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I’m sorry, that’s not how a serious political party — or a serious country — behaves during a world crisis. It’s like saying to President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1941: We won’t support aid to Britain as it battles the Nazis unless Democrats repeal the Social Security Act or rewrite the labor laws.
Of course, most Republicans in those days were opposed to aiding Britain: A majority of Republicans in both houses voted against the Lend-Lease Act, enacted in early 1941, which allowed the U.S. government to provide critically needed war supplies to Britain and other nations deemed “vital to the defense of the United States” without demanding payment in cash. Thank goodness that in those days both houses were controlled by Democrats — and Senate rules did not require a 60-vote supermajority to get anything done.
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Most Republicans abandoned their isolationism after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. The GOP commitment to internationalism was renewed after 1945 because of postwar Soviet aggression and then, after the end of the Cold War, by the 9/11 terrorist attacks. But since the end of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, Republicans have been increasingly returning to their pre-Pearl Harbor roots.
The party’s leader, former president Donald Trump, has even embraced the “America First” slogan used by the original isolationists. And, just as so many of the 1930s isolationists, such as Charles Lindbergh, were sympathetic to Nazi Germany, Trump is sympathetic to Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Public opinion surveys have reflected a sharp drop-off in Republican support for Ukraine: In a Gallup poll published on Nov. 2, 62 percent of Republicans said the United States was doing too much to aid Ukraine, up from 50 percent in June.
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Yet I confess that, until last week, I had remained naively hopeful that Congress would still do the right thing. After all, strong majorities in both houses had supported Ukraine funding bills in the past. Moreover, the current aid request is a pittance in the context of a $6.1 trillion federal budget (0.98 percent, to be exact), and most of the funds would be spent in the United States to support our own defense industry.
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The new House speaker, Mike Johnson (R-La.), had initially voted for Ukraine aid before turning against it, but in recent weeks he sounded much more supportive of Ukraine, saying, “We can’t allow Vladimir Putin to march through Europe and we understand the necessity of assisting there.” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), whose father was a U.S. Army soldier in Europe during World War II, has been a staunch supporter of Ukraine. “Honestly, I think Ronald Reagan would turn over in his grave if he saw we were not going to help Ukraine,” he said last month.
Yet now both leaders have taken the position that — as Johnson wrote this week — “supplemental Ukraine funding is dependent upon enactment of transformative change to our nation’s border security laws.” Good luck with that. The last time Congress enacted a major, bipartisan immigration bill was in 1986, when Reagan was in the White House. Lawmakers from both parties have been laboring for decades to craft another major bill. A decade ago, the bipartisan “Gang of Eight” thought they were close, only to have the deal fall apart. So it’s hard to take Republicans at face value when they insist on making aid to Ukraine dependent on breaking through decades of legislative logjams on immigration.
Why are they linking the two? The excuse heard from Republicans is that they can’t in good conscience support funding to defend Ukraine’s borders when our own borders are so insecure. They think that by invoking the common word “borders” they can pretend that the United States and Ukraine are in analogous situations. That would be true only if the Mexican Army were invading the southwestern United States to annex Arizona, New Mexico and Texas while announcing plans to march on Washington and destroy the United States as a sovereign country.
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Needless to say, that hasn’t happened. What is happening is that millions of desperate immigrants are trying to enter the United States, legally and illegally, in pursuit of freedom and economic opportunity, just like the ancestors of most native-born Americans. The spike in undocumented immigration is a serious problem that needs to be addressed, but it can hardly be said to threaten the United States’ survival in the same way the Russian invasion threatens Ukraine’s.
By linking the two issues, Republicans are engaging in a bait-and-switch that gives them an excuse to do what their base wants — abandon Ukraine — while trying to blame Democrats for “jeopardizing security around the world,” as McConnell has charged.
As Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) told the New York Times: “You can’t say ‘I’m for Ukraine, but only if I get this wholly unrelated policy enacted.’ You can’t be for stopping Putin from taking over a country by force and then vote against providing Ukraine the resources to do just that.”
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It is still possible that Democrats and Republicans will reach agreement on Ukraine funding. But the odds of Ukraine aid being approved look dimmer today than at any point since the Russian invasion, even as the Office of Management and Budget warns that U.S. support for Kyiv is running out: “We are out of money — and nearly out of time.”
Ukrainians will fight on regardless, and they will look for help to Europe, which has already committed twice as much funding as the United States. But, even working together, Europe and the United States have struggled to keep up with Ukraine’s need for ammunition. There is no way that Europe alone can carry the whole load, especially not when Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban — MAGA Republicans’ favorite foreign leader — is trying to block a $55 billion European Union aid package for Ukraine.
The United States has abandoned allies, such as South Vietnam and Afghanistan, before. But this time the costs of support are much lower (no U.S. soldiers are engaged in combat in Ukraine), and the stakes are far higher. Ukraine is fighting the largest war that Europe has seen since 1945. If it loses, Vladimir Putin may be emboldened to attack other neighboring states, such as the Baltic republics and even Poland, which are members of NATO. Other despots may be emboldened to aggression of their own, beginning with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Taiwan. And then we really will be back to the pre-Pearl Harbor world — all thanks to the Republican Party returning to its isolationist roots.
Unless Congress reverses course, and soon, it could be consigning our democratic allies to slaughter — and making the world a far more dangerous place.
