Mediaboss Marketing

After counting votes until after 11 p.m. Saturday, the Republican Party of Chesapeake announced N. Baxter Ennis as the winner of a firehouse primary. Ennis will run as the Republican nominee for the House of Delegates District 89 race.

Ennis beat out Chesapeake City Council member Don Carey III and political newcomer Jason Woolridge from Suffolk.

District 89 includes Chesapeake and parts of Suffolk. Ennis will run against Democrat nominee Karen Lynette Jenkins, a Suffolk school board member.

Im just so honored to get the chance to be the Republican nominee for the House District 89, and Im just really looking forward to a great campaign, Ennis told The Pilot. I look forward to the opportunity to go to Richmond if Im so lucky as to win in November and help Governor Youngkin with his conservative agenda.

Ennis, 70, described himself as a fiscal conservative and wants to make law enforcement and first responders his priorities. He said he values education and wants students to be prepared for college, a technical career or a career in the military.

The firehouse primary used rank choice voting to select the Republican nominee, which means voters ranked the candidates against one another. Votes are counted until one candidate gets 51%. If a candidate doesnt have 51% of first choice votes, the candidate with the least votes is eliminated, and second choice votes are redistributed to the remaining candidates.

Woolridge was eliminated after the first round with 25.7% of the votes against Careys 30.8% and Ennis 43.5%. Results from the first round were posted at 10:37 p.m. Saturday on the Republican Party of Chesapeake Facebook page. In the second and final round, Ennis had 57.7% of the votes and Carey had 42.3%. Results from the second round were posted at 11:12 p.m.

Carey and Woolridge both agreed with the election results Sunday.

We ran a campaign and came up short against Ennis, Carey said.

Woolridge said he won the majority of the votes in Suffolk, but his campaign couldnt get through the wall of money in Chesapeake.

Story continues

Carey raised $95,000 in donations as of March 31, according to campaign finance data from the Virginia Public Access Project. Ennis raised $42,466 as of March 31 and Woolridge raised $10,018.

Im pretty proud of our effort, Woolridge said. I got all 40 plus volunteers that were on my crew door knocking, phone banking and trying to get the word out about my campaign for the delegate. We did a really good job considering what we were up against.

Cianna Morales, 757-957-1304, cianna.morales@virginiamedia.com

Go here to see the original:
Baxter Ennis wins Republican nomination for House District 89 race in firehouse primary - Yahoo News

This Press Release was received by East Texas Broadcasting, Inc. on Sunday

It is with much sadness that we the below, 10 members of the 11 member Hopkins County RepublicanParty Executive Committee, call on Representative Bryan Slaton to immediately resign asRepresentative of House District # 2. After reading the report of the House General Investigating Committee, in the matter of Representative Bryan L. Slaton, there is no other recommendation that we can make. While we commend Representative Slaton for much good work, we cannot condone conduct unbecoming a member of the House of Representatives as set forth by the House rules and the laws of the State of Texas. It is our hope that Representative Slaton will heed our call and let the healing process begin with his family, the victim and her family, and all other parties involved. We encourage everyone to continue in prayer and lift all involved up in prayer to God for his loving comfort and healing.Donnie W. Wisenbaker, Hopkins County Republican Chairman

James Thompson, Precinct # 1 Chair Vince Palumbo, Precinct # 2 ChairKaron Weatherman, Precinct # 2A Chair Nancy Swint, Precinct # 3 ChairJohn Allen, Precinct # 3A Chair Debbie Harris, Precinct # 4 ChairDaniel Bobay, Precinct # 16 Chair Jennifer Harrington, Precinct # 17 ChairMelonie Findley, Precinct # 36 Chair

As members of the State Republican Partys Executive Committee, that serves Hopkins County, we support the Hopkins County Republican Party Executive Committee members in their call for Representative Slatons immediate resignation.Christian Bentley, SD-1 State Republican Party Executive Committee, CommitteewomanDonnie W. Wisenbaker, SD-1 State Republican Party Executive Committee, Committeeman

Continued here:
Hopkins County Republican Party Calls On Representative Slaton ... - EastTexasRadio.com

Vivek Ramaswamy, the Republican wunderkind running for his partys presidential nomination, would like potential supporters to know he believes in the rule of law and the Constitutions separation of powers though his applications of such principles can seem selective.

