By Noah Rothman
Monday, May 20, 2024
“This is disgraceful,” said Senator J. D. Vance following the passage through the
Senate, earlier this year, of legislation designed to provide support to
America’s embattled partners abroad. “And if you are a leader of this country,
of the United States of America, you should be getting fired up about that.”
Along with the indecorous Ukraine critics he’s decided to make his
allies, Vance promoted himself as the true champion for the unexpressed views
of a majority of Republican voters. His opposition to supporting Ukraine’s
defense against Russia’s war of conquest was an expression of his voters’
views, Vance insisted.
It seemed like Vance had the facts on his side. The
polling had long indicated that support for Ukraine’s cause was on the decline
among Republican voters, and Speaker Mike Johnson’s reluctance to take up the
Senate bill appeared to support the claim that Republicans with their ears to
the ground understood that endorsing Kyiv’s cause represented a political
liability. “Credit to Mike Johnson for being the one person in that meeting
who’s standing there saying, ‘We have got to put the interest of our own citizens
first,’” said Vance glowingly.
But Johnson buckled. In late April, the House easily
passed a variety of proposals aiding U.S. allies in Israel, Taiwan, and
Ukraine; an amendment backed by Marjorie Taylor Greene that was designed to
zero out U.S. support for Kyiv generated just 71 Republican votes. The anti-Ukraine right was livid, but
the expressions of their outrage — up to and including an attempt to oust
Johnson from the speakership — failed. All this suggests that hostility toward Ukraine
among the GOP rank-and-file was far less salient than many understood. But how
would those voters react when they had the chance to register their
dissatisfaction with their pro-Ukraine representatives in GOP primaries? That
question loomed large, but it has since been answered. Republican voters have
now demonstrated that the long-forecast anti-Ukraine backlash was not going to
materialize.
In Late April, the New York Times explored the surprising failure of
Republican voters to impose political consequences on their pro-Ukraine
representatives in primaries. Even in “solidly Republican” districts,
incumbents who voted with the majority have survived. Last week, the Washington Post’s Paul Kane followed
up on the phenomenon and found that Republican voters’ oft-retailed “anger” has
not manifested in support for anti-Ukraine upstarts.
There are lessons to be gleaned from the exposure of this
political mirage. “If Republicans can escape this primary season without an
incumbent losing over the Ukraine vote, it could begin to teach them to avoid
living in fear of their own voters,” Kane asserted. Indeed, as member after
member of the GOP conference in Congress has told reporters, when the stakes of
Russia’s war in Europe are explained to voters, “people get it.”
So, when elected leaders opt to, you know, lead —
treating voters like adults by outlining their principles and presenting the
facts as they understand them — voters respond favorably. That condition might
come as a shock to elected officials who believe it is their job to ratify
whatever the consensus opinion among the GOP “base” is at any given moment, but
it shouldn’t shock those Republicans who still retain some attachment to
Burkean sensibilities.
“I think people have been too obsessed with voting for
foreign wars,” Greene told reporters after what she has deemed Johnson’s “betrayal.” She seemed convinced that when her fellow
Republicans went “home and hear from their constituents,” the backlash would be
overwhelming. But it was not to be. Perhaps Greene, Vance, and their anti-Kyiv
allies will take the hint and stop presuming to speak for the Republican voters
they don’t appear to understand. But don’t anyone hold your breath.
No comments:
Post a Comment