Apr 12, 2022·edited Apr 12, 2022Liked by Noah Smith
Yeah, being even more hawkish against Putin probably is the best electoral strategy for the Dems.
Problems I see are that:
1. I don't trust Dems to act smartly in election strategy. They seem to care more about winning faculty lounge debates than votes (still majority working class), sadly enough.
2. A portion of the GOP are Putin bootlickers, but they also have an extremely hawkish wing (Rubio, Graham, etc.) and the GOP has owned that brand for several decades now so stealing that away would be tough.
3. The autocrat-loving (America-hating/head-in-the-sands) Left may be tiny electorally but have an outsized voice and it would be easy for the GOP to tie all Dems to the Lefty fringe. Dems _should_ tie the GOP to Putin in return, but again, that requires Dems to actually be good at this electioneering thing. And even then, they may struggle as much as Macron vs. LePen.
I actually don't agree with #1. I think that the core message is often too economic and *not* a faculty-lounge thing. For example, when Dems come into power, do they try to have a policy debate? Not typically. They go for "bread & butter" economic policies like the child tax credit, etc. But the reason lots of people "vote against their economic interests" is that they're...pretty comfortable economically, all things considered. So, they don't *need* those dollars that badly. Their cultural values hold a higher valence in their brains.
Your takes on the pro-autocrat stuff are pretty spot on, though I have a hard time seeing too many GOPers making the case that the Dems are the pro-autocracy bunch. That's gonna fall flat.
In the end, I have a rather pessimistic view of American voters. I think the high-information voters understand each party's messages just fine. The low-information voters basically look at gas prices, ask themselves if they're pissed about the pandemic at this point in time, then make up their minds. Why else did people just sort of get pissed in late 2021? Nothing else really happened except the Delta surge.
I also think Dems electioneer just fine as compared to the GOP. It's just that the Dem voting bloc's ears don't perk up at stupid - often false - cultural cues like teaching about homosexuality and CRT. So, sure, if we had a voting bloc that literally thinks that school teachers are "grooming" kids, that's a pretty gullible bunch and you can tell them whatever you'd like. But we don't.
Our politicians fight just fine. I'm rather tired of this trope, TBH. It's just that the GOP voting bloc is, sadly, just easier to pull along with stuff that enrages them.
But a large portion of the voting population is gullible/stupid, so pretending that they aren't doesn't help you win elections. You have to win elections with the voter population that you have, not the voter population that you want. And presenting logical economic arguments in a bloodless manner _is_ trying to win a faculty lounge debate. Democrats are far worse at making emotional appeals (with economics or anything) than Republicans, so no, I don't think they fight just fine.
For example, when Biden said Putin must go, his administration tried to walk that back for no good reason. It's not like it would change Putin's behavior. Putin _already_ thinks the US is trying to remove him in a coup! So when asked about it, his administration shouldn't have walked back his statement and Biden should have said "We don't back down from evil (also, there are some Republicans that side with Evil)". That's how you win elections. Not the mealy-mouthed stuff Dems usually trot out.
Biden walked that back because the harm could outweigh the good, especially with our allies. They probably signed up to help Ukraine fight Russia, not for an explicit strategy of Russian regime change.
I'm sorry, but I just don't agree with you on Dems. The whole "We don't back down!" thing doesn't resonate nearly as much with Dem voters as GOP voters. Dems don't respond to chest-pounding stuff.
I've seen - just in the last week - plenty of Democratic politicians forcefully doing/saying plenty of stuff. Just in the last two weeks, Biden has said Putin is a war criminal and is committing genocide. He didn't walk back either of those, even when pressed to do so. We have 1/6 committee members openly calling out GOP crimes on TV. Tim Ryan, Jamie Raskin, and others calling out GOP members for their weird-ass/dangerous crap on the House floor. Specifically *because* I hear this from people online over and over again, I watch for it. They do it. Left-wing media echoes it. It doesn't sink in.
Why not? First, I don't think it benefits them as much as they think. Dems aren't a chest-pounding bunch, for the most part. Second, people on the left wing of the Democratic party don't give them credit for it. For example, you just picked the *one* talking point that Biden walked back instead of the others he didn't. My theory about why this is the case is that "they don't fight!" is really just a stalking-horse talking point for "they won't bring up Medicare-for-All for a vote!" or "they told me my student-loan debt would be erased" (they didn't say that, but whatever). I've seen it over and over online. Left-wing voters aren't mad that Dems aren't selling their existing policies/politics harder. It's that they're...the wrong politicians. It's "Bernie woulda won" but given a different context.
