to Eastern Europe myself as a student in pre-wall Berlin in 1958-1959  and married to an immigrant from Yugoslavia for over 52 years, I have closely followed the events in Ukraine during and post-Maidan.

I believe a Russian victory in Ukraine would also destabilize all of Eastern Europe since Putin would be emboldened to think he could march into USSR'S former satellites who had joined NATO and could succeed. The NATO alliance would be tested in the blood of so many, including our friends, relatives by marriage and blood, and eventually Americans. My columns on the conflict in Ukraine have often been published in the local press and/or posted on the blog. I still referred to dates and memory refreshing in various sources, including Wikipedia as well as past postings and many sources.

Those on the ground also feel threatened by Russian expansionism.  The Polish Prime Minister said that Russia was also beginning attempts to subvert Moldova and Romania's governments' resolve to resist Russia. Poland feels the most threatened. Romania and Poland are members of NATO, but Russia would try to keep them from invoking the mutual defense clause by subverting those countries from within.  Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki on “Face the Nation” | full interview - YouTube

War in Donbas (2014–2022) - Wikipedia     

 Revolution of Dignity - Wikipedia 

 Ukraine–United States relations - Wikipedia

Remarks by President Biden Ahead of the One-Year Anniversary of Russia's Brutal and Unprovoked Invasion of Ukraine - The White House

My posts on this blog regarding Ukraine are so numerous, dating back to 2014 to the present, and part of other titled posts, that I am not listing them. The best way to resurrect them is to search Ukraine using the blog keyword search tools. 

The GOP's newest buzz word, anti-woke, is an infection that needs an antidote now

Update: 3 16 2023

Update 8 11 2023: Consumers are rejecting the anti-woke; Consumers are rejecting the anti-woke movement to demand CEOs speak out on important social issues: ‘Today, you cannot say nothing’ (msn.com)

The far right and echo DeSantis raise their ugly white nationalist heads with these comments. https://katv.com/.../far-right-conservatives-blame... The assumption from white supremacists is that those of color and women are inferior folks, not smart enough or able to understand banking. In 2008, the parade of execs who got skewered for that banking debacle was all white males, though one white woman did go to jail. Dodd-Frank, legislation that resulted to reform the system would have required more cash reserves and a stress test that would have set off alarm bells in advance of the bank failures, but Congress ended Dodd-Frank during the Trump administration. Lehman Brothers, the first bank to go under in 2008 was also a white-male institution. The Credit Suisse execs just bailed out by their government today also were not woke and were all white males. So much for the wisdom of the superior race and sex.

KATV.COM

Far-right conservatives claim DEI efforts, 'woke' culture caused Silicon Valley Bank crash

 

The GOP's newest buzzword, anti-woke, is an infection that needs an antidote now. Even if Ron DeSantis never becomes the GOP candidate for president, he has coined this term that masks the ugly turn the GOP has taken and given it wings in the "cultural wars". Now the term is being spread to more than just cultural and racial issues, but to slashing economic policies and social programs benefitting minorities,  dear to the heart of the radical right wing of the GOP.  It needs to be called out for what it is: a camouflaged racist term for war on the poor and the middle class and a war on civil rights

  DeSantis' newest proclamation before a convention of police is that the cause of crime is "woke". In short, police reform is causing crime; "woke" fuels police reform so end woke. As outlandish as that sounds, it appealed to the mostly white audience of police as he took his same "woke = crime" to two other venues this past week. Now more on the right than just DeSantis are attempting to meld white nationalism with wider GOP ideology to promote a wide range of attempts to roll back civil rights and government assistance giving the disadvantaged. the poor, and the struggling middle-class a hand up.  This approach is at the brink of getting traction and needs to be nipped in the bud by calling it out for what it is and what it does as toxic to the fabric of society's tranquility and wellbeing, racial and economic.  

 Let us not kid ourselves: "anti-woke" is a term that appeals to racists, bigots, and even those who do not admit to themselves that they, too, are in tune with white nationalists.  It is a sneer at the African American term "woke" for non-African Americans grasping the validity of their complaints about police brutality targeting Black people since the George Floyd summer.  It is being used by DeSantis and others as "woke" is the cause of everything from crime to the deficit that is burdened by the Great Society-type programs. Being woke is an evil that must be stopped by the white people who constitute the bulk of the right-wing to which DeSantis must appeal to beat Trump in his quest for the presidency.  The task of the more rational part of the GOP and Democrats is to turn "anti-woke" to the real evil and the implications for the future tranquility of the country that such appeal to racial divisions using such terms are a danger to our democracy.  

