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Its hard to pick up a foreign policy journal or even turn on the TV without encountering someone predicting, recommending or lamenting a new Cold War with Russia, China or both.

This is entirely understandable and even justifiable, if you mean a new period of strategic competition, pressure and geopolitical tension that falls short of all-out war. Such a lower-case cold war is already on display.

The U.S. and our allies are doing nearly everything short of declaring a hot war on Russia for its immoral aggression against Ukraine. Things are not so tense with China, but theres a broad consensus, particularly among Republicans, that containing China to use a Cold War term should become central to American foreign policy. And even many who believe we are entering a new Cold War with China whether we want one or not. After all, sometimes wars, cold or hot, are not wars of choice.

I agree that new cold wars with Russia and China are simultaneously necessary and not necessarily desirable. But I worry that the semantic confusion of the historic Cold War and this new cold war could get us into trouble. George Orwell observed in Politics and the English Language that if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. A bad usage can spread by tradition and imitation, even among people who should and do know better.

The Cold War was wholly a creature of its time. Indeed, as Orwell himself observed in his 1945 essay You and the Atom Bomb, our conflict with the Soviet Union was a product of the nuclear age, and he predicted that nuclear weapons would make the kind of war that had just concluded a few months earlier unlikely.

The fear of nuclear war still constrains our actions and I hope our adversaries but the differences between the Cold War era and today are profound.

To start, the Cold War was not a time of sustained peace. The Korean and Vietnam wars were part of the Cold War, as were the Soviet invasions of Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan.

It was very easy to cut off economic relations with the Soviet Union, because we had so few to begin with. The same holds to a large extent with contemporary Russia, which may be a nuclear superpower but is an economic piker. Its GDP is less than half of Californias (Russias per capita GDP is an eighth of Californias).

Meanwhile, China is the worlds second-largest economy and a global manufacturing powerhouse. Any expectation that the U.S. and the international community would sever ties with China over a Taiwan invasion the way they have over Russias invasion of Ukraine seems overly optimistic. China crushed democracy in Hong Kong and is putting Uyghurs in concentration camps, and the international business community has for the most part shrugged.

The Soviets vowed to liberate the world from capitalism, bourgeois democracy and religion. That kind of ideology made it comparatively easy to garner political support for containment yet even then, there was ample domestic and international opposition to Americas anti-communist policies.

Indeed, under God was officially inserted into the Pledge of Allegiance to differentiate America from the godless Communists. When Sen. Homer Ferguson (R-Mich.) introduced the legislation, he said, I believe this modification of the pledge is important because it highlights one of the real fundamental differences between the free world and the Communist world, namely belief in God.

No one in the House or Senate spoke in opposition to the change.

For good or ill, it seems implausible anything like that would be possible today. Religion no longer binds the nation the same way, and our domestic culture wars whether over COVID-19 pandemic response or school curricula or Vladimir Putin as anti-woke hero do not seem very compatible with a new cold war. And freedom itself is no longer the rallying cry it once was on either the left or the right.

Orwell argued that some phrases come to us like parts of a prefabricated hen-house and end up doing our thinking for us. We may indeed face a new cold war, but we need fresh thinking that doesnt necessarily flow from old phrases like Cold War.

Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.

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Let's not confuse the Cold War of the 1950s with what's happening today - Frederick News Post

Photograph: Glenn Hunt/AAP

Scott Morrisons government has cranked up Australia Day funding tenfold in two years to promote a celebration of which we can be proud, sorry, suspicious. Callum Foote investigates the mysterious National Australia Day Council, and busts them for dodgy accounting.

The National Australia Day Council (NADC), the body in charge of promoting Australia Day and choosing the Australian of the Year, has seen a tenfold increase in its funding since inception in 2014. Its funding has shot up from $4m a year when Tony Abbott was PM to $34m last year, the vast majority coming in the last 2 years under Scott Morrison.

An investigation of the Councils financial disclosures shows, ironically, that the people in charge of promoting Australia Day have been in breach of Australian Accounting Standards. Its accounts have been qualified by the Auditor-General; in other words they have been busted for fudging their income.

