Opinion

In light of the brutal carnage being perpetrated by the Russian army on Ukraine this week, it's good to see that most Republicans have found it in themselves to finally condemn the invasion. It obviously wasn't easy for them. As we've just witnessed with the pandemic, they hate to be on the same side as a Democratic president for any reason, no matter how high the body count is. But they have come around, with even the most reluctant Republican now rallying to the side of the Ukrainian people. In fact, some of them have gone so far in the opposite direction that they have become reckless and dangerous:

Massie response to Graham’s tweet: I think it’s insane. Did he suggest it should be secret plot and tweet that out as well? pic.twitter.com/ywj8BRGUL1
— Acyn (@Acyn) March 4, 2022

That may be one of the most irresponsible comments by a sitting U.S. senator in modern memory. When Graham repeated it on Fox News, even Laura Ingraham was left bewildered.

We learned this week the J6 committee is investigating former President Donald Trump and his advisor John Eastman for the same offense many foot soldiers of the insurrection are charged with.

The committee suspects Trump and Eastman obstructed an official proceeding, a felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

When we see the tanks roll into Ukraine, it's easy to feel it's a world away.

Yet, as we saw with the Jan. 6 insurrection in our nation's capital, the Trump-Putin style of authoritarianism got traction because we were unable to hold bullies accountable in Atlantic City, Trenton, Washington or Moscow.

Two men who were arrested near Ukraine's embassy in Washington Thursday for carrying firearms reportedly told police they wanted to help fight off Russia's invasion of its pro-Western neighbor.

The pair, who according to US media told officers they had driven from the Midwest state of Indiana, were charged with multiple weapons-related violations.

The January 6th select committee has now told a federal judge in a bombshell filing that Donald Trump committed several crimes in trying to overturn the 2020 election and keep himself installed as president, engaging in a “criminal conspiracy” with others:

In a major release of its findings, filed in federal court late Wednesday, the committee suggested that its evidence supported findings that Trump himself violated multiple laws by attempting to prevent Congress from certifying his defeat.
“The Select Committee also has a good-faith basis for concluding that the President and members of his Campaign engaged in a criminal conspiracy to defraud the United States,” the committee wrote in a filing submitted in U.S. District Court in the Central District of California.

Meanwhile, just two nights ago Republicans stood up and applauded thunderously when President Biden, in the first 12 minutes of his State of the Union address, condemned Russia’s Vladimir Putin, an authoritarian who is now brutally invading the sovereign nation of Ukraine.

Stories and images of Ukrainians fighting for their democracy have inspired citizens worldwide. Many Americans have wondered what we should do to defend ours. They’re right to wonder. American democracy is in grave danger from the same anti-democratic forces.

Authoritarianism — the political belief that danger and chaos require a strict obedience to authority (a strong leader or strong government), even at the expense of individual freedom — is growing in America.

We can call them the Sanity Caucus.

Kansas Attorney General and likely Republican gubernatorial nominee Derek Schmidt can be counted first among equals here. Admittedly, his sanity came during a meet and greet with voters in Harper County, rather than a news conference. But he nonetheless held the line when questioned about election security and some of the preposterous claims made by outside “experts.”

It seems that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine might give the Democrats a chance to stake out a new middle ground – if they see it for what it is.

On the far right, you have the former president, his GOP mutineers, and a rash of right-wing media all-in with Vladimir Putin. They parrot his propaganda to undercut Joe Biden. (It’s the first time in my life a major party withheld support of a sitting president amid a geopolitical crisis.)

Last year, when President Joe Biden gave his address to a joint session of Congress, he was speaking to a world that had just witnessed a violent insurrection in which a mob had tried to stop the peaceful transfer of power. He said:

[A]s we gather here tonight, the images of a violent mob assaulting this Capitol, desecrating our democracy, remain vivid in all our minds. Lives were put at risk — many of your lives. Lives were lost. Extraordinary courage was summoned. The insurrection was an existential crisis — a test of whether our democracy could survive. And it did.
But the struggle is far from over. The question of whether our democracy will long endure is both ancient and urgent, as old as our Republic — still vital today. Can our democracy deliver on its promise that all of us, created equal in the image of God, have a chance to lead lives of dignity, respect, and possibility? Can our democracy deliver the most — to the most pressing needs of our people? Can our democracy overcome the lies, anger, hate and fears that have pulled us apart?
America's adversaries — the autocrats of the world — are betting we can't. ... They believe we're too full of anger and division and rage. They look at the images of the mob that assaulted the Capitol as proof that the sun is setting on American democracy. But they are wrong. You know it; I know it. But we have to prove them wrong.

For this year's State of the Union address, the president was speaking to a world that is witnessing Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, and the themes were not dissimilar. It is entirely possible that Biden's words last year were prophetic. That horrifying act of violence on Jan. 6, 2021, may have led Russian President Vladimir Putin to believe that the U.S. was so divided and had lost so much global influence that it would be unable to rally the world to take decisive action against his attack on Ukraine.

Racism is not an opinion. It is a fact.

This is true both in the United States and around the world.