There’s little question that the Republican Party has become Vladimir Putin’s biggest political ally in his war against Ukraine. Some of them sabotage or oppose military aid simply to spite President Joe Biden. Some may possibly be on Putin’s payroll. Others are isolationist, fiscally conservative, or preoccupied with fighting China. But the lead saboteur is tainted — newly elected House Speaker Mike Johnson. He and his Republican caucus defeated the $95-billion foreign aid bill for Ukraine and Israel that had been passed by the Senate, then a 2018 news story re-emerged that Johnson had received campaign funds from Russians who funneled money to him and other Louisiana Republicans through a Texas-based petroleum company they controlled.
After this was discovered in 2018, Johnson’s campaign immediately returned the funds and the donors’ wrists were merely slapped by electoral officials despite the seriousness of the breach. This is pertinent, given Johnson’s role in blocking aid to Ukraine. It’s also noteworthy that one of his guilty foreign donors was Konstantin Nikolaev, a ranking member of Putin’s inner circle of oligarchs whose companies are the biggest supplier of arms and ammo to the Russian army. And while no direct links to Johnson have been proven, the odor exists. As former US Ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, observed recently that “blocking aid to Ukraine is giving aid to Putin”.
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The late Republican President Ronald Reagan got Russia right and dubbed it the “evil empire”, but now his party is not only “soft” on Putin but downright collaborative. On the second anniversary of Moscow’s 2022 attack on Ukraine, Kremlin broadcaster RT published an essay by Fyodor Lukyanov, an Kremlin foreign policy insider, blatantly endorsing another Republican or Trump Presidency. “If the likely Republican candidate [Trump] ultimately wins there are two possible scenarios. The first is a desperate fight in Washington, where a lot of energy will be spent on inter- and intra-party struggles. This is to Russia’s advantage, because the enemy’s attention will be diverted. The second is that Trump’s reappearance, despite all the extremely unfavorable circumstances, means the beginning of a real change in America’s international positioning – towards a narrower agenda and a more pragmatic choice of priorities, opening up new opportunities for the rest of the world.”
He laid out the alignment succinctly. David Rothkopf, of The Daily Beast, went further and wrote: ”It is time to move beyond the political spin offered by GOP propagandists and Internet trolls and acknowledge that Trump and the MAGA movement are today active assets of Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin, as essential to Russia’s future global ambitions as that country’s own armed forces.” At first blush, his words appear hyperbolic, but he also itemized the worrisome actions and statements by Republican influencers that are distinctly pro-Putin:1. The recent initiative by Republicans to impeach US President Biden is mostly based on information from a source who, it’s become revealed, is tied to Russian intelligence.
2. Trump’s recent statement about not funding NATO, and that he would let Putin do “whatever the hell he wants” with Europe undermines America’s alliance with Europe.
3. The trek to Moscow by Tucker Carlson’s (an avowed Trumpie) and his fawning observations and his embarrassing “interview” with Putin revealed Republican/MAGA bias in favor of Russia. For two hours, Carlson let Putin spout a phoney version of history without asking a single difficult question about his bombing attacks on civilians and cultural institutions, the kidnapping of thousands of Ukrainian children, human rights abuses inside Russia, or the jailing of Navalny, who was just murdered in a gulag.
4. Lastly, and tellingly, Trump has refused to mention/eulogize Navalny after he was killed.
Other “collaborative” actions by Trump include: His public agreement with Putin at a summit in 2018 that FBI findings of Russian election meddling in 2016 were inaccurate; Trump’s attempt to get Russia reinstated in the G7 after it was kicked out for its first invasion of Ukraine in 2014; Trump’s tacit agreement that allowed Russia to expand its influence in Syria, and Trump’s description of Putin’s brutal February 24, 2022 invasion of Ukraine as “genius”.
