“The Republican Party of Reagan would be Ukraine’s strongest supporters”
I proudly voted for Reagan 4 times (primaries and general in ‘80 and ‘84), and while people like me would have supported fighting the Soviet Union in every possible way...the Soviet Union has ceased to exist. That’s not to say that Russia hasn’t and isn’t doing bad things - of course they are - but understanding the degree and nature of the threat is a thing.
Back then, you had a seemingly all-powerful and highly aggressive USSR trying to undermine and ultimately take over the West. Now Russia, the core of the USSR on every level, is bereft of not just its client states, but also of many of the former Soviet “republics.” Russia has an economy the size of New York State’s, it has a rapidly declining population, and it is incredibly vulnerable to foreign enemies. It is, basically, a Turd World country...except for those thousands of nukes.
The idea of seriously risking a nuclear exchange with the USSR was anathema to Reagan - and it is he (with Bill Casey) who engineered the bloodless fall of the evil Communist regime that ran/owned Russia for 75 years. Now there is even less reason to risk such a civilization-ending conflict - Russia simply wants to return to the physical security that it had 30 or so years ago, at a time when they know that they will never be able to field a truly large army again to defend themselves. Their incredible weakness in military technology and in the effective use of whatever manpower and equipment that they have, is a source of great insecurity for them, and us sending tens of billions in equipment plus supplying training and intelligence to Ukraine only makes that worse. You really, REALLY do NOT want a nuclear superpower to be insecure - that’s a recipe for having things turn out anything but well, and I am 100% confident that Reagan would be opposed to what Biden and the War Party (both Dems and Pubbies) are doing. He’d be negotiating a deal that would leave Russia very secure...within a box that they couldn’t leave. They are no threat to us, only to their neighbors because of insecurities that we have purposely exacerbated.
“”The idea of seriously risking a nuclear exchange with the USSR was anathema to Reagan””
That sure isn’t my memory, Reagan was pushing Russia to the wall on nukes, it is why the 1980s were all about nuclear war and survival with all kinds of publications created to fill the public’s need for knowledge and ways to survive it, and the movie theaters full of the films and TV documentaries and specials.
Europe was in flames with terrorists, bombings, and kidnappings Putin funding the massive demonstrations against Reagan and his nuclear aggression, the mid-range missiles and the military build-up, and massive Reforger exercises
Under Reagan, Americans were prepared to fight.