Americans Send a Strong Message on Ukraine
We are with you.
There aren’t many things in the world that have the potential to bridge the partisan divide in the United States, but it seems that helping Ukrainians has time and again managed to do just that, bringing Americans together. Two and a half years after Putin invaded Ukraine, support for assisting Ukraine still remains well above the majority mark.
- A majority of both Republicans and Democrats said they side with Ukraine.
- Forty-eight percent said they want the United States to support Ukraine for as long as it takes, while 39% said they want to support it for another one to two years.
- Combined, that’s 87% of respondents telling the current government, and the next one, that they want either full commitment to the cause or a strategy to win the war in less than two years.
How can this be????????
There is only one way these numbers will add up.
Many Americans are prioritizing the defeat of Putinism over solely supporting Ukraine, which is a valid perspective. Putin’s ambitions go beyond Ukraine, so merely aiding Ukraine addresses only part of the issue.
Average Americans are far more insightful than their politicians often give them credit for.
If not for these high levels of support, the current administration would have never acted. It is the fear of backlash that forces them to suppress their secret wish to normalize relations with Vladimir Putin’s government in the post-Ukraine war era.
It’s clear they didn’t want to train Ukrainian pilots, but doing nothing would have drawn attention, and the information would have reached the American public. That would have been too much. So, what do they do? They tell Americans that they are training Ukrainian pilots, take forever to train them, and only train 12 pilots, when Ukraine was expecting to receive more than 60 fighter jets.
The same goes for the case of ATACMS missiles. Those long-range missiles are the primary reason Russians are increasingly blind inside occupied territory. They keep bringing in air defense systems, but Ukraine keeps knocking them out. First, the Biden administration said we didn’t have enough ATACMS. Then they said we had enough to send. Now they’re saying we have limited units, so they want Ukraine to stay focused on Crimea.
Even the administration’s face-saving arguments wouldn’t have materialized without the strong support of American voters for Ukraine. It’s this overwhelming public backing that has kept the administration under continuous pressure. They’re also somewhat concerned that, in the future, Europe might begin to look beyond American leadership
But the damage had already been done.
Despite the substantial aid given to Ukraine, how can any Eastern European nation trust the United States in the future? If another Ukraine emerges after this war and President Biden, along with his renowned national security team, proposes a second version of the Budapest Memorandum — asking the new Ukraine to surrender its nukes and give up its weapons in exchange for a promise from the West to protect its sovereignty — how could they believe it?
I don’t think the Budapest Memorandum was wrong; it was the best option for the world at the time. What went wrong was that the Obama and Biden administrations thought it was acceptable to break that promise in pursuit of resetting relations with Putin.
Putin skillfully manipulated both Obama and Biden, and the result is that no one will trust the promises of future American administrations. Countries will prioritize their own needs first. The worst part is, sensitive information is leaking to Russia, forcing Ukraine to fiercely guard its plans from the very nations supplying its weapons.
The silver lining in this mess is that the United States is still a democracy. This kind of behavior is exactly why political leaders in a democracy must return to voters for approval — they don’t get unlimited terms; they have limited time in office.
President Biden made these choices. He chose this path and didn’t seize the opportunity to act like a winner, even when it was right in front of him. He failed to effectively communicate how he transformed the economy, and his actions regarding Ukraine and other global crises didn’t project strong leadership. He paid the price for that.
Many people focus on Biden’s age as the primary reason for the lack of enthusiasm among Americans, but there’s more to it. I wrote an article almost an year ago, though I can’t find it now, where I predicted that Biden would likely lose the election if Ukraine was still fighting for its freedom on election day.
Becuase it is an indictment on his governance skills.
More than 60% of Americans want Ukraine to win. If their President, who has repeatedly assured them that supporting Ukraine is the righteous course, is still struggling to achieve what he promised after three years, why would they renew his lease on the White House?
It’s not the only factor, but it’s certainly a significant one.
Americans expect their President to be a winner — there’s no way around that. Time and again, politicians on both sides think they can fool the American voters. Maybe they can, for a while, and with a small group of people. But you can never deceive the majority for long. And when you’re caught, you get kicked out.
Trump lost because he couldn’t be the President Americans needed during a time of crisis. Biden is struggling because he has not demonstrated strong leadership. Both of them introduced a new demographic into the electoral calculus: double haters.
Consider when Biden’s approval ratings first began to decline — what was happening at that time?
What happened in the first week of September 2021, when Biden’s approval ratings first plummeted?
The United States had just completed its withdrawal from Afghanistan on August 30, 2021.
The chaos at Kabul airport was widely broadcast, and Americans were deeply troubled by it. They expected Biden to make improvements, but he did not. Any future president who underestimates the importance of national security and assumes it can be taken for granted will face serious consequences.
Time and again, both political parties in the United States assume they can confuse, deflect, and evade the demands of issues that have wide bipartisan support. The Biden administration does this with national security and continues to face consequences, while Republicans do it with reproductive rights and also pay the price.
Here’s a gentle reminder to all politicians in the United States: when both Republican and Democratic voters come together and tell you something, listen — or get ready to go home.
Thanks for reading. Making critical information on Ukraine accessible is one way to fight misinformation. That’s why I’ve made 256 stories free to the public in 2024, including this one.