With roughly $30 million in government grants to spend in 2021, the NADC launched a multimedia campaign The Story of Australia, spanning television, radio, digital, social media and outdoor ads. There was also a series of multimedia partnerships, including a thank you postcard for first responders delivered to more than 300,000 households.

Who got it, where was it targeted, how did the costs break down, who were the service providers who got some of this $30m, are they Liberal Party donors and associates? We know none of this because, typical of this government and its secrecy, nobody at the National Australia Day Council bothered to return emails or pick up the phone; for days.

It is unclear how much of its large budget was spent on this multimedia advertising campaign, although, if its 2021 financial report is any guide, the amount may be up to $1.6 million as covered in the NADCs other expenses from ordinary activities segment.

Moreover, $7.2 million was spent to host covid safe events on Australia Day, of which the flagship was the Australia Day Live Concert, delivered by the NSW Government in partnership with the NADC. Australia Day Live featured Australian acts performing on Sydney Harbour. It incorporated the Reflect. Respect. Celebrate. theme and branding for the first time.

An additional $6.8 million was spent on local government councils and non-for-profits to host Australia Day events.

The NADC then also spent $352,000 for Australia Day-branded Reflect. Respect. Celebrate. collateral and grants for production of branded materials.

The remaining $15m or so was given out in grants to non-for-profits and related organisations. The recipients are not public.

This year, the NADC is offering $7.5 million worth of grants to help Councils and not-for profit organisations host Australia Day events and activities that bring their community together to reflect respect and celebrate, wrote NADC chief executive Karlie Brand.

The 2021-22 Federal Budget allocated $33 million in funding for the NADC this year.

The National Australia Day Councils claim that their core mission is to actively promote our national day to all Australians to inspire national pride and increase participation and engagement across all sectors of the community.

The organisation was launched back in the 2010s with cricket star Adam Gilchrist as its chair. Now that post is filled by Danielle Roche, former Olympic Hockey star and finance executive.

There are 11 full time equivalent employees employed by NADC, at a cost of $1.6 million, plus an additional half a million to employ the councils CEO Karlie Bran and COO Karen Wilson.

Bran and Wilson gave themselves a $40,000 pay bump between them from 2020 and 2021.

The explosion in public funding which the Council has enjoyed over the past three years has been explained by the need to fund Covid-safe events on Australia day. Though, it is not obvious why these events, if they were held pre-pandemic, now cost ten times the amount that they were previously.

The earliest available financial documents provided by NADC are from 2013, where the organisation was awarded $3.3 million in government grants. Government grants steadily increased by a few hundred thousand, if that, each year until 2020 where they skyrocketed.

Meanwhile the Culture Wars rage on, the corporate media today, on Australia Day, largely muted on the matters of Australia Day dissent and the offense taken by many in First Nations communities.

Perhaps, the rising popularity of anti-Australia Day marches dubbed Invasion Day or Mourning Day marches by their organisers. Last year, up to 4,000 people attended marches in Sydney and Melbourne despite restrictions on gatherings due to covid regulations.

Clearly, these marches are antithetical to the mission statement of the NADC, as they actively promote the idea of changing the date and discourage participation in Australia Day festivities.

The government has encouraged nationalism meanwhile.

Federal Education Minister Alan Tudge campaigned against a new draft education curriculum in September last year, insisting that students should not leave school with a hatred of Australia. Tudge told Triple J that if students did not learn about Australias great successes they were not going to protect it as a million Australians have through their military service.

Instead of Anzac Day being presented as the most sacred of all days in Australia, where we stop, we reflect, we commemorate the hundred thousand people who have died for our freedoms its presented as a contested idea, Tudge said.

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Culture Wars: Morrison hides big spend on Australia Day ...

A group of Aquinas Institute parents and alumni, concerned with what they see as a leftward drift in the Catholic schools academics and culture,want theschools board of trustees to restore Aquinas to a God-centered classic curriculum and learning environment. The groups petition has garnered more than 350 signatures on Change.org since being posted on Jan. 14.

Parents who support the petition say many of their grievances are longstanding, but what spurred them to organize and petition the board now was an incident that occurred in November when alumnus Robert Agostinelli visited the school and gave an invited talk to studentsonly to have his remarks disavowed within hours by the schools top administrator. Agostinelli is managing director of Rhone Group, a global private equity firm he co-founded in 1996.

