Axis and Allies

There is a big picture right in front of your eyes

Columbia University

I need to begin with this. Joseph R. Biden publicly said more than once that his reason for running for President of the United States was watching white nationalists march with tiki torches in Charlottesville, Virginia.

I have a hard time seeing the difference between tiki torch whites in Charlottesville, VA, and Ivy League antisemites calling for genocide against Jews. The Orthodox Rabbi of Columbia University is calling for Jewish students to avoid the campus. Others are arranging security for Jewish students. A white woman protested Jewish students on campus and called for Al-Qasam Forces to target the Jewish students as their “next target.” Al-Qasam is Hamas’s military wing that led the October 7, 2023, massacre in Israel.

The man who could denounce Donald Trump for his response to Charlottesville, VA, is damningly quiet about the antisemitism and racism from his own side. It is easy to call out the other side. It is hard to call out one’s own side. Joe Biden is yet again choosing the easy, not the hard and refuses to show leadership.

He could have a Sister Souljah moment and call out the extremists of his own side. He has so far chosen not to. Pre-printed statements are not the same. For all the complaints against Trump after Charlottesville, Joe Biden is thus far no better. He does not want to alienate his base so he has remained silence so far. I’d encourage him to prove me wrong.

There is a famous photo of a Nazi rally where one man refuses to participate. Others salute while that man, presumed to be August Landmesser, keeps his arms crossed. Democrats all fancy themselves to be August Landmesser. Joe Biden, however, is surrounded by progressives with their arms outstretched, and he, instead of crossing his arms, has failed to show up to meet the moment.

Axis and Allies

On social media, and thankfully not as much in the real world, if anyone opposed funding Ukraine, they are now tools of Russia and Putin sympathizers. On social media, anyone who supports Ukraine is part of the uniparty neocon forever war party.

Social media makes people shrill and stupid because that is what gets attention. Then they catechize each other offline in their merry little echo chambers, and the herds moo accordingly on both sides.

My friend Chip Roy is one of Congress's best and most principled members. He is a conservative stalwart. He opposed funding for Ukraine because he thinks, among other things, the border in this country should be the priority and unless we’re willing to make cuts to pay for everything, we are headed off a fiscal cliff that jeopardizes our national security.

He’s been labeled a Putin flunky by some of the online right who support Ukraine. His position is actually very different from others, like Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has hidden behind securing the border but has actually been vehemently opposed to Ukrainian assistance since she has been in Congress.

People can sometimes arrive at the same conclusion for different reasons. Chip Roy is a patriot. Although we disagree on this particular issue, we agree on many other things.

I share Congressman Roy’s concerns about our debt. It is not sustainable. The federal government must start getting serious about cuts. Concurrently, I am reminded the GOP in the House agreed to actual real cuts in government and to hold the line against the Democrats on that spending, but Matt Gaetz needed to stop an ethics investigation and decided to oust Speaker McCarthy, which a lot of people on the right cheered.

I assured you then that this would end the ability to cut government and ensure that Ukraine would ultimately be funded. It took longer on the Ukraine funding, but it was never in doubt. Gaetz’s willingness to blow up real cuts to the government to save himself under the guise that McCarthy had betrayed conservatives just signaled to moderates that the conservatives were not serious about doing anything other than obstructing.

Everyone who cheered on Matt Gaetz’s Speaker coup is now getting exactly what the rest of us told you would happen. But some will still defend Gaetz and ignore reality because tribalism reigns supreme.

Marjorie Taylor Greene has backtracked on her motion to oust the current Speaker, which she will probably bring back later or hold over his head. But, at this point, he does not care and should not care.

Mike Johnson won.

Mike Johnson won partly because the right in the House demands miles instead of inches. They have every reason to demand those miles, but with a two-seat majority, they cannot get them.

We are the “Find Out” part of FAFO.

Meanwhile, outside the Congress, the right is divided.

The Priorities Division

Some really believe we cannot afford to protect our friends and fight the bad guys. I disagree. They certainly have a visibly obvious case with our national debt. But I believe they also lack the imagination to realize what would happen if we walked away from global leadership. Our costs would go up more. Our interest rates would go up more. The foreign exchange rates from which we benefit would increase. Our freedom would decline.

