America, Are You Awake Yet?

For the past two weeks since Russian forces invaded Ukraine, I have found it very difficult if not impossible to focus on anything apart from the war and the human tragedy that is unfolding before our eyes. To put it into perspective, in a little over two months I will be getting married and there is a lot of planning yet to do, but somehow even that joyful event seems frivolous and selfish in light of the death and destruction being wrought a world away from us. I cannot help but wonder if my fellow citizens are paying as close attention to this war as I am, and if they recognize how easily it could become, not just war for the United States, but for the entire world.

I don’t know any Ukrainians, nor have I ever visited that country, nevertheless I find myself checking the news throughout the day and praying constantly that God will be with them and keep them safe from harm. The more I witness their acts of courage, the more I worry for them and grow to love them. It feels as though they were my own countrymen and, in a sense, they are. They are defending not just themselves but also the very same ideals that Americans have traditionally held as sacrosanct: freedom, democracy, and the right to self-determination. Their courage has reminded the entire world that, nearly eighty years after the end of World War II, these ideas are still worth dying for.

While I would not say that anyone expected this war to happen, no serious observer of Vladimir Putin is surprised by it. Madeleine Albright, John McCain, Joe Biden, and Hillary Clinton are just a few of the many who have warned in recent years that he is a fascist and should never be mistaken as a reliable partner for the West. That skepticism was unfortunately not shared by our former President, who often treated Russia as though it were a partner and ally on the level of France or the United Kingdom. If Trump had been elected to a second term, he undoubtedly would have gone on to withdraw the United States from NATO, and only God can say where the world would be today if that had happened.

Unfortunately Trump’s misguided man-crush seems to have permeated the GOP and in the weeks leading up to the war many top Republican influencers like Mike Pompeo, Tucker Carlson, and Laura Ingraham expressed unequivocal support for Russia. Carlson actually said, “I hope Russia wins.” He had to walk those comments back, sort of, but as recently as March 7 he was blaming Biden’s Administration and “permanent Washington” for pursuing a war against Russia. “The war is happening right now as we watch. Why is no one in Washington saying anything about this? Because they support it. They always have.” To be clear, the United States is not at war with Russia. Russia launched an unprovoked attack against the free, democratic nation of Ukraine and they have every right to defend themselves and their land, and NATO has every right to supply them with the weapons they need to have a fighting chance.

Unfortunately Carlson’s illiberal sentiments only reflect those of his audience, which numbers roughly 4.5 million people nightly (not sure though if those numbers include his Russian fans and those in the Kremlin). It remains shocking to me that Ronald Reagan’s GOP, the party of personal character and individual freedom, the party of my WWII veteran grandfather, has morphed into this authoritarian-leaning, Russia loving, far-right anomaly in American history. I can’t help but wonder whether Tucker Carlson and his compatriots at Fox and on the radio are merely unpatriotic or if something more sinister is at work, something approaching treason. Astute observers have posited in recent days the possibility that Pompeo and Carlson may be trying to court Putin’s interference in the 2024 election on their behalf. Whatever their stance signifies, it is without question that in the not-too-distant past comments like his were uniformly regarded as “giving aid and comfort to the enemy.” Today they are being broadcast in prime time on Russian state television and to every United States’ military base in the world. I hope this fact is as troubling to General Mark Milley as it is to me.

Notwithstanding the fascist leanings of today’s GOP, it is heartening to see that Americans across the political spectrum are uniting behind the Biden Administration’s support of Ukraine, and so many are asking what more we can do to help. In a Reuters poll conducted March 3 & 4, roughly 74% of Americans report support for imposing a no-fly zone in Ukraine to stop the bombing of urban areas and slaughter of innocent civilians, and 80% said we should stop buying Russian oil even if it means an increase in the price of gas. Dare we hope that this war has reminded Americans of who we once were, a beacon of freedom and democracy for the entire world and a nation willing to support those values no matter the personal cost? It’s too early to tell, but at least we are seeing signs that we might be coming together again as a nation.

Tucker Carlson may be right about one thing, and that is the proposition that we are already at war with Russia, perhaps not officially but for all other purposes. One only need look to the news reports of mysterious microwave gun attacks (also known as “Havana Syndrome”) on US diplomats and government employees all over the world, including four attacks against Olivia Troye right on the White House grounds. I’ll give you two guesses who is behind those. Some would argue China, but doesn’t it just scream “KGB” to you? It does to me. Not to mention the massive disinformation attacks against our election process in the last two Presidential elections and probably going back even further, and countless cyber attacks against our corporations and national infrastructure.

For these reasons, our military, government leaders, and NATO allies should be looking at the war in Ukraine as an obvious extension of Putin’s attacks on the United States and a proxy war against the West and its ideals. Russia would not have invaded Ukraine unless Putin perceived the United States as divided and unable to rally the NATO Alliance to respond in a timely and effective manner. Boy, was he wrong on that point. He also would not have done it if Donald Trump were still President but that’s not because he feared Trump’s reaction, as the GOP wishes you would believe. Putin would have had no need to invade Ukraine in fear that it would join NATO because Trump was hell-bent on destroying NATO for him.

What Republican voters failed to grasp in the days and weeks leading up to and immediately subsequent to Trump’s inauguration was this: whether or not Trump or his campaign knowingly colluded with Russia was irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. All that mattered to Putin was that Trump’s objectives were perfectly in line with his. If they ever deviated, Putin knew that he could persuade him to see things his way. Egomaniacal fascists think alike. They care absolutely nothing for the human cost of their decisions, all that matters is their personal interests and the gratification of their egos.

In that regard, Trump and Putin are essentially the same person, only Putin is far more intelligent. On January 6, 2021 we all watched as Trump sat idly on the sidelines for over 180 minutes as our government was attacked by a violent mob spurred on by his own words. How easily things might have gone differently and Mike Pence or Nancy Pelosi have been murdered that day. Now we are seeing Putin do nothing to stop the murder and displacement of countless men, women, and children. The difference in brutality is only a matter of scale; the lack of any sign of conscience is the same. Don’t forget that Trump was willing to withhold nearly half a billion dollars in military aid to Ukraine unless they manufacture evidence against his political rival. Nor should you allow yourself to forget that Trump’s campaign manager Paul Manafort was the same man who aided Putin’s puppet Yanukovych to win the Prime Minister’s office in Ukraine. Coincidence? If you believe that then I have a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn.

If anything good can come from this atrocity I hope it is that the American electorate will finally wake up and start paying real attention to what is going on in the world. This war is more than a battle over territory; it is a war of good versus evil. Judging by white supremacist GOP member Margery Taylor Greene’s fundraising success of late, I somehow doubt it. Putin is threatening the world that he will use nuclear weapons if anyone intervenes to help Ukraine, and all the experts say that we have to take him seriously. Anyone who votes for this Putin supporting Republican party needs to honestly ask themselves, whose side are you on in this life? Are you on the side of democracy and freedom, of a human being’s right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? Or are you on the side of totalitarianism, nuclear war, and another human holocaust the likes of which we haven’t seen since World War II?  Please, make no mistake about it. The stakes could not be higher than they are today. If you were not awake before, you need to wake up now. The world needs a united America, and to be united we need the Republican party to reclaim itself from this confederacy of dunces.