This is bigger than (Agostinellis) condemnation, Aquinas parent and alumnus Michael Kennedy wrote in an email. His experience was thelast strawan event that sparked many parents to come together and fight for what we know is right.

Entitled Restore Academic Freedom and Christian Values at Aquinas, the Concerned Aquinas Parents and Alumni petition alleges that Aquinas in recent years hasdrifted from its Christian Core Beliefs and Mission, to accommodate political correctness. It continues: The school hides behind a faade of paper mch Catholicism and is more closely aligned to a secular world view with a non-biblical explanation of life and justice. There is clear evidence of a woke ideology embraced by members of the schools board, administration and faculty.

The petition drive sparked by Agostinellis visit to Aquinasin some sense mirrors the culture wars that have ripped at a number of public and private schools across the country. However, the local petition effort has the backing not only of impassioned Aquinas parents and alumni but also of a billionaire alumnus with influence far beyond Rochester.

Whether many Aquinas parents and alumni share the groups views is uncertain. A few days ago, a counterpetition to the Aquinas trustees appeared on Change.org. Started by a group identified as Proud Alumni, it calls on the Aquinas community to join us in showing your support for Aquinas board, administration and faculty for their dedication to quality education and their denunciation of racism, bigotry and hate.

Nor is it clear how the board will respond to the petition. On Tuesday, Kennedy sent the petition to Nick Dobbertin, chair of the Aquinas board of trustees. The next day, Dobbertin replied by email to Kennedy, confirming receipt of the petition and writing that you can expect a response from our Executive Committee (representing the full Board) no later than January 31.

My requests to speak directly to top Aquinas administrators were turned down. Dobbertin also declined my request for an interview. Most of the information I have gathered comes from parents and alumni upset about the schools response to Agostinellis visit and dissatisfied with what they see as the cultural drift of the school, and from Agostinelli himself.

A storied institution

Aquinas Institute, a Catholic co-ed school for grades 6-12 located on Dewey Avenue, on Rochesters west side, has been an important part of the Rochester community for 120 years. Among its distinguished alumni are former mayor and New York lieutenant governor Bob Duffy, who now leads the Greater Rochester Chamber of Commerce, and the late Robert Wegman, who donated $10 million to the school some two decades ago. Aquinas had long sought a major gift from Agostinelli, who graduated from the school in 1972 and is one of the schools wealthiest alumni.

Agostinelli grew up on Rochesters west side, both in the city and in Greece, in what he describes as a classic Rochester immigrant middle-class family. While at Aquinas, he worked at his fathers service station, at grocery stores including IGA on Lyell Avenue and Loblaws, and had a Democrat and Chronicle paper route.After graduating from Aquinas in 1972, he attended St. John Fisher College, where he earned a B.A. and studied English and accounting.After graduation, he worked at the accounting firm Coopers & Lybrand in Boston, then Goldman Sachs, and later Lazard Freres, before co-founding his own firm.Today, hes an active member or director of many organizations and philanthropies, including the Council on Foreign Relations; the Friends of Israel Initiative, of which hes a founding member; and the American Italian Cancer Foundation. He describes himself as a major contributor to the presidential campaign of John McCain and as a leader of anti-Trump Republicans.

Several months ago, Agostinelli accepted Aquinas invitation to visit the school. He was prepared to consider, he told me recently, a seven-figure gifta million dollars. On Nov. 5, he and his wife, Francesca Agostinelli, were welcomed at the school by President Anthony Cook and Principal Theodore Mancini. After a tour, they went to the auditorium, where a select group of juniors and seniors had been assembled to hear them speak and to ask questions.

Agostinelli says he spoke for about 30 minutes. No recording of his talk has surfaced, but by his own account and the recollections of a few students who were there, the bulk of his talkwas about the dangers of what former Bishop of RochesterFulton J. Sheenhad termed ego narcissism. (While at Aquinas, Agostinelli served as an altar boy for Sheen and came to regard him as a mentor.) About 25 minutes into his talk, he exhorted students to pursue happiness and the American dream and not fall prey to the tyranny of false deities, as examples of which he mentionedcritical race theory, the Marxist Black Lives Matter organization, feminism and gender confusion.

