Putin opens Pandora’s box

On Feb. 23, former President Donald Trump in a radio interview called Vladimir Putin’s military move on Ukraine “genius.” Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo took to cable news and social media praising Putin and castigating President Joe Biden; he has called Putin a “very talented statesman.” Fox News host and right-wing political commentator Tucker Carlson uses his show on an almost daily basis to push Russian-style propaganda. He asserts that the “Democrats have trained us to hate Vladimir Putin,” and that Ukraine is not a democracy. Conservative commentator Candace Owens has been suggesting that the U.S. and NATO are “at fault” for Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. This descent from former President Ronald Reagan’s “shining city on a hill” did not just start now; it has been ongoing in recent years. It was not that long ago that the Republican Party not only understood but fought for the sacred right to self-government. What Putin is doing in Ukraine is an attack on its national sovereignty. It is also an assault on global democracy and the very freedom that Reagan cultivated. Will the Republican Party be able to climb back up the hill? Or will another political party attempt to make the ascent? Either way, it will be a long way back up. —Lynn Schmidt, Political Fellow, Renew America Movement

• Supreme Court upholds death sentence of Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev —CNN

• America added 678,000 jobs in February —CNN

• Former AG Barr said Trump became enraged after being told election fraud claims were nonsense —Yahoo! News

• House backs bill to help veterans exposed to toxic burn pits —Associated Press

• Trump-endorsed House candidate Joe Kent violated a federal financial disclosure law —Insider

The mind of a madman

Ahead of meetings in Brussels today with the foreign ministers of NATO and the European Council, Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin will open “a Pandora’s box of trouble” for the entire world if he continues his attack on Ukraine. It wasn’t hard to figure out what he meant. Russian forces attacked and seized the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine yesterday, prompting the United Nations Security Council to convene an emergency meeting in New York today. UN Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield remarked, “Putin must stop this madness, and he must stop this now.” —The Guardian

• Putin the war criminal. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has accused Putin of “nuclear terror” over the seizure of the plant—the largest in Europe—and Ukrainian officials in the city of Chernihiv are reporting dozens of civilian deaths from indiscriminate Russian shelling. The U.S. went a step further. “It is a war crime to attack a nuclear power plant,” the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine declared in a statement. And according to NATO, it’s only going to get worse. —CBS News

• What is the U.S. doing? In addition to the White House and State Department’s efforts, Congress is taking steps of its own. Renewer Reps. Liz Cheney and Elissa Slotkin, along with others, have co-sponsored the bipartisan Ukraine Democracy Defense Lend-Lease Act of 2022. The bill, a companion to the Senate version introduced by Sen. John Cornyn, is designed to protect and arm Ukrainian civilians during the Russian military invasion. The House also has passed a cybersecurity bill amid fears of Russian cyberattacks, and a resolution declaring support for Ukraine’s sovereignty. Divider Rep. Paul Gosar was one of just three congresspeople who voted against the resolution. —WyoToday Media

• What about the oil? Bipartisan calls are growing on Capitol Hill for the U.S. to ban imports of oil from Russia. Even House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, when asked about it yesterday, said, “Ban it.” The reasoning makes sense: the Russian government derives much of its income from oil and gas exports, which is thus helping fund the war. The White House and other Western nations, however, have stopped short of an outright ban, because of fears that cutting off the supply would drive up global energy prices. —ABC News

• Pulling the propaganda. The Russian state-funded network RT America will cease productions and lay off most of its staff. It was dropped earlier this week by DirecTV, one of the two major U.S. television providers to carry the network, and Roku, a streaming service that banished it from its platform. RT and Russia’s other state-controlled media outlet, Sputnik, also have been banned in the European Union for their systematic disinformation over Russia's invasion of Ukraine. —CNN

MORE: Russian biolab propaganda on Ukraine spreads on QAnon channels —Foreign Policy

Tucker: Will Putinism go the way of the Soviet Union?

“Something similar will happen now to ‘Putinism,’ the witches’ brew of authoritarianism, religious fundamentalism, nationalism, reactionary social values, illiberalism, anti-internationalism, and anti-Americanism that Putin has deployed as his soft-power-tool to penetrate democratic societies. The cognitive dissonance that this ideology poses for its adherents outside of Russia is obvious. … The hard-right Putinists in Europe and the United States are already finding it hard to reconcile their opposition to the European Union with their support for a far more oppressive Russian Empire that denies Ukraine its right to national self-determination.” —Aviezer Tucker in The UnPopulist

Aviezer Tucker is an associate of the Davis Center at Harvard University and the author of “Democracy Against Liberalism and the Legacies of Totalitarianism: A Political Theory of Post-Totalitarianism.”

MORE: When Vladimir Putin escalates his war, the world must meet him —The Economist

McNamara: Dividers interrupt SOTU

“Political disagreement between the parties, and between Americans, is a necessary part of the democratic process. Personal vitriol, conflict-baiting, and obsessive attachment to the notion of red versus blue is not. [President Biden] was aided in this by a general outrage over Russia’s attack on Ukraine, but [Reps. Lauren] Boebert and [Marjorie Taylor] Greene obviously did not get even that memo. They could not even pretend for one hour to want a country capable of negotiating political differences without going straight to a street brawl.” —Mary McNamara in Los Angeles Times

Mary McNamara is a columnist and critic for the Los Angeles Times. 

