The Schism Is Here

Republicans are fracturing over Ukraine.

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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks in Pinellas Park, Florida, on March 8. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

What would you get if you asked ChatGPT to craft a Ukraine policy optimized to pander to Tucker Carlson viewers rather than to maximize American interests?

This. You’d get this.

Even if we didn’t know already that Ron DeSantis was moving toward the Trumpist position on Ukraine, there was never a doubt he’d end up there. He concluded at some point during the last three years that his path to victory in a national primary requires never giving Trump an opening to call him an establishmentarian. (He can’t do anything about his pre-Trump record, unfortunately.) To court voters in the MAGA base and convince them that he’s “Trump but electable,” he resolved to chase every shiny populist object he sees.

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  1. Danielmedas1

    Funny that a healthy American democracy depends on Ukrainian nationhood.

    Slava Ukraini, and God save these United States.

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  3. Dfstarr

    Based on DeSantis's Reaganite heritage I've got my fingers crossed that his statements are to woo a portion of the Trumpanzees to his side as the "Trump but electable" candidate and then, to borrow a phrase from Clinton, triangulate his way towards a more traditional Republican stance.

    I fully sympathize with the fact that Americans are sick of spending our blood & treasure on foreign soil but the naivete required to think Putin just wants a little taste of Ukraine and doesn't have larger designs on reconstituting the Soviet Union but solely under his power rather than the Politburo boggles the mind.

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    1. Danielmedas1

      Right. I think none of us are happy paying the bill, but I'm pretty sure we'd be even more unhappy with the bill that we would be left with after an American retreat from the global stage.

      Power is zero-sum. In the current environment, the actors who seem most likely to seize the moment are not our like-minded friends and allied democracies but despots, tyrants, and nuclear blackmailers.

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  4. Dlwondercheck

    ChatRON is just about the funniest thing I've read all week.

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  5. Chek6Man

    DeSantis's first foray into Foreign Affairs did not go well. Was this an attempt to woe Trump supporters and if he gets the nomination, he " refines" his position? Let's hope so. The problem for America and our NATO allies is defining "peace in the Ukraine." NATO is fighting a proxy war with Putin. The war has degraded Russian capability to wage an even larger war in Europe for the time being. Can Putin negotiate a peace of any kind? Is total subjugation of Ukraine the only acceptable outcome for Russia? NATO could attempt to force Ukraine into some settlement by cutting off aid. But that would lead to some loss of Ukraine's territory. I don't see a Ukraine offensive that could drive Russia from all of Ukraine's territory. The sharp minds need to figure out what is a peace accord that could be brokered and acceptable to both sides. DeSantis needs to come a long way to be the guy who figures that out.

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  6. Philip.R.M.Hunt

    The Trumpkins don't want to support Ukraine because they want Putin to win (but they won't admit it). Putin is everything they hope Trump will become - a dictator who unrestrained by law and Constitution ushers in the populist right utopia - suppression of the gays and the wokes, making sure ethnic minorities know their place, appearing to promote a market economy (while really creating a kleptocracy) championing Christianity in name (but not in practice), promoting natalism (but failing hard), dominating nearby countries and invading those that are not sufficiently compliant (they are eyeing you Mexico right now).

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  7. Jim.H

    I don’t see how any of this ends well…Russia is not going to just give up and we are exhausting our munitions and we are not even directly at war…not to mention the hundreds of Ukrainians that are dying every week.

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      Kizedek

      Hundreds are dying because they are giving their lives to defend their homes. And Putin is engaged in war crimes.

      Students and housewives and lawyers have come together on the front line. We need to support them.

      If we are exhausting our stocks, Russia is more so. Our allies are supporting Russia, so it’s not all on us. (let’s just not let China support Putin.). It might even be a good thing that old stocks get used up, and new ones (requiring jobs) are needed — we’re seeing how Russia thought their stocks were going to work well after years and years.

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  8. Gene

    I agree that there is a schism. Since I lost high school and college friends to the Viet Nam war and the domino theory, this looks like Domino 2.0. As a reminder, Secretary of State James Baker told Gorbachev that, if he agreed to a German reunification, NATO wouldn't come an inch closer. No one will ever take the word of a U.S. Secretary of State again.
    My assessment is that WWII isn't the analog; WWI is. Another in the multi-millennium chain of European land wars. Let the Europeans fight it out. If Putin decides to press his luck and attack a NATO member, then the U.S. should and will respond.

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      Chuckgold

      Quoting Gene;

      "As a reminder, Secretary of State James Baker told Gorbachev that, if he agreed to a German reunification, NATO wouldn't come an inch closer. No one will ever take the word of a U.S. Secretary of State again."

      Gorbachev represented the U.S.S.R. which no longer exists. Ukraine is a sovereign nation. If it desires NATO membership and NATO allows it, I doubt that any reasonable or free nations will discredit the USA over James Baker's promise to a brutal Communist regime that ceased to exist thirty years ago.

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      1. Russell J

        Not to mention, the way Russia humiliated themselves with the initial invasion has no parallel with previous wars. NATO could cut through that line quite easily now that the Russian deficiencies are obvious.

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      Kizedek

      But NATO has expanded already. Others want to join, for the very reason they don’t want Russia to invade them. Who’s next? Moldova, Belorussia?

      Talk about agreements, we agreed to uphold Ukraines borders and integrity as a nation when we asked them to give up their nuclear weapons.

      And despite what Trump says (who cares how he postures), Putin invaded *because he perceived the US to be weak and indifferent toward NATO and its allies*.

      The traditionally hawkish foreign policy of the GOP, including a tough stance on sanctions against Russia following the annexation of Crimea and Donbas in 2014, *changed overnight the day that Trump got the nomination*.

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    3. GenZConservative

      You can't really be complaining that we didn't uphold a promise to an entity that has long since ceased to exist. Your prescription sounds an afwul lot like Neville Chamberlain.

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    Paul Montagu

    Well said. Unlike Trump or Biden, DeSantis doesn't do oopsies and gaffes. His words are pretty much always deliberate and planned, which is why his dishonestly disingenuous "territorial dispute" comments are so troubling.
    If it's between Trump and DeSantis in the primaries, I'll still vote for DeSantis, but if he beats Trump and continues to act like a Trump Mini Me, then I'll write in Ronald Reagan in the general.

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    Mudskipper

    Well, this makes me feel somewhat better. I'm glad there is Republican push-back on DeSantis's comments.

    Good, principled people can make good, principled arguments against this administration's handling of the Ukraine war, either for more aid or for less aid. However, you can't in good faith call this war a "territorial dispute." Anyone who does so has lost their moral principles.

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