In a famous speech, Jeane Kirkpatrick talked about Democrats who “blame America first.” (She was still a Democrat at the time — a Truman Democrat.) A sample from her speech:
They said that saving Grenada from terror and totalitarianism was the wrong thing to do. They didn’t blame Cuba or the Communists for threatening American students and murdering Grenadians. They blamed the United States instead.
But then, somehow, they always blame America first.
A further sample:
When our Marines, sent to Lebanon on a multinational peacekeeping mission with the consent of the United States Congress, were murdered in their sleep, the blame-America-first crowd didn’t blame the terrorists who had murdered the Marines, they blamed the United States.
But then, they always blame America first.
And so on.
The spirit of blaming America first is alive and well, or alive and disgusting, in the Republican Party. Take Donald Trump, the former president, and possible (probable?) future president.
In October 2022, he gave an interview to the network that calls itself “Real America’s Voice.” He blamed the United States for Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, not Putin.
“They actually taunted him, if you really look at it,” said Trump. “Our country, and our so-called leadership, taunted Putin. And, I would listen — I’d say, ‘You know, they’re almost forcing him to go in, with what they’re saying.’”
Amazing that Trump thought to say “almost.”
As I have been noting, in various articles, the Right has become the Left, in sundry and creepy ways. Senator Mike Lee (R., Utah) is citing Seymour Hersh against the Ukrainians. Candace Owens, the “influencer,” with 4.6 million Twitter followers, is calling Hollywood a CIA creation. Fox News hosts are saying that a pop star (Taylor Swift) is a Pentagon plant. Others are praising life in Russia as superior to that in the United States.
Everything is topsy-turvy; everything is bonkers.
Like Senator Lee, Senator Tommy Tuberville (R., Ala.) is known as a “conservative.” Listen to him:
Last night’s @TuckerCarlson's interview with Putin shows that Russia is open to a peace agreement, while it is DC warmongers who want to prolong the war.
That is why I’m voting to stop 60 BILLION MORE of our tax dollars to this conflict.
— Coach Tommy Tuberville (@SenTuberville) February 9, 2024
This is just what I heard from the Left when I was coming of age: The Kremlin was earnestly interested in peace, and the warmongers were in Washington, D.C.
I pointed this out in a previous post. Tuberville has now struck again, with remarks about Putin, Ukraine, and us:
“We forced this issue. We kept forcing NATO all the way to eastern Europe, and Putin just got tired of it. He said, ‘Listen, I do not want missiles on my border from the United States. It’d be like Russia coming to Mexico and putting missiles in Mexico.’ I can understand what he’s talking about.”
Also:
“You can tell Putin is on top of his game. One thing he said that, it really rung a bell, is the propaganda media machine over here, they sell anything they possibly can to go after Russia.”
You would have expected this from a professor at Antioch College, c. 1978. You would have expected it from Bella Abzug and Ron Dellums. And now you get it from “conservative” Republicans, both in politics and in the media.
For people my age, this is surreal. It’s as though Mother Teresa had come out for abortion-on-demand. It’s as though Angela Davis had come out for the MX missile — or free enterprise. Everything is freaky-deaky; everything is upside down.
But young people, I’m afraid, must regard it as normal. And I suppose it is: a new normal. Which is in equal parts tragic and sickening.