As a country, the United States is proud of its key role in defeating Nazism.
It should not be forgotten, however, that part of the conservative politicians of that time were opposed to intervention in the Second World War. They argued that this was a European issue, unrelated to American self-interest.
That state of opinion was captured in all its magnitude by Philip Roth in the magnificent novel The Plot Against America.
Defeated Hitler, the Soviet Union became the enemy, the communist empire that threatened capitalism. It didn’t matter if he went Republican or Democrat, the existential threat of the USSR, and then Russia, united everyone. Even at the confluence, there was a less harsh condemnation among the liberals.
But Trumpism arrived and this isolationist movement, to which multilateralism causes an allergy, turned the sock of history inside out. The only thing that matters is me, me, with me.
During the Obama administration, Ron DeSantis criticized the US president for his softness against Vladimir Putin and appealed to the toughness of Ronald Reagan, when he was still the great Republican reference.
That DeSantis fuels presidential aspirations and for this he acts like a little Trump. Since the former president boasts of his friendship with Putin (he has said that there would have been no war with him, because he would have allowed Russia to annex Ukrainian territories), well, DeSantis too, which gives points among Trumpists.
Votes are loves. DeSantis sided with Trump and proclaimed that aid to Ukraine does not respond to the “vital interests” of the United States. “Biden’s blank check distracts our country from its most pressing challenges,” he maintained. And he qualified that “a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia” is not one of the problems.
His words prompted an angry reaction from the hawks of the Grand Old Party. “There is no place for Putin apologists in the Republican Party,” said former Vice President Mike Pence, another possible White House contender.
“Yes,” replied Nikki Haley, a former UN ambassador and already a declared participant in the 2024 presidential elections, on whether stopping the Kremlin is vital. “If Russia wins, there is no reason to think that it will stop there. For the United States, the victory of Ukraine is much better, ”she said.
Florida Senator Marco Rubio said he did not understand the objective of the governor of his state, while Chris Christie, another who dreams of being a candidate, criticized “a naive and complete misunderstanding of the historical context.”
Senator Lindsay Graham, a good friend of Trump, also intervened. “It is not a territorial dispute, it is a flagrant aggression. It is a huge miscalculation to assume that it is not in our national interest,” he corrected DeSantis. “Neville Chamberlain’s approach to aggression (British prime minister who gave Hitler what Trump would give the Russian president) never ends well. This is an attempt by Putin to rewrite the map of Europe with weapons, ”he insisted.
