Cravenness & Confusion Reign as House Republicans Split on Stopping Russia

If there was every any doubt that it isn't Ronald Reagan's party anymore....

Over the weekend, the House of Representatives voted 311-112 to pass the latest military aid package to Ukraine, this time carrying a price tag of $61 billion (which comes to about 7% of the 2024 defense budget, just under 1% of projected 2024 federal spending, and a little under two tenths of a percent of the national debt). More Republicans voted against it (112) than for (101), giving us our most concrete marker yet of the Right’s abandonment of responsible Reaganite foreign policy.

To be clear, that’s not to say the aid package itself is particularly responsible—as this thread details, it’s bloated with ugly surprises, the worst being $481 million to “refugee and entrant assistance,” which in practice will mean helping migrants unrelated to the invasion enter and stay in America.

Well, then the bill obviously should’ve been trashed, you might be thinking. You’re an immigration hawk, aren’t you Calvin? Indeed I am. But I’m also an adult who recognizes that genuine, active emergencies—like, for instance, a flesh-and-blood war going on right now—require picking the best of limited bad options, and don’t give us the same latitude as in normal budget battles.

But what about Thomas Massie and Chip Roy’s complaint that House Speaker Mike Johnson didn’t try to attach Ukraine aid to a border security bill? Two answers, the first being that it’s completely illogical to expect that a combined bill would’ve fared much better in the Democrat Senate than a standalone border bill, or that the current Republican clowns in Washington ever had a chance of forcing Joe Biden to sign it (never mind follow it—did we forget the border crisis is a direct result of him not enforcing the laws we already have?).

Consider: on immigration, Biden has been ignoring not only incredibly lopsided public opinion, but also officials in some of the bluest parts of America screaming at him to get the situation under control—so why the hell would anyone think Johnson and friends would ever be able to come close to the level of political pressure he’s already getting?

The simple fact is that Democrats will accept nearly any political cost for the long-term project of transforming the electorate through mass immigration, which means the only way we’ll be able to stop them is by denying them the votes to send their agenda items to Democrat presidents, then pairing (the right kind of) Republican presidents with large enough majorities in both chambers of Congress. It’s frustrating, but that’s reality (you know, the thing conservatives used to be known for dealing with whether we liked it or not).

In the meantime, other problems on our plate still need to be dealt with—and how we deal with them needs to be debated purely on their own facts & arguments, not muddied with incessant invocations of other problems.

That brings us to the second answer: if aiding Ukraine is right and necessary, then it shouldn’t be made contingent on our other priorities, even important ones. The rest of life doesn’t magically pause just because another crisis—even a serious one—isn’t going our way, and any idea that we can’t or shouldn’t deal with one just because of the current political intractability of another is simply immoral, irresponsible, idiotic governance.

So is aiding Ukraine right and necessary? On the Right, it’s become hard to find clear answers—the pro-Ukraine GOP establishment is most likely to rattle off uninspiring platitudes about “defending democracy,” while anti-Ukraine “conservative” pundits belligerently stoke anger about elites “caring more about foreign borders than ours” as if the whole thing’s purely about misplaced altruism, cartoonish “warmongers” jumping at any opportunity to bomb and kill for fun and profit, or—in the most malevolent fever swamps—abject absurdity in which Vladimir Putin is acting understandably and might even be the good guy against the New World Order pulling the strings.

Most of the sources that rank-and-file conservatives now rely on to inform them won’t point out that aiding Ukraine helps degrade the military capability of a mutual enemy who’s in bed with China, North Korea, and Iran without risking American lives.

Or that no serious person thinks Putin will stop at Ukraine or abide by “peace agreements,” given his motivations and history, or what Putin gaining resources and leverage from future conquests means not only for the West’s future dealings with him, but also for his future dealings with our other enemies.

Or that the world’s most villainous regimes will all take away lessons from how much America ultimately allows them to get away with.

Or that ending conflicts in ways that deter them from becoming or leading to bigger conflicts deters future international chaos from coming back to bite us in the form of destabilized international trade, military resources diverted from other threats, spending we can’t so easily get out of, or the worst-case scenario: a situation that actually does require US troops.

Or that, while the exact details of our security obligations were muddied by diplomatic maneuvering, America ultimately holds a share of the responsibility for Ukraine having surrendered its own nuclear deterrent decades ago; it’s one thing to question whether commitments to other nations should have been made in the first place, and quite another to blithely shrug those commitments off as if doing so won’t have ramifications for our dealings with everyone else.

Or that, if we instead force a compromise on both sides in the name of “peace,” what that will actually mean is "dictate the terms of the victims' surrender to the aggressor”—flashing every other would-be conqueror in the world a bright neon invitation to march on their own neighbors, secure in the knowledge that America will ensure they get to keep something for their trouble. For decades, disgruntled populists have bemoaned the conception of the United States as “the world’s policeman,” but this would transform her into something far worse: the world’s mob enforcer.

The least nonsensical objection to approving aid is the idea that simply continuing to send the Ukrainians money and weapons without any real strategy for victory could mean prolonging a deadly conflict only for it to ultimately end in Kremlin victory anyway. But this ignores three points: first, that it isn’t America’s place to tell the people whose home is under attack how they should weigh the tradeoff between life and liberty versus safety (and polls within and outside the country indicate they want to keep fighting by solid margins).

Second, America isn’t the only one backing Ukraine; as detailed by an invaluable November 2023 report by Republicans Mike McCaul, Mike Rogers, and Mike Turner of the House Foreign Affairs, Armed Services, and Permanent Select Intelligence committees, contrary to populist talking points most of Europe is actually spending more than the United States to stop Russia as a percentage of their respective GDPs. They’re having ongoing political debates about this just like we are—with the critical difference that the possibility of Russia’s border getting closer to their own means they have no choice but to take their deliberations more seriously than we are. Even US aid that does little more than keep Ukraine from falling buys time for the possibility of other allies to settle on more decisive help.

Third, as detailed in the report, “keep throwing money and hope for the best,” “leave Ukraine to fend for itself,” and “try to force a compromise” are not the only three options available to us. All this time, Republicans could have been much more loudly and clearly hammering Biden for not sending some weapons until long after the opportunity to use them to maximum effect passed and resisting sending others for fear of “escalation.” There’s no time like the present to put forth an alternative strategy rooted in timely delivery of the kind of air power and long-range arms needed to deal real damage to Putin’s offensive capability.

Alas, that would require two qualities that most Republicans have lacked from the start of this war: interest and authenticity.

How many House members incensed about the bill’s refugee and entrant assistance funds tried to publicize and remove that provision before the final vote? How many officeholders who bemoaned the lack of a strategy showed the slightest interest in having any strategy? How many who voted “no” last weekend would’ve voted the same way even if the border was being secured? How many on “our” side bleating all along over this or that particular problem were just using them as pretexts for isolationist dogma? And how many were simply appeasing the loudest voices, knowing the bill would pass without their support?

It's been clear for years that the conservative movement is fundamentally broken on foreign policy. An overcorrection to the failures of the Bush years has been brewing for a long time, and it’s finally arrived. God only knows what kind of disaster it will eventually bring down on us—and if it will be enough for the former Party of Reagan to come to its senses.