Democratic Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney is in charge of keeping Democrats in the majority in the House of Representatives. That job requires him to defend the Democratic Party and its recent track record, including its appalling weakness in defending Ukraine from Russia.
The New York Democrat, who chairs the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, has a laughable campaign strategy based on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “’We’re Zelensky Democrats. And they’re Putin Republicans’ would be my bumper sticker,” Maloney said. Really?
It’s a shameless talking point based entirely on voters’ inability to remember who is president and what Joe Biden failed to do for Ukraine in the critical year leading up to the invasion.
“Some of us still remember that President Trump withheld military aid to President Zelensky and the Ukrainians for the worst possible reason, to smear a political opponent, and got impeached for that,” Maloney said. “Almost all these Republicans looked the other way when that happened.”
Of course, Trump’s rhetoric toward Russian dictator Vladimir Putin was embarrassing, and his search for political dirt from Ukraine was at least ill-advised. But Trump also pushed NATO countries to boost their military spending, something Putin obviously opposed — and that Biden stopped doing. Trump also authorized and expanded lethal aid to Ukraine as president, a substantial improvement from the policies of former President Barack Obama. And he imposed sanctions on Nord Stream 2, the pipeline whose existence made Putin certain that he could get away with the invasion he has now undertaken.
Republicans have consistently been tougher on Russia than Democrats. It was Senate Democrats who blocked a bill to reimpose Trump’s Nord Stream 2 sanctions, which of course Biden had canceled upon taking office. Biden had to be shamed by the Baltic States and the United Kingdom into allowing needed weapons to be provided to Ukraine in the months leading up to the invasion. Even now, the Biden administration opposes a ban on imports of oil from Russia.
And now, even as Biden touts the “isolation” of Putin thanks to meaningless United Nations votes, his administration is working with Russia to cut an ill-advised nuclear deal with Iran.
So, which party and which president is it making things easier for Putin, exactly?
Maloney has a very difficult job. Democrats are staring down a red wave thanks to their failures on COVID-19, inflation, and Biden’s botched Afghanistan withdrawal, among other problems. But the notion that Republicans are the party of Putin is given the lie by 10 years of evidence, going back to Obama and Biden dismissing and mocking Republicans’ “Cold War mindset” toward Russia.
Being upset that Russian trolls post dumb memes on Facebook does not make you tough on Russia. Deep down, Maloney knows this, but his job depends upon him feigning ignorance.
