I guess the neocons are no longer trying to make the World safe for Democracy and Free Markets. They are now making the World safe for oligarchy and rigged markets.
I would argue we finally have a democracy. Now may the ones who scream the loudest prosper over the meek regardless of the law.
Democracy is a complex process. You think America went straight into an unalloyed democracy? Ever hear of the Alien and Sedition Act? Suspension of Habeas Corpus and censorship during the War Between the States and both world wars? The party machines throughout the late 19th and early 20th Centuries? Read JS Mills’ Thoughts on Representative Government.
America is a Republic, whose democratic factors are currently badly maimed. But it’s hardly the first time. Ukraine aspires to democracy, but has centuries of oppression and unrest to overcome, plus an Eastern European habit of corruption, drunkenness, and backwardness.
The war is not about democracy one way or another. If Ukraine were an absolute dictatorship and kleptocracy like Russia, simple decency, geopolitics, and the Budapest Memorandum would require the US to stand up for the people of Ukraine, regardless of who was President there.
But to the extent that democracy does have a tenuous, embryonic hold in Ukraine, it makes sense to analyze it objectively.