Those voters would or wouldn't vote for Biden anyway. Not all voters are solidly in 2 camps. National elections are still won on the (small) margins in the middle.
And I still don't see the material harms of Biden saying Putin can't stay in power in Russia. Feels doesn't count as a material harms.
I'm 31 years old now. We've been at war, in essence, for 20 of them. There seems to be a constant drumbeat warning of us of another enemy just around the corner - Al Qaeda, The Taliban, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, China, Russia, etc. - while little has been done at home. It's not to say what's going on abroad isn't terrible, just that I think most people, especially the young, are pretty tired of the war beat and are looking for something different.
That's fair, and one of the awful consequences of the War on Terror. The reality is that religious fanatics wearing pajamas with RPGs and bad dictators of small countries simply never did and couldn't ever pose an existential threat to the US. The New Axis definitely can, however.
Gotcha. Yeah, it seems like that’s always been the case and will always be the case. From the perspective of Russia and China, who I assume you have in mind, the US seeks regime change and to destroy their economy. Not defending it, but the enemies logics seems somewhat self-fulfilling.
There's a lot to be said for realists! (just not ones out of touch with reality like Mearsheimer) Such as "states have good reason to not trust other states". But smart states understand their strengths and weaknesses as well. I'm sure Iran's leadership believes the US is trying to overthrow them, but they've been smart enough so far to not directly invade other countries.
Sorry, I think I've gotten a bit off-track. My original point at the beginning of this thread was in response to the idea that Biden should run on the war in Ukraine. He won't get much enthusiasm from me if he pursues that tact, a sentiment I assume is similar to many in my cohort (under 40s). Cynically, I think most people in my cohort see war as bipartisan cause - they always pass the defense budget - so I can't imagine Biden effectively using it as differentiator at the ballot box.
Further down, my later comment wanted you define existential because I don't actually believe the war is necessarily existential. If it were existential, I think it would rouse the public to the voting booth, but the impacts have been much more at the margin.
Maybe I'm off-base here, though. You obviously think it's pretty impactful; maybe it'll push voters to the polls after all, maybe it's different than the other conflicts and power struggles we've seen in recent years. It just makes me sad that conflict and hate are the preferred political strategies.
People do disapprove of Russia's behavior, but if you think that will be a voting issue that can save Dems you are in for a very long night on November 8. First, most people's views of this conflict are, at least in my experience, pretty nuanced. They are appalled by Russia's invasion and behavior in Ukraine. At the same time, the indifference to nuclear risk that you see among the most ardent "I stand with Ukraine crowd" on Twitter is pretty much confined to them. I'd even guess that the hesitation about sanctions is not a fringe view. Second, the base case with Americans remains a general drift toward isolationism. Team America, World Police just doesn't sell right now. Third, this issue is too peripheral to the more immediate, everyday issues for which the Dems are almost without exception on the defensive: crime, inflation, immigration, schools, etc.
You live in a bubble. Perhaps in a faculty lounge. You think Americans actually care about Ukraine to tip an election? Democrats are casual voters only interested in free stuff made out of nothing. These are not the brightest people. This is an unbelievable opinion. Nothing is going to stop the massacre coming in November.
I'm sorry but your comment about GOP votes on NATO being "pro Putin" is just another leftist trope trying to smear certain member of the party as pro-authoritarian and a continued attempt to continue the Trump/Russian collusion narrative. Not being in support of NATO, does NOT equate to being "PRO-Putin". Such black and white thinking is exactly the problem in this country right now and you should be ashamed for perpetuating it.
Respectfully have to disagree, at this moment in history, "not being in support of Nato" can only be understood as "Pro-Putin"! The GOP was always the pro-democracy party until Donald Trump's perverse attraction to authoritarian strongmen turned that on it's head. Hopefully that regrettable trend has shifted. Still, 63 House GOP members voted against a non-binding resolution supporting NATO “as an alliance founded on democratic principles.” The Trump anti-anti Putin right are the ones who should be ashamed. If ever things were "black and white" it is now!
I think your analysis is falling prey to a False Choice fallacy. There are more than two options regarding NATO and Putin. You can disapprove of Putin’s actions as well as disapprove of NATO.
You have to make the case to the American electorate that NATO is better than the alternative. Simply saying that if you don’t support NATO you are pro-Putin is not true. If NATO disappeared it would advantage Putin in some ways but perhaps less so than imagined. A collapse of NATO would likely lead to a general arms race all across Europe. This is the unpalatable alternative to not having NATO.
Richard, in the short term yes. Beyond that I foresee Europe returning to the state of an armed-to-the-teeth continent which is worse for Putin (and for us) because it would be less stable and more deadly.
