Potential Republican candidate for president, Ron DeSantis, has claimed that America has no national interest in the Russian invasion of Ukraine. I think this is terrible. Fox News Tucker Carlson has apparently been promoting pro-Putin propaganda ever since the invasion. MAGA politicians are calling to stop aid to Ukraine. Trump's initial reaction to the invasion was gleeful admiration of how smart Putin was to so easily get what he wanted.
So, do they have a point? Why should we care? Should we just shrug and say we don't want to spend MONEY to help Ukraine. Isn't MONEY the most important thing in the world. Isn't MONEY more important than democracy or freedom or human rights in the world? in America?
Well, no, actually. Democracy in the world is much more important than the size of our budget to help Ukraine fight the invasion of Putin's Russia, it seems to me. Why? Because democracy all around the world, and our own democracy, is at risk.
So, what happens if Russia wins? What happens if Russian autocracy crushes Ukrainian democracy? What happens is that autocracy advances around the world. China is encouraged to invade Taiwan. Hungary strengthens its corrupt autocracy. Venezuela, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, Iran, India, Belarus, and autocratic and autocratic leaning kleptocracies all around the world are empowered and emboldened. Human rights, the rule of law, justice, and human dignity are assaulted and crushed more easily.
And, oh yes, in America too. Desantis and Trump are just the figureheads of the autocratic movement in America. The white supremacist, white Christian nationalists in America are hell bent on becoming our own Christian Taliban imposing their harsh morality on us all. And the oligarchs are free of those pesky life saving, environment saving, human dignity saving regulations and constraints. Plundering corruption becomes unhindered by the rule of law. Happy times for American autocrats.
DeSantis is about 50 IQ points smarter than Trump, so in some ways he is more dangerous. (Trump is mentally ill, so I am still more afraid of him)
The point I am trying to make is that autocrats-to-be want other autocrats to win, so they themselves can rule, so they can rule by rule of autocrat rather than rule of law, so they can rule with impunity, with no checks and balances. The triumph of authoritarian, autocratic rule.
The stakes in Ukraine are democracy in Ukraine, and democracy in Europe, democracy in Taiwan, and democracy in America. It is no accident that the anti-democratic forces in America (DeSantis, Trump, Carlson, White Christian Nationalists, MAGA Cult, oligarchs, etc.) support Putin's assault on democracy and the rule of law.
