Posts tagged as “2024 Presidential Election”

Because DeSantis has adopted Trump’s foreign policy of appeasement, Reagan conservatives no longer can support him. Instead, they must look to other 2024 GOP presidential candidates.

The war for the Republican Party can best be understood as pitting Reaganites against Trumpsters.

Reaganites believe in fiscal responsibility, debt reduction, free trade, peace through strength, a proactive and assertive U.S. foreign policy, and honest, judicious administration of government.

Trumpsters believe in fiscal irresponsibility, debt expansion, protectionism, appeasement and retreat, a go-it-alone, hidebound U.S. foreign policy, and a chaotic and suspect administration of government.

Those of us who had supported Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for the 2024 presidential nomination had hoped that he would pick up the Reagan mantle, take the fight to Trump, and reclaim the Republican Party, so that, once again, we can enjoy conservative political victories and not the steady and mounting stream of political losses brought about by the Trumpsters.

DeSantis’s Statement. Alas, as we now know, through the release of DeSantis’s statement about Russia and Ukraine to MAGA political boss Tucker Carlson, it is not to be. DeSantis has revealed himself as a political disciple not of Reagan but of Trump.

Indeed, like his mentor, Donald Trump, DeSantis calls Russia’s illegal and horrific war on Ukraine a “territorial dispute” that is not a vital interest of the United States. And he warns against becoming “further entangled” in this “territorial dispute,” because it “distracts from our country’s most pressing challenges.”

Of course, much the same could have been said, and was said, about Nazi Germany’s “territorial disputes” with Poland and Czechoslovakia.

But farsighted conservative leaders then (Winston Churchill, for instance) recognized that the attempted Nazi German subjugation of Europe was not a “territorial dispute”; it was an attempt to conquer and enslave other countries and other peoples.

The same is true today of Russia’s war on Ukraine: It is not a “territorial dispute.” It is a naked attempt by one country to conquer and subsume another. And, as every American president, Republican and Democrat, has recognized since at least the Second World War, the United States has a vital national interest in ensuring that Europe remains peaceful, stable, and free.

China. DeSantis points out that the United States must devote its efforts to “checking the economic, cultural, and military power of the Chinese Community Party.”

This is true. But China is formally aligned with Russia and will draw either inspiration of perspiration from our success or failure in Ukraine.

After all “nothing succeeds like success. Countries respect the prerogatives of the strong or successful horse. Failure, by contrast, breeds more failure.

DeSantis doesn’t seem to understand this. Nor does he seem to realize that the United States needs allies to confront China. But how likely are the Europeans to help us confront China if we abandon them on Ukraine?

China has designs on Taiwan. Is that also a “territorial dispute” which DeSantis thinks we should avoid becoming “entangled” in? Certainly, the analysis that he applies to Ukraine applies as well to Taiwan, a fact that is not lost on the Communist leaders of China.

DeSantis says that “the Biden administration’s policies have driven Russia into a defacto alliance with China.”

But the historical record clearly shows that China and Russia have had a defacto alliance against America and the West for many years. DeSantis suggests that appeasing Russia in Ukraine will somehow make Russia nice again.

Really? Why would anyone think this, given Russia’s two decades of antagonism toward the United States?

Arming Ukraine. DeSantis says that we mustn’t provide Ukraine with F-16s and long-range missiles, because these would enable Ukraine to “engage in offensive operations beyond its borders.”

This, he warns, “would risk explicitly drawing the United States into the conflict” and possible result in a “hot war between the world’s two largest nuclear powers. That risk is unacceptable,” he declares.

But aircraft and long-range missiles are needed to help Ukraine defeat Russia. Is DeSantis opposed to Ukraine winning and retaining its independence and sovereignty?

Moreover, how does Ukraine defeating Russia increase the likelihood of a hot war between Russia and the United States? If anything, the opposite is true, no?

A defeated and chastened Russia exhausted from its war in Ukraine is far less likely to confront the United States simply because it lacks the means and wherewithal to do so.

Escalation. Finally, DeSantis warns against “regime change” in Russia and an “escalation” of the war in Ukraine.

But the Ukrainians obviously are not fighting for “regime change” in Russia. They are fighting for their territorial integrity, independence, and sovereignty. And an “escalation,” or further war, is likely if Ukraine loses, not if it wins.

If Ukraine loses, then an emboldened Russia will seek to cause further mischief for the United States in Asia and the Middle East, even as it looks for new “spheres of influence” (read: territorial subjugation and conquest) within Europe.

DeSantis warns against a “blank check” for Ukraine, but it looks like he would give Putin a “blank check” in Ukraine and Eastern Europe. Is that in the American national interest?

Conclusion. For these reasons, GOP voters who take foreign policy seriously cannot possibly support DeSantis for president in 2024.

Instead, they must look elsewhere: to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, Senator Tim Scott, and Vice President Mike Pence. These men and women appear to be Reagaites. DeSantis, unfortunately, is a Trumpster.

