There’s one thing I don’t get, and this goes back to the ‘16 races.
Why do we Democrats not hammer Trump on the fact that he has sold us out to RUSSIA of all countries?
Since the Russian Revolution, Russia has been deeply associated, especially for the right wing, with “godless communism” and socialism. No need to go into that long social and ideological history. But the movement of Father Caughlin, John Birch, Joe McCarthy, and the rest has loathed Russia ever since. The great triumph of neo-conservatism was the breakdown of the Soviet Empire under Reagan. But Trump, from the changing of the GOP Platform at the convention forward has been selling us out to Putin’s attempts to restore that empire.
Now, in the Ukraine fiasco, he is explicitly and directly selling out the NATO objective that America has invested in for longer than I’ve been alive. And I am 65. Reaganites cheered at the dismantling of the Soviet Bloc. And now our Resident is helping Putin build it up again.
And he hasn’t stopped with Russia. Now he is explicitly selling out Hong Kong to the Chinese. Since World War II, we have been allied with Nationalist China, first against Japan, and then in a struggle with Chairman Mao’s insurgency. The Korean War was fought explicitly to oppose Chinese—and, again, Russian--influence in the region. Nationalist China persist in zombie form in Taiwan, representing our championship of a China we can ally with. And of course Hong Kong is the vestige of British colonial rule. Trump himself has whipped up a trade war with China which is killing our economy.
The American consensus on these matters is so deep that, even under Trump, GOP lawmakers have largely held the line on Russia sanctions, defense of Ukraine, etc. Yet he is willing to sell all of that down the river for political dirt.
Now, please understand that I am not simply assuming the traditional American assessment of Russia, China, communism, socialism or British/American imperialism. That’s all very complex, and all sides share many sins, including our side. I am talking about an entire century of American political ideology in which the very people who support Trump invested trillions of dollars, hundreds of thousands of lives in Korea and Viet Nam, and decades of raging paranoia.
The fact that Trump has been able to sell out the great American myth of the Evil Communist Empires without encountering resistance is a tribute more to the desperate ideological dysfunction of the right wing, I think, than to Trump’s salesmanship. But you can’t erase a decade of ideology in a few years, and the Right Wing GOP has GOT to be uneasy about Trump’s betrayal of its most deeply held xenophobia.
If the media had any brains, of course, they’d be looking at all of that. But, they don’t. I watched Nichole in for Rachel and Lawrence last night and A] not much was said about selling out our foreign policy and B] there was virtually no discussion of the betrayal of the long tradition of opposing Russian and Chinese aggression.
Well, it’s the media. And they really do suck.
But why aren’t our Democratic leaders hammering this and forcing GOP defenders to look at the unease they’ve been ignoring? Why don’t Pelosi and Schiff and others say, “This man is selling out a country liberated under Ronald Reagan from the prison of the Soviet Bloc”? Or “Trump’s willingness to sell out Hong Kong shows you that his get tough policy on China is just hot air”?
I dunno. Maybe the ideological juice really isn’t there any longer. But I have trouble believing that GOP Wingers don’t retain some pretty sensitive nerve endings regarding Russia and China. I continue to think that a rhetorical campaign hammering Trump for subverting our national security by capitulating to Russia and China. Hammering that theme and forcing the press to discuss it would have to help in the impeachment game and the election.
Right?