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It’s not often that I feel ashamed to be an American. But I was ashamed this week when the Senate refused to support a supplemental spending bill that would provide about $61 billion in urgently needed aid for Ukraine (along with $14 billion for Israel and $20 billion for border security). All of the Senate Republicans, even those who have previously supported Ukraine funding, voted to filibuster the bill. Their stated position: They won’t provide a penny for Ukraine unless Democrats agree to a sweeping, draconian overhaul of the United States’ immigration laws.
I’m sorry, that’s not how a serious political party — or a serious country — behaves during a world crisis. It’s like saying to President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1941: We won’t support aid to Britain as it battles the Nazis unless Democrats repeal the Social Security Act or rewrite the labor laws.
Of course, most Republicans in those days were opposed to aiding Britain: A majority of Republicans in both houses voted against the Lend-Lease Act, enacted in early 1941, which allowed the U.S. government to provide critically needed war supplies to Britain and other nations deemed “vital to the defense of the United States” without demanding payment in cash. Thank goodness that in those days both houses were controlled by Democrats — and Senate rules did not require a 60-vote supermajority to get anything done.
Most Republicans abandoned their isolationism after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. The GOP commitment to internationalism was renewed after 1945 because of postwar Soviet aggression and then, after the end of the Cold War, by the 9/11 terrorist attacks. But since the end of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, Republicans have been increasingly returning to their pre-Pearl Harbor roots.
The party’s leader, former president Donald Trump, has even embraced the “America First” slogan used by the original isolationists. And, just as so many of the 1930s isolationists, such as Charles Lindbergh, were sympathetic to Nazi Germany, Trump is sympathetic to Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Public opinion surveys have reflected a sharp drop-off in Republican support for Ukraine: In a Gallup poll published on Nov. 2, 62 percent of Republicans said the United States was doing too much to aid Ukraine, up from 50 percent in June.
Yet I confess that, until last week, I had remained naively hopeful that Congress would still do the right thing. After all, strong majorities in both houses had supported Ukraine funding bills in the past. Moreover, the current aid request is a pittance in the context of a $6.1 trillion federal budget (0.98 percent, to be exact), and most of the funds would be spent in the United States to support our own defense industry.
The new House speaker, Mike Johnson (R-La.), had initially voted for Ukraine aid before turning against it, but in recent weeks he sounded much more supportive of Ukraine, saying, “We can’t allow Vladimir Putin to march through Europe and we understand the necessity of assisting there.” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), whose father was a U.S. Army soldier in Europe during World War II, has been a staunch supporter of Ukraine. “Honestly, I think Ronald Reagan would turn over in his grave if he saw we were not going to help Ukraine,” he said last month.
Yet now both leaders have taken the position that — as Johnson wrote this week — “supplemental Ukraine funding is dependent upon enactment of transformative change to our nation’s border security laws.” Good luck with that. The last time Congress enacted a major, bipartisan immigration bill was in 1986, when Reagan was in the White House. Lawmakers from both parties have been laboring for decades to craft another major bill. A decade ago, the bipartisan “Gang of Eight” thought they were close, only to have the deal fall apart. So it’s hard to take Republicans at face value when they insist on making aid to Ukraine dependent on breaking through decades of legislative logjams on immigration.
Why are they linking the two? The excuse heard from Republicans is that they can’t in good conscience support funding to defend Ukraine’s borders when our own borders are so insecure. They think that by invoking the common word “borders” they can pretend that the United States and Ukraine are in analogous situations. That would be true only if the Mexican Army were invading the southwestern United States to annex Arizona, New Mexico and Texas while announcing plans to march on Washington and destroy the United States as a sovereign country.
Needless to say, that hasn’t happened. What is happening is that millions of desperate immigrants are trying to enter the United States, legally and illegally, in pursuit of freedom and economic opportunity, just like the ancestors of most native-born Americans. The spike in undocumented immigration is a serious problem that needs to be addressed, but it can hardly be said to threaten the United States’ survival in the same way the Russian invasion threatens Ukraine’s.
By linking the two issues, Republicans are engaging in a bait-and-switch that gives them an excuse to do what their base wants — abandon Ukraine — while trying to blame Democrats for “jeopardizing security around the world,” as McConnell has charged.
As Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) told the New York Times: “You can’t say ‘I’m for Ukraine, but only if I get this wholly unrelated policy enacted.’ You can’t be for stopping Putin from taking over a country by force and then vote against providing Ukraine the resources to do just that.”
It is still possible that Democrats and Republicans will reach agreement on Ukraine funding. But the odds of Ukraine aid being approved look dimmer today than at any point since the Russian invasion, even as the Office of Management and Budget warns that U.S. support for Kyiv is running out: “We are out of money — and nearly out of time.”
Ukrainians will fight on regardless, and they will look for help to Europe, which has already committed twice as much funding as the United States. But, even working together, Europe and the United States have struggled to keep up with Ukraine’s need for ammunition. There is no way that Europe alone can carry the whole load, especially not when Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban — MAGA Republicans’ favorite foreign leader — is trying to block a $55 billion European Union aid package for Ukraine.
The United States has abandoned allies, such as South Vietnam and Afghanistan, before. But this time the costs of support are much lower (no U.S. soldiers are engaged in combat in Ukraine), and the stakes are far higher. Ukraine is fighting the largest war that Europe has seen since 1945. If it loses, Vladimir Putin may be emboldened to attack other neighboring states, such as the Baltic republics and even Poland, which are members of NATO. Other despots may be emboldened to aggression of their own, beginning with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Taiwan. And then we really will be back to the pre-Pearl Harbor world — all thanks to the Republican Party returning to its isolationist roots.
Unless Congress reverses course, and soon, it could be consigning our democratic allies to slaughter — and making the world a far more dangerous place.
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