The Daily Populous Wednesday December 3rd, 2025 evening edition
Authored by theguardian.com and submitted by 15abcd_

In a speech that ran for 100 minutes there was one moment when Donald Trump drew more applause from Democrats than Republicans. As the president told Congress last week how the US had sent billions of dollars in military aid to Ukraine, his political opponents clapped and unfurled a Ukrainian flag – while his own party sat in stony silence.

It was a telling insight into Republicans’ transformation, in the space of a generation, from a party of cold war hawks to one of “America first” isolationists. Where Trump has led, many Republicans have obediently followed, all the way into the embrace of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin – with huge implications for the global democratic order.

“The reversal is dramatic and the willingness of the Republican party to go along with it continues to be breathtaking,” said Charlie Sykes, a political commentator and author of How the Right Lost Its Mind. “At least for a while it appeared that Republicans were still going to be supportive of Ukraine. But now that Trump has completely reversed our foreign policy there seems to be very little pushback.”

Last month, Trump set up a peace process that began with the US and Russia’s top diplomats meeting in Saudi Arabia – with no seat at the table for Ukrainian officials. He branded Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a “dictator”, a term he has never applied to the authoritarian Putin.

Along with Vice-President JD Vance, he berated Zelenskyy in the Oval Office, a spectacle that prompted the Democratic senator Elissa Slotkin to observe that Ronald Reagan, a Republican president who was an inveterate foe of Soviet aggression, “must be rolling over in his grave”. Trump suspended offensive cyber operations against Russia and paused military aid and intelligence sharing with Ukraine until it agreed to a 30-day ceasefire.

The Oval Office shakedown shocked the world but there was strikingly little criticism from Republicans. The secretary of state, Marco Rubio, sank into a couch and said nothing as the shouting raged around him. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who had previously been supportive of Zelenskyy, even suggested that the Ukrainian president should resign.

Speaking at a Center for American Progress thinktank event in Washington this week, Patrick Gaspard, a former Obama administration official, said: “What you fundamentally believe matters little if you’re acting against those beliefs.

Absent Trump, I don’t think you would see this reorientation of the Republican party Max Boot

“It was astonishing to see Republican leaders who on a Monday were praising Zelenskyy and by the Tuesday were removing any reference to him from their websites. It’s an extraordinary thing to see people who used to be pretty serious on this issue, like Lindsey Graham, suddenly saying the things.”

Meanwhile, other Russia hawks such as the former vice-president Mike Pence, Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger have been sidelined. Republicans who were not shy about countering Trump’s foreign policy ideas during his first term are now standing by him – in public at least.

Max Boot, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations thinktank and author of Reagan: His Life and Legend, said: “Absent Trump, I don’t think you would see this reorientation of the Republican party. Even with Trump a lot of Republicans, especially on Capitol Hill, are very uneasy about it and don’t like what Trump is doing but they’re afraid to speak out.”

View image in fullscreen Tucker Carlson interviews Vladimir Putin in Moscow on 6 February 2024. Photograph: Gavriil Grigorov/AP

Others suggest that loyalty to or fear of Trump may not be the only explanation. Younger Republicans are questioning the legitimacy of institutions such as Nato and the United Nations and following far-right influencers such as Tucker Carlson, who interviewed Putin in Russia last year and claimed that Moscow was “so much nicer than any city in my country”.

Critics say Trump, Carlson and the “Make America great again” movement see in Russia an idealised version of white Christian nationalism, in contrast to the “woke” values of western Europe. Putin has mocked the US embassy for flying a rainbow flag and suggested that transgenderism is “on the verge of a crime against humanity”.

From this perspective, the struggle is no longer capitalism against communism but rather woke against unwoke. In various speeches Putin has railed against the west’s “obsessive emphasis on race”, “modern cancel culture” and “reverse racism”. He said of the west: “They invented five or six genders: transformers, trans – you see, I do not even understand what it is.”

Let’s make it real American tangible. Russia is a red state and France and England and Nato – they’re blue states Joel Rubin

All are familiar talking points from the Maga playbook. Indeed, last year, on the rightwing strategist Steven Bannon’s War Room podcast, the Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene said: “Let’s talk about what this really is, Steve: this is a war against Christianity. The Ukrainian government is attacking Christians; the Ukrainian government is executing priests. Russia is not doing that; they’re not attacking Christianity. As a matter of fact, they seem to be protecting it.”

