“Sir, we know our will is free, and there’s an end on it”. That’s how Dr Johnson stopped a tedious debate on what he correctly considered a self-evident truth.
That quip doesn’t meet the requirements of rigorous rhetoric, and yet it’s legitimate. For when it comes to anything more complex than two and two makes four, much of our knowledge is intuitive.
And what can be more intuitive than love? Any rationalisation of it would merely be post-rationalisation of something already known intuitively. So why bother?
This also applies to politics. And my intuition says that Republicans in Congress are setting up a massive betrayal of the Ukraine.
Moreover, having spoken in this fashion, my intuition refuses to shut up. It then insists that, whatever arguments those gentlemen put forth, their plan is at least partly based on their latent affection for Putin and their whole-hearted desire to hitch their political wagons to Trump.
The first emotion is visceral; the second, pragmatic. Though not all Republicans love Trump, they have obviously decided to align the party behind him, now he has the nomination in the bag.
That’s why they are doing all they can to block aid to the Ukraine. I’ll get to the possible nature of the scenario they may be setting up in a second. But first I’d like to talk about the intuitive disposition behind it.
When I first laid my eyes on Putin, I instantly knew all there is to know about him. That evil yet cunning nonentity united in his person the two formative components of Russian post-1991 government: KGB and organised crime. That’s all; everything else is just hot air.
Hence nothing Putin has since said or done came as a surprise to me. When evil nonentities reach power, they only ever use it to evil and idiotic ends. Whenever I looked at Putin, I saw the living proof of this historical observation.
But that’s not how many other Westerners, especially those on the political right, saw him. Fair enough, they lacked my native knowledge of Russia. And when it comes to that doctrinally enigmatic land, there is no substitute for native knowledge, ideally backed up with the rational kind.
None of this is unique to me. People of similar interests and background, which is to say other academically inclined ex-Russians, see and think the same things, with only a minor diversion here or there.
However, most American, French or British conservatives see something else. Even if they agree with the general thrust of my understanding of Putin’s Russia, there’s always an unspoken “yes, but” at the tail end.
They have their own longings for public virtue, and these are left unsatisfied by their own governments. Their minds can produce cogent arguments on what it is they are missing in the contemporary West, but their hearts still feel dejected and empty.
They desperately need some electrodes, if only rhetorical ones, that can touch the far recesses of their minds to produce an instant emotional spark. And Putin, his own instincts honed in the KGB, knows how to serve up such electrodes.
Most of those people say they don’t like Putin, and they mean it. But liking is different from loving. We like people for something; we love them in spite of everything.
Each carefully designed conservative pronouncement by Putin is a touch he adds to the picture of a political ideal right-thinking Westerners have in their minds. They respond with love that takes permanent residence in their souls. Every time Putin does something beastly, the cerebral room they allocate for that feeling gets smaller. But residual love is hardly ever evicted altogether.
Even when it is, it leaves a warm memory behind. That’s why even those congressional Republicans who deplore Putin’s atrocities are receptive to specious arguments about America having no dog in that fight and American taxpayers being ripped off for no good reason. Okay, Putin is ghastly, they admit – and then comes that lapidary ending: yes, but… .
I’m not going to speculate on the links between Trump and Putin – many others have written books on that subject, catering to my intuitive understanding without providing the factual tools to chisel it in stone. Nor am I going to deliver another litany of loving things Trump has said about Putin over the years – I’ve done it often enough, and so have many others.
Yet that love is discernible. Putin is Trump’s kinda guy, even if Trump himself wouldn’t do most things Putin has done. And I’m sure many congressional Republicans feel the same way.
That’s why they don’t have overwhelming moral reasons not to deny aid to the Ukraine, or to use the threat of such denial for their own purposes. Chief among these is sincere, wholehearted commitment to political self-perpetuation. And if delivering the Ukraine to Putin serves that end, then so be it. Nothing personal, Ukraine. Just business.