The problem the GOP has if they take DeSantis' approach to its logical conclusions, even white people will suffer because they too have benefitted from early childhood education of Head Start,  school lunch programs, Medicare, Medicaid,, food stamps, Obamacare, and Social Security funded in part or entirely by higher taxes on the rich. These past two weeks the GOP and even the most radical right of the GOP have had to make it clear that Medicare and Social Security were removed from their cutting block because, well, the blowback from so many of their loyal constituents objected. Now, the programs that some in the GOP want to cut are those that they think just benefit the poor because that is what is causing the federal debt and are paid for by the rich. That proposal is being advanced by Trump's former budget director, and in his manifesto, he uses the term "woke" 77 times. The Democrats can  have their own attack on the use of "anti woke"  by claiming the radical right of the GOP wants to turn the war on poverty into the war on the poor whatever their race.  If the GOP wants to balance the budget and eliminate the federal debt so that the rich can be richer by paying fewer taxes, then make the poorer, less educated, and sicker by rolling anti-poverty measures back to 1960 that also benefit the middle class .and give the poor no chance and hope to become the middle class themselves. 

The following data is also repeated in a 3/18/23 blog post. The unintended consequence of the "Anti-woke" advocates gaining steam in the GOP   hurt their own white constituents who have also benefitted from such programs, including Obamacare ACA (5.3 million enrollees are White, 1.3 are African-American),  food stamps (37% of users, the largest demographic, are White and 26% percent are African-American), Medicaid (39.5% of users are white while 19% are African-American),  school lunch programs (no data per race available), and a set of  benefits to women including choice (about half of the states do not protect, are hostile, or outlaw  women's access to abortion).  The irony is that 8 of the top ten states getting more in federal funds than they contribute to the US treasury are Republican  or divided government dominated. . States Most Dependent on the Federal Government - 2022 Edition - SmartAsset         Of states with the ten highest infant mortality rate, 8 are states dominated by Republicans or a divided government. Stats of the States - Infant Mortality (cdc.gov) in 2020. In 2023, 9 of the top 10 states with high maternal deaths are also in states governed by Republicans or divided government. Maternal Mortality Rate by State 2023 (worldpopulationreview.com).  6 of the 50 states with high maternal death rates are among the ones that have banned or nearly banned abortions, though three of those are being challenged in the courts. Six Months Post-Roe, 24 US States Have Banned Abortion or Are Likely to Do So: A Roundup | Guttmacher Institute    

Aggregated data chart:   https://1drv.ms/x/s!AsriObsZ8Lx-lk2MnXHxDgcKiPs7?e=0Nepe8

 "Anti-woke"  must be turned into a toxic term itself by Democrats, tying it to white nationalism, divisive racism, and an attack on the white middle class as well as the underserved of all races, with Whites the largest group of beneficiaries. It must be countered now before it gets more traction and can be framed as a war on the poor and middle class to benefit the rich as well as a war on human rights.

Here are the alarm bells that got my attention.DeSantis uses the term 'anti woke" in his cultural wars signing legislation that advances his policies  causes a strong reaction from Black leaders and civil rights supporters:In face of DeSantis anti-woke rhetoric, Black leaders go back to ’60s (tampabay.com): DeSantis joined "anti woke" with traditional  GOP claims Democrats are soft on crime..new slogans tied  to an old strategy; crime is caused by woke:  DeSantis Visits 3 States on Tour Meant to Show He Is Tough on Crime - The New York Times (nytimes.com)  A former GOP Trump budget director, Russell Vought, proposes plan to eliminate programs that help the poor and middle class and mentions "woke" 77 times in his manifesto: Trump’s Former GOP Budget Director Pushes Plan That Would Slash Spending (yahoo.com)

New USDA Report Provides Picture of Who Participates in SNAP - Food Research & Action Center (frac.org)  

Medicaid/CHIP enrollees share by ethnicity U.S. 2021 | Statista

aspe-oep-2022-race-ethnicity-marketplace.pdf (hhs.gov)

