Ukraine: The growing GOP rift
“The schism is here,” said Nick Catoggio in The Dispatch. “Republicans are fracturing over Ukraine.” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis went on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show last week to “pander” to the GOP’s pro-Kremlin MAGA wing, calling Russia’s genocidal invasion of Ukraine a “territorial dispute” and arguing that Ukraine’s victory isn’t a “vital” U.S. interest. By bending a knee to Carlson, DeSantis “aligned” himself on Ukraine with his chief 2024 presidential rival, former President Trump. But DeSantis’ cynical attempt to win over Trump voters brought cutting condemnations from traditional conservative hawks such as Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. Graham even likened DeSantis to Neville Chamberlain, the British leader who sought to appease Hitler. The party of Reagan, said David French in The New York Times, is now dominated by two men who “represent weakness, insularity, and moral ambiguity” in the face of Vladimir Putin’s evil.
“Don’t let them Reagan-shame you, Ron,” said Michael Brendan Dougherty in National Review. GOP hawks are quick to invoke Reagan and the Cold War anytime a Republican questions whether it’s wise to “endlessly” bankroll the Ukrainian military. But a lot has changed since Reagan was president. Today’s Kremlin “is not possessed by a universal and totalizing ideology like Communism,” unlike China. That might explain why a recent poll found that “47 percent of Republicans say we are doing too much to help Ukraine.” Clearly, Republican hawks who castigated DeSantis don’t speak for the GOP base.
The party’s view is “far from fixed,” said John Podhoretz in Commentary. A recent Gallup poll found that “a majority of Republicans support Ukraine’s efforts to reclaim territory from Russia even if that prolongs the conflict, 53-41 percent.” Political calculations aside, DeSantis’ assessment is shameful, said Jonathan Chait in New York magazine. Describing the war as a “territorial dispute” absolves Russia of blame for its “unprovoked invasion across internationally recognized borders,” the subsequent razing of cities, and the innumerable war crimes perpetrated against Ukrainian civilians. DeSantis’ call for “peace” implies that Ukraine should simply surrender to Russia’s territorial demands. That will be “heard loud and clear in Moscow,” where “Putin now has every reason to believe he simply needs to hang on until the Republicans take office again.”