Opinion

One of the currently preferred rationalizations pro-Russia propagandists are using to justify the invasion of Ukraine appears to have emerged from an American social media network known for hosting QAnon, neo-Nazis and other assorted deplorables. As Justin Ling at Foreign Policy explained it earlier this month, the new theory is that "Moscow is launching airstrikes on Ukraine to destroy bioweapon-manufacturing labs in order to prevent the American infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci from creating a sequel to the COVID-19 virus."

The notion that Ukraine has "bioweapons" and that Russia is invading to stop some dastardly Ukrainian plot didn't even emerge until after the invasion had begun. Prior to that, the laughably thin rationale was based on Vladimir Putin's asinine claims that Ukraine, whose president is of Jewish ancestry, is being run by Nazis. When that didn't really fly, a new justification emerged, from what look to be American sources.

First, Michigan’s Republican Governor ended the power of cities to govern themselves, replacing them with “emergency managers” and producing the Flint water crisis.

Now the Republicans who run Tennessee are trying a similar trick, wanting to defy the voters to take over the town of Mason in that state. As the headline at the Tennessee Lookout newspaper notes:

There’s a lot that’s terrible about Russian strongman Vladimir Putin’s brutal attempt to erase Ukraine from the map of Europe.

From the incalculable humanitarian disaster that has seen millions of Ukrainians flee their home country, to the appalling carnage on the streets of Mariupol that was devastatingly humanized with the death of a pregnant woman and her unborn baby, the costs of Putin’s unjustified war of conquest will be with us for decades to come.

Donald Trump, Steve Bannon, Tucker Carlson, Michael Flynn and the other leaders of the American neofascist movement are very generous, in their own sinister fashion. They make their escalating threats of right-wing violence, insurrection and other forms of mayhem in public. There is little skulduggery or subterfuge involved.

Why are they so bold? Because they have suffered no serious long-term negative consequences for their behavior. And for the most part, the Republican fascists and the larger white right are winning in their war against American democracy. Momentum is on their side. Why should they conceal their intentions?

A major news item this morning is Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy demanding the United States and its European allies do one of two things: establish a no-fly zone over Ukraine or supply aircraft.

During a virtual speech before members of the United States Congress, Zelenskyy said Europe hasn’t seen terror like this in 80 years. “We are asking for an answer to this terror. Is that a lot to ask? To create a no-fly zone over Ukraine to save people. Is this too much to ask? …

On Tuesday, President Vladimir Putin slapped back at the United States' sanctions on Russia and various Russian oligarchs by putting what he called a "stop list" on 13 Americans. The list includes President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley and White House press secretary Jen Psaki among other members of the Biden administration. Putin also put former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on the list as well as Biden's son Hunter, neither of whom are in the current government or hold any official job. Curiously, Putin failed to name even one Republican. How odd?

Responding to a question about this during the daily press briefing, Psaki said, "it won't surprise any of you that none of us are planning tourist trips to Russia, none of us have bank accounts that we won't be able to access, so we will forge ahead." Unsurprisingly, Republicans had little to say about it. Well, except for one. Former President Donald Trump was jubilant:

A story in The Hill, entitled “New polling confirms Democrats' left-leaning policies are out of touch,” concludes this way:

The electorate is increasingly pessimistic about the direction in which President Biden and Democrats are steering the country and feel that the party's priorities do not align with their own.

So now, as expected after decades of taking big bucks for her rightwing work on behalf of America’s oligarchs, we learn that the wife of Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, Ginny Thomas, was in Trump’s January 6th “rally” up to her eyeballs.

Let’s just say it right out loud: the US Supreme Court is corrupt. And Americans know it.

The former president keeps telling on himself. During an appearance Sunday on Jeanine Pirro’s radio show on WABC, Donald Trump expressed, yet again, his sympathy for Russia’s reigning kleptocrat.

"He's got a big ego," Trump said of Vladimir Putin. “I think what's going on now is hard. I understand he's gotten rid of a lot of his generals."

After Texas passed a sweeping abortion ban that outlaws any pregnancy termination two weeks after the missed period, what happened is exactly what pro-choicers predicted would happen: Women did whatever it takes to end unwanted pregnancies anyway.

Initial misleading reports claimed abortions in the Lonestar state went down 60%, a figure heavily hyped by anti-choicers who want to pretend that women are easily swayed from the abortion decision. Soon, however, the truth came out: Nearly all Texas women who wanted abortions got them by either going out of state or buying abortion pills online. The actual abortion rate was only down 10%. No doubt the few who were forced into unwanted childbirth were the most vulnerable Texans: Teenagers, immigrants, and poor women who don't have the means to find alternatives.

Who wouldn’t like to see Marjorie Taylor Greene’s career-ending after one uselessly nauseating term in the US House of Representatives?

Who wouldn’t like to see her spending more time chilling with Putin-loving white nationalists, harassing kids who survived school shootings, or groping photoshopped cutouts of Donald Trump?

When Russian President Vladimir Putin started openly prepping his invasion of Ukraine a few weeks ago, it was clear that Donald Trump and his biggest stooges saw this as their big moment to get Republican voters on board with their pro-Putin agenda. For years, Trump propagandists like former Trump advisor Steve Bannon and Fox News host Tucker Carlson had been seeding the idea of an authoritarian movement that would join Trump supporters in the U.S. with far-right leaders abroad. They clearly envisioned a transnational push to end democracy and replace it with white nationalist autocracies. To this end, Trump made a big show during his presidency of aligning himself with Putin. Bannon repeatedly made trips to Europe to make alliances with far-right parties across the continent. Carlson hosted segments romanticizing Hungary's nationalist leader Viktor Orbán.

When it looked like Putin was about to strike Ukraine and end their fledgling democracy, these men were beside themselves with joy. Bannon gushed about how Putin was "anti-woke." Carlson argued that Putin was an innocent victim of Democratic propaganda. Trump, brimming with admiration, swooned at Putin's "genius" and "savvy." Carlson's pro-Putin bent was so obvious that the Kremlin instructed their own propagandists to use "broadcasts of the popular Fox News host Tucker Carlson."

The former president held another of his tiresome rallies last night. I say “tiresome” because it was more of the same spleen and bile.

But he did say something useful to my purposes, which is talking about John Dewey in a world gripped by tyranny. Below is a long interview with Nathan Crick. He wrote Dewey and the New Age of Fascism.