Opinion | Why the GOP Hawks Would Never Break With Trump

For a brief moment this week, it seemed as if the ashes of an older GOP had been rekindled.

In the wake of Vladimir Putin’s all-out assault on Ukraine, we saw a resurgence of GOP hawkery. Sabers were rattled, Cold War rhetoric dusted off and deployed.

A casual observer might have heard echoes of the party of Reagan, a party that used to stand firmly against autocracy and Russian imperialism.

Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton insisted that the “time has come for the ‘swift and severe’ sanctions,” against the Russian aggressor. “There is not a minute to lose.”

Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, who had earlier suggested giving in to Russian demands to exclude Ukraine from NATO, pivoted hard. “Russia’s brutal assault on Ukraine and invasion of its territory must be met with strong American resolve,” he declared, calling for Biden to “sanction Russian energy production to a halt,” and “help arm the Ukrainians to defend themselves.”

Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, who had earlier blamed Biden’s “weakness” for the invasion made it clear Thursday that he thought that “There is only one group of people responsible for the tragedies unfolding — Vladimir Putin and his cronies.”

“Europe must act with strength and resolve to prevent risking a wider conflict,” Johnson said “and the U.S. must support our NATO allies and freedom-loving people in this moment of extreme peril.”

Even the uber-Trumpy Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) issued a statement denouncing what she called “an unwarranted and unjustified invasion by a gutless, bloodthirsty, authoritarian dictator.”

Both in tone and substance the GOP reaction was in sharp contrast to Donald Trump’s lavish praise of Putin as a savvy “genius.” Even as the invasion unfolded, Trump lauded the Russian autocrat as “smart” because he’s “taken over a country for $2 worth of sanctions.”

To the unwary, this could look like the Big One — an issue that would finally split the GOP from Trump.

But there are reasons for skepticism.

The New Yorker’s Susan Glasser was struck by how much of the born-again hawkishness among Republicans was “gaslighting,” after “literally enabling a pro-Putin president for four years and refusing to stop him even when he literally blackmailed Ukraine with millions in security aid to help Ukraine fight Russia.”

Attorney George Conway noted Stefanik had risen to GOP leadership and “made herself famous for her mendacity in opposing the impeachment of the guy who attempted to extort Ukraine by illegally withholding security assistance funds that Congress had appropriated for that country.”

Even as congressional Republicans accuse Biden of being insufficiently harsh toward Putin, Trumpist figures in the entertainment wing of the GOP came to Putin’s defense. And where it is not overtly pro-Putin, it is aggressively anti-anti-Putin.

“It might be worth asking ourselves, since it is getting serious, what is this really about? Why do I hate Putin so much?” Fox News host Tucker Carlson asked the other night. “Has Putin ever called me a racist? Has he threatened to get me fired for disagreeing with him? Has he shipped every middle-class job in my town to Russia?” he continued. “Is he teaching my children to embrace racial discrimination? Is he making fentanyl? Is he trying to snuff out Christianity? Does he eat dogs?”

Other voices from the MAGAverse have gone further in exonerating Putin of blame. Right-wing commentator/influencer Candace Owens urged her millions of followers to read Putin’s speech from earlier in the week.

“I suggest every American who wants to know what’s *actually* going on in Russia and Ukraine, read this transcript of Putin’s address. As I’ve said for month — NATO (under direction from the United States) is violating previous agreements and expanding eastward. WE are at fault.”

On his widely viewed podcast, Steve Bannon praised Putin for being “anti-woke,” and for denying LGBTQ rights. Longtime Trumpist consigliere and trickster Roger Stone has also taken to repeating Russian talking points, and insisted Thursday that “Biden wants war more than the Ukrainians want war.” Trumpist rock star Charlie Kirk told his millions of followers that “it feels as if Putin is going into places that want him.” (The Ukrainian people would like a word.)