At that moment three or four students stood and walked out of the auditorium, according to students who attended the talk.

They were sitting together, and they just got up and marched out,Agostinelli told me. In my day, if you walked out on a prominent alumnus speaking, youd have gotten detention. You just wouldnt do that; it was an insult.

After Agostinelli completed his talk, his wife, a TV personality, spoke of her own career. When the couple finished their talks and answering questions, there was applause.They spent about another 20 minutes in the auditorium with students who came up to speak to them. Then, they toured more of the school before leaving.

A few hours later, Cook sent this email to the Aquinas community:

Dear Aquinas Families,

Today we had on campus an alumnus and his wife who wanted to share with our students the secrets of their success in their business careers. They spoke to members of our junior and senior classes. Unexpectedly, both speakers shared some of their personal beliefs. We have heard from several students and parents that they were offended. Please know that this was not the intended purpose of todays presentation. These personal opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints expressed by our guests do not reflect of the opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints of the faculty, staff, and administration of The Aquinas Institute.

We will address this with our students on Monday morning. We will also use this as an opportunity for open dialogue and our belief that we will treat all others as children of God, deserving of respect and dignity.

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel to contact me at (585) 254-2020 ext. 1097 or by email at[emailprotected]

Sincerely,

Dr. Anthony Cook 99

President

According to Agostinelli, Cook also wrote him directly about a football game scheduled that evening. Earlier, the football coach had invited Agostinelliwho had played football for Aquinasto appear on the field that night as their special guest. In the email, says Agostinelli, Cook wrote they would not be allowing visitors on the field that night.

By Monday, according to students I spoke to, the school had arranged counseling for students who had been offended by Agostinellis speech, including those who had not attended but had heard about it. According to these students, those who walked out on Agostinelli faced no discipline. (I had messages sent to two of the students who walked out inviting them to share their perspectives, but have not heard back.)

Some teachers made a point of telling their students about Agostinellis talk. One senior told me one of his teachers told students Agostinelli was racist and should be anti-racist, and that if students are upset by something they hear its OK to walk out to express how they feel. A sixth grader (with parents permission) told mea teachersaid a man had come to school to talk, and he said lots of racist things and very hateful speech.

Agostinelli was shocked and disturbed, he told me, by the reaction of administrators and teachers to his talk.

Regarding students walking out on his talk, he said, I would have thought if they didnt agree with mewhich is finetheyd have asked questions. Thats what happens at other schools where Ive spoken. He mentioned high schools in England, including Harrow, and colleges in the U.S. including Harvard, Yale, and the Naval War College. Ive often gotten reactions, but weve always debated it.

He described the behavior of school administrators in allowing students to walk out and not be disciplined for it as disgraceful.

I asked Agostinelli if the gift he had contemplated making to Aquinas was now off the table.

One hundred percent, he said.

He also said hed received more than 200 supportive letters from parents and alumni, and partly in response he decided to go public with his concerns about the school.

National spotlight

On Dec. 8, in theNational Review, a prominent conservative magazine of which he sits on the board, Agostinelli responded in an article headlined, An Alumnus Story: Going Home and Finding Woke.

Calling the administration at his alma mater moral eunuchs, he wrote that their actionsunmasked a cauldron of woke political correctness within the schools teaching ranks, the administration, and the board of trustees. At Aquinas, where young men and women of sound mind know intimately the tyranny of practicing leftists, he continued, the schools institutional cave-ins have repulsed and rousedeven emboldenedmany students, parents, and alumni who are prepared to take back this heralded school from those determined to subvert its legacy and mission.

In declining my request to speak directly with Cook and Mancini, Aquinas public relations firm supplied a statement on behalf of the Aquinas administration in lieu of an interview:

Aquinas Institute remains committed to honoring our schools values of goodness, discipline, and knowledge with respect and dignity for all of Gods children. We provide our students with a college preparatory educational environment that encourages ongoing and balanced dialogue. We foster critical thinking skills, in a nurturing learning environment, that will serve our students well in college and throughout their lives.

We value the feedback we have received from members of the Aquinascommunity following an alumnus visit in November 2021. As we do with allfeedback we receive, our administration and Board has given this feedbackthoughtful consideration. As an educational institution, Aquinas iscommitted to an open dialogue with our constituents and respects differentpoints of view. We will continuously evolve to address contemporary issuesin ways that are consistent with the mission of the school.