After intense study of the Constitution, Mr. Ramaswamy says he believes that the awesome powers of the presidency would allow him to abolish the Education Department on Day 1, part of an assault on the administrative state that his 2024 rival, Donald J. Trump, fell short on during Days 1 through 1,461 of his presidency. Never mind that the Constitution confers the power of the purse on Congress, and a subsequent law makes it illegal for the president not to spend that money.

Mr. Ramaswamy also wants to eradicate teachers unions, though he concedes that they are governed by contracts with state and local governments.

And he says he would unleash the military to stamp out the scourge of fentanyl coming across the Southern border, unworried by the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which prohibits the use of the military for civil law enforcement.

In short, Mr. Ramaswamy, a lavishly wealthy 37-year-old entrepreneur and author pitching himself as a new face of intellectual conservatism, is promising to go farther down the road of ruling by fiat than Mr. Trump would or could.

I respect what Donald Trump did, I do, with the America First agenda, but I think he went as far as he was going to go, Mr. Ramaswamy told a crowd of about 100 on Tuesday night at Murphys Tap Room in Bedford, N.H. Im in this race to take the America First agenda far further than Donald Trump ever did.

Mr. Ramaswamy, a Cincinnati-born son of Indian immigrants, would seem to be the longest of long shots: He has never held elective office and has vanishingly low name recognition. But he is playing to sizable crowds and exudes a confidence that can be infectious. He has already lent his well-appointed campaign more than $10 million and has said he will spend over $100 million if necessary. Recent polling, both nationally and in New Hampshire, shows him on the rise in the Republican field, though at no more than 5 percent.

His overt shots at Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, whom he labels a visionless implementer without the courage to venture into the hostile territories of college campuses or NBC News, are intended to clear what he sees as an eventual showdown with Mr. Trump. His brashest criticism of the former president is over Mr. Trumps suggestion that he might skip primary debates, depriving Mr. Ramaswamy of the stage he says he needs to catch his rival.

Mr. Ramaswamy sees a simple path to the White House: score respectably in the Iowa caucuses, win New Hampshire, vault to the nomination and then triumph in a landslide that would exceed Ronald Reagans victory over Jimmy Carter in 1980.

Even as a freshman, he had a similar voice, confident, articulate, very sure of himself, said Anson Frericks, a high school friend of Mr. Ramaswamys and a business partner at the asset management firm they founded to give investors financial options untethered to socially conscious corporations. Confidence builds with success. Its a virtuous cycle.

And though his promises may be legally problematic, they sound correct to many Republicans or at least authoritative.

He seems like he knows what hes talking about, said Bob Willis, a self-described Ultra-MAGA Trump person who was waiting for Mr. Ramaswamy to arrive on Wednesday in Keene, N.H.

Confidence is Mr. Ramaswamys gift. His father, an engineer and a patent lawyer at General Electric, is, the candidate says, far more liberal than his son. His mother is a physician. He attributes his strict vegetarianism to his Indian roots.

A piano teacher began Mr. Ramaswamys political journey with long asides on the evils of government and the wrongs of Hillary Clinton. At Harvard, he majored in biology and developed a brash libertarianism complete with a political rapper alter ego, Da Vek.

Between graduation and Yale Law School, he worked in finance, investing in pharmaceutical and biotech companies. Before getting his law degree, he was already worth around $15 million, he said in an interview, during which he worried about wealth inequality.

I think it fuels a social hierarchy in our country that rejects the premise that were all coequal citizens, he said.

Indeed, Mr. Ramaswamys promises have an overarching theme that the nation especially his generation and younger has lost its spiritual center, creating what the mathematician Blaise Pascal called a God-shaped vacuum in the heart. That hole is being filled, Mr. Ramaswamy says, by secular cults racial wokeism, sexual and gender fluidity, and the climate cult which can be diluted to oblivion only with the rediscovery of the American ideals of patriotism, meritocracy and sacrifice.

Mr. Ramaswamy can say things that stretch credulity or undermine his seriousness. He boasts on the campaign trail of his recent star turn jousting with Don Lemon just before Mr. Lemon was fired by CNN. But his statement in that exchange that Black Americans did not secure their civil rights until they secured their right to bear arms made little historical sense, since the civil rights movement was predicated on nonviolence. Indeed, the arming of the Black Panthers led to a deadly government crackdown.

Mr. Ramaswamy accepts the established science that the burning of fossil fuels is warming the planet, but his answer is to drill, frack, burn coal and use more fossil fuels. That will supposedly unleash economic growth that will pay for mitigation efforts to shield everyone from climate change.

