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Shawn's avatar

There are two problems, neither of which you address. So let me point them out.

1. You vastly misunderstand what 'America First' means. To the modern American right, America as it current exists is the enemy. This is because the right is not simply against Democrats, but against pop culture itself in all its forms. It's why despite the fact that not one police organization was defunded, they still scream about it. Why despite there being no vast transgender conspiracy, they are openly trying to turn the clock back to the past. In this vein, there's a logical reason why America First is so anti-American.

The project of the American right is to bond itself closer to Putin or Orban-like figures; to destroy America as it is in order to make the America they want. In this viewing, nothing would help their chances of instituting the policies they want than causing chaos at home and abroad. We think of them as reactionaries, but we might better think of them as would be revolutionaries, looking for the right moment to seize control of everything and going to war not just with their political rivals but with the culture they despise and detest. Thus, America First, as they see it, is best suited by the destruction of America.

2. We meet this moment of Putin's invasion with a stark reality: Americans do not actually want to fight for the Ukrainians. I detest the structuring of 'elites' vs 'normal people' because it is lazy and so rarely are the elites defined, but in this case we can define them. The 'elites' of the foreign policy establishment have vastly overestimated their political capital and vastly overestimated the trust people have in them. For twenty years they were given free reign in the middle east, and for twenty years they achieved nothing. For twenty years, Americans were told to trust them, and they repaid that trust with failure.

We can debate what that failure really means. But in the end, what was promised by them, an impossible lift of a democratic and western style middle east, was not brought to fruition. But beyond that, they destroyed the trust that the public had in them. And nothing has been done to fix this.

They have not argued publicly about WHY the public should support actions in Ukraine. They have not explained, in PLAIN ENGLISH, why Americans should care. They have talked a lot about freedom and democracy and systems and morals and ideals, and none of it matters one bit because they are not speaking the language people care about. They are not talking in the lingua franca of the people.

The security establishment likes to talk like it's 1960; they like to talk in euphemisms and with grand gestures of freedom and liberty. But Americans don't speak that language. They need to be open and direct: Putin's invasion is an attack on Americans. Why? Because it will drive up prices of gas, it will destabilize the global social order that allows Americans to have cheap goods and services. You hate inflation now? You'll really hate it when Putin makes it worse. The national security establishment is very, VERY reluctant to talk like this, because it makes them feel like they're the same as their enemies. And in many ways, they are. But if you want Americans to support your cause, you need to talk to them in the language they understand.

Most Americans cannot find Ukraine on a map. You want them to fight for it, you need to explain that the system we built needs to be reinforced if they want to keep reaping the benefits of that system. You want cheap goods? You want cheap gas? Then you gotta be willing to fight against the people who would threaten that.

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David Gray's avatar

Relative to sanctions against Russia - when to pull the trigger and how far to go - I do hold some empathy for the US/Nato side. To unload everything now leaves nothing in the quiver for when the Russian tanks start rolling into western Ukraine.

TBH, a full-scale occupation of Ukraine would be a catastrophic outcome... but Putin might want to be careful what he wishes for. It could be the beginning of the end of his regime.

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