The America First Movement has a Sean Hannity Problem
In 2016, Donald Trump showed that a Republican candidate can run, and win, without swearing fealty to the permanent war party. He ran on a platform of “America First,” and since that moment almost all Republican politicians and commentators have at least paid lip service to the idea.
Yet now, all of that is being thrown aside for the sake of Ukraine.
In 2019, would-be America First Senator Josh Hawley delivered a speech about “Rethinking America’s Foreign Policy Consensus,” condemning “endless wars” and “metastasizing commitments” to far-off countries, and demanding a new narrower focus on keeping America and Americans safe and prosperous.
And then Ukraine came along, and Hawley suddenly looked like any other Republican from 2006.
Josh Hawley
@HawleyMO
Just finished a briefing with President Zelensky of #Ukraine, whose courage on behalf of his people is inspiring. Zelensky urgently asked the US to stop imports of Russian gas and oil. More important than almost any other sanction, he said. When will Joe Biden listen?
Powerful message this morning from President Zelensky of #Ukraine - said he wished Joe Biden would step up and lead the world. Biden needs to get serious and shut down Russian energy production, open up ours, and arm the Ukrainians with MiGs to defend the skies
Seeing lawmakers on the right take the same stance, though, is both puzzling and pathetic. The relationship between the national security state and most GOP lawmakers and pundits increasingly resembles the relationship between an abusive husband and his battered spouse. Like a wife who believes her husband still loves her even as he sends her to the hospital, the same lawmakers and Fox News figures who claim to have embraced the Trump realignment are yet again letting themselves get played by a Regime that hates them.
Sure, it’s not nice when the Regime drinks too much and suddenly labels us all domestic terrorists, but patriotism requires that we unthinkingly serve this same regime when it wants to endanger American lives for another misadventure thousands of miles from our shores.
After all, freedom isn’t free!
When Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke before the U.S. Congress Wednesday morning, Republicans fêted him with a standing ovation before his remarks and then another
In 2016, Donald Trump showed that a Republican candidate can run, and win, without swearing fealty to the permanent war party. He ran on a platform of “America First,” and since that moment almost all Republican politicians and commentators have at least paid lip service to the idea.
Yet now, all of that is being thrown aside for the sake of Ukraine.
In 2019, would-be America First Senator Josh Hawley delivered a speech about “Rethinking America’s Foreign Policy Consensus,” condemning “endless wars” and “metastasizing commitments” to far-off countries, and demanding a new narrower focus on keeping America and Americans safe and prosperous.
And then Ukraine came along, and Hawley suddenly looked like any other Republican from 2006.
It is one thing to see the Democrats eagerly join the CIA, State Department, and Pentagon in demanding the escalation of U.S. involvement in the Ukraine-Russia conflict. That alignment makes perfect sense politically—why wouldn’t the left align with the same national security state that embraces all of its values, and which has repurposed itself to target the left’s domestic political enemies on the right?
Seeing lawmakers on the right take the same stance, though, is both puzzling and pathetic. The relationship between the national security state and most GOP lawmakers and pundits increasingly resembles the relationship between an abusive husband and his battered spouse. Like a wife who believes her husband still loves her even as he sends her to the hospital, the same lawmakers and Fox News figures who claim to have embraced the Trump realignment are yet again letting themselves get played by a Regime that hates them.
Sure, it’s not nice when the Regime drinks too much and suddenly labels us all domestic terrorists, but patriotism requires that we unthinkingly serve this same regime when it wants to endanger American lives for another misadventure thousands of miles from our shores.
After all, freedom isn’t free!
When Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke before the U.S. Congress Wednesday morning, Republicans fêted him with a standing ovation before his remarks and then another ovation afterwards.
In his speech, Zelensky pleaded for a no-fly zone, fighter jet shipments to Ukraine, and even more punitive sanctions on Russia. It was a plea for a dramatic escalation in the conflict towards World War 3. And Republicans gave him two standing ovations in a row. With the world on the edge of nuclear holocaust, Republicans cheered on a leader who says that World War 3 has already started.
