While the likelihood is faint now that the extreme right-wing nuts in the new Congress will get their way to damage support of Ukraine's war against the Russian invasion, they are still a danger to the US national security. If anything, they are ignorant of world reality and history. Russians and Putin had publicly expressed designs on reassembling the Soviet empire boundaries, so Putin invaded Ukraine first. Consider it Putin's epic miscalculation valid only so long as US and NATO continue their support of Ukraine. Others like him wait in the wings in this test of US and NATO resolve: China and Formosa and Serbia/Russians in the Balkans. The GOP takeover of Congress will give these neo-American Firsters an opportunity to gain more power with an outsized megaphone and an aura of legitimacy. They may be a small minority now, but they may tap into a larger group of sympathizers. There has always been a vein of isolationists running through American political history, and their assumption is America is an island that does not need to care about the rest of the world or divert human and financial resources to deal with aggressors on another continent.
That isolationist and American Firsters' attitude existed before America finally entered World War I and II after the realization that national interests were fundamental and severe. It did take Pearl Harbor to even convince those who had prescribed to the American First movement, and the American First movement died temporarily. It has begun to emerge again in 2022 in the form of right-wingers making the same pre-WW II arguments that showed ignorance of reality and history and exhorting others to ignore the danger to US national security. Now, the GOP will control the House for at least the next two years, though narrowly, but the latter-day American Firsters will have a media platform, a shrill voice, to undermine Ukraine's support. They will have more power to give cover to fellow believers equally ignorant to join them. While the odds are they will not succeed, they cannot be ignored and must constantly be marginalized. Otherwise, those in the world who want to invade neighboring countries may miscalculate their odds of success and give themselves the green light to proceed.
Excerpts from my Feb. 24, 2022 post as Russia invaded Ukraine, I asked why should Americans care about Ukraine. In short, it is a stitch in time to save nine. How dangerous and unstable do we want this world to be? What is so great about having the freedom that these messy democracies offer? If the west does not inflict pain on Russia for this, it could inspire others elsewhere to go and do likewise out of lust for taking and invading other lands their ideology considers their own. The message we send should not be the west is so divided and weak that we can be ignored. Why wouldn't our adversaries think, why not give it a try when think they can succeed if the opposition is weak or unwilling to stop them? Trump refused to support the mutual defense clause of NATO, as well as indicating he would not defend the Baltic NATO members. Biden furthered the impression to Russia that the US was still on an isolationist path with his messy withdrawal from Afghanistan. Biden reversed Trump's sabotage of NATO, and Russia's threats of territorial grabs by military force also contributed to a rejuvenated NATO. The purpose of NATO was originally to stop Russian aggression just like what is happening today. Other areas of the world with predators waiting to invade their neighbors for their related ethnic makeup are North Korea v South Korea, China v Taiwan, Serbia v Bosnia. Except for Serbia (allied with Russia), all of these potential aggressors have nuclear weapons and could start World War III., as Putin reminded us yesterday that Russia has them, too.. There are those on the right in the US who think we should have moved US troops into Ukraine just like the Russians threatened to do. Biden wisely did not want to spark World War III and a nuclear confrontation with Russia. He took that risk off the table because 1) we did not have a treaty with Ukraine to require this because Ukraine was not a member of NATO. 2) we would be doing what Russia threatened and did that we said was so wrong, only we would have taken the first step. This is not a pre-nuclear world. Get real
World War II was Hitler's epic miscalculation based on his reading of western governments' weak resolve to defend themselves from Nazi control. In the 1930s, some of the same isolationist sentiments now espoused by FOX talkers flooded the radio waves, and radio demagogue Father Coughlin was a supporter of the style of Hitler. Such isolationists do not need a resurrection of Father Coughlin when we have Tucker Carlson and MAGA followers fawning over Russia and patting them on the back. Thanks to other similar America First and isolationists advocates and politicians in 1939-1941, public sentiment mostly opposed entry into World War II until after the Blitz in London, Czech's Sudetenland was handed over to Hitler to appease him, Austria was joined to Germany, Poland was conquered by the Nazis, and US looked useless and weak.
Japan then took this as evidence they could take over the South Pacific and Pearl Harbor happened
What US election results mean for the future of Ukraine aid | AP News
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