I personally think NATO is good for America and we should stay engaged and keep investing in it. But that doesn’t mean there are not good arguments against doing so. These arguments must be engaged on their merits. Here are two:
(1) The ‘Tucker Carlson’ critique which has a lot of visceral force: “Why should I send my son to fight and die for Montenegro?” You have to sell that to the US public.
(2) Discounting US military abilities, it is still the most secure state in NATO (possibly Canada is more so). America is just not naturally oriented towards Eurasia’s problems. Most of America’s wars in recent decades have been waged at relatively low cost to the US writ large. How do you convince the public that even further engagement and sacrifice is needed? Where is the compelling national interest? I think it exists but you cannot simply say that we need to disadvantage Putin.
Well, the US armed forces are an all-volunteer force now, so I'd ask Tucker: "Did your son really sign up? Because he did so with eyes wide open that he could be called upon to honor American security commitments to allies."
Very interesting twist on "if you're not with us you're against us". I also love the part claiming that it is Trump and Trump alone that had an attraction to authoritarian strongmen. It's almost as if you haven't studied any history of US foreign policy over the last 80 years. The US has never cared about democracy and "strongmen" so long as they stood against the whatever the US needed them to.
Yes, it was “just that one time 80 years ago” but it really has been all sunshine and rainbows since then. “He’s really not violent at all it was just the one time!”
You may want to check, I think you might be wrong on the lynching thing. I’m told it was so acceptable that we needed an actual law passed recently (because hanging someone wasn’t already illegal).
Naïveté doesn’t even begin to describe your foreign affairs perspectives.
Very good on you for writing this Noah! I wasn't too impressed with your parachute-in take on the Ukraine economy, but this piece is really right on.
The advantage for Ds is that they can run against Trump, whose record of admiration and submissiveness to Putin is clear and painful to watch. Trump absolutely adored Putin and you can see that in his eyes in every joint public appearance. Trump still loves Russia - especially Moscow's ubiquitous hookers and the way rich men can literally buy and get away with anything. Trump was making an exaggerated boast when he said, "when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything." In Russia he saw that men like him really could. There are also no small number of pro-Putin far-right members of Congress who can be targeted.
The difficulty for Ds is that they have long been the anti-war party, going back to the McGovern movement which over time became the party's mainstream and took power under Obama. Just before Obama came to power Bush had already folded to Putin's invasion of Georgia, exhausted as Bush was by his misunderestimations in Iraq and the subprime crisis. But Obama's appeasements of Putin were even worse than Chamberlain's appeasements of Hitler. First calling for a "reset" with language that vaguely suggested Bush was partly to blame for the Russian invasion of Georgia. Then interpreting the Budapest Memorandum so minimally he turned it into a modern version of the "white man's trick" treaties the US used to sign with Native Americans and then interpret down to nothing. And then the double-fiasco in Syria - declaring the chemical weapons red line then ignoring it, and arming rebels then abandoning them to massacre when Russia got involved. I'm sure most Ds even now don't want to hear it, but Obama's presidency will be remembered for three things: that he was the first African American to be president, that he passed practically universal health insurance, and that he betrayed Ukraine and Syria and catastrophically emboldened Putin.
Only with today's announcement of additional weapons supplies to Ukraine, including much-needed artillery, do I think Biden is starting to understand what you're arguing here. He has been cautious, apparently assuming that Americans would care more about avoiding any risk of confrontation with Russia than they would about anything else. I'd like to believe Biden's conscience has been showing through as he first declared that Putin must go, and now as he acknowledges that Russia is committing genocide. (And I'd like to swiftly kick those criticizing him for that between the legs.) I hope it is also a political calculation - yes that's a good thing here - that Ds will do much better this fall with their middle fingers firmly out at Putin than letting Ukraine lose for lack of weaponry and shamefully emboldening Putin further.
I remember thinking this the day Putin invaded the Ukraine. "run on the war" exactly. And flood the media with videos of Trump cosying up to Putin. It's obvious that these two "leaders" think alike. Trump idolizes Putin for being the mob boss who takes a cut from all the corruption going on in Russia. He calls Putin's invasion "genius". Have you ever noticed, in all the time up to this invasion the former President has never criticized Putin for anything, he has even brushed off the fact that he has been murdering his opponents for years? The democrats just need to highlight all that Biden is doing to support the Ukraine, and show a relentless line of videos recording Trump and Putin's bromance. The voters will do the rest.
“ It is no secret that we are in a battle between democracy and authoritarianism in America and around the world. ” HCR.
The Dems need to hammer on the message that Dems=democracy and Republicans = authoritarianism. Russian occupied Ukraine is what the US would be under Trump.