Abortion Laws by State - Center for Reproductive Rights

States Most Dependent on the Federal Government - 2022 Edition - SmartAsset

Stats of the States - Infant Mortality (cdc.gov)

Trifecta states: Governor and both houses of legislature of the same party

Partisan composition of state legislatures - Ballotpedia

Six Months Post-Roe, 24 US States Have Banned Abortion or Are Likely to Do So: A Roundup | Guttmacher Institute

Who do you trust for bringing you the news: a plea for critical thinking

In the wake of discovery in the Dominion's defamation suit against media that major FOX News stars themselves did not believe the 2020 election was stolen but promoted "stop the steal"anyway, I found myself in an interesting dialog in a private political Facebook page.  I asked how long it would take before FOX News fans realized they had been taken for fools by those they had trusted?  Paying attention to that one issue of election denial is worth the effort since it was the "stop the steal" slogan that gave the rationale for January 6 participants and was used by Trump to justify his passive and active attempts to claim a second term, even after many loyalists testified under oath they told him he had lost. It was the greatest attack on the democratic process since the Civil War.

The response from a participant on the page responded with," lib media lied too."  He was now going to trust Twitter to get his information. 

MUFTIC FORUM BLOG: No kidding. The real fear facing FOX: loss of audience trust

"If you seek to find an opinion or many opinions that justify your already established opinions, Twitter is a great source for you. If you want facts or truth, alternative or otherwise, try using the old Reagan mantra: trust but verify. That is one definition of critical thinking. That is a way of thinking instead of simply parroting back something that sounds right to you or you hope is true.  I think we agree on the need for critical thinking. We may disagree on the definition. Google the definition before throwing the term around. Just criticizing, is not it. Demanding the opposing opinion should agree is not it, either, either or calling those who disagree with you clowns is not critical thinking. It may be criticizing, but it is not critical thinking. All definitions of critical thinking. have some things in common. Critical thinking includes understanding available data and facts, deductive reasoning and a dose of skepticism.. That is a way of thinking instead of simply parroting back something that sounds right to you or you hope is true. In my blog, I footnote where I got my data and facts, but when I challenge some people to give me their data and facts, all I get back are opinion memes and insults. It may be criticizing, but that is not critical thinking." Critical", the word in that concept, does not mean "criticizing". It means actually giving rational reasons for arguing a point deducted from facts that are available.  

I could have continued with my lecture by writing speculation is not the same as verification or a substitute for fact or truth, but questioning and speculating is where you begin the process of searching for facts and truth.   The justice system depends on weighing facts, data, and evidence, not theories, speculation, opinions, overheard conversations,  and ignorance. In December 2020, nearly all federal judges, regardless of who appointed them or their party affiliation ruled against the accusers that the election was stolen or they ruled there was not enough evidence of fraud to change the election outcome.  There were a  variety of reasons, including a lack of evidence and ignorance of the process. Trump knew this but persisted with his lie. American voters are different than a court of law. The political system as constructed in the Constitution was invented during the late 1700's "age of reason," which was based on the belief that men were capable of rational thought.   The American form of democracy depends upon voters to exercise rational judgment even when advocates of one side or the other spin and lie. They will have the motivation and ability to demand evidence and facts to justify opinions and speculation. You hear America was founded on ideas, and that is one of the ideas. Men, citizens, not a king or potentate, could govern themselves because they had the capacity for critical thinking.  Sometimes those facts and evidence are slow in being revealed to citizens, and in the meantime, perception of the truth, not the truth itself, shapes public views. The response from those who are protecting lies is, "there is no such thing as truth; there are alternative facts," which infers "just trust what we say is the truth."   Humans, by nature, being what it is, have a hard time admitting they were fooled as evidence emerges the fooling was intentionally a strategy to achieve a political or economic goal. 

