Posted on 04/19/2024 9:13:17 AM PDT by Kazan
The House speaker’s comments wrecked one of the far right’s most ridiculous, reprehensible tropes.
It was a remarkable moment: After introducing a package of bills that includes military aid to Ukraine, Mike Johnson flatly told reporters on Wednesday that enabling Ukraine to defend itself is in the best interests of America and the world. This surprised a lot of people who had wrongly assumed the House speaker was effectively functioning as a stooge for Vladimir Putin—and Donald Trump—and would thus slow-walk Ukraine aid to death before ever allowing a vote on it.
Johnson’s new stance has attracted a good deal of positive attention. But I want to highlight an aspect of it that’s been overlooked because it’s an important tell about the true state of MAGA ideology and what it’s demanding of Republicans these days.
“I really do believe the intel and the briefings that we’ve gotten,” Johnson said, in a moment that became a mini-speech. “I think that Vladimir Putin would continue to march through Europe if he were allowed. I think he might go to the Balkans next. I think he might have a showdown with Poland, or one of our NATO allies.” If so, he added, we might find ourselves sending troops to defend allies from Putin later.
Did we really hear the speaker say that he believes what our intelligence services have told him about the long-term consequences of cutting off aid to Ukraine?
This is a direct challenge to the MAGA worldview in multiple ways. Johnson is treating Putin as the aggressor in the Russia-Ukraine conflict and acknowledging his broader imperialist designs, which is heresy to some MAGA Republicans. But he’s also flatly declaring that on these matters, the deep state is very much to be believed.
A big MAGA conceit is the idea that a nefarious deep-state network of senior federal bureaucrats, nongovernmental experts, and technocratic and managerial elites lurks behind the push to fund Ukraine—and that it’s making up lies about Russia’s war to create a pretext to fulfill a broader set of sinister globalist aims. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene recently tweeted this:
The Ukraine scam is up.
If our Republican majority in Congress funds Joe Biden’s war against Russia on behalf of Ukraine (because he’s a puppet on strings) then Republicans are tools of the foreign war loving deep state.
This is probably MAGA’s most elaborate exercise in up-is-down totalitarian-style propaganda of all: Biden is being manipulated by a deep-state “scam”—i.e., the idea that Ukraine is worth defending—to carry out a war against Russia, which has been magically transformed from aggressor to victim.
The horrible atrocities against Ukraine the world has witnessed, Putin’s declarations that the sovereign democracy of Ukraine isn’t a real country and shouldn’t exist, the consequent effort to erase it with murderous conquest—all of that disappears in this fog of MAGA propaganda. This sort of thing is why even some senior Republicans suggest that a number of House GOP lawmakers are operating under the influence of Russia.
Johnson’s affirmation that he believes our intelligence services on these matters is a direct rebuke to those MAGA tendencies.
The bills that GOP leaders have introduced—which are scheduled for votes on Saturday—are also surprisingly faithful to the intel agencies’ apparent understanding of this geopolitical moment. They include $61 billion in aid to Ukraine, $26 billion for Israel, funding for Taiwan, and humanitarian assistance, including for victims in Gaza, which is essential to winning the support of Democrats who will be needed when right-wing Republicans oppose the package.
Greene had threatened to hold a motion-to-vacate vote to oust Johnson if he moved forward with Ukraine aid. If so, there are signs that Democrats will vote to save Johnson if Ukraine aid passes. Either way, Johnson appears prepared to brave MAGA’s fury—and the word of U.S intelligence services is a key reason for it.
To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with healthy skepticism of what our intelligence services are saying. That’s reasonable. After all, they contributed to whipping up the ultimately false assertions about weapons of mass destruction that helped justify the Iraq War.
But reasoned skepticism is not what MAGA Republicans are offering. Instead, they’re pushing carefully choreographed propaganda that seeks to entirely erase Russian agency from the story of the conflict and to transform Ukraine’s allies into the true warmongers here.
Greene’s effort at this is obvious. Then you have Donald Trump Jr., who tweeted that the aid bills will “hurt my father’s ability to negotiate an end to the war between Russia and Ukraine” if he’s reelected president, whereas “globalist” Republicans who support the package want indefinite war.
But that’s absurd. As international relations professor Nicholas Grossman shows, the idea behind rhetoric like this—a ruse that other MAGA Republicans regularly employ—is to recast our choice as one between “peace” (which we’d attain by refraining from aiding Ukraine) and “war” (which we’re facilitating with Ukraine aid). In reality, withholding aid is not antiwar at all; it merely makes Russian conquest more likely to continue and succeed (which is perhaps the whole point of this framing).
