By John Podhoretz
Tuesday, March 14, 2023
Ron
DeSantis has made a definitive choice to align himself with those Republicans
and conservatives who are at the least skeptical and at the most hostile to
American and NATO efforts on behalf of Ukraine in its struggle to keep itself
from being swallowed whole by Russia. His answer to a Tucker Carlson
questionnaire described Russia’s aggression as a “territorial dispute” and said
that America “becoming further entangled” in Ukraine’s defense was not in our
national interest. He therefore opposes the loan or use of American F-16s in
the conflict, as it could, he said, “risk drawing America” directly into the
conflict. He then attacked the “DC foreign policy interventionists” who might
be pursuing “regime change” in Russia—and said our policies so far have pushed
Russia “into a de facto” alliance with China.
A few
weeks ago, DeSantis told the Fox News morning show he opposed giving Ukraine a
“blank check”—which Ukraine is not being given, by the way, as one prominent
person who joins with DeSantis in opposing the deployment of F-16s is none
other than President Joe Biden. He spoke a couple of days after Senator Josh
Hawley gave a speech in which he said we should cut Ukraine off entirely and
focus all our foreign-policy moves toward and against China. I wrote a
post here in which I said, “you can see how tempting the Hawley position is
going to be for the key entrant, Ron DeSantis. It sounds hawkish—we need to
dedicate all our resources to stopping China—while actually being
isolationist.”
And that
is exactly where DeSantis has gone. Moreover, he’s done so in a way that
completely contradicts several years of hawkishness on his own part when it
came to staring down Russia on the matter of Ukraine. Statements during his
time as a member of Congress from 2015 and 2017 show him condemning the Obama
administration for its weakness on the matter. Granted, it’s six years later.
And granted, people’s views can change. But usually a politician will try to
offer some sort of clarity on the change. DeSantis has merely flip-flopped, and
we all know why, and so does he. He’s trying to ride a wave of opinion inside
the GOP on this matter while denying Donald Trump an isolationist weapon to use
against him over the next year.
Here’s
the thing, though. DeSantis and his people may believe that the
anti-interventionist argument in Ukraine is far more fixed in the Republican
political mind than is actually the case. Two data points tell the tale. First,
a new CNN poll of Republicans shows only 9 percent of them view foreign policy as
the most important issue in the coming presidential election. That means there
isn’t a lot of heat when it comes to Ukraine-Russia one way or the other. A
majority of Republicans supports Ukraine’s efforts to reclaim territory from
Russia even if that prolongs the conflict, 53-41 percent, according to Gallup.
Only a third support increased financial and military assistance, it’s true,
but they’re still on Ukraine’s side in this conflict.
That
means the Republican view is far from fixed, and far from determined. Which, in
turn, means a candidate for president like DeSantis has far more running room
on this issue than natcon/tradcon/Carlsoncon world would have you believe.
DeSantis is a good politician, obviously, and he may have a natural feel for
this matter that I don’t have. But in his Twitter-friendly statement and his
media team’s Twitter-besotted behavior, you can also see the way his team might
be finding itself led by the loudest social-media voices rather than trying to
lead them. If that’s the case, that’s a bad sign for DeSantis, who needs to run
his own race.
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