Update: 9 6 23

Education is a closely related factor in determining who has enough knowledge to get a perspective of history and experience that offsets simplistic thinking.  It once was that the least educated demographic leaned heavily Democtratic.  Not now. The situation has flipped.  The least educated are MAGA Trumpsters and the more educated lean Democrats.  https://www.politico.com/interactives/2022/midterm-election-house-districts-by-education/

Some of the evidence I have relied upon

Far too little vote fraud to tip election to Trump, AP finds | AP News

Fox hosts didn’t believe 2020 election fraud claims | AP News

Trump’s judicial campaign to upend the 2020 election: A failure, but not a wipe-out (brookings.edu)

Biden's ace: you may think he is too old, but he can still push the veto pen updated 2 21 23

There is plenty of harping on both sides of the aisle and popular opinions red and blue that Biden is just too old to run again for president.  There is a case for him to run again. In the meantime, we hear the beating drum for someone younger from both political sides.  He isn't macho enough, he stumbles over words, he is a lousy orator, he looks like an old man, and he acts and walks like one. Not macho enough? He was the first US president to visit a war zone (Kyiv, 2/20/23 )not controlled by US troops. As a family member and  former military said: That takes balls.  It is time for a new generation to run both parties. Biden's ace: you may think he is too old, but he can still push the veto pen.  Given the close divide in both houses of Congress, making veto overrides a non-starter,  that is a critical mass of power.    

We can expect the GOP to make another case: Biden is too liberal, too enamored with expensive government programs, too big of a national debt, and too tough on rich people's taxes to pay for these social programs, so cut the social programs(unspecified) and restore those tax cuts. They object to how Biden opposes their cultural government programs designed to protect kids from modern liberal values, including using government to limit self-sexual identity and protecting tender ears from learning about how others think about such unpleasant history as slavery. Above all, expect the GOP to continue protecting the unborn from the minute of conception, giving them priority over the mental and physical health of the mothers and their ability to shape their futures. Aid for the born is not their platform as the United States' maternal and infant deaths and length of life expectancy fall to the lowest levels in the industrial world. They fear the libs we'll take your guns away, even from those who are too dangerous to have them.

 The GOP goes for the gut as they base their case on appealing to emotions and instincts. They fly under the benign-sounding  banner of "cultural issues" and ask, "what's wrong with that?"  From the left's view, plenty is wrong. These are not pretty values that appeal to the good in all of us or the golden rule of Christianity. Their "cultural" view of democracy is rule by the use of the power of those they favor, even if they are in the minority in polls and election outcomes.  Laws are meant to be tools to manipulate by those in control and who plan to stay in control in the future. While complaining about permissiveness and inclusion as values advanced by the "libs" with government policy, those on the right, too,  advocate using government edict and laws and support strong men who flex their political muscles and lungs as tools to implement them.    Ban books, restrict access to the ballot box and women's ability to exercise choice, and control the minds of children by only teaching them the viewpoint of which they, those in government, approve are just a few of recent initiatives.  They ride the waves of bigotry and racial animous.  They hype fear of changing demographics in an attempt to slow it down by inventing ways to suppress the vote and rights of those they see as threatening them or who have values of which they do not approve.     

Here is a case for Biden running for a second term.

  What Biden has, an old man can still wield political skills developed and honed with a lifetime of experience. His weapons: a telephone and a pen, and he knows whose buttons to push to even get bi-partisan support.  He is stronger than he looks, as his recent 8-hour flight and a ten-hour train ride followed by a day of vigorous public diplomacy and a walkabout Kyiv, and then another train ride and a highly visible speech in Poland after that. Nonetheless, it does not demand physical strength to push a pen or talk on the phone.  

 It does not require a loud voice and soaring demagoguery as Biden demonstrated when he put down hecklers in the State of the Union address. He was quick on his feet. His mind was as sharp as a stiletto in classic put-downs from the podium.. Sometimes "sotto voce," a stage whisper,  a squint, a grin works just as well when a mind is as nimble as his.  What Biden can stop: GOP legislative initiatives which the majority of the public does not support: Biden's ultimate weapon: pushing the veto pen to stop a GOP House from rolling back health care, putting social security and medicare on the chopping block, to a national abortion ban. Who is in the Oval Office makes the most difference. His best argument for 2024? Imagine what would happen if the GOP pushed the veto pen to roll back these popular initiatives and women's right to choose. 

In his speech in Poland 2/21/23, it is clear Biden plans to phrase US foreign policy as democracy v autocracy because democracy means freedom. Freedom means various things to various people, but it also begins at home.  Those in America, too, are  seeing advocates of autocracy raising voices.  It is a movement in America, still a minority, that advocates for "strong leaders" who ignore  and defy the will of the voters.  We have seen some aspiring to be president skate close to autocracy. Florida Governor   Ron DeSantis, supports  the state  having policies that act to shape thought and practice of  citizens to reflect the views of a his preferred religious group that women should have no choice and  he promotes "anti-woke: legislation" which is an unmasked appeal to bigots. His edicts are shaping what children should learn about history that fits  his ideology . That  certainly is not freedom from oppression by one race over another or freedom from thought control by a government.   