Yesterday the US Senate passed a $95 billion aid package for the Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. The bill now travels to the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, where it may well die.
The bill needs a simple majority, 218 votes, to pass, and every indication is the votes are there. All 212 Democrats are likely to support it, and more than six Republicans are inclined to do so. Yet Mike Johnson, Speaker of the House, has already said he wouldn’t put the bill to a vote no matter what.
He can invoke the Hastert Rule saying that, even if the overall congressional support is there, the Speaker doesn’t have to schedule any vote that doesn’t have majority support within his own party. So nobody can budge Johnson, and he is one of those with love of Putin in his heart.
Johnson, a Southern Baptist, is a conservative’s conservative, in the American sense of the word. And Putin has used the electrodes I mentioned earlier to excite every erogenous zone in Johnson’s brain.
Evolution, climate, abortion, homomarriage, Gay Day parades, immigration, Christianity – Putin has enunciated every belief Johnson cherishes (as do I, for that matter), except perhaps one about the Earth being only 6,000 years old. That’s why Johnson had no problem accepting a $38,000 campaign contribution from American Ethane, a company controlled by Russian ‘oligarchs’ (Putin’s proxies) Nikolayev, Yuriev, Kunatbayev and Abramov.
I’m not implying he has been bribed to support Putin’s corner, only that doing so doesn’t go against his convictions, both rational and intuitive. Putin may be a bastard, but, to paraphrase FDR, he is Mike Johnson’s bastard.
Johnson shares my misgivings about Trump’s presidency. When the latter first appeared on the political stage, Johnson dismissed him out of hand: “I am afraid he would break more things than he fixes. He is a hot head by nature, and that is a dangerous trait to have in a Commander in Chief. … I just don’t think he has the demeanor to be President.”
As a faithful Republican and practical man, however, Johnson supports Trump’s bid, and his attempts to torpedo the aid package for the Ukraine may be part of the overall party strategy.
I think the Republicans are setting up a grandstanding gesture for Trump to re-enter the White House as the peacemaker and possibly a Nobel laureate.
As close to 5 November as possible, Trump may announce a ‘deal’ he has struck with Putin and Zelensky. I can’t speculate on the specifics, but it’ll be an exchange of some Ukrainian territory for Putin’s empty promise to respect the integrity of whatever is left.
How much territory, I don’t know. Probably whatever Russia currently occupies or a bit less, but that’s sheer conjecture. The important thing is that Putin will get off with what he’ll be able to sell internally as a win or at least an honourable draw.
Yet how can Trump and his Republican friends ensure that Russia and the Ukraine will accept that deal? The only lever they have in their hands is aid: bringing Zelensky around by denying it, and Putin, by threatening to step it up.
Meanwhile the Republicans have a vested interest in making sure the Democrats don’t use the same lever to prise their own deal out of that war. That would steal Trump’s thunder, conceivably denying him entry into the White House.
This explains the current tactics used by Mike Johnson and other Republicans in Congress. They want their man to win, and they don’t care how many Ukrainians have to die to make sure he does.
Lest you accuse them of naked cynicism, I must come to their defence. Cynicism, yes, of course, but not just that. There’s also a small compartment in their hearts where love of Putin lives, or used to.
And today of all days, who can speak ill of love? Happy St Valentine’s Day!
Biology and neuroscience have come a long way since Dr Johnson’s day.
I thought the Putin interview was laughable. That overgrown Boy Scout, Tucker, sat there with that infernal expression on his face, listening to some schizophrenic ramble about medieval history. I’m disappointed in Vlad, I was expecting a charismatic, devilish performance. Instead I was bored to tears, Henry Ford has been vindicated; history is bunk.
For all the aid to Ukraine to continue the Congress [especially the Democrats] have to do is pay attention to the border with Mexico and find an amicable solution. Status quo at the border unacceptable.
Yes, but providing aid to Ukraine and Israel admirable. But also keep an eye on your own backyard. For some strange reason the Democrats refuse to do so.