My main concern is that running and winning on the war may irreversibly polarize the GOP into the pro-Putin position. I’m not saying that it wouldn’t work or be worth it, but there’s definitely a downside risk involved.
More in to the isolationist position. But when the GOP were isolationists, FDR consistently won against them (yes, granted, for many other reasons as well).
I think the specifics of the Ukraine crisis are actually pretty serendipitously predisposed to help the Democrats exploit the American public's historical dichotomy on isolationism here, though.
To wit, that dichotomy is basically that Americans really hate "foreign entanglements", but they love a good righteous war. (In grand historical context, that's not all that unusual, but it's particularly pronounced in America.) We hate fighting other people's wars, but we love thinking of ourselves as the most noble nation in the world, standing up for justice and all that jazz.
The Ukraine crisis fits this perfectly. MAD ensures we basically *can't* actually fire a shot in anger ourselves, so the isolationists don't see it as the same sort of threat they did getting involved in the world wars. The Ukrainians are REALLY eager and REALLY capable of fighting the war themselves -- they're arming fucking GRANDMAS, basically living up to the never-tested American fantasy of ourselves as a nation with "a rifle [ed:babushka!] behind every blade of grass" -- so not only does it intensely flatter our (Americans') sensibilities, but it means that the policies which would pay off politically to support the war are all going to be more effective on the actual battlefield. IOW, because we see ourselves in them, and because they're fighting the war for us, all we have to do is ship them buttloads of weapons, which is pretty cheap and easy to get through Congress, and therefore the political payoff for Democrats is pretty straightforward.
I mean, short of another 9/11, you could hardly ask for a conflict better-suited to benefiting the Democrats, IF they chose to actually run on it.
While it's unfortunate to have to note this, but we get to "enjoy" the incredible bravery of the Ukrainian people fighting the good fight against absolute evil, while vicariously participating in their efforts at virtually no risk to ourselves. That's kind of the sweet spot for the American people.
It amazes me that events in Ukraine lead the headlines in our news closing in on two months since the war's beginning. That reflects incredibly sustained attention on our part.
Yeah, I don't see D's avoiding a slaughter in the midterms. No matter the strategy. The environment is exceptionally bad in a time when partisanship should be holding things more or less even between the parties.
I agree with this, but positioning for 2024 is important too. Dems will almost certainly not control the Senate after 2024 so simply can't afford to have Trump elected President in 2024.
Democratic Politicians shoot themselves in the foot. I'll be blunt: they need to forget about trying to ban guns if they want to win. Trump soured many people with his idea of 'take their gun then due process', this is something the Dem's should have capitalized on but didn't. There are many people who cannot vote D because of this issue no matter how much they can't stand Trumps ilk.
Most of the gun control legislation makes no sense. In every other case experts are brought it so they can at least act like they know what they are talking about. Couple that with the buffoonery that gets spouted and the ATF pulling random and conflicting ideas out of their rectum as well not enforcing the laws on the books and it results in the D's loosing when they have every advantage.
And yes, I am aware their are more issues, but this is one where are know several people who cannot justify voting D.
I have been shadowing this blog for some time due to the general excellent quality of its articles. This is the worst article in your entire blog. Therefore I subscribed this blog so that I can write this comment.
The comparison against 2002 midterms makes completely no sense. Remember that Bush 43 had his approval rating at 88% after 9/11, while Biden's rating did not change after Putin's invasion of Ukraine and remains at the lower 40s.
Remember, the average American cannot find where Ukraine is on a map...
Finally, the leftist culture is fundamentally incompatible with national defense. Tankieism is just too ingrained in the Democratic ideology. Before Jan. 6, the Democratic Party basically stood for "America is never great", with the legitimacy of the US constitution itself being questioned as a racist legacy of slavery. In this sense, Jan. 6 practically saved America by forcing the Democrats to rally around the US constitution and patriotism.
Ah yes it was “just that one time” 80 years ago. The US’s foreign adventurism is prolific and if you believe that we are nothing but light and goodness when it comes to the international stage you are naive.
Yeah, being even more hawkish against Putin probably is the best electoral strategy for the Dems.
Problems I see are that:
1. I don't trust Dems to act smartly in election strategy. They seem to care more about winning faculty lounge debates than votes (still majority working class), sadly enough.
2. A portion of the GOP are Putin bootlickers, but they also have an extremely hawkish wing (Rubio, Graham, etc.) and the GOP has owned that brand for several decades now so stealing that away would be tough.