What Biden brings to the table is an inherent blue-collar economic populism that rings true in his soul. He is the man of both the past and the here and now: his weapon, himself, Scranton Joe. shaped by a compelling life story of family economic struggles, tragedies, and governmental experiences that are just as relevant today. One of Donald Trump's biggest assets was that he recognized the need to prop up the rust belt. It was a logical political strategy. He wanted to bring manufacturing home to America, and without a background in how to pull the levers of beltway power, he settled for the most direct route: raise tariffs, an attack against the free traders who had always claimed a corner of the GOP.  His anti-union GOP traditional stance neutralized somewhat offset his newly found support from blue-collar workers. The devastating impact of COVID kept him from executing his plans, but the "buy and make it in America ball was picked up by legislative savvy Biden, who carried it to the end zone: the chips bill, the buy America government procurement edict, the switch to a new economy of environmentally friendly batteries.  EVs, windmills, and solar panels all made in the industrial midwest, which translated to jobs, jobs, jobs, and more well-paying union jobs.  The greatest millstone around Biden's neck and hangover from COVID  was inflation that which he left to the federal reserve, mostly a holdover from the Trump administration, which at least was not as bad as the rest of the world experienced. He released oil reserves and increased well pumping to offset the Ukraine war impact, putting weaning from dependence on fossil fuels on temporary hold while supporting full speed ahead of the development of renewables, with nary a yelp from the greens.   

What wise old men like him offer to America: stability in the face of scary, violent, divisive bigotry, a safe harbor from a nerve-shattering storm, and the will to empower those who felt marginalized. His weapon: empathy for those who are the victims regardless of race or religion and innate dedication to inclusiveness.  His is a steady hand at the wheel in such rough seas blown foaming high with cultural winds .  Like Nixon, the staunch anti-communist who opened up relations with Red China, Joe, an old white man, brought the message of inclusiveness to the rest of America in a way that no one of color could.

What he offers to the world is unmatched experience. Biden has an unusual advantage  in leading American foreign policy from serving for many  years as Senate foreign relations chair and an update as a recent vice president:  His weapon,  and a long-term personal knowledge of his greatest world power adversaries: Putin and Chi of China. He looked into their eyes and knows what they are about.  He is no one's fool.   

What we are facing are 50 years of unresolved issues in foreign relations that have evolved to present-day threats to American national security interests.  Putin in Russia is a continuation of the cold war mentality, if not under the red banner of communism, but the flag of hyper-nationalism with the goal of re-assembling Russia's influence and control as it was at the epitome of the power during the cold war as the USSR.  Biden's experience as a savvy participant in shaping and leading American foreign policy stretches over the same fifty-year span.  It is not only knowing the history and not repeating the mistakes in theory,  but he has a knowledge and understanding that no history book can provide, hands-on and personal involvement that has also evolved at the same time.  There is a profound contrast of Biden's foreign policy experience with the naive, self-serving, ignorant comments by Ron DeSantis or others who have had no experience or interest in foreign policy but who are aspiring to be president but who try to downplay Russia as a threat. It may cater to the American first wing of the GOP, but it only demonstrated his naivete and lack of foreign experience chops.  It is not only the contrast that is important; it is the danger to American national interests their ignorance caused as they mouth the same concepts and words that appeased and glorified the rise of fascism and tolerance of the German invasion of their neighbors before Pearl Harbor.   The aftermath of World War II saw the emergence of Russian imperialism in the form of the USSR. Biden has been there, done that, and is facing a similar threat all over again in the form of a former KGB agent who has made it his stated goal to reassemble the glory days of the USSR.

Let the 2024 games begin.  It is one team against the other,  gut v head, and feelings v problem-solving pragmatism. The divide is deep, fundamental, and as old as humanity itself.  It will be the weighing of one set of values against another by the few still in the neutral zone.

