This isn’t Ronald Reagan’s Republican Party anymore, and that could have devastating foreign policy consequences for America.
In 1983, at the height of the Cold War, Reagan delivered a speech to the National Association of Evangelicals, referring to the Soviet Union as an “evil empire” and the “focus of evil in the modern world.” Reagan was a strong leader of the free world. He decisively won the Cold War. For decades, every single United States president understood the importance of that mantle and how Russia was a hostile threat.
Forty-one years later, Russia is still a clear threat to our national security, and its leader, Vladimir Putin, is a murderous dictator, war criminal, and a thug.
But today’s GOP is Trump’s GOP. During Donald Trump’s presidency, the Republican Party largely ignored or downplayed Trump’s bromance with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Look no further than Tucker Carlson’s recent visit to Russia to film propaganda videos, including a soft interview with Putin.
Trump made it acceptable to admire Putin, which has empowered a growing pro-Putin caucus in Washington. It is hindering America’s ability to counter Putin’s aggression.
In June, Colorado’s Republican and unaffiliated voters will select from a number of untested candidates for three Congressional District seats without incumbents. These candidates, with the exception of Rep. Lauren Boebert, who opposed aid to Ukraine, have no voting records on international issues, and none of them have meaningful foreign policy experience.
Coloradans deserve to know where these candidates stand on supporting aid for Ukraine and other allies. More importantly, voters need to consider where candidates stand on our democratic values, which are under assault by extremists in Trump’s party today. Do Colorado candidates stand with our country or do they stand with Trump, Carlson and Putin?
Trump threatened his NATO allies last week by saying that he would not only fail to defend them from Russian hostility if they don’t pay their fair share, but rather he could encourage Russia to do “whatever the hell they want” against those countries.
Russia is a nuclear-armed, ideological opponent that has forged alliances with an international gang of evildoers, including Iran, North Korea, Hamas, and Hezbollah.
Ukraine is running dangerously low on ammunition and weaponry and could lose its fight for freedom and democracy without it. Without further aid, it has become a matter of weeks, not months until the tide turns in Russia’s favor. Yet Trump opposes helping Ukraine defend itself against Russia’s invasion, including the $95.3 billion bipartisan foreign aid package which included $60 billion of aid to Ukraine. The bill had the support of 22 Republicans, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Before Trump this would have likely been nearly unanimous.
Speaker Mike Johnson, who has a fragile grip on his caucus and a razor-thin majority, is doing Trump’s dirty work and has signaled that he won’t put the aid package on the floor where it would easily pass with bipartisan support.
Why? Because reportedly some members of his caucus, with its loyalty to Trump, have reportedly threatened Johnson that they would remove him as speaker if he puts the aid package up for a vote.
Reagan must be spinning in his grave.
This is occurring at the precise moment that Putin ostensibly murdered Alexi Navalny, the 47-year old opposition leader, in an Arctic penal colony. Navalny gave his life fighting for freedom and liberty. Trump has refused to condemn Russia or Putin for their role in his death, except to strangely and falsely compare his legal problems to the execution of Navalny.
The central question is this: why is Trump more enamored with autocracy, then fighting for our own democratic values at home and abroad? And, why are more and more Republicans letting him have his way at the expense of our national security?
Perhaps it is because Putin’s Russia is an authoritarian regime which suppresses its opposition.
Russian authorities have introduced severe restrictions and penalties on freedom of speech, expression and assembly. Putin murders his political opposition, bans the LGBTQ+ movement as an extremist organization, and enforces his own set of traditional family and conservative Christian values. By way of example only, under Russian criminal law, participating in or financing the LGBTQ+ movement is punishable by up to 15 years in prison. Anyone displaying LGBTQ+ symbols faces up to 15-days detention for the first offense and up to 4 years for the second. These are ideas that clearly resonate with far right extremists.
And, it wasn’t lost on me that the pro-Putin movement got some cover from Putin’s Tucker Carlson, who worked hard to try to make Putin and Russia look good in the embarrassing propaganda exercise he framed as journalism. I thought Tucker Carlson’s low point was when he was suddenly fired without explanation by Fox News Media last April. Carlson had the highest rated talk show host on cable news and appeared to have mystical powers over the extreme wing of the GOP base. Things didn’t end as intended for the smug Carlson (who was also fired from CNN and MSNBC), and is now a laughingstock to most Americans and Putin too. Was it coincidence that Navalny died the day after Carlson’s publicity stunt or was the useful idiot a convenient part of Putin’s plan?
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Don’t get me wrong, Democrats have their own set of problems on the other end of the spectrum amongst a growing woke caucus some of whom are socialists and Marxists, but no Democratic member of Colorado’s Congressional delegation supports Putin, opposes Ukraine aid or aren’t fighting for our republic.
Coloradans have the opportunity in June to make sure that no Republican members of the delegation support Putin either.
Doug Friednash grew up in Denver and is a partner with the law firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber and Schreck. He is the former chief of staff for Gov. John Hickenlooper.
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