Demand for action

Word of how the school reacted to Agostinellis visitspurredlike-minded parents and alumni to launch the petition drive.

The petition, explains alumnus Dan Dwyer, is a request by parents and alumni to assure that the board hears concerns they have had for quite some time that have come to a head since Agostinellis visit in November when he got treatedinappropriatelyby our alma mater.

Adds Kennedy, an alumnus with two children currently attending Aquinas: Agostinellis talk has spearheaded this movement. The students who walked out were not disciplined but coddled. Wokism is turned up to 11 at my kids Catholic school. But the school should be religious and not be political. Were trying now to create a platform for parents to be heard.

In an open letter to parents and alumni urging them to sign the petition, Kennedy wroteAquinas has been under sustained assault by those who are brazenly dismantling its traditional Catholic teaching for political correctness, woke ideology and amoral secular bias. Sadly, this is rampant through the faculty and the administration.

The petition calls for specific changes at the school:

Replacement of the NY Common Core curriculum with a God-centered classic curriculum, aligned with the philosophies of St. Thomas Aquinas and Christian values that teach children how to think, not what to think.

Immediate action to ensure that no administrator or teacher seeks to indoctrinate students with a particular dogma or self-serving version of current events that reflect personal philosophies or viewpoints. There is no place in our school for such heinous conduct.

A return to the schools true foundation based on the principles of St. Thomas Aquinas and Congregation of St. Basil; restoring an air of academic freedom, consciously and actively supporting good citizenship, firm and just discipline, and unbridled patriotic fervor to flag and country.

The counterpetition, which by this morning had drawn more than330 signatures, expresses a starkly different perspective. It says Agostinelli and parents who share his views have spewed outrage that AQ has lost its Catholicity and caters to liberalism. It continues:

Indeed, Aquinas does exhibit a willingness to respect or accept behavior or opinions different from ones own, an openness to new ideas and a political and social philosophy that promotes individual rights, civil liberties, democracy, and free enterprise (which is the actual Oxford Languages definition of liberalism.). It also embraces gospel values and reflects Catholic values and teachings. Plus, it offers a top-notch education, a rigorous curriculum and an opportunity for students to think critically and to become the citizens that this world so desperately needs.

Given the enormous schism made apparent by the dueling petitions, it seems unlikely the boards forthcoming response to the Concerned Aquinas Parents and Alumni petition will significantly narrow the divide.

I asked Agostinelli what, if any, role he is taking regarding the petition to the board.

I stand with these parents shoulder to shoulder, he said. Im not in the lead, but what Im doing is being a voice, and theres going to be some changes made at the school. I will do everything in my power to help these parents and alumni bring their school back to respect the traditional teachings of the Catholic faith.

Peter Lovenheim isWashington correspondent for the Rochester Beacon and author of In the NeighborhoodandThe Attachment Effect. He can be reached at[emailprotected]. Rochester Beacon Executive Editor Paul Ericson contributed to this article.

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The culture wars come to Aquinas - Rochester ...

Photo: Mrs. Humphry Ward, CC BY 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons.

Editors note: We are delighted to present a series by Neil Thomas, Reader Emeritus at the University of Durham, Darwin and the Victorian Crisis of Faith. This is the second article in the series.Look here for the full series so far.Professor Thomass recent book isTaking Leave of Darwin: A Longtime Agnostic Discovers the Case for Design(Discovery Institute Press).

In order to explain Charles Darwins curious rehabilitation, it is necessary to be clear about the fact that we are not dealing with a scientific adjudication here. The scientists had already pronounced on theOriginin resoundingly negative reviews which inevitably leads to the conclusion that something else must have been going on here.

In this regard, a useful memoir has been left us by the acclaimed female author who by both birth and marriage was plugged into the 19th-century zeitgeist like few others, namely Mrs. Humphry Ward (born into intellectual aristocracy as Mary Augusta Arnold), the author of a particularly moving novel about loss of faith,Robert Elsmere(1888). In looking back at her experiences of Oxford in the 1860s and 70s, Ward noted that the men of science entered but little into the struggle of ideas that was going on [] It was in literature, history and theology that evolutionary conceptions were most visibly and dramatically at work.1This judgment inevitably points us away from science proper in the direction of sundry Victorian debates and culture wars in our search of answers to the question of why Darwinism was able to triumph (and stillisable to triumph) against the ascertainable scientific facts.