U.S. Life Expectancy Is in Decline. Why Aren’t Other Countries Suffering the Same Problem? | Council on Foreign Relations (cfr.org)

U.S. Maternal Mortality Crisis Continues to Worsen | Commonwealth Fund

DeSantis downplays Russia threat after Biden visit - POLITICO

Sander's rebuttal to Biden's State of Union . 2/12/23 promoting divisive "cultural values"

Revised and updated: 2/12/23

 I have seen something very troubling lately. In this kickoff season to 2024, the GOP wants voters to choose culture over pragmatic problem-solving public policy considerations since cultural issues they support are all good stuff that means "freedom." The position of the right wing that now controls the GOP is that cultural issues are now being promoted as a  political platform to offset Biden's bipartisan legislative success aimed at helping improve the middle-class standard of living. It is that bipartisan and Democratic platform they vow to overturn, from infrastructure to diabetes medicine and health care affordability. More troubling than that attack on Biden's successful agenda is the GOP  promoting cultural issues as an official platform. They begin by twisting the meaning of freedom as a hook to consolidate political support for their cultural platform initiative. This approach was a strategy attempted by Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders in the GOP rebuttal to Biden's State of the Union Address. 

  In the GOP rebuttal to Biden's State of the Union Address,  Sanders defined freedom regarding cultural issues. The issues she calls freedom are dear to the belief system of certain Christian evangelicals. Hers is a twisted definition of freedom, a word usually referring to being free from government control, which she turned upside down to mean freedom for fellow believers, but not for others, that is coupled with the use of government power to promote and enforce specific cultural rules of which they approve. Her view is the "normal" one, she said, and the other view is held by "crazies," she asserts, revealing a sensitivity to charges by opponents that the insane are now running the asylum in the House of Representatives and the Republican party.    The GOP tools to spread this form of "freedom" from government control are the use of dictation by the government itself of media content and school curriculum and the official, governmental banning of such practices as the right to choose. Among those banned are rights to express honesty about personal sexual identification.  The GOP is not about more government "hands off" of individual freedom, but more government control limiting individual freedoms. Sander's rebuttal vowed to advance her twisted view of cultural freedom that increases government control of the thought and speech of others who do not share religious ultra-conservative ideals.      Her definition of freedom is far from the normal one held by those on the more libertarian left she now calls "crazies." She shrilly proclaimed, "your freedoms are being attacked by the radical left. They are the crazies; we, the GOP, are the normals,"  That is a sales pitch only the choir to which she was preaching can readily buy.  

Sanders also promoted the concept of the GOP supporting the new generation of leaders. One wonders if she referred to herself as a younger person who is now eligible. She was ironically promoting ideas that were already old hat in the MAGA world, some of which accounted for the poor GOP showing in the midterms. This appeared to be a slap at both candidacies of Trump and Biden in 2024. In reality, it was in lock step with Florida's Gov. Ron DeSantis' implementation by government action and policy of "don't say gay" speech, school book banning and curriculum control, and anti-choice initiatives.   The left began the culture wars, Sanders proclaimed, not the right, in a revisionist view of current events. These culture wars have been simmering for a long time. Still, the spark that set off the hotter culture wars was the overturning of 50-year-old Roe and a reactionary right-wing crusade to use the government's reins of power to enforce and roll back any gains in civil, women's, and gay rights. These religious and cultural conservative activists like Sanders saw government as protecting too much freedom, and in reality, they have launched their strategy to roll back freedoms as a party platform.

What is wrong with the promotion of cultural values as a political party's platform?. The values included in those promoting cultural conflicts today fly under the radar disguised with a variety of buzzwords, all of which push back on rights that have been won after long struggles by those who have not been favored by the majority-dominating government and demographics. It is more than just a clash of values. This route foresees a likelihood of future conflicts that could become destructive of domestic tranquility.   Economies can not flourish during civil conflicts and turmoil. This is not the legacy I want to leave for my children and grandchildren.  The more hopeful view of constructive cultural values is that a  majority of people are still choosing: the accommodation and power-sharing route, which will benefit all. We have a choice of which road to continue following.

 What are examples of the buzzwords of current advocates of bigotry-based cultural issues?. Some we hear are "Anti woke",  "don't say gay speech and teacher rules," anti-transgender athletes and bathrooms, .anti- public self sexual identification by LGBTQ people, and book banning.  anti-CRT ( a trumped-up bogeyman, not taught except to graduate level students), and political suppression at the ballot box of suspected opponents miss -named "voter integrity".  Some hate-driven concepts are not even thinly disguised, such as blaming some Jewish conspiracy for woes. "Jews, black people, will not replace us" is the slogan of neo-Nazi activists, but "replacement theory" is supported by more than just neo-fascists. White nationalism is even supported by some Congresspeople.   Such divisive crusades in the name of Christianity ironically fly in the face of the message of Jesus and make a mockery of the Golden Rule, yet white Christian nationalism has many open adherents. 