Bannon has made no secret of his desire to bring down the European Union and “globalist” forces. Joel Rubin, a former deputy assistant secretary of state under Barack Obama, draws a comparison with conservative “red” states and liberal “blue” states within the US. “Let’s make it real American tangible,” he said. “Russia is a red state and France and England and Nato – they’re blue states.”

During the cold war, it was hardline anti-communism that was core to the Republican brand. Reagan branded the Soviet Union as the “evil empire” and stepped up US military spending. But when Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in the Soviet Union in 1985, relations improved.

Reagan and Gorbachev held several summits that led to key arms control agreements. Reagan’s successor, George HW Bush, worked closely with Gorbachev and, later, Boris Yeltsin as the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, encouraging a transition to democracy and capitalism.

View image in fullscreen Ronald Reagan meets Mikhail Gorbachev at the historic 1986 summit in Reykjavik, Iceland. Photograph: World History Archive/Alamy

Early in Republican George W Bush’s presidency, he had a relatively positive relationship with Putin, memorably saying he had “looked into Putin’s soul” and found him trustworthy. The two cooperated on counter-terrorism following the 9/11 attacks but tensions grew over the Iraq war and US support for Georgia and Ukraine.

By 2008, when Russia invaded Georgia, relations had significantly deteriorated. Obama, a Democrat, initially pursued a “reset” policy with Russia, aiming to improve relations, but tensions resurfaced after Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 and supported separatists in eastern Ukraine. In response, Obama imposed sanctions on Russia and expelled diplomats.

Russia launched an aggressive effort to interfere in the 2016 presidential election on Trump’s behalf, according to a later Senate intelligence committee report, which found extensive evidence of contacts between the Trump campaign advisers and Kremlin officials and other Russians.

I push back against the idea that Republicans have become entranced with Putin because there’s not evidence for that Henry Olsen

Trump vehemently denied collusion even as his administration imposed sanctions on Russia. At a joint press conference in Helsinki in 2018, Trump sided with the Russian president over his own intelligence agencies. He has remained unwilling to criticise Putin, even after Russia invaded Ukraine and after the opposition activist Alexei Navalny died in prison.

The Putin-isation of the Republican party should perhaps not be overstated. Older senators such as Mitch McConnell, who is retiring at the next election, Thom Tillis and Roger Wicker remain staunchly supportive of Ukraine.

Henry Olsen, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center thinktank in Washington, said: “I push back against the idea that Republicans have become entranced with Putin because there’s not evidence for that. There is evidence that Republicans have become tired of the fight in Ukraine. These things are not the same.”

However, the balance appears to be shifting as the cold war fades into memory. About 41% of Republicans view Russia as either “friendly” or an “ally”, according to a CBS News/YouGov poll released earlier this month. And just 27% of Republicans agree with the statement that Trump is too close to Moscow, according to a Reuters/Ipsos survey.

View image in fullscreen The secretary of state, Marco Rubio, cut an uncomfortable figure at the Oval Office meeting at which Donald Trump and JD Vance berated Ukraine’s president. Photograph: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA

Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the House of Representatives’ armed services committee, told the Guardian of the “Make American great again” movement: “They have definitely shown a sympathy for Vladimir Putin’s autocratic, ‘traditional’ values, which are very troubling if you care about the problems of bigotry and discrimination. There is growing sympathy and the wing of the Republican party that’s against that is getting weaker while the other wing is getting stronger.”

He added: “They believe that they’re going to promote ‘traditional values’ and they see Putin as an ideological ally in that. I still think it is a minority within the Republican party but Trump’s the president. He’s the leader of that party and they’re adhering to him. Trump has an enormous amount of sympathy for that worldview and more and more of them are drifting in that direction.”

Bill Galston, a former policy adviser to Bill Clinton, said: “The Republican party during the cold war was anti-communist and from their standpoint, once communism disappeared, their major motive for opposing Russia did as well.

