Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican president, minced no words when he referenced Russia. The leaders of that faraway land “make no pretense of loving liberty,” he wrote, because that’s a country “where despotism can be taken pure.”
Today’s MAGA Republicans, who still think call themselves “the party of Lincoln,” would be wise to actually read what Abe wrote. Only then would it be even remotely possible for them recognize their own treachery.
The other day, in response to a press question, President Biden agreed that Vladimir Putin is a killer. Well, duh, ya think? Putin was not happy that Biden told the truth – Putin much preferred Biden’s predecessor, the useful idiot who kissed his feet – so he trash-talked the new POTUS with schoolyard blather, wished him “good health” (as if), and challenged him to a “debate.”
Predictably, the Republicans responded to those provocations in two ways: not responding at all (thus refusing to support America’s leader), or hailing Putin as a manly man who’d kick Biden’s ass in a debate.
GOP congressman Matt Gaetz said: “Putin and Biden? It would not end like Rocky IV. I don’t think the American would prevail.” Sean Hannity seized the opportunity to double down on his usual message that Biden is losing his mental marbles (a common propaganda theme on Russian TV, by the way). Hannity riffed, “Why would Putin call for a debate? What have I been saying? What have some of us – half the American people been saying?…Joe looks weak and he looks frail and he’s struggling cognitively.” And Donald Trump Jr. excitedly tweeted, “Putin just challenged Joe Biden to an unscripted live debate. The whole world knows that we have no leadership at the top just an empty suit…They look at America’s weakness right now and are salivating.”
What illness possesses these surrender monkeys to worship at the Russian thug’s altar? Abe Lincoln would probably fashion the most eloquent diagonosis; in his absence, I’ll simply share this recent tweeted lament from sane conservative/former Senate aide Rick Tyler: “Republicans used to care about national security. No really, they did. They did. I’m not joking. It’s true. I remember. No, really. You gotta believe me. They did. I’m being serious.”
Why has the GOP, once a proud pro-American party, taken up residence deep within a Russian nesting doll? I’ll start with the easiest answers:
Republicans grovel to Trump, Trump grovels to Putin, therefore Republicans grovel to Putin. The loser in Mar-a-Lago is financially intertwined with Putin’s oligarchs (we have yet to learn the extent), and that solidified his status as a Putin stooge. And if that’s good enough for Trump, that’s good enough for a cult that reflexively plays follow the leader.
Putin’s Russia is anti-gay, anti-abortion, and loves to rig elections. What more can I say. Perfect trifecta.
Putin’s macho despotism appeals to a party that has given up on democracy. Nothing like a blast of brute power to cure the tiresome ills of ballot-box pluralism. As Rudy Giuliani, his heart aflutter, said of Putin back in 2017, “He makes a decision and he executes it quickly. That’s what you call a leader.” (Ouch. Rudy shouldn’t have used the word execute.)
Republicans by this point are fatally invested in the Russian plot to debase western democracy. This is the biggie, and it seems there’s no turning back. Russia continues to meddle here, and the GOP amplifies its lying propaganda.
As a newly-released U.S. intelligence report makes perfectly clear, Russia is still pumping out the fake crap about Biden stealing the election: “Putin authorized, and a range of Russian government organizations conducted, influence operations aimed at denigrating President Biden’s candidacy and the Democratic party, supporting former President Trump, undermining public confidence in the election process, and exacerbating sociopolitical divisions in the U.S….Even after the election, Russian online influence actors continued to promote narratives questioning the election results.”
Let’s hit that last point again. According to the U.S. intelligence report, “Throughout the (2020) election, Russia’s online influence actors sought to amplify mistrust in the electoral process by denigrating mail-in ballots, highlighting alleged irregularities, and accusing the Democratic Party of voter fraud.” Does that strategy ring a bell? Dare we name the stooge-in-chief who chanted and ranted about that every day?
At this point, Russian disinformation is well wedded to Republican lying; it’s impossible to tell where one ends and the other begins. As the U.S. report points out, one particular Russian operative – Andriy Derkach, a Putin insider with ties to Russian intelligence services – relentlessly peppered Washington Republicans with lies about Joe and Hunter Biden “corruption” in Ukraine. Derkach struck gold last fall when one of the Kremlin’s most reliable saps, Senator Ron Johnson, cooked up a statement that amplified the Russian lies.
Such subservience. Indeed, care to guess whether Johnson or Trump or other MAGA minions have uttered a peep about Putin’s treatment of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who’s currently jailed after surviving the killer poisons that Putin’s agents put in his underwear? Actually, this past winter, Trump (the purported tough guy) did manage to say a few words: “I don’t know exactly what happened…We have not had any proof yet, but we will take a look.” Three weeks later, he was asked if he’d yet taken a look. His reply: “We’ll talk about that at another time.” That was the last time.
Can we survive long term, as a two-party nation, if one of the parties pledges allegiance to a hostile foreign power? Yet Republicans have the nerve to wave the American flag. At least in Russia, wrote Abraham Lincoln, the despotism is pure, “without the base alloy of hypocrisy.”