Willie R. Tubbs, FISM News
What a difference two-and-a-half years and $175 billion and counting in financial backing can make.
At CPAC 2022, just days after Russia invaded Ukraine, Republican leaders from former President Donald Trump on down took turns pledging support of Ukraine and Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelenskyy and accusing Democrats of being ill-suited to support a war effort.
This week, as Zelenskyy made a grand tour of the United States, the critique from the right wasn’t that Democrats haven’t been supportive enough of Ukraine, but that this support has become pathological.
“The U.S. should be negotiating peace not fueling war,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) posted on X. “I am 100% against this and so are most Americans. The U.S. is funding the Ukraine Gov at $1 billion/month to keep it running and funding most of the war by providing weapons, ammo, and equipment.”
Greene was speaking in response to a now-viral photo of Zelenskyy and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) signing a bomb at a Scranton munitions factory. However, the comment is representative of the shift in conservative thinking.
Democrats, they say, have become fixated on supporting Zelenskyy at the expense of doing anything to help the American taxpayer.
And there is ample evidence to support conservative worries on the issue.
This year, President Joe Biden led his State of the Union address with a lengthy section about Ukraine. At the time, many on the right (and FISM) joked that Biden had forgotten which union he was supposed to be updating the American people on.
With Election Day 2024 approaching, the Democrat-Zelenskyy connection has ceased to be a laughing matter for the right.
Trump has said that he believes Zelenskyy, who Trump calls “the greatest salesman in history,” is angling to keep Democrats in the White House and the financial valve wide open.
“Every time he comes into the country, he walks away with $60 billion,” Trump said at a rally in Pennsylvania. “He wants them to win this election so badly. But I would do differently. I will work out peace.”
Zelenskyy has stated the Ukrainian policy is to avoid American partisan fighting, and he is now slated to meet with Trump on Friday.
However, this meeting was scheduled only after an intense outcry from conservatives, who blasted Zelenskyy and Ukraine’s ambassador to the U.S. Oksana Markarova for organizing the aforementioned tour of the Pennsylvania munitions factory.
It was a tour in a key battleground state – in the hometown of outgoing president Joe Biden – and was notably lacking in Republican attendees. Shapiro’s appearance, though logical given he is the governor of the state, was also panned as he was once thought a potential running mate for Vice President Kamala Harris.
“As you have said, Ukrainians have tried to avoid being ‘captured by American domestic politics,’ and ‘influencing the choices of the American people’ ahead of the November election,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) wrote in a publicly shared letter to Zelenskyy. “Clearly, that objective was abandoned this week when Ambassador Markarova organized an event in which you toured an American manufacturing site.
“The facility was in a politically contested battleground state, was led by a top political surrogate for Kamala Harris, and failed to include a single Republican because – on purpose – no Republicans were invited.”
Johnson, who demanded Zelenskyy fire his ambassador, added that the tour was “clearly a partisan campaign event designed to help Democrats and is clearly election interference.”
The visual of Zelenskyy and Shapiro autographing missiles became the target of much derisive talk from the right.
Famed conservative satire site The Baylon Bee joked that the Democratic Party, which misses no chance to accuse Donald Trump of being a threat to world peace, was enthusiastically signing a weapon of war that could one day land in Russia.
Of Zelenskky’s Thursday meeting with Biden and Harris, the Bee wrote that the event was merely the “Acting U.S. President” stopping by the White House to “pick up his most recent paycheck.”
As adept as the humor site was at capturing the spirit of conservative attitudes, the issue has become far less humorous for Republicans on Capitol Hill.
House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) has announced an investigation into whether the Biden-Harris administration used taxpayer-funded resources to fly Zelenskyy to Pennsylvania, a move Republicans argue could constitute the misuse of government resources.
“The Committee seeks to determine whether the Biden-Harris Administration attempted to use a foreign leader to benefit Vice President Harris’ presidential campaign and, if so, necessarily committed an abuse of power,” Comer wrote in a letter to the White House, Justice Department and the Pentagon.