‘We in the Congress have been urging the president, I’ve been, to provide arms to Ukraine. They want to fight their good fight. They’re not asking us to fight it for them,’said a member of Congress after the 2014 invasion of Russia into Ukraine’s territory of Crimea. The same congressman accused Russia of “violating Ukrainian sovereignty.” Contrast that with a Republican governor who recently said that [the U.S.]should not “become further entangled” in the Russia-Ukraine war. The debate in some circles of American politics has led to a left versus far-right conflict. The problem with this particular debate is the confusing concentric circles are in the head of the same man, Republican Governor and likely presidential candidate Ron DeSantis—pick a side.
In 2014 the GOP lost their collective shizzle calling former President Obama weak and incompetent. In a 2015 interview with Bill Bennet, DeSantis, then a member of Congress, saidto the conservative radio host, “the president has steadfastly refused[to arm Ukraine]. And I think that that’s a mistake.” The outrage from conservatives was because they felt Obama could have and should have stopped Russia’s violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty. Now the right wing, including DeSantis, is accusing President Biden of aiding Ukraine’s aggression and involving the U.S. in a territorial fight. Poor Vlad is just exercising his country’s right to invade a sovereign nation—please pick a side.
The traditional Republican party has lost its grip
Some members of the law and order party have called the FBI radical, the Department of Justice the deep state, and during an insurrection, maligned and beat police officers. Donald Trump, the current leading candidate for the Republican nomination for President, wrote four months ago, ‘it’s now time for the FBI and Justice Department “thugs” to be “dealt with.”’ DeSantis has alternately idolized, condemned, and is now bedeviling the former President to benefit his own ends. When courting Trump’s endorsement in his run for Florida governor, DeSantis dressed his baby daughter in a Trump onesie while reading from the book of Trump and helping her construct a toy wall. Now he says of Trump when asked about the increased attacks on him from the former President, “And the good thing is, is that the people are able to render a judgment on that, whether they reelect you or not,” taking a transparent shot at Trump’s reelection loss. He is kowtowing to groups determined to turn back the clock on education history and race. All while cloaking his IVY League training while feigning his man of the people persona. DeSantis is the worst brown-nosing hypocrite—for Pete’s sake, pick a side.
The Republican party wants not to be known as the caucus of liars and book-banning misogynists but is failing miserably. Their tactic of waiting it out is being challenged. When the party embraced the TEA Party with thoughts of harnessing it for power, they thought if they waited long enough, the hate and lying would disappear, but it led to Donald Trump, Lauren Boebert, and George Santos. What did they think would happen when TEA partiers showed up at protests with signs depicting the first black president sporting a bone through his nose? The famous Growth & Opportunity Project, or the Republican autopsy following the failed 2012 Mitt Romney presidential campaign, called for reaching out to everyone. The Republican party has now closed itself off to diversity—with DeSantis calling Florida the state “where ‘woke’ goes to die.”’ At least we know where they stand because the Republican party—has definitively picked a side.
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