If we cede the world to the Chinese, Russians, and Iranians — a real, obvious, and apparent Eastern Axis coveting our global leadership position — they will take it to our detriment.

Americans who say we cannot afford global leadership will realize only when it is too late how much we cannot afford to let the Eastern Axis dominate.

I find a lot of ground with those concerned about the finances of our overseas projects and those who question current priorities. Congress and the federal government indeed need to prioritize funding our own border security and work on our fiscal solvency.

Conservatives in the House decided they could not embrace the Senate legislation. Some, in fact, so maligned and mischaracterized it that they helped sabotage legislation that would have actually improved the situation, even if it had some serious flaws. Those flaws are, in fact, no worse than the status quo and, in many ways, improve the status quo even as the House legislation was better.

But a two-seat majority in the House and no control in the Senate gets us here. The priorities in Washington are screwed up. But we should still help our allies even as, politically, we have not elevated other issues we all care about.

We absolutely can multitask and we absolutely can afford to do both.

The Propagandized Division

Some have convinced themselves, just on Ukraine, that Ukraine is the bad guy or not worth helping. They have been poisoned, often through trickle-down Russian propaganda, and don’t even realize it. There is no point in trying to convince them otherwise. It’s like trying to convince someone the voting machines were not throwing votes to Joe Biden. At some point, the tribal talking points became cult-like thinking.

For those of you who demand proof, there’s actually a really obvious example. Marjorie Taylor Greene and some outside anti-Ukraine advocates from the right claim Russia is protecting Christians and Ukraine is persecuting them. So, the war is, in effect, a religious war with Russia on the good side. First, pay no attention to the Jewish Ukrainian president, hint hint. It’s subtle antisemitism.

But, you don’t have to take my word for this, hear the preachers in their own words. Evangelical pastors are being tortured by the Russians and murdered. Those who have fled have horror stories about what the Russians are doing to Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Anglicans, Catholics, and other missionaries in Ukraine. The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church has been exterminated in Russian-controlled Ukraine either through their executions or necessary flight to avoid executions. 400 Baptist congregations have been wiped out.

When you hear some say Russia is on the side of the Christians, they are literally advancing a line of Russian propaganda directly conjured from the lips of Vladimir Putin.

The Just Desserts Division

Some believe we deserve it. This does not get picked up on publicly, but I am in a lot of conversations with conservatives in politics who have decided they hate the left so much and feel like the left has gotten so dominant that the United States deserves what is coming. It is a sort of religious fundamentalism applied to American politics that letting the Eastern Axis dominate would cause harm to the cultural left because of the common cultural hostilities many on the right have for the left. The wokes would wind up marginalized even as the United States wound up marginalized, but we all get what we deserve.

The fascination with Viktor Orban is related to this with some on the right. Those on the right who like Orban want a strong man to stamp out their domestic rivals. They are the ones who, if left to their own devices, would actually careen off the cliff of authoritarianism and refuse to give up power once they have it.

The Inevitable Division

There are those on the right who think the decline of the United States is inevitable, and this is all part of it. Rome went through several crises and recovered until the end. They think we are at the end, the barbarians are at the gates, and we might as well walk into the new dark ages. This combination of fatalism and nihilism ultimately roots against America.

For all the hatred of the elite, these conservatives have bought the elites’ line that China is on the rise, and they are ready to get out of the way.

The Reactionary Division

Lastly, some think the rules of the Western elite have turned against the working and middle classes. They want a realignment and retreat from a world dominated by rules that have not protected the working class but have only elevated the rich. They see the GOP coalition becoming increasingly working class and have decided to reshape foreign policy to accommodate that coalition — adjusting what they once believed was right for a new coalition.

I would agree and disagree with them on this front. Yes, the rules were implemented, and it is a rules-based regime post World War II. But the reality is that the rules were there to ensure the United States remained the leader. Unfortunately, the technocratic elite hate the West and Western Culture and have allowed others into the rules-based regime who had no intention of honoring the rules. The system only works with the United States leading. Both blowing up the system and allowing the status quo are both unacceptable. The West depends on American leadership. We should be helping our allies and should stop being ashamed of talking about an American-led world order. We should embrace American global leadership and promote the Western Alliance instead of hiding behind the rules that appear, only to us, fair. This isn’t about fairness. It is about American global leadership.