3. The autocrat-loving (America-hating/head-in-the-sands) Left may be tiny electorally but have an outsized voice and it would be easy for the GOP to tie all Dems to the Lefty fringe. Dems _should_ tie the GOP to Putin in return, but again, that requires Dems to actually be good at this electioneering thing. And even then, they may struggle as much as Macron vs. LePen.
I actually don't agree with #1. I think that the core message is often too economic and *not* a faculty-lounge thing. For example, when Dems come into power, do they try to have a policy debate? Not typically. They go for "bread & butter" economic policies like the child tax credit, etc. But the reason lots of people "vote against their economic interests" is that they're...pretty comfortable economically, all things considered. So, they don't *need* those dollars that badly. Their cultural values hold a higher valence in their brains.
Your takes on the pro-autocrat stuff are pretty spot on, though I have a hard time seeing too many GOPers making the case that the Dems are the pro-autocracy bunch. That's gonna fall flat.
In the end, I have a rather pessimistic view of American voters. I think the high-information voters understand each party's messages just fine. The low-information voters basically look at gas prices, ask themselves if they're pissed about the pandemic at this point in time, then make up their minds. Why else did people just sort of get pissed in late 2021? Nothing else really happened except the Delta surge.
I also think Dems electioneer just fine as compared to the GOP. It's just that the Dem voting bloc's ears don't perk up at stupid - often false - cultural cues like teaching about homosexuality and CRT. So, sure, if we had a voting bloc that literally thinks that school teachers are "grooming" kids, that's a pretty gullible bunch and you can tell them whatever you'd like. But we don't.
Our politicians fight just fine. I'm rather tired of this trope, TBH. It's just that the GOP voting bloc is, sadly, just easier to pull along with stuff that enrages them.
But a large portion of the voting population is gullible/stupid, so pretending that they aren't doesn't help you win elections. You have to win elections with the voter population that you have, not the voter population that you want. And presenting logical economic arguments in a bloodless manner _is_ trying to win a faculty lounge debate. Democrats are far worse at making emotional appeals (with economics or anything) than Republicans, so no, I don't think they fight just fine.
For example, when Biden said Putin must go, his administration tried to walk that back for no good reason. It's not like it would change Putin's behavior. Putin _already_ thinks the US is trying to remove him in a coup! So when asked about it, his administration shouldn't have walked back his statement and Biden should have said "We don't back down from evil (also, there are some Republicans that side with Evil)". That's how you win elections. Not the mealy-mouthed stuff Dems usually trot out.
Biden walked that back because the harm could outweigh the good, especially with our allies. They probably signed up to help Ukraine fight Russia, not for an explicit strategy of Russian regime change.
I'm sorry, but I just don't agree with you on Dems. The whole "We don't back down!" thing doesn't resonate nearly as much with Dem voters as GOP voters. Dems don't respond to chest-pounding stuff.
I've seen - just in the last week - plenty of Democratic politicians forcefully doing/saying plenty of stuff. Just in the last two weeks, Biden has said Putin is a war criminal and is committing genocide. He didn't walk back either of those, even when pressed to do so. We have 1/6 committee members openly calling out GOP crimes on TV. Tim Ryan, Jamie Raskin, and others calling out GOP members for their weird-ass/dangerous crap on the House floor. Specifically *because* I hear this from people online over and over again, I watch for it. They do it. Left-wing media echoes it. It doesn't sink in.
Why not? First, I don't think it benefits them as much as they think. Dems aren't a chest-pounding bunch, for the most part. Second, people on the left wing of the Democratic party don't give them credit for it. For example, you just picked the *one* talking point that Biden walked back instead of the others he didn't. My theory about why this is the case is that "they don't fight!" is really just a stalking-horse talking point for "they won't bring up Medicare-for-All for a vote!" or "they told me my student-loan debt would be erased" (they didn't say that, but whatever). I've seen it over and over online. Left-wing voters aren't mad that Dems aren't selling their existing policies/politics harder. It's that they're...the wrong politicians. It's "Bernie woulda won" but given a different context.
And therein lies the rub.
Those voters would or wouldn't vote for Biden anyway. Not all voters are solidly in 2 camps. National elections are still won on the (small) margins in the middle.
And I still don't see the material harms of Biden saying Putin can't stay in power in Russia. Feels doesn't count as a material harms.
I'm 31 years old now. We've been at war, in essence, for 20 of them. There seems to be a constant drumbeat warning of us of another enemy just around the corner - Al Qaeda, The Taliban, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, China, Russia, etc. - while little has been done at home. It's not to say what's going on abroad isn't terrible, just that I think most people, especially the young, are pretty tired of the war beat and are looking for something different.
