Republicans lose the plot as their Putin worship comes back to bite them
The GOP is desperately trying to scrub from their history that nearly decade long period when they were infatuated with Vladimir Putin, mostly under the hopes that voters will have forgotten about it by November – even if they still aspire to rule a country the way he has presided over Russia for much of the 21st century. The obvious problem is that the party is still very much in thrall to the former guy who was impeached over extorting Ukraine’s then-newly elected President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
The events of 2019 are being looked at with new scrutiny by some media pundits who probably should have analyzed the situation a bit more closely as it unfolded in terms of what geopolitical ramifications it could have had for the region, beyond Donald Trump saying it was a “perfect call.” House Republican Steve Scalise – notorious for doubling down on insane ideas with little or no evidence to support them was questioned accordingly at a press conference. He decided to use this moment to gloss over the incident entirely – claiming the call was just a formal thank you to Donald Trump for providing the model for Zelenskyy’s own campaign (not sure what inspiration he drew exactly – aside from both of them being former celebrities.)
Scalise went on to say that Ukraine got the aid eventually – but omitting all of the obvious roadblocks along the way. The fact is that while Scalise, like his fellow Republicans, can try and blame the Ukraine invasion on President Biden, it’s inevitably going to come back to the guy who did all he could to undermine NATO and stumped for Russia at every opportunity. The more any of them try to explain beyond that, they’re going to lose the plot.
James Sullivan is the assistant editor of Brain World Magazine and an advocate of science-based policy making