The wing of the Republican Party that contains many members who won’t criticize Putin recently held an emergency meeting over Ukraine.
The event was the “Up From Chaos” conference, a self-described “emergency” meeting organized by the Trumpian wing of the GOP to grapple with the political fallout from Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. The young men, almost all of them soberly dressed in dark suits, and women, almost uniformly wearing dresses, listened attentively as one speaker after another warned about the perils of intervention for their very own lives. A return to the thinking that led to Iraq and Afghanistan could result in nothing less than World War III over Ukraine, they were warned.
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The participants generally described themselves as “realists” and “restrainers,” and the meeting featured what amounted to realist royalty — politicians and thinkers, ranging from GOP Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.) and Reps. Thomas Massie (Ky.), Dan Bishop (N.C.), and Matt Rosendale (Mont.) to Michael Anton, Sohrab Ahmari, Mollie Z. Hemingway, and, of course, Vance.Â
The list of elected House Republicans matches up with those who have supported the 1/6 attack on the Capitol, and two of them voted against a resolution supporting Ukraine. Two of the House attendees voted against a bill taking away Russia’s normalized trade status with the United States.
No one is calling for U.S. troops on the ground in Ukraine, so the idea that this is a “non-interventionalist” gathering is disingenuous. The talk of World War III is hyperbole.
The policy outcome that the Putin/Trump GOP is advocating for would help Russia destroy democracy in Ukraine.
These are Republicans that defended an attack on democracy. The Politico article notes that some of the speakers praised authoritarians for giving their people more freedom than communists.
The emergency Putin GOP meeting is a who’s who of those opposing U.S. democracy. The policy issue is Russia invading Ukraine, but their ideology appears to be fundamentally anti-democratic.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
