This week marks the first anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and President Biden pulled out all the stops to display his commitment to the survival of the fledgling democracy.
His stroll through the streets of the Ukrainian capital on President’s Day with the nation’s president Volodymyr Zelensky amidst the wailing of air raid alarms captured the international stage and the attention of the world media.
The dramatic presidential trip to Kyiv was a mission with an inspiring message.
Biden reminded embattled Ukrainians that the United States has their backs in their struggle against the bloody Russian onslaught. He showed Russian dictator Vladimir Putin that Ukrainian survival has become a bedrock element of American national security policy. Finally, Biden encouraged the American public to remain steadfast in support of their democratic allies.
Polls conducted by the Pew Research Center demonstrated the need for the president to buttress public support for the U.S. commitment to Ukraine.
Last March, just after the beginning of the Russian invasion, three out of every four Americans felt that the United States was doing the right amount or too little to assist the beleaguered Eastern European nation. By late January of this year, support for American backing had dropped to just more than half of the public.
The ideal of American foreign policy is that politics stops at the water’s edge. But reality dictates that domestic politics intrudes into national security policy the longer a war continues as partisans question the value of the American involvement.
Now, domestic politics reaches across the water’s edge, all the way across the Atlantic Ocean into the Black Sea. Last March, there was little difference between party partisans on military assistance for Ukraine. More than seven of every 10 Democrats and Republicans favored military help to the Ukrainians threatened by the Russian military advance. But former President Donald Trump’s, who remains the Republican’s de facto leader, affinity for dictatorial regimes has apparently become part of the GOP DNA. By last month, the bipartisan consensus had become a chasm as wide as the Grand Canyon, with Democrats much more supportive of sustenance to the vulnerable country than Republicans.
The disgraced former president seems to have a soft spot for tyrants like the Russian leader, and apparently saw the war in Ukraine merely as a political pawn in his campaign against Biden. His first impeachment came out of the reported heavy-handed attempts to pressure President Zelensky into providing possible dirt on Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, in return for military aid.
Republican control of the House of Representatives has altered the balance of power in Washington and become a threat to American support of Ukrainian independence against Russian aggression.
Ominously, the new House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said that Republicans wouldn’t write a “blank check” for Ukraine. Republicans are backing down from some spending cut threats — including one to cut Social Security and Medicare — in return for a deal to raise the federal debt limit. This means House Republicans may follow their “America First” instincts and target financial support for Ukraine as a top priority for budget cuts.
There are still Republicans who continue to favor support for Ukraine, but their voices are drowned out by the American Firsters.
Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) recently made a strong pitch for Ukrainian aid on Fox News which features prominent skeptics of the Biden policy such as Tucker Carlson, arguably the most prominent voice among Republicans besides Trump. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), an influential member of McCarthy’s team and one of the loudest voice in the House GOP caucus, even called for the impeachment of Biden for traveling to Ukraine to show solidarity with the people there.
Americans normally don’t pay much attention to foreign policy at election time, but Ukraine could become a big issue in next year’s presidential campaign. Republican presidential candidates including Trump will challenge the president’s steadfast support for Ukraine and argue that domestic problems should be the priority.
Putin appears willing to sacrifice Russian and Ukrainian lives and persist in a long and grinding war. He likely expects Americans will grow disenchanted as the conflict continues and then turn to a GOP president who doesn’t have the stomach to resist Putin’s imperial ambitions. Republicans call for more freedom in the United States, but they apparently don’t have the will to protect it abroad from an autocratic threat to world peace.
Brad Bannon is a Democratic pollster, CEO of Bannon Communications Research and the host of his weekly aggressively progressive podcast, Deadline D.C. with Brad Bannon. Follow him on Twitter at @BradBannon.