That's fair, and one of the awful consequences of the War on Terror. The reality is that religious fanatics wearing pajamas with RPGs and bad dictators of small countries simply never did and couldn't ever pose an existential threat to the US. The New Axis definitely can, however.
Would you mind expanding on what "existential" means?
Destroy the US. Actually, even cause a decline in the well-being of the US. So I may have gone overboard with "existential".
Gotcha. Yeah, it seems like that’s always been the case and will always be the case. From the perspective of Russia and China, who I assume you have in mind, the US seeks regime change and to destroy their economy. Not defending it, but the enemies logics seems somewhat self-fulfilling.
There's a lot to be said for realists! (just not ones out of touch with reality like Mearsheimer) Such as "states have good reason to not trust other states". But smart states understand their strengths and weaknesses as well. I'm sure Iran's leadership believes the US is trying to overthrow them, but they've been smart enough so far to not directly invade other countries.
Sorry, I think I've gotten a bit off-track. My original point at the beginning of this thread was in response to the idea that Biden should run on the war in Ukraine. He won't get much enthusiasm from me if he pursues that tact, a sentiment I assume is similar to many in my cohort (under 40s). Cynically, I think most people in my cohort see war as bipartisan cause - they always pass the defense budget - so I can't imagine Biden effectively using it as differentiator at the ballot box.
Further down, my later comment wanted you define existential because I don't actually believe the war is necessarily existential. If it were existential, I think it would rouse the public to the voting booth, but the impacts have been much more at the margin.
Maybe I'm off-base here, though. You obviously think it's pretty impactful; maybe it'll push voters to the polls after all, maybe it's different than the other conflicts and power struggles we've seen in recent years. It just makes me sad that conflict and hate are the preferred political strategies.
People do disapprove of Russia's behavior, but if you think that will be a voting issue that can save Dems you are in for a very long night on November 8. First, most people's views of this conflict are, at least in my experience, pretty nuanced. They are appalled by Russia's invasion and behavior in Ukraine. At the same time, the indifference to nuclear risk that you see among the most ardent "I stand with Ukraine crowd" on Twitter is pretty much confined to them. I'd even guess that the hesitation about sanctions is not a fringe view. Second, the base case with Americans remains a general drift toward isolationism. Team America, World Police just doesn't sell right now. Third, this issue is too peripheral to the more immediate, everyday issues for which the Dems are almost without exception on the defensive: crime, inflation, immigration, schools, etc.
You live in a bubble. Perhaps in a faculty lounge. You think Americans actually care about Ukraine to tip an election? Democrats are casual voters only interested in free stuff made out of nothing. These are not the brightest people. This is an unbelievable opinion. Nothing is going to stop the massacre coming in November.
I'm sorry but your comment about GOP votes on NATO being "pro Putin" is just another leftist trope trying to smear certain member of the party as pro-authoritarian and a continued attempt to continue the Trump/Russian collusion narrative. Not being in support of NATO, does NOT equate to being "PRO-Putin". Such black and white thinking is exactly the problem in this country right now and you should be ashamed for perpetuating it.
Respectfully have to disagree, at this moment in history, "not being in support of Nato" can only be understood as "Pro-Putin"! The GOP was always the pro-democracy party until Donald Trump's perverse attraction to authoritarian strongmen turned that on it's head. Hopefully that regrettable trend has shifted. Still, 63 House GOP members voted against a non-binding resolution supporting NATO “as an alliance founded on democratic principles.” The Trump anti-anti Putin right are the ones who should be ashamed. If ever things were "black and white" it is now!
Steve,
I think your analysis is falling prey to a False Choice fallacy. There are more than two options regarding NATO and Putin. You can disapprove of Putin’s actions as well as disapprove of NATO.
You have to make the case to the American electorate that NATO is better than the alternative. Simply saying that if you don’t support NATO you are pro-Putin is not true. If NATO disappeared it would advantage Putin in some ways but perhaps less so than imagined. A collapse of NATO would likely lead to a general arms race all across Europe. This is the unpalatable alternative to not having NATO.
It's frankly hard to see a scenario where a NATO collapse isn't an advantage to Putin.
Richard, in the short term yes. Beyond that I foresee Europe returning to the state of an armed-to-the-teeth continent which is worse for Putin (and for us) because it would be less stable and more deadly.
I personally think NATO is good for America and we should stay engaged and keep investing in it. But that doesn’t mean there are not good arguments against doing so. These arguments must be engaged on their merits. Here are two:
(1) The ‘Tucker Carlson’ critique which has a lot of visceral force: “Why should I send my son to fight and die for Montenegro?” You have to sell that to the US public.