From the perspective of the cultural producers and commentators identified by Ward, Darwinism will have worn a rather different aspect than that observed from the unblinking perspective of empirical science. Within that philosophic context there had emerged over several centuries a succession of voices all essentially calling for Gods dethronement, beginning with Spinoza in the 17th century, proceeding via Gibbon, David Hume, and Rousseau in the 18th century, and thence through to Feuerbach, Arthur Schopenhauer, and others in the 19th century. After the unfurling of that long metanarrative, it has been contended, by the time Charles Darwin provided an explanation for the origins of life without reference to God in 1859, the [philosophic] work was virtually completed.2

Or perhaps not quite completed. To be sure, manywantedand indeed willed it to be completed. On the dubious principle that empirical facts should never be allowed to get in the way of a good story or philosophic narrative, it appears that turning a blind eye to the scientific inadequacies of theOrigin of Speciesrevealed by the expert reviewers theOriginwas glossed by some as a (pseudo)-scientific confirmation of a long-nourished philosophicproject. In this way the Darwinian narrative could be co-opted and integrated into the philosophical argument so as to give it the prestigious imprimatur ofscience. So was it this piece of PR legerdemain which accounted for peoples acquiescence in Darwinian notions?

The instrumentalization of Darwinism by atheistic philosophy may conceivably supply part of the reason that theOrigin of Speciesgained traction amongst the educated elite but it is unlikely that its success within the rarefied realm of formal philosophy tells the whole story. It seems unlikely that the atheistic narrative built up by generations of philosophic voices wouldin itselfhave proved adequate to give the scientifically excoriated theory of Darwinism the pass it came to receive.

As Alec Ryrie aptly pointed out in his recent emotional history of Doubt, intellectuals and philosophers may think they make the weather, but they are more often driven by it,3andthe more decisive forces in the eventual acceptance of Darwinism may have issued from works of imaginative literature with a more universal outreach. Doubt, Ryrie indicates, arose in popular sentiment long before it was translated into formal philosophical terms, its emotional contours being perfectly visible to most before it was endowed with its precise conceptual shape in the high-culture discipline of philosophy.

Next, Literary Footnotes to the Book of Job.

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Darwin and the Victorian Culture Wars - Discovery Institute

DeSantis was hardly alone in avoiding the subject at CPAC, where Russias offensive just hours old drew only glancing interest at one of the partys most prominent gatherings of the year. Even in a country where conflicts abroad rarely animate the electorate, it was one of the starkest indicators in decades of how far foreign policy has fallen on the Republican agenda. No longer is the GOP the party whose president once told Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down this wall.

Today, said Ryan Horn, a longtime Republican strategist in the Midwest, Ronald Reagan is probably rolling around in his grave.

In Washington, D.C., the GOPs governing class has largely responded to Russias aggression by calling for sanctions, such as President Joe Biden is imposing, while faulting the Democratic president for doing too little, or for not acting quickly enough framing that dovetailed with the partys long-running attempts to cast Biden as weak.

But at CPAC, there was no sign Ukraine represented anything more important than that, despite its extraordinary geopolitical implications. As the conference opened, Russia was bombing Ukraine. Vladimir Putin, with a nuclear arsenal at his disposal, was warning the West that interference would result in consequences you have never seen. Dozens of people had been killed, and financial markets were reeling.

Ukraine drew mention from some Republican politicians. Yet attendees heard more about banned books, Marxist leftists, Covid mandates and the fantasy that the 2020 election was rigged. It was a reminder that the economy and domestic culture wars are more likely to define the midterm and 2024 presidential election than fearsome conflict abroad.

Jim McLaughlin, a veteran Republican pollster, said that in combination with the chaotic withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan last year, Ukraine adds to the general overall feeling that this administration and this president look weak. Former Michigan Republican Party Chair Saul Anuzis said that politically for Republicans, Its going to be a big deal for us.

