My biggest problem with the State of the Union speech was the President’s refusal to directly tackle the elephant in the room.
It’s now clear that a substantial portion of the Republican Party was on Putin’s side, right up to the war.
Putin’s operation to co-opt the party, through Donald Trump, succeeded. Trump was elected. Trump was impeached but not convicted. Trump nearly won re-election. Many of those duped by Putin (through Trump) remain under his thrall.
Even the non-Putin party, at the state level, has adopted a Putinesque policy and a Putinesque stance toward political opponents. It’s treason against our democratic system to call the other party treasonous. I realize I’m doing this now.
That doesn’t mean Republicans haven’t committed overt acts of treason, directly benefitting Vladimir Putin, at his direct or indirect instigation.
All this starts, as I wrote earlier, with Fox News and its owner, Rupert Murdoch.. Any reckoning of Putinism begins by reckoning with Murdoch, just as any reckoning with Bill Cosby starts with his sexual assaults. I think the President should have gone after this more directly.
Anyone involved in the events of January 6 participated in a coup against the U.S. government, instigated by Donald Trump and benefitting Vladimir Putin. The entire Trump Administration was a kleptocratic wet dream. All of it must be exposed. All the thieves must be brought to justice.
Maybe this can’t start until Putin has fallen. As I write this, the war in Ukraine continues. But each day Russian oligarchs, and the Russian people, grow poorer. Each day Putin becomes more isolated. Nuclear disaster is still on the table. But the crisis will end, one way or the other. The only questions now are when and at what cost.
What happens after? Republicans think they can go from being appeasers to being war hawks on a dime. This took four years after Pearl Harbor, as they switched from appeasing Hitler to opposing Stalin, and attacking Democrats as fellow travelers.
Will we let them get away with it again? Will we ever learn from our own history?
There must be a reckoning.