Even supposedly shrewder MAGA Republicans play a version of this sleazy game. Ohio Senator J.D. Vance recently wrote a New York Times op-ed arguing that Ukraine is losing and our aid won’t give it what it needs in equipment (or soldiers) to prevail. Democrats have effectively rebutted those claims. But Vance also slips into his piece the idea that in providing aid, “we”—meaning the United States—would “prolong a long and bloody war,” and suggests the primary obstacle to peace is President Biden’s unwillingness to negotiate toward it.
But how does Vance himself envision the war ending? Couldn’t it mean Russia gobbles up much or even all of Ukraine? Vance doesn’t say, beyond insisting we should forget about Ukraine regaining all of its stolen territory. Thus he too frames the choice as one between peace (ending aid) and war (continuing it). Presto: Opposing the package suddenly becomes the antiwar position, and being for the package becomes the pro-war one. That’s slippery, dishonest rhetorical trickery that you’d think is below Times standards.
This is the sort of deceitfulness that Johnson has effectively taken on. By affirming what abandoning Ukraine would really mean, and stressing that the deep state is telling lawmakers the truth about it, Johnson has for the time being taken a stance against one of MAGA’s most cherished—and most toxic—propaganda tropes. No wonder Greene is beside herself with rage.
I would rather that happen and deal with it down the line but for now spend our money here and now in America. Biden and his ilk are for now and the foreseeable future much more of a threat to the United States than Putin is. And i find Putin more believable then I find our current government officials on just about any topic.
Let me amend that...not our yard, not our problem.
We have neither a democracy, as the Democrats love to say,
OR
a republic, as the Republicans like to say.
We have a CORRUPTOCRACY.
This is a Clinton-Obama-Biden war nothing more nothing less.
Any Republican supporting the Ukraine War tells me whose side they are ultimately on no matter how much they kiss up to Donald J. Trump or how much President Trump puts in a nice word for them.
Johnson is just another Deep State RINO who pretended to be a Conservative.
There are many Fake Conservatives in Congress.
He is just another one who exposed himself.
So true. snakes regardless of party with a few exceptions. Pubbies can’t unite as Dems do who stand behind anything that benefits them and hell with people and consequences
Johnson, you are an idiot and as gullible as they come.
Russia's had a part of Ukraine since 2014. A peace treaty could have ended it.
Why worry about Russia conquering the EU, now, when the EU doesn't think there is any problem? If they did, they would have massively built their militaries. They didn't.
Definitely been added to the pay out list from our tax money. How does a so-called strong Christian man go along with the bribes? It’s the only logical explanation for all the illogical decisions that the crooks running our country make for the rest of us. $$$$$
Definitely been added to the pay out list from our tax money. How does a so-called strong Christian man go along with the bribes? It’s the only logical explanation for all the illogical decisions that the crooks running our country make for the rest of us. $$$$$
Some Republicans are emboldened by Johnson attacking conservatives.
I just heard Newt Gingrich on the radio and he said there is no limit to the spending on Ukraine. “Whatever it takes,” when asked about how much we can afford to put into Ukraine. He said there should be no limits.
You see some finally willing to admit public money is meaningless, and endless to them.
I can tell you Hannity and Fox are 100% behind Johnson’s new Uniparty rule.
When they're touting the Tater's Ukraine Project, you know something smells.
How ludicrous is this.......?
Zelensky keeps telling us they’re on the verge of winning if only we’d give ‘em several more billions.
Zelensky brags they’re really doing a job on bad ol’ Putin..... impoverishing him, while “shooting down every Russian thing in sight”..........
Which is it fellas?
I am of the opinion that many on both sides, do not understand what is at stake in Ukraine. It is a war between central banking systems. Russia is a member of BRICs and does not want us the US Federal Reserve system.
Ukraine is merely the focal point.
The Call said it best:
I don’t think there are any Russians
And there ain’t no Yanks
Just corporate criminals
Playing with tanks
“I really do believe the intel and the briefings that we’ve gotten,” Johnson said
This tool is a like a 16 year old girl running around bragging she has a secret.
They seem to not be able to muster the necessary soldiers.
I don’t want the Federal Reserve either. I must be a Putin supporter.
Number one and two can get bent because number three is the only one that matters.
One more time;
America is being invaded and stopping it is not a priority for the Uniparty.
They’re helping to make it happen.
American? Out of work?
Starving? Going bankrupt?
They don’t care.
See ya at the bill signing.
Putin has been at war with Ukraine for a couple of YEARS now.. and can’t seem to win..
What makes anyone believe that he would or could “march thru Europ”???
There no freaking way. He wanted NATO off his back and the usual old “..used to be OURS..” - territory dispute.. that’s all.
We need to quit playing “re-live World War II” games.
We are NOT saving the world from Hitler..
The only interests the USA has in the Ukraine are: Politicians’ personal financial interests there. THATS it.. and THAT is why they are so strong about our “support” there.
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