Frankly, there is merit to those worried about the rise of the technocratic elite who has steered domestic and foreign policy to benefit the upper classes, all while regularly failing at their jobs. The problem is, like the critical theorists and intersectionalists, the response has been to let the allies of the working class (many of them former Democrats) take charge. Nothing will actually change with that approach, just a redivision of the system’s benefits to others. Instead, we need to dismantle a domestic policy rubric that allows the government to pick winners and losers while, internationally, unapologetically leading and gaming the system to our advantage.

What we should not do, as an ideological movement on the right, is decide that because we do not have the votes for this one thing we want to do (border security), we must not do this other thing (fund our allies). There is an election in November. We can make a case for border security and fiscal responsibility. But we cannot give up on American leadership globally.

It’s Always The Foreign Appropriations

Those who complain always want to cut the foreign appropriations budget, which is a far less significant line item than other government appropriations. I find it very notable that the isolations, the antisemites, the global realignment gang, and the anti-wokes all come for the foreign funding first. Maybe roll back the government in education first, cut the federal bureaucracy, restructure the Veterans Administration actually to work, etc.

A small part of our federal budget helps ensure American leadership globally. Much of the federal budget is used to indoctrinate Americans against that global leadership. Cut that, not foreign aid.

This is not about forever wars and a military-industrial complex — the buzzwords of the simplistic to distract from the serious — this is about an alliance between Russia, China, and Iran maneuvering to take advantage of both our internal divisions and our national financial condition to push aside global American leadership.

If we let them because they have leveraged the antagonisms of those who think it is inevitable and those who think we deserve it and those who think we should blow up the current Western Alliance as payback in class warfare, we will have hell to pay. The right needs to stop betting against America and pull out of the same “blame America first” funk that poisoned the left in the sixties.

It is, in fact, very notable how much of Conservative Inc. is rapidly moving to the old guard left’s blame America first position masquerading as America First. The “blame” is silent but implied.

Related Miscellaneous Points

1. I see some say Mike Johnson, the first grassroots movement conservative to become Speaker of the House, got coopted by the “uniparty.” Or maybe, by virtue of being Speaker of the House and second-in-line to the presidency of the United States, his security briefings gave him insight that others do not have. Perhaps it is not co-opting but providing additional information that changed his mind.

2. Before you rush to “Well then the intelligence community played him,” which some will do, we should pause for a moment and note that, despite the press bellyaching, Donald Trump stood by and gave his tacit support to helping Ukraine. The media has so thoroughly bought into the notion of Trump being Putin’s pawn, they don’t want to give him credit. The man who blew up the border bill could have blown up Ukraine funding. But he stood with the Speaker.

3. Over time, I have learned that some in Washington try to convince the rest of us that those who disagree with us within our own side have been co-opted when, often, they have access to other information. Donald Trump and Mike Johnson are both getting intelligence briefings, and both supported Ukraine.

4. For those who will conclude that the deep state is playing Trump and Johnson, it is remarkable how Trump saw the deep state orchestrate his impeachment, yet here we are with Trump supporting the intelligence assessment.

The Most Notable Thing For Conservatives

The number voting against Ukraine funding from the right was seventy. Though the losers of the vote will spin that Mike Johnson lost the majority of Republicans in the vote (barely), a number of no votes to the overall package were shaped by the seventy Republicans who voted to stop the advancement of the legislation to the floor.

More Republicans voted against the final package, knowing it would still pass after only seventy Republicans voted against advancing the legislation. It is a game legislators play, knowing they can safely vote against something assured of its passage, which they ultimately want. Hate the game, if you want, but that is the game.

A vocal portion of Conservative, Inc. in Washington came out against funding Ukraine. The fact that a majority of the GOP and a majority of the right support it should cause self-reflection. Instead, I expect we will see more deeply flawed polling to tell Con, Inc. what it wants to hear. After all, when everyone in the bubble agrees, it is hard to recognize the bubble is not the majority.