For the world, the question is what is behind this transmutation of the Grand Old Party, aside from the possibility of some Russian influence and possible corruption? The answer is Steve Bannon, who is chief theologian and strategist behind Trump and his MAGA movement. He remains an important influencer through his podcast “War Room” and has established the underlying tone and tenor of both Republican domestic and foreign policy. For instance in the hours before Russia actually invaded Ukraine, Bannon wrote “Putin ain’t woke” — this was a compliment in MAGA-speak that excused the tiny Russian dictator from the ultimate insult “woke” which is a blanket term for everything MAGA dislikes about the left. He added “Ukraine is a European problem, not an American problem. They [Western Europe] need to stand up” and then repeated Putin nonsense that “Ukraine’s not even a country. It’s kind of a concept…. It’s just a corrupt area…No Republican should vote for any money for Ukraine. $0 for Ukraine.”
Since then, Bannon has spread Russian disinformation by talking a lot about the imagined existence of Ukrainian labs producing dangerous biological weapons, using US funding. “This claim, which has no basis in fact, has not been confined to Kremlin propaganda,” wrote researchers at the Brookings Institute in Washington DC. They noted that Bannon’s War Room podcast devoted five episodes to this non-story and it was downloaded 135 million times.
Another Putin “patsy” is Tucker Carlson who amplified all this fiction on Fox TV before he was fired and now on his own podcast. Carlson has a bigger audience than Bannon and continues to serve up Putin propaganda, intolerance, historical ignorance, and a big dose of moral equivalency. For instance, Carlson equated predatory Russia with victimized Ukraine by musing: “I think we should probably take the side of Russia, if we have to choose between Russia and Ukraine.”
Recently, in a mini-documentary he produced after his awful interview with Putin, he positively gushed about a Moscow supermarket and how attractive and well-stocked it was. Then a few days later, Putin actually ridiculed Carlson for not asking tough questions in the interview: “I honestly thought he would be aggressive and ask so-called sharp questions. And I wasn’t just ready for that, I wanted it, because it would have given me the opportunity to respond sharply in kind … But he chose a different tactic.”
Fortunately, candidate Nikki Haley is an old-fashioned Republican Cold Warrior, armed with expertise in foreign policy, historical background, and international experience. On the campaign trail, she tweeted: “Putin murdered his political opponent and Trump hasn’t said a word after he said he would encourage Putin to invade our allies. He has, however, posted 20+ times on social media about his legal drama and fake polls. Putin did this. The same Putin who Donald Trump praises and defends…The Navalny assassination is something that is so startling and so blatant, and to see the former president’s comment about it just continues us on the path of: What is his connection to Russia?”
In 2020, former Democratic House leader Nancy Pelosi put the same question a different way when she said “with him [Trump] all roads lead to Putin”. Some speculate the Russians have damaging material — known as kompromat — on Trump and are blackmailing him. But former Trump foreign advisor John Bolton says “he just likes these big guys who did what they wanted to do, and he wanted to be a big guy who does what he wants to do.”
Whatever the motivation and reason, America’s Republican Party has a big fat orange Russia problem, and so, therefore, does the country, Ukraine, and Europe. It’s shocking that a House leader tainted by a scandal involving a Putin warlord, is holding up military aid and now may shut down the government over a budget snafu. Unfortunately, Johnson’s GOP “bleachers” cheer all this mayhem. MAGA extremist Matt Gauer celebrated the rejection of military aid by quoting Apocalypse Now’s famous and hugely insensitive line: “I love the smell of napalm in the morning” while his looney sidekick, Marjorie Taylor Greene, threatened to remove Johnson from office if he even allows a vote on Ukraine aid.
All of this is beyond gossip or politics. It’s far more serious because one of America’s two political parties is infested with persons who are openly partial to their nation-state’s arch enemy. John Bolton warned correctly. “If Trump is elected, there will be celebrations in the Kremlin… There’s no doubt about it, because Putin thinks that he is an easy mark.”
And he is.
The views expressed in this opinion article are the author’s and not necessarily those of Kyiv Post.
Reprinted from dianefrancis@substack.com - Diane Francis on America and the World
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