Better to burn donor cash than tax dollars, and I’m not tired of winning yet.
The Washington Post reported Tuesday that the war party is afraid Republican voters have woken up to the waste of lives and money in Ukraine. “Defending Democracy Together, an organization led by Republican strategist Sarah Longwell and conservative political commentator Bill Kristol, is launching ‘Republicans for Ukraine,’” a $2 million propaganda push to convince GOP members of Congress to continue to cut checks for the grinding conflict.
Besides the obvious error from the Post’s fact checkers in calling Bill Kristol a conservative—there are no real Blue Dog Democrats now—the piece is refreshingly straightforward. “Longwell, who runs regular focus groups with Republican voters, said one of the most ‘alarming trends’ she has seen over the past two years is a ‘real drop-off in support for Ukraine.’” Good. As WaPo reports, a CNN/SSRS poll found that “Among GOP voters, 71 percent think Congress should not authorize new funding, and 59 percent say the United States has done enough to help Ukraine.”
To quote the Post again: “The United States has already directed more than $60 billion in aid to Ukraine, including more than $40 billion in direct military assistance.” Nevertheless, President Joe Biden recently asked Congress for $20.6 billion more for Ukraine, even as the intelligence services admit that the long-promised “Spring” counteroffensive is failing. But “scores of far-right members in the House”—again, some confusion about what it means to be a conservative—oppose further spending on a proxy war with a Russia that has already shown itself to be much weaker than feared, but remains a nuclear power.
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