Con, Inc. has, like much of the left, become so deeply hyper-online that it has convinced itself that its online echo chamber is an accurate reflection of public opinion and conservatives outside D.C. Actually, like the media and the left, Con, Inc. inside D.C. is deeply in danger of its circle of jerks going blind in the bathroom.

This should actually be a wake-up call and require introspection, but instead, this will result in doubling down because we are at peak epistemic closure among much of the right. Con, Inc. is convinced that its enemy is far more crafty than nearly everybody else and actually is everybody else.

The extraordinary amount of energy spent by parts of the conservative movement to reinvent the right and reshape its long-held positions could be better spent acknowledging that either they are in the minority or, worse, they have become unmoored to long-held convictions and possibly led along by the currents of Twitter contretemps and groupthink instead of leading.

In fact, Con, Inc. could be making many policy contributions right now about spending, industrial policy, weapons development prioritization, etc. Some, thankfully, are. We have serious inefficiencies and weaknesses in the supply chain and related resources. Likewise, legitimate concerns need to be raised about where the money in Ukraine is going and the path to peace. But trying to blow up the current funding was a tactic confused for a strategy by a growing bit of right-aligned groupthink out to lunch on reality.

One is far more likely to find conservatives who think we should allow Ukraine to fall to Russia in Northern Virginia than in Southern Ohio. It is not just the left that needs to touch some grass.

Concurrently

Those who are on the right and the winning side of the Ukraine fight should not dismiss concerns from people like Chip Roy, Michael Brendon Dougherty, and others.

• We are on the verge of a serious fiscal crisis in the United States, with interest payments on debt exceeding military spending. What are we cutting, or, God forbid, what taxes are we raising?

• What is the end game in Ukraine? They are not getting all their land back. What concessions are we going to force to get peace?

• What about corruption and spending? Most of the money returning here to create jobs at weapons manufacturers that provide us with advanced weaponry is fine. But there is undeniable corruption in Ukraine. What are we doing about it?

• What is the vision for the future with the American purse empty and world crises surrounding us? How should we prioritize on all fronts, and what should we sacrifice?

• The technocrats really have failed to deliver to the middle and working class while the elites continually benefit. Without sacrificing the American world order, what reforms do we put in place to ensure the American middle-class benefits from American policies that only appear to bankrupt them?

The portion of the conservative movement still willing to lead the world needs answers to these and other questions and concerns or the conspiracists, fringe, do-nothings, isolationists, populists, and “blame America first” portions of the right will expand their ranks quickly.

The Most Notable Thing Overall

Donald Trump has done more to sell helping Ukraine than Joe Biden. Don’t forget that. It is not spin. It is the truth. Trump could have sabotaged the legislation and chose not to. Joe Biden, however, could aggressively make a case to the American public and chose not to. Donald Trump’s silence saved Ukraine funding and Joe Biden’s silence dragged the issue out.

Biden is incapable of articulating a bold case for American leadership because Biden has been wrong about every major foreign policy issue for fifty years and Biden is surrounded by and advised by progressives who hate the Western Alliance and see it as a product of white patriarchal colonizers.

Consider just how slow Biden has been at helping both Ukraine and Israel. Biden talks a tough game, but he has slow walked so much that even the most ardent supporters of Ukraine in the Congress are often left with the impression Biden doesn’t really mean what he says. He has failed to lead the Western world order and failed to articulate a pro-America vision to Americans. He’s too busy lecturing us about cannibals eating his uncle and how Donald Trump is such a threat to democracy we should let bureaucrats take Trump’s name off the ballot.

The President of the United States has expended more energy defending boys in girls’ sports and killing babies than on defense of his Ukrainian policies.

The media slobbering over Biden can dance around it all they want, but Trump had the power to kill the Ukraine funding, and he chose not to. However, Biden has failed to explain to Americans publicly and prominently why Ukraine funding matters. His surrogates are not him and his surrogates have walled him off except in tightly scripted moments — the sort of tightly scripted appearances one does with someone suffering a decline they are trying to cover up.