At the CPAC conference in Orlando, the shift from the Party of Reagan to the Party of Trump is on dramatic display this week. On the first day of the red-meat Republican event, only hours after Russian bombs had begun to rain on Ukrainian cities, the condemnation of Putin was in notably short supply. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis had time in his welcoming speech to assail the autocracies in Canada and Australia but not the one sending tanks across the border of an independent nation. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio found a sterner anti-Putin voice in his appearance, praising the “inspiring” people of Ukraine. But his cry for “freedom” loses some of its luster when the CPAC organizers found room on the same stage for Putin-apologist and former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard.

So how will this play out?

Noah Rothman makes a convincing case in Commentary magazine that pro-Putin sentiments represent only an isolated fringe of the GOP.

He cites a CBS/YouGov survey from June 2021 that found that 62 percent of Republicans see Putin as either “unfriendly” or “an enemy.” A more recent Quinnipiac University poll found that a similar percentage of Republicans (63 percent) thought that Russia posed military threats to the United States.

He also cites a CBS News/YouGov survey from earlier this month that found that 41 percent of GOP voters said they backed Ukraine in the current crisis, compared with only 9 percent who said they supported Russia.

This would seem to support Rothman’s argument that the pro-Russian voices on the right “are talking only to a small clique that is utterly unrepresentative of the American right.” But this assumes that the views of those voters are firmly held and not subject to the rapid evolution of Republican views that we have seen on other issues.

And it ignores this fundamental dynamic: Conservative politics today is dominated not by elected leaders, but by the entertainers. Tucker Carlson is exponentially more influential than Mitch McConnell; Steve Bannon has far greater clout than Elise Stefanik.

And the influence of that entertainment wing is magnified by the ascendency of the America First isolationism championed by Donald Trump, whose dominance in the GOP has meant the virtual eclipse of the party’s once robust internationalist wing.

The reality is that, despite Tom Cotton’s saber-rattling, there is really no longer any appetite among Republicans for a Reagan-esque tear-down-that wall approach to foreign policy. For the most part, the old Cold Warriors have been purged from the party. In their place have risen Trump-inspired acolytes like J.D. Vance, the Ukraine-indifferent Ohio Senate candidate whose border obsessions are entirely domestic and whose rallying cry is “Build that wall.”

The animus of the right has been turned inward.

So, the Putin-is-a-savvy-genius wing of the party may be small at the moment, but as we have seen over and over, the MAGA voices are the Republican id these days.

And if history (and bitter experience) is any guide, Republican politicians sooner or later fall in line. In this case, however, they don’t have to become either pro-Putin or anti-anti-Putin. All that is required is that they be anti-Biden.

In part, that explains the weird flex that ignores Trump’s long record of Putin appeasement to argue that it was only his departure that emboldened Russian aggression. National Review editor Rich Lowry — a harsh critic of Putin — nevertheless tweeted that “The sheer unpredictably of Trump, his anger at being defied or disrespected, his willingness to take the occasional big risk (the Soleimani strike), all had to make Putin frightened or wary of him in a way that he simply isn’t of Joe Biden.”

This is a genuinely bizarre take, given Trump’s fawning admiration for Putin and his praise of the invasion. But that view has already gotten considerable traction on the right. The latest POLITICO/Morning Consult poll found that 50 percent of voters said that Biden would be “very” or “somewhat” responsible for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, while 34 percent said he was “not too” or “not” responsible. The same poll found that 82 percent of Republicans disapprove of Biden’s handling of foreign policy.

So, whatever happens, Republicans will be united in their opposition to whatever Joe Biden does or fails to do.

Beyond that, don’t look for much coherence.

Republicans will rip Biden for being too belligerent. They will rip him for being too weak. They will accuse him of being too aggressive, and too passive. At the same time. Without blinking.

Think of it as hawkish isolationism; or bellicose appeasement. That’s because the GOP’s foreign policy is now less a coherent set of principles than it is a single slogan.

And the slogan is: “Let’s Go Brandon.”