After Zelensky’s speech, saccharine Republicans took to the airwaves to demand that President Biden ship fighter jets into Ukraine, despite the dangers of such a provocation:
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) told reporters Zelensky had made a strong case for what Biden should do.
If this feels familiar to you, it’s because we’ve seen this movie before. It’s a tired old flick about Republicans, especially “America First” pretenders, reverting back to the same old war script. Remember back in 2002? George W. Bush said war with Iraq was a “last resort.” Baloney. Republicans should have learned from that scam, and maybe the base of voters did when they elected Donald Trump as the Republican nominee in 2016. But the Republican establishment, including supposed MAGA and America First stalwarts, are still beating the same old war drums. With their every word and action, conservative “leaders” have embraced the new priority of Ukraine First, no matter the risk of World War 3. And thus far, Sean Hannity has been one of the worst offenders.
On his radio program, Hannity has concocted wild ideas like assassinating Putin or bombing Russian convoys while saying we didn’t:
For those confused by what they are witnessing, here is a simple explanation: Fox News, Sean Hannity, and the GOP are reverting back to the leading roles they played in the run-up to the Iraq War.
Falling for the Iraq War the first time may be excused. What cannot be excused is falling for the Deep State’s fanatical war rhetoric again, as it tries to drag the nation into World War 3. Yet incredibly, inexcusably, that is exactly what is happening across the board, and it’s not just Hannity, either.
On Fox and Friends just the other day, Dan Crenshaw said that critics of further escalation were doing the work of Vladimir Putin.
Last week, Republican Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana appeared on Fox to complain to bellow that bah gawd, America must give the man his planes.
Later, after Kennedy’s segment ended, Fox pivoted to hearings in the U.S. Senate. The network fawned over Sen. Tom Cotton’s denunciations of President Biden’s “weak” response with the chyron “Cotton Asks Why Jets To Ukraine Is Escalatory” (the implication, of course, is that it’s not). After Cotton’s testimony ended, host Harris Faulkner, nominally a neutral “news” anchor, nearly lost her composure as she gushed with enthusiasm for more conflict:
Nobody is under any illusions that Fox News is a rigidly neutral news network, but even accounting for that, Faulkner’s uncontrolled gushing pro-war agitation is disturbing. By the way, this same Harris Faulkner, moved to tears on behalf of Ukraine, also once barred Newt Gingrich from mentioning George Soros in relation to his funding the election of far-left DAs in American cities.
Non-TV watchers might think based on the calls to arrest Tucker Carlson that Fox News has staked out an anti-intervention position. But in fact, Tucker is a severe outlier on his own network, along with perhaps Jesse Watters.
Over the weekend, the “great one” Mark Levin bizarrely acted like he was in a brave minority for supporting more conflict with Russia, and raved that “American-Firsters” (sic) were the “Putin wing” of the Republican Party.
On March 4, Fox’s “America Reports” gave the stage to former Mike Pence advisor Gen. Keith Kellogg (also a former VP at Cubic Defense Applications), who laid out a ridiculous strategy claiming that the U.S. could intervene and start shooting down Russian jets, as long as they called it a United Nations no-fly zone instead of a NATO one.
For Republicans, projecting toughness on Ukraine or any other foreign question is a coping mechanism to demonstrate phony strength and hide (from voters, and perhaps from themselves) how impotent and weak they have been against a genuine existential threat: The non-stop cultural assault on the American people.
https://www.revolver.news/2022/03/america-first-sean-hannity-problem/
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great article
Thanks for posting and pinging....a Hannity/Vannity, Levin and all of the other neocon backstabbers problem, indeed.
Levin only jumped aboard the America First/Pres Trump train because he’d killed his own ratings, with his slobbering love for Lyin’ Ted, and anti-Trump droning on and on, night after night.
Now, look at him. A deceitful tiger never loses his stripes.