“The fact that Russia is a rightwing autocracy doesn’t particularly trouble them. To the extent that Putin has refashioned himself as a traditionalist culture warrior, he’s actually making an affirmative appeal to what the Republican party has become.”

kastbort2021 on December 3rd, 2025 at 18:24 UTC »

My observations:

1) Some are just isolationists. They figure that by letting Russia live out their colonialist dreams (capturing old Soviet states etc.), Russia will not be a problem for the US. But by fighting Russia, they become a bigger problem than they need to be.

2) They want Russia to be on the US side, if a US - China conflict should happen. China is the largest threat to US hegemony, and having Russia fight on your side would mean lots of troops and geopolitical influence.

3) They admire the Russian leadership, and the system they've built. Modern day Russia is basically a system where the inner circle of Putin, loyalists, and elites with shared background / interests are rewarded. While their enemies are punished brutally. All under the guise of extreme nationalism and patriotism. If you think about it, this is exactly what many far-right and populist-right politicians want in the US.

4) Shared values on things like anti-woke, anti-LGBTQ, "traditional values", etc.

5) They admire "strongman" and "might is right" culture.

6) They are being funded and buttered up by Russians.

7) They don't know they are being played by Russians.

And probably many more points.

PT14_8 on December 3rd, 2025 at 14:56 UTC »

The last President with a cogent policy on Russia was.... Bush.

Both Cheney and Rice had sized Putin up and knew his end goal. I reserve a very special criticism of bad Russia policy for Obama. For years, Russia had advocated for the elimination of Jackson-Vanik, the regularization of US-Russia trade and a push to whitewash Russian interference in European and American affairs.

Obama implemented the Magnitsky Act, but it was a nothingburger. Merkel led efforts to support Putin within the G8 and it wasn't until clear, uncontrivable evidence was presented to Obama did he realize the depth of problems with Russia. It was apparently McCain who help bring that realization about.

Both Democratic and Republican parties were loath to see Russia as anything but nebulous. The German and French governments were outwardly supporting Putin and applying pressure on the US to drop Jackson-Vanik and take a different approach to Moscow (drop containment).

I find it rich to sit here and say: "Well, the GOP is supporting Putin!" when Merkel had gone to exceptional lengths to appease him, despite every promise broken. Finally with the capture of Crimea in 2014 she called Obama directly and expressed frustration; but, it has been years of European governments giving Putin a very literal pass. They ignored express warnings about Putin from Clinton, Bush and Biden. Marcon openly claimed that CIA intel about an imminent invasion was a farce and that the CIA couldn't be trusted. He flew to Moscow to get "assurances" which he got and hours later they invaded.

Europeans sitting there going: "Oh my god, how could some within the GOP be such a stooge?" Well, have you looked at your national policy since 1992? The countries who took a clear concern about Moscow from the start are Poland and the Baltics. They had been warning the West for years and we treated them like schnooks only for them to be correct.

So, I'll say: Europe reaped what it sowed. And now you can't rely on US leadership on this and you are floundering. Sounds like it's time for Europe to stand up and defend..... Europe.

Edit: I'll add that when the US was non-committal about Jackson-Vanik and during US-Russia negotiations on START and various other nuclear agreements, Europe aligned with Moscow and applied pressure on the United States. When the US made it clear Russia was violating laws around Iraqi oil (Andrew Meier's Black Earth is an excellent read on this; as is Putin Rising), Europe made it clear they stood with Moscow. To sit now and say: "Yo, why aren't you on our side?" when for 20 years you made it clear you felt Moscow was the more honest broker strikes me as incredibly self-serving. Now that the cloak is off, you're looking for help. You asked for the US to close European bases for years (Germany, Italy!) and then when Trump threatened to do that in 2016 and 2017, European allies flew to Washington to talk him out of it. You reap what you sow.

Edit2: I'll also add that Merkel worked on behalf of Nordstream2 over objections by other countries and when credible evidence was passed to Berlin that Moscow had infiltrated her inner circle she shrugged it off. It wasn't until 2021 that M. Khodorkovsky made allegations in public did others turn around and question what had been happening in Berlin.

You. Reap. What. You. Sow.

knign on December 3rd, 2025 at 14:33 UTC »

Trump supporters are, by definition, susceptible to propaganda via social media, including Russian state propaganda which appears to many of them broadly consistent with MAGA worldviews.