(2) Discounting US military abilities, it is still the most secure state in NATO (possibly Canada is more so). America is just not naturally oriented towards Eurasia’s problems. Most of America’s wars in recent decades have been waged at relatively low cost to the US writ large. How do you convince the public that even further engagement and sacrifice is needed? Where is the compelling national interest? I think it exists but you cannot simply say that we need to disadvantage Putin.
You need a positive vision for the future.
Well, the US armed forces are an all-volunteer force now, so I'd ask Tucker: "Did your son really sign up? Because he did so with eyes wide open that he could be called upon to honor American security commitments to allies."
Very interesting twist on "if you're not with us you're against us". I also love the part claiming that it is Trump and Trump alone that had an attraction to authoritarian strongmen. It's almost as if you haven't studied any history of US foreign policy over the last 80 years. The US has never cared about democracy and "strongmen" so long as they stood against the whatever the US needed them to.
The US of now isn't the US of 80 years ago, if you've noticed. There have been some changes. Lynching black people isn't acceptable now, for instance.
Yes, it was “just that one time 80 years ago” but it really has been all sunshine and rainbows since then. “He’s really not violent at all it was just the one time!”
You may want to check, I think you might be wrong on the lynching thing. I’m told it was so acceptable that we needed an actual law passed recently (because hanging someone wasn’t already illegal).
Naïveté doesn’t even begin to describe your foreign affairs perspectives.
Way to set up a strawman. You seem clueless about the current US if you don't know why an anti-lynching law recently passed.
Please, educate me.
It’s not a leftist thing. This is mainstream, and the left is also in some ways against nato.
I suspect that the Supreme Court's decision in the abortion cases may be about to throw a massive curve ball into this election.
Very good on you for writing this Noah! I wasn't too impressed with your parachute-in take on the Ukraine economy, but this piece is really right on.
The advantage for Ds is that they can run against Trump, whose record of admiration and submissiveness to Putin is clear and painful to watch. Trump absolutely adored Putin and you can see that in his eyes in every joint public appearance. Trump still loves Russia - especially Moscow's ubiquitous hookers and the way rich men can literally buy and get away with anything. Trump was making an exaggerated boast when he said, "when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything." In Russia he saw that men like him really could. There are also no small number of pro-Putin far-right members of Congress who can be targeted.
The difficulty for Ds is that they have long been the anti-war party, going back to the McGovern movement which over time became the party's mainstream and took power under Obama. Just before Obama came to power Bush had already folded to Putin's invasion of Georgia, exhausted as Bush was by his misunderestimations in Iraq and the subprime crisis. But Obama's appeasements of Putin were even worse than Chamberlain's appeasements of Hitler. First calling for a "reset" with language that vaguely suggested Bush was partly to blame for the Russian invasion of Georgia. Then interpreting the Budapest Memorandum so minimally he turned it into a modern version of the "white man's trick" treaties the US used to sign with Native Americans and then interpret down to nothing. And then the double-fiasco in Syria - declaring the chemical weapons red line then ignoring it, and arming rebels then abandoning them to massacre when Russia got involved. I'm sure most Ds even now don't want to hear it, but Obama's presidency will be remembered for three things: that he was the first African American to be president, that he passed practically universal health insurance, and that he betrayed Ukraine and Syria and catastrophically emboldened Putin.
Only with today's announcement of additional weapons supplies to Ukraine, including much-needed artillery, do I think Biden is starting to understand what you're arguing here. He has been cautious, apparently assuming that Americans would care more about avoiding any risk of confrontation with Russia than they would about anything else. I'd like to believe Biden's conscience has been showing through as he first declared that Putin must go, and now as he acknowledges that Russia is committing genocide. (And I'd like to swiftly kick those criticizing him for that between the legs.) I hope it is also a political calculation - yes that's a good thing here - that Ds will do much better this fall with their middle fingers firmly out at Putin than letting Ukraine lose for lack of weaponry and shamefully emboldening Putin further.
Biden is a Cold War Democrat, though. That's when he entered politics. Unfortunately for us, that generation is dying out, though.
And it's not him running this year, it's Congress.
I remember thinking this the day Putin invaded the Ukraine. "run on the war" exactly. And flood the media with videos of Trump cosying up to Putin. It's obvious that these two "leaders" think alike. Trump idolizes Putin for being the mob boss who takes a cut from all the corruption going on in Russia. He calls Putin's invasion "genius". Have you ever noticed, in all the time up to this invasion the former President has never criticized Putin for anything, he has even brushed off the fact that he has been murdering his opponents for years? The democrats just need to highlight all that Biden is doing to support the Ukraine, and show a relentless line of videos recording Trump and Putin's bromance. The voters will do the rest.
