Republicans Support Ukraine

I was shocked when recent polling data indicated the Republicans supported Ukraine’s fight against the invasion. Why? Well, when Trump and Tucker Carlson seem to lean on Putin’s side, I thought the voters would follow along, but for the present moment, they are leaning towards Ukraine, in the opposite direction of Trump or Carlson.

So that is one thing that Democrats and Republicans can agree upon. I’m happy about that.

Why are Republicans leaning in Ukraine’s direction?

The only thing I can come up with is President Zelensky is very inspiring as the underdog valiantly fighting the Goliath. It is quite possible that the current conflict reminds them (and the rest of us) of the American’s fight for their own freedom. That inspirational sentiment rings in America’s souls.

We Americans have a Pavlovian response to the words “freedom” and “patriots”. We just rise emotionally when someone calls out “freedom” without thinking what motive may be hiding behind such rousing words.

In the last few years, Republicans have more and more spoken about our history behind our freedom.

The Tea Party’s rallies against healthcare referenced back to the early days of America.

The January 6th insurrection made reference to 1776, even though 1776 and January 6, 2021, had nothing in common. In 1776 we had no voting rights to determine our fates and in 2021, almost 60 court cases found no evidence of voter fraud.

Our conversations are just replete with such historical references.

So, Ukraine’s brave fight is inspiring with their spirit and success in holding off the bigger enemy. Also, Zelensky is showing the image of a strong leader that a lot of Republicans seem to crave. They want someone to stand up to the bad guys (so do I!) and so they admire anyone who does that. They don’t want craven politicians to abjectly kowtow to bullies. Strength is what the Republicans crave. Zelensky represents the good strength that Americans want to be – he and his fellow Ukrainians are making Ukraine great through their heroic fight.

There may be a little wistfulness amongst the Boomer generation of some kind of heroic action since that was the generation that did not have a war that they can be proud of: Vietnam apparently was a disaster and left a bad taste, the Iraq war was a lie (I don’t know if the Republicans or Democrats are admitting that yet), and the Afghan war pullout was just shameful. I got a sense that we were just hopeless during the Syrian civil war. The only thing that the Boomers can feel good about was the fall of the Berlin wall and the downfall of communism in Russia (I’m sure they don’t feel good about the subsequent pain the Russians went through in the aftermath).

And now we have climate change and widening inequality.

There is almost nothing that the Boomers can crow about, so the Trump era or the Ukrainian-Russian war may be the last hurrah for that generation.

I don’t have a theory about the younger generations other than they must want the series of disasters to end. It’s been one thing after another in the 21st century.

How long can this agreement last? I don’t know. I hope Trump and Carlson do not persuade them in the other direction. If the war starts to turn into an extremely dire situation for the Ukrainians, will the agreement hold? If the war keeps going on and on, will the agreement hold? Will the agreement still stand if the US gets pulled into the conflict?

I don’t know.

I hope the Ukrainians can hold on and boot out the Russians for their own sake. It would be a great success story for them, and the hero stories can resonate down throughout their history. They can hold their heads high as being just as good as the other democratic nations. In my book, they are already great.