Feature photo credit: Trump and DeSantis, two peas in the same isolationist or non-interventionist foreign policy pod, courtesy of Vanity Fair.

Biden is pushing for a long, drawn-out tie. Trump would effect a quick Russian win. DeSantis should argue for a swift Ukrainian victory.

Nikki Haley’s entry into the 2024 presidential race has raised anew the question of how Ukraine will figure in the Republican presidential primary.

More specifically, how should Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, the clear and dominant frontrunner in the race, approach the issue of Ukraine, given the conspicuous rise of isolationist or non-interventionist Republicans led by one, Donald J. Trump?

Haley has positioned herself as a hawk firmly in synch with the Reagan Republican tradition of peace through strength and military aid to freedom fighters willing to bear arms for their own freedom and against America’s enemies.

Trump, meanwhile, has gone soft and limp. He would, he says, force Ukraine and Russia to negotiate and thereby end the war “within 24 hours.” Cutting off, or cutting back on, American military aid to Ukraine, he argues, would help force the two countries to negotiate “peace.”

Of course, the resultant “peace” would be a frozen conflict in which Russia retains significant chunks of Ukrainian territory while rearming and preparing for the day when it can reignite the conflict and conquer all of Ukraine. This is the “peace” that Putin wants and hopes for.

DeSantis wisely has not spoken out about Ukraine. Unlike Trump and unlike Haley, he has a full-time job as governor of America’s third-most populous state, Florida. And he was just reelected governor there by the biggest margin statewide in 40 years, and by the biggest margin ever for a Florida Republican gubernatorial candidate.

The people of Florida expect him to do the job to which he was just reelected and Ukraine, obviously, is out of his lane as governor.

However, when DeSantis does announce later this year that he is running for president, the war in Ukraine most likely will be raging still and with no end in sight thanks to Biden’s slow walking of aid to Ukraine. And DeSantis no longer will be able to ignore the issue. He will have to take a stand that is bound to be controversial with some GOP voters.

Here’s what I think DeSantis should do and will do: He should triangulate between Biden and Trump. He should say that both men have bad and dangerous ideas re: Ukraine.

Biden, as Sen. Tom Cotton has observed,

has dragged his feet all along, hesitating fearfully to send the Ukrainians the weapons and intelligence they need to win.

Today, Mr. Biden stubbornly refuses to provide fighter jets, cluster munitions and long-range missiles to Ukraine. As a result of Mr. Biden’s half-measures, Ukraine has only half-succeeded.

Trump, meanwhile, wants to effectively pull the rug out from under Ukraine and thereby give Putin a victory. But neither approach serves the American national interest.

The United States, DeSantis should say, does not want a long, drawn-out war that kills countless Ukrainians while consuming vast amounts of American money and scarce military resources. Yet that is what Biden’s dithering and delay has wrought.

Nor does America want a Russian victory that will create a new zone of war and conflict in Europe. Yet that is what Trump’s call for “negotiations” and an “immediate” end to the war will inevitably bring about.

Instead, Americans want, and America needs, a swift and decisive Ukrainian victory, which is possible with real presidential leadership. DeSantis will provide this leadership and thereby quickly end the war, but on terms favorable to the American national interest. He will, finally, put “America First” in Ukraine.

Politics. Will this work politically in today’s Republican Party? I believe that it will. Most Republicans, and certainly most GOP primary voters, are not isolationists or anti-interventionists. However, they are opposed to long, drawn-out wars with no end in sight.

As they see it, the problem in Ukraine is that Biden doesn’t have a strategy for winning. Instead, he’s committed to half-measures for “as long as it takes”—and “as long as it takes” suggests another interminable, decades-long “forever war.” No thanks.

Fortunately, the war in Ukraine doesn’t have to end that way. There is a real and viable alternative waiting to happen but for a lack of presidential leadership.

As a former Navy JAG attorney who saw service in “The Surge” in Iraq (2007), DeSantis surely understands this. He knows war in a way that Donald Trump never has and never will. (Trump received five military draft deferments to avoid service in the Vietnam War.)

GOP primary voters will respond well to a candidate who unapologetically puts American interests first and pledges to swiftly and successfully end the war in Ukraine by ensuring Russia loses. Such an approach will distinguish DeSantis from his main primary opponent, Donald Trump, and also his likely general election opponent, Joe Biden.

Triangulating between Trump and Biden on Ukraine and on other issues (Social Security, Medicare, and entitlements, for instance, where Trump wants to do nothing and Biden wants only to raise taxes) will allow DeSantis to crush Trump in the primaries while simultaneously appealing to centrists and independents in the general election.

Nikki Haley is pioneering this approach, but it will be a winning strategy for Ron DeSantis.

Feature photo credit: Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, former President Trump, and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis are all vying for the 2024 Republican Party presidential nomination, courtesy of Newsweek.