Since World War II, no military ally has done more for the United States than Ukraine. If it wasn’t for Ukraine absorbing all those Russian cruise missiles, suicide drones, cyber attacks, and meat-grinder infantry charges, it would be a NATO nation, and the United States would be in this fight directly.
For a pittance compared to so many other things we are uselessly wasting taxpayer money on, like a pointless war against Iran, knocking down a third of the White House to make way for ballroom renovations, and airing pro-Trump campaign advertisements during football games, the United States could righteously continue to support its pro-western, pro-democracy, and pro-America ally. Instead, Republicans have advanced their slow-moving betrayal of Ukraine in its latest incarnation of throttling critical frontlines Starlink access as well as massive cash giveaways to Russia through sanctions waivers and buying Russian diesel fuel.
It could be easy to write all of this off as the deranged mental excrement of the 80-year-old president, who seems to be desperately in love with Vladimir Putin. Yet, this is far more than the “work” of one man.
It was JD Vance, supposed representative of the intellectual wing of the Republican Party, who stepped forward to unjustifiably dress down Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy during a televised White House visit. The Trump executive order waiving the new sanctions against Russia, which were passed by Congress (signed into law by Trump just last month in a bill named for the late Republican Senator Lindsey Graham), could easily be undone by just a few Republicans willing to cross the aisle. It’s not going to happen, though. The entire Republican Party owns America’s betrayal of Ukraine just as much as Donald Trump himself does.
Betraying wartime allies almost qualifies as a pastime of the Republican Party at this point. Republicans did nothing as ICE and the Department of Homeland Security deported thousands of immigrants who served in the U.S. military, including a Purple Heart recipient. As for the approximately 110,000 Iraqis who were waiting to legally enter the United States as refugees in a special category for people who aided the U.S. war effort there, only about 0.1% were admitted during the last fiscal year of Trump’s first term, and none are being admitted now given that refugee slots are largely being reserved for white Afrikaners who’ve never aided the U.S. military or done anything else to deserve priority refugee status other than being portrayed as victims in false right-wing internet rumors.
Domestic duplicity is no less common for Republicans. Farming communities went for Trump by an average of nearly 80% in 2024. Now in undisputed control of all three branches of the federal government, how have Republicans repaid farmers for their unwavering support? By ensuring they spend record amounts to run their combines this harvest season, by substantially increasing fertilizer costs, and by waiving tariffs on beef so that foreign meat importers can undercut them (this a reward to authoritarian South American regimes that support Trump’s brand of politics).
True, the fish rots from the head: all of these betrayals (and many, many more) originate with Trump himself. But these are not tough decisions — Ukraine is right to defend itself in particular and the west in general from invasion, Trump was wrong to pull out of the JCPOA and lose a war to Iran instead — and it would only take a handful of Republican defectors in Congress or on the Supreme Court doing the right thing to significantly stem the damage. Yet instead of doing their jobs, even with Trump’s approval rating at a record low, Republican lawmakers cower before him, eager to rubber stamp almost anything he does.
The midterm elections are less than two weeks away. It sure looks like voters are ready to finally punish Republicans for elevating devotion to Trump above every interest or need of America and Americans. Even so, no matter what happens this November, barring a well-timed coronary event or some other form of seemingly divine intervention, Trump is going to remain president for the next two years, the Republican majority on the Supreme Court is going to continue letting him do whatever he wants (I won’t flatter them by calling them “conservatives,” because they’re not), and the remaining Republicans in Congress will still glaze him for every increasingly ill-conceived decision.
Obviously, things will turn out better than they otherwise would if Republicans lose control of both houses of Congress so there can be some sort of a check on Trump. Until he is gone for good and the Republican Party is no longer a Trump personality cult, however, our best bet is to hope that some of the worst double-crosses morph into triple-crosses and then the sleazebags simply run out of time before any quadruple-crosses evolve.
Jonathan Wolf is a civil litigator and author of Your Debt-Free JD (affiliate link). He has taught legal writing, written for a wide variety of publications, and made it both his business and his pleasure to be financially and scientifically literate. Any views he expresses are probably pure gold, but are nonetheless solely his own and should not be attributed to any organization with which he is affiliated. He wouldn’t want to share the credit anyway. He can be reached at [email protected].
