Putinism, Trumpism, and the failure of the American Left

or what the Hell are the Democrats thinking.

In June 1948, Senator Arthur Vandenberg (R-MI), Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, placed a resolution before the Senate establishing the United States’ commitment to its NATO allies and that also assured the constitutional power of Congress to decare war¹. It passed 82-13. Vandenberg, a conservative Republican, coined an adage that would hold fast for almost 50 years - “politics ends at the water’s edge.”

That concept died in the mid-1990s as a combination of hatred of all things Clinton and nihilistic leadership within the GOP controlled House made foreign policy an arena for partisan gamesmanship. From Bosnia to 9/11 to Afghanistan to Ukraine, the Right made it clear that there are two kinds of foreign policy: Republican and Democratic. During the Trump Administration, Republican foreign policy was supplanted by Trumpism.

Donald Trump Trump weakened NATO, withdrew from critical treaties (most notably Open Skies and JCPOA), and undermined diplomacy continuously during his 4 years in office. In addition, Trump expressed his adulation for dictators like Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin and embraced anti-democratic politicians like Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Viktor Orbán unapologetically. The GOP has followed his lead in lockstep — at least until Putin invaded Ukraine.

Some members of the GOP saw the political advantge of embracing Ukraine, its President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and their quest for democratic and political autonomy. Others, however, continued to beat the drum of Trumpism and by default Putinism. Donald Trump’s laudatory support for Putin’s invasion of Ukraine peppered with the words “savvy” and “genius” had boxed the GOP in.

Neither idealists nor the pragmatists expected much to come of Ukraine’s resistance to the Russian army; but realists saw Putin’s poor planning and lack of means to control Ukraine as a no-win situation, even if his invasion brought military victory. The fact that some political realism affected some Republicans is hardly suprsising — the polling on Putin and his oligarchy’s attack of Ukraine is decidedly pro-Ukraine and pro-Zelenskyy.

There is a rule of memory called the primacy/recency effect. The first thing taught and the last thing taught get remembered better than the stuff in the middle. And between FoxNews, OANN, and Trump’s history with Putin and Ukraine, the GOP was firmy esconced in the position of being pro-Putin, anti-NATO, and anti-democracy.

Then this happpened this week:

Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) offered a resolution declaring the U.S. House of Representatives’ unequivocable support of NATO and its founding principles of “individual liberty, human rights, democracy, and the rule of law” and concomitantly reasserted the need to stand against “external threats from authoritarian regimes such as Russia and China and internal threats from proponents of illiberalism.” The House passed the resolution overwhelmimngly 362-63.

Yes, 63 Republicans from overwhemingly Barn Red congressional districts stood up for Putinism, Trumpism, and anti-democratic authoritarianism². For the 143 Republicans supporting the resolution — great political coverage in the face of Putin’s attack on Ukraine and his military’s carrying-out of heinous war crimes.

After nearly three decades of partisanship in foreign policy, the Democrats continuously strive for “water’s edge bipartisanship”, when polling suggests no one except the most devout Trumpists supports Republican foreign policy and that pinning to the GOP to Putinism is politically advantageous in 2022.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vandenberg_resolution#:~:text=As%20chairman%20of%20the%20Senate,administration%20in%20forging%20bipartisan%20support.

2. https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2022115