He also says he is the first presidential candidate to promise to end race-based affirmative action, ignoring that this was the centerpiece of Ben Carsons presidential run in 2016. Mr. Ramaswamy would end affirmative action by executive order, he says.

He would not spend another dollar on aid to Ukraine but would use military force to annihilate Mexican drug cartels.

On Wednesday night in Windham, N.H., Mr. Ramaswamy suggested he would name Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Democratic vaccine skeptic challenging President Biden, as his running mate. On Tuesday in Bedford, he was asked by a woman with a Black son-in-law and a mixed-race grandson to clarify the meaning of anti-woke.

Mr. Ramaswamy the author of Woke Inc.: Inside Corporate Americas Social Justice Scam answered, Ive never used that word to actually describe myself, as aides handed out stickers reading: Stop Wokeism. Vote Vivek.

All of this can be somewhat mystifying to prominent people who worked with him. Mr. Ramaswamys real fortune comes from the pharmaceutical investment and drug development firm Roivant Sciences, founded after the entrepreneur had a brilliant idea, said Donald M. Berwick, a former administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services under President Barack Obama.

Pharmaceutical giants often abandon research efforts after concluding that even if they are successful, the medicinal product might not be profitable. Roivant would then pick up such ventures and bring them to market. Roivants advisory board eventually included Tom Daschle, the former Democratic senator and Senate majority leader; Dr. Berwick; and Kathleen Sebelius, a health and human services secretary in the Obama administration.

Part of the appeal, Mr. Daschle said, was Mr. Ramaswamys commitment to bringing prescription drugs to market at affordable prices.

I just assumed that because he was so interested in doing as much as he was to lower costs, social responsibility and corporate responsibility was part of his thinking, Mr. Daschle said.

Then, after George Floyds murder in 2020, Mr. Ramaswamy began publicly castigating corporations for speaking out on social issues like Black Lives Matter, voting rights and E.S.G. environmental, social and governance investing. Opinion columns in The Wall Street Journal were followed by appearances on Tucker Carlsons now-canceled Fox News show.

I was rather shocked, said Dr. Berwick, who resigned from Roivant on Jan. 12, 2021. Within days, Mr. Daschle and Ms. Sebelius quit. Mr. Ramaswamy soon followed, to write three books, help start the asset management company with Mr. Frericks and run for president.

At this very early stage of the campaign, Mr. Ramaswamy is open about the limits of his appeal. Evangelical Christians who dominate the Republican caucuses in Iowa will need to be brought along to his Hindu faith. His war with Mexico may go over well in South Carolina, but faces resistance among more libertarian voters in New Hampshire, he said.

And New Hampshire cynics dont quite know how seriously to take him. Victoria Gulla, 50, of Spofford, N.H., questioned whether he was part of a back-room deal with Mr. Trump to help take out Mr. DeSantis in exchange for a position in the next Trump administration, in the way she thinks Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor, helped take down Senator Marco Rubio in New Hampshire in 2016.

In a statement on Friday afternoon, Mr. Trump fueled that kind of speculation, saying he was pleased to see that Vivek Ramaswamy is doing so well in a recent poll and seems to be on his way to catching Ron DeSanctimonious.

A hundred million dollars in self-funding could keep Mr. Ramaswamy in the race for a long time, and some voters were clearly persuaded by Mr. Ramaswamys nearly messianic appeal for a spiritual and social renewal.

Gregg Dumont, 45, of Manchester, broke into tears in Windham as he praised the candidate for daring to save his children from moral decay and what he called the racism of identity politics.

Mr. Dumont, wearing a T-shirt picturing Mr. Trump in jail as a political prisoner, said Mr. Ramaswamy had his vote over the man on his shirt: All the policies with an upgrade, and none of the personality, he said. Im sick of the narcissism.

Continued here:
Vivek Ramaswamy, the Wealthy Republican Who Thinks Trump ... - The New York Times

Frank Eathorne was reelected for a third term Saturday at the Wyoming Republican Partys quarterly CentralCommitteemeetingin Jackson.

It wasnt close. Committeemembers reelected Eathorne 49-25 over former state lawmakerFrank Mooreof Douglas.

Those who didnt vote for me, I intend to win you over, Eathrone said afterthe votes were counted.

Despite criticism about Eathornespast personal and professional transgressionsand accusationsthat he let divisions fester within the party, Eathornes win shows he still has wide