But as a stand-alone issue, its different. Of Ukraine, said Rory McShane, a Republican strategist, Its too complicated a situation to campaign on.

Attendees shop at a booth at a trade show at CPAC on Friday.|John Raoux/AP Photo

The Republican approach to Ukraine is a reflection of the partys evolution, with the GOP divided in its assessment of the war and its vision of Americas role in the world. There are pro-sanction lawmakers. And then theres the America First set influential with base voters, such as Foxs Tucker Carlson and conservative activist Charlie Kirk, founder of the youth movement Turning Point USA.

The U.S. southern border matters a lot more than the Ukrainian border, Kirk said to applause on Thursday, CPACs opening day. Im more worried about how the cartels are deliberately trying to infiltrate our country than a dispute 5,000 miles away in cities we cant pronounce, in places that most Americans cant find on a map.

Former President Donald Trump, still the leader of the Republican Party, has failed to provide his followers a coherent direction. On Tuesday, he described Putin as genius and savvy. On Thursday night, he said only, If I were in Office, this deadly Ukraine situation would never have happened!

Trump may offer more substantive remarks when he appears at CPAC on Saturday, though his record includes nothing to suggest he will chart a unifying course for the party. Trumps coziness with Putin during his presidency disturbed even some Republicans.

Paul Ryan, then the Republican House speaker, said Trump must appreciate that Russia is not our ally after Trumps infamous joint press conference with Putin in 2018, where Trump suggested the U.S. was to blame for its tensions with Russia and declined to rebuke Putin for the countrys interference in the 2016 election.

Still, Republicans are waiting for Trump to lay down a marker. In some ways, the GOP is more deferential to him than it was in 2018, and the risk of crossing him is extreme, with Trump intervening in primaries across the midterm electoral landscape and with the prospect that he may run again in 2024. If Trump offers any direction on Ukraine, Republicans will come under intense pressure to follow his lead.

I think within the Republican Party theres a lot of people looking to see what Trump will say, said Bob Heckman, a Republican consultant who has worked on nine presidential campaigns. The only common denominator right now among Republicans is that its all Bidens fault What feeds it is the instinct to want to say that everything Biden is doing is wrong. So, if you want to make the argument that Biden has been feckless and weak, which I think is correct, then you have to be for some kind of strong response yourself. Yet the Trump wing of the party hasnt traditionally been for strong foreign responses, so I think everybodys trying to figure it out right now.

He said, Were going to see whether or not people who understand foreign policy, like Pompeo, Nikki Haley and Mike Pence, to give you three names, whether they gain more respect from speaking intelligently on this, or whether they get marginalized.

The only common denominator right now among Republicans is that its all Bidens fault.

Bob Heckman, Republican consultant

Chuck Hagel, the former Republican senator from Nebraska and defense secretary in the Obama administration, suggested Americans may not yet fully appreciate the significance of Russias war on Ukraine, unlike any foreign conflict since World War II. But over the course of what will be a tough time for the next few months, maybe longer, he said, theyll start to understand it, because consequences are going to back up in this country just like every other country.

It will force people to come to their senses as far as realizing how important this day is in the world, he said.

If that happens, the Republican electorate may demand a more cogent foreign policy vision from the partys leaders than Trump has offered so far. But if it doesnt, they may not have to do much more than echo him or, as DeSantis did on Thursday, say nothing at all. Foreign policy traditionally ranks low on the list of American voters concerns.

Foreign policy rarely resonates with voters unless Americans are dying, said Whit Ayres, the longtime Republican pollster. Its usually overwhelmed by the economy, the pandemic, education, all these other domestic issues. That doesnt mean people arent paying attention. But when it comes to voting issues, domestic policy normally trumps foreign policy, unless Americans are dying overseas.

Republicans expectation that voters will be consumed with concerns other than Ukraine was nowhere more evident than CPAC. During a rare session devoted to the conflict, Trumps former deputy national security adviser, K.T. McFarland, was discussing the price of oil and Putins ability to finance a war when Right Side Broadcasting Network cut away from its livestream of the event.

It had an interview to air instead with John Schnatter, the founder of Papa Johns.

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At CPAC, Ukraine takes a back seat to the culture wars - POLITICO