The Washington Post has published text exchanges between J. D. Vance and Charles Johnson, whom the Post describes as “a blogger and entrepreneur who has zealously promoted right-wing conspiracy theories.” Here is one text, from Vance to Johnson: “Dude I won’t even take calls from Ukraine. Two very senior guys reached out to me. The head of their intel. The head of the Air Force. Bitching about F16s.”
In common with many other Republicans, Vance has long exhibited an indifference to Ukraine or a hostility to it. During his campaign for the Senate, he said to Steve Bannon, “I gotta be honest with you, I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or another.”
The Ukrainians have been invaded by a monstrous neighbor. They have been subjected to mass murder, mass terror, mass rape, mass torture, mass deportation, etc. They are fighting for their country, their independence, their very right to exist.
“Dude I won’t even take calls from Ukraine. . . . Bitching about F16s.”
A person may well think that the United States should not support Ukraine. That such support is not in the U.S. interest. I myself think that this view is misguided — but it is different from outright disdain of the Ukrainians and their struggle to save themselves.
In a post yesterday, I wrote of Donald Trump and his attitude toward Vladimir Putin. Trump, I said,
has “flip-flopped” on many issues. Among recent examples are early voting and TikTok. But on Putin, he has remained utterly consistent: only praise, never criticism. Never a word of sympathy for Putin’s victims, whether in Russia or abroad. In my view, Trump is unworthy to represent the United States. The United States is not just “another pleasant country on the U.N. roll call, somewhere between Albania and Zimbabwe,” as the first Bush put it. We stand for things, or should.
Obviously, my words are those of an “old” Republican (or ex-Republican). In any case, we all have our own ideas about America and our values, and we all have our own expectations of our leaders. Trump and Vance are perfectly representative of today’s GOP.
How could they not be? They are the ticket.
Again talking to Steve Bannon, Vance said, “There are people who would cut Social Security, throw our grandparents into poverty. Why? So that one of Zelensky’s ministers can buy a bigger yacht?” (That is straight Kremlin propaganda, the business about yachts.)
Vance tweeted, “In the midst of a historic border crisis, Zelensky will come to Washington and demand that the Congress care more about his border than our own.” Even George Wallace might blush at demagoguery like that.
(The modern GOP combines elements of George Wallace and Henry Wallace.)
On Fox News, Vance said, “The profit motives of the defense contractors are motivating our posture in Ukraine.” Further: “We need to stop supporting the Ukraine war effort.”
“The Ukraine war effort.” Imagine such a framing. Imagine the mind that would produce the framing.
Among the speakers at last month’s Republican convention was David Sacks, a South African tech investor and GOP donor who is apparently part of Trump’s inner circle. Sacks said that President Biden “provoked, yes, provoked, the Russians to invade Ukraine.” This blame-America stuff used to gall Republicans. We used to excoriate the Left for it. Now it is trumpeted from the GOP convention platform.
Reagan had a line: “I didn’t leave my party; my party left me.”
Sacks, the day after his speech, tweeted,
Yesterday was rough for neocons and Ukraine stans. First JD Vance was picked for VP. Then I called out the warmongers for their provoked war. Cope and seethe, grifters.
Yes, “cope and seethe.” I can tell you who the warmongers, and warmakers, are: not the United States, Ukraine, NATO, and the rest of the West. The warmongers and warmakers are Putin & Co.
In the media, J. D. Vance (like Trump) has many perfumers. They recast what he thinks and says in more temperate language. And they say, “He supports Israel, you know!” Well, good. But if I were Israeli, or Taiwanese, I would beware. The Ukrainians are under attack by a dictatorship that seeks to wipe them out. They are fighting for nothing less than their right to exist. Yes, they have “bitched about F16s.” Yes, they have asked for them. They want to survive.
And now that they have them, their chances of survival have increased. And if Putin can be stopped in Ukraine, and by Ukraine — that may very well spare the United States and its other allies a great deal of agony in the future.
Things are connected in this world. “The thigh bone’s connected to the hip bone.” Russia’s allies are China, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, Hamas, etc. The democracies had better hang together as well (or separately).
Moreover, old lessons of deterrence have to be relearned, relearned, and relearned — because people forget, or never knew.