“ It is no secret that we are in a battle between democracy and authoritarianism in America and around the world. ” HCR.
The Dems need to hammer on the message that Dems=democracy and Republicans = authoritarianism. Russian occupied Ukraine is what the US would be under Trump.
My main concern is that running and winning on the war may irreversibly polarize the GOP into the pro-Putin position. I’m not saying that it wouldn’t work or be worth it, but there’s definitely a downside risk involved.
More in to the isolationist position. But when the GOP were isolationists, FDR consistently won against them (yes, granted, for many other reasons as well).
I think the specifics of the Ukraine crisis are actually pretty serendipitously predisposed to help the Democrats exploit the American public's historical dichotomy on isolationism here, though.
To wit, that dichotomy is basically that Americans really hate "foreign entanglements", but they love a good righteous war. (In grand historical context, that's not all that unusual, but it's particularly pronounced in America.) We hate fighting other people's wars, but we love thinking of ourselves as the most noble nation in the world, standing up for justice and all that jazz.
The Ukraine crisis fits this perfectly. MAD ensures we basically *can't* actually fire a shot in anger ourselves, so the isolationists don't see it as the same sort of threat they did getting involved in the world wars. The Ukrainians are REALLY eager and REALLY capable of fighting the war themselves -- they're arming fucking GRANDMAS, basically living up to the never-tested American fantasy of ourselves as a nation with "a rifle [ed:babushka!] behind every blade of grass" -- so not only does it intensely flatter our (Americans') sensibilities, but it means that the policies which would pay off politically to support the war are all going to be more effective on the actual battlefield. IOW, because we see ourselves in them, and because they're fighting the war for us, all we have to do is ship them buttloads of weapons, which is pretty cheap and easy to get through Congress, and therefore the political payoff for Democrats is pretty straightforward.
I mean, short of another 9/11, you could hardly ask for a conflict better-suited to benefiting the Democrats, IF they chose to actually run on it.
Well said.
While it's unfortunate to have to note this, but we get to "enjoy" the incredible bravery of the Ukrainian people fighting the good fight against absolute evil, while vicariously participating in their efforts at virtually no risk to ourselves. That's kind of the sweet spot for the American people.
It amazes me that events in Ukraine lead the headlines in our news closing in on two months since the war's beginning. That reflects incredibly sustained attention on our part.
Agreed
Sure, and why not promise to use American policy to continue the war indefinitely to punish Putin until every Ukrainian town and city is destroyed?
You're not following the Ukraine War too closely, it seems.
Putin apologist spotted
Yeah, I don't see D's avoiding a slaughter in the midterms. No matter the strategy. The environment is exceptionally bad in a time when partisanship should be holding things more or less even between the parties.
I agree with this, but positioning for 2024 is important too. Dems will almost certainly not control the Senate after 2024 so simply can't afford to have Trump elected President in 2024.
Democratic Politicians shoot themselves in the foot. I'll be blunt: they need to forget about trying to ban guns if they want to win. Trump soured many people with his idea of 'take their gun then due process', this is something the Dem's should have capitalized on but didn't. There are many people who cannot vote D because of this issue no matter how much they can't stand Trumps ilk.
Most of the gun control legislation makes no sense. In every other case experts are brought it so they can at least act like they know what they are talking about. Couple that with the buffoonery that gets spouted and the ATF pulling random and conflicting ideas out of their rectum as well not enforcing the laws on the books and it results in the D's loosing when they have every advantage.
And yes, I am aware their are more issues, but this is one where are know several people who cannot justify voting D.
In fairness, Noah is one of the people on the left who actually DOES make sense on guns
I have been shadowing this blog for some time due to the general excellent quality of its articles. This is the worst article in your entire blog. Therefore I subscribed this blog so that I can write this comment.
The comparison against 2002 midterms makes completely no sense. Remember that Bush 43 had his approval rating at 88% after 9/11, while Biden's rating did not change after Putin's invasion of Ukraine and remains at the lower 40s.
Remember, the average American cannot find where Ukraine is on a map...
Finally, the leftist culture is fundamentally incompatible with national defense. Tankieism is just too ingrained in the Democratic ideology. Before Jan. 6, the Democratic Party basically stood for "America is never great", with the legitimacy of the US constitution itself being questioned as a racist legacy of slavery. In this sense, Jan. 6 practically saved America by forcing the Democrats to rally around the US constitution and patriotism.
Do you offer a student discount for your newsletter?
Ah yes it was “just that one time” 80 years ago. The US’s foreign adventurism is prolific and if you believe that we are nothing but light and goodness when it comes to the international stage you are naive.