MORE: Unity at Biden's State of the Union speech gives way to familiar domestic battles —Arizona Republic

Focus on voting and elections

A Republican report on the 2020 election in Wisconsin endorsed a host of conspiracy theories, debunked fraud claims, and false assertions about lawmakers’ power to decertify President Biden’s victory. The report was commissioned by Republican Speaker of the Wisconsin Assembly Robin Vos and written by former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman, both of whom have violated public records law. Gableman presented his findings to the Wisconsin Assembly’s elections committee at a hearing on Tuesday, saying, “The Legislature ought to take a very hard look at the option of decertification of the 2020 Wisconsin presidential election” (giant facepalm here). —The New York Times

• Pennsylvania. In better news, the mail-in voting law in the Keystone State will remain in place, at least for now, despite a state judge’s order that would have made it expire in two weeks. The state Supreme Court issued a one-paragraph order this week that overturned a Feb. 16 decision by Commonwealth Court Senior Judge Mary Hannah Leavitt that would have pulled the plug on the state’s two-year-old voting law. —Daily Times

• South Carolina. The South Carolina House of Representatives unanimously—unanimously!—advanced a substantial election reform bill this week. The bill would require every county to offer two weeks of in-person early voting six days a week before an election, or as soon as possible for a run-off, and voters would not need a reason or an excuse to vote early in person, as they do now. “This is a very, very important piece of legislation, and y’all, it is a bipartisan piece of legislation,” Rep. John King said. Well done, South Carolina! —WCSC

• Tennessee. Earlier this week, Gov. Bill Lee signed SB1820 into law, barring county election officials from using ranked-choice voting (RCV) in state and municipal elections. The Tennessee Senate passed the bill 26-4, with all 26 “yes” votes coming from Republicans and all “no” votes being cast by Democrats. The Tennessee House approved the bill along party lines as well. Senate Minority Leader Jeff Yarbro said, “[RCV is] an innovation that might work…I don’t see why we would snuff that out in the crib.” We agree. —Ballotpedia

MORE: California bill would ban ranked-choice voting —The Center Square

Sargent: Where will Jan 6 revelations leave the GOP?

“The truth about Trump’s true insurrectionist intent will be demonstrated with ever more clarity in the coming weeks and months. When that happens, how will Republicans manage to muster up the same old evasions? Republicans like to say the rioters should be prosecuted where they committed crimes, while dodging on whether Trump and his co-conspirators should be held accountable for their role in manipulating the rank and file into carrying out those acts. When Trump’s role becomes unavoidably clear, that evasion will become tantamount to saying only the foot soldiers in the insurrection should be held accountable, even as the generals should not.” —Greg Sargent in The Washington Post

Greg Sargent is a columnist at The Washington Post and the author of "An Uncivil War: Taking Back Our Democracy in an Age of Trumpian Disinformation and Thunderdome Politics." 

MORE: Panel suggests Trump knew he lost the election, eyeing criminal case —The New York Times

Bolton: Cooperation is possible again

“There are leaders on both sides of the aisle, and a vast centrist population, who are ready to bring back the spirit of collaboration. But if we get discouraged, we leave the playing field to the extremes on both sides—those who profit from division. [Former Rep.] Bud Brown fought hard for his beliefs, but recognized that others had legitimate views as well, and his openness to compromise benefitted our nation and the world with constructive progress. With a willingness to listen and use common sense, we can do so again.” —Roger Bolton in The Cincinnati Enquirer

Roger Bolton served as press secretary and chief of staff for former U.S. Rep. Clarence J. “Bud” Brown, Jr. (1975-1982) and in various capacities in both the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations. Rep. Brown served eight terms in Congress; he passed away in January.

MORE: Two representatives from neighboring states aim to work across the aisle, promote unity —WFMZ

Over the last several weeks, in and around Ukraine, we have watched the result of a person, a psychopath among other things, who has never been held accountable for his actions. It is on a macro-level, country against country. For the past several years we have witnessed, here in the U.S., the micro version with Donald Trump and his sycophants, his enablers. Call it the prelude of things to come if Trump and his ilk are not held accountable. Trump was, and still is, Vladimir Putin's greatest asset. While Trump was in office, Putin had a useful idiot carrying out much of the groundwork for this invasion. The so-called leader of the free world, dismantling NATO, dismantling democracy in the U.S., breaking alliances, and so on. What else could Putin wish for? And like Trump, Putin has his sycophants who enable him.

Eventually, there are no good choices to make. In fact, it boils down to how far they are able to go before there is only one action, one choice, left. I hope I am wrong, but I have no doubt Putin will use nukes. He needs no excuse or reason, nor any logic. People are afraid of challenging him and standing up to him, as though if anyone does so, THAT will give him the reason. He will do what he wishes, not as we wish. The world looked the other way for years. Now, we see the endgame. Call me crazy or hyperbolic or worse, World War III started years ago. Just as we will see here if Trump is not held accountable, it was a progression over time. First you subjugate your own country, then you move outside it. Like raising a child, if you do not set and enforce boundaries, it will come back to you so much worse later.

For shame, too many people have shunned the example of Hitler and the 1920s and 1930s. “Oh, Putin is not Hitler, nor is Trump,” and so on. No, there was no reincarnation, but the playbook is EXACTLY the same. One step at a time, not held accountable, and the next step is worse. And one day people say, “Gee, who would have guessed or known?” Anyone who paid attention, I guess. And for those like the stable genius blaming Joe Biden and the Democrats for Russia's invasion of Ukraine, please tell us what YOU would do to STOP it, and how YOU would have prevented it. Whining and pointing fingers are not an answer to this problem or any problem. —Bill T., Arizona

The views expressed in "What's Your Take?" are submitted by readers and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff, the Renew America Movement, or the Renew America Foundation.