One racially divisive issue has been police reform. The Tyre Nichols death at the hands of Black police officers in a Black-dominated police force has had the effect of taking the Black Lives Matter/Defund Police advocacy out of the bucket of strictly racially biased issues.  Police brutality is now a separate issue from racial one since it is a problem facing law enforcement of both races.  Biden's strong opposition day one to the slogan "defund police" has eclipsed the GOP's earlier outrage at the term.

 https://www.axios.com/2022/02/26/marjorie-taylor-greene-white-nationalist-event

Deep Divisions in Americans’ Views of Nation’s Racial History – and How To Address It | Pew Research Center

Sharper messaging is needed. Call out the Russia appeasers on Ukraine policy

 .The Putin appeasers are gaining ground per recent polls.. Let us call the right-wing media and their political leaders out with sharper messaging. Call them what they are: Putin appeasers, fools, and historical ignoramuses. For more on this subject, MUFTIC FORUM BLOG: Defacto appeasement: West's weak response to Russia's aggression in Georgia and Crimea greenlight Putin in Ukraine

Those who do not study history, are doomed to repeat it. Here is a lesson within my lifetime: In March 1938 Hitler completed joining Austria with Germany,  Next on Hitler's list was Czechlovakia's Sudentenland and a few other smaller areas Chamberlain declared "peace in our time" as he made the deal with Hitler (he failed to read Mein Kampf) re: Czechoslovakia. Within a year, Hitler had completed his takeover or placed Nazi Hungarians in charge of all of Czechoslovakia and marched into Poland.  World War II had begun..  Those who think Putin who has declared his intent to reassemble Russian influence in the USSR years over eastern Europe or that Chi in China is calculating US resolve to protect Taiwan from their publicly stated goals are kidding, do not be a fool or a historical ignoramus. 

Tag them and brand them with that term. Isolate them within their own party, over 60% of whom still support the US role and reasons for it in Ukraine. It is still a bi-partisan-supported policy, and both Democratic and Republican leadership are on board with the continued support of Ukraine. Just waiving the democracy flag and showing sympathy for the death and destruction of Russia's invasion is not enough.The message is also " Appeasement has never worked because it signifies to the wannabe aggressors and territorial grabbers that we and our allies are weak and ripe for the pickings." Those appeasers are sailing on the ship of fools, and they are asking more to jump aboard. Some are answering their call. The message must be made sharper because there is an increasing part of those who are Republicans who are no longer supporting aid to Ukraine. This poll shows these shrill media and political right-wing American firster demagogic voices are influencing more of the ignorant and unthinking audiences.. It is time to reach these ignorant of history and simpleton thinkers with much sharper messaging. As retired 4 star Admiral James Savridis said 2/24 on Morning Joe said "you can draw a strait plumb line in the 1930's to World War" because of the isolationists. "We have seen this before a hundred years ago". Calling them out in uncertain branding terms as Putin appeasers, reminding them that if they claim the US is weak, just wait how weak we will look if Putin continues his push into his neighbors and we give him the green light to do so by flagging support of Ukraine and making it a false choice between aid to Ukraine and paying attention to China. The issues are connected in one respect. Reducing aid to Ukraine will not stop Putin's stated goal to reassemble the USSR's control over eastern Europe and will only embolden China to think they can get away with grabbing Taiwan because we appear to be too weak to stop Russia in Ukraine. Instead, we will have a much more expensive and dangerous two-front larger military threat. A stitch in time saves nine. It is not either China or Ukraine: it is both. We can now, and Biden is. Biden's strengthening alliances and military defenses in both Europe and in Asiam fear of Chinese expansionism are critical strategies in avoiding a much wider war later.

PEWRESEARCH.ORG

As Russian invasion nears one-year mark, partisans grow further apart on U.S. support for Ukraine

The share of Republicans who say the U.S. gives too much aid to Ukraine has steadily increased, from 9% in March 2022 to 40% now.