Trump is no longer the only member of the GOP’S ‘Putin wing’
Among the most disturbing aspects of Donald Trump’s political persona has long been his consistent servility toward Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.
Trump, always ready to publicly savage U.S. allies and even slander American war heroes, remains strangely, stubbornly averse to leveling even the most mild criticism at a murderous autocrat who is one of America’s top global adversaries.
That eerie dynamic has been obvious since Trump’s first presidential campaign, when he publicly invited Russia to interfere in America’s election (and which, we now know, Russia promptly did).
But in an even more disturbing development this week, it’s becoming increasingly clear that mimicking Trump’s Kremlin fetish is now required of his most slavish elected enablers. How else to explain the shameful silence of some in the GOP regarding the death of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny?
It’s almost irrelevant whether Navalny’s death, announced one week ago by Moscow, was a deliberate murder on Putin’s orders or the medical result of an unjustified and brutal Siberian imprisonment. Either way, Putin has managed to permanently silence another of his pro-democracy critics, as he has many times before.
Leaders the world over immediately condemned Putin and demanded explanations. “Make no mistake: Putin is responsible for Navalny’s death,” President Joe Biden said Friday from the White House. “What has happened to Navalny is yet more proof of Putin’s brutality. Nobody should be fooled.”
Trump, meanwhile, was silent for days regarding Navalny’s death. When he finally fired up his social media thumbs to comment Monday, it was in the form of a typically self-serving screed in which he compared his own supposed legal persecution by “Radical Left Politicians” to Navalny’s martyrdom.
That Trump would implicitly acknowledge Navalny’s victimhood while carefully avoiding any mention of the brutal dictator behind it was unsurprising. Trump’s chilling fealty to Putin has always been one of the few constants in his chaotic politics.
In addition to Trump’s infamous invitation for Russian election meddling, Trump’s campaign in 2016 secretly met with a Kremlin-connected lawyer seeking
Too many of the X feeds and official Senate web pages of otherwise generally active GOP commenters have been silent on the issue — though they have been active enough to discuss the southern border and other topics.
dirt on Hillary Clinton, then Trump personally concocted a public lie about the purpose of the meeting. Trump also impeded the Justice Department investigation into Russian election meddling.
Then there was Trump’s outrageous, verging-on-treasonous public declaration during the 2018 Helsinki summit that he took Putin’s word over U.S. intelligence regarding election meddling.
Later, there was Trump’s attempt to strong-arm political support from Ukraine’s government by threatening to withhold military aid and leave them at Russia’s mercy. (That one prompted the first of Trump’s two richly deserved impeachments.)
Most recently, Trump — who, as a businessman, is surely the world’s most famous deadbeat — said that if America’s allies don’t keep up with their financial obligations to NATO, he would favor abandoning their security and letting Russia do “whatever the hell they want” to them.
This is today’s standard bearer for the “Party of Reagan.” Sit with that a moment.
There is apparently still enough muscle memory in the party that some of its prominent figures can muster what would once have been universal outrage at Navalny’s death.
Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who is one of Trump’s most reliable Senate allies, declared on X (formerly Twitter) that Navalny’s death “can not go unanswered by the international community.” Other GOP senators who managed to issue similar statements despite their general allegiance to Trump include Florida’s Marco Rubio, Texas’ Ted Cruz and Arkansas’ Tom Cotton.
This is normal, even necessary commentary from America’s leaders regarding what should be unanimous opposition to tyranny. If there was ever a time for the U.S. Senate — storied as the world’s greatest deliberative body — to speak as one against Putin’s murderous regime, it is now.
Yet, in apparent deference to Trump’s deference to the Russian murderer, some have chosen to stay silent.
Elected leaders should publicly condemn Navalny’s death on the prominent forums they use to highlight the issues they most prioritize. Yet too many of the X feeds and official Senate web pages of otherwise generally active GOP commenters have been silent on the issue — though they have been active enough to discuss the southern border and other topics.
If there’s any comfort for most Americans regarding this latest reminder of pathetic representation, it’s that they’re not Ohio. Sen. J.D. Vance, that state’s Republican senator and arguably the chamber’s most shameless Trumpian lickspittle, not only remained abominably silent on Navalny’s death on his Senate web page, but continued promoting his reckless position that the U.S. should abandon Ukraine to Putin.
What are they afraid of? That Trump’s followers will view any unfavorable mention of Putin as somehow anti-maga? Has that designation somehow become worse than being anti-democracy?
It may well be, at least among what GOP outcast Liz Cheney, the former Wyoming congresswoman, told CNN over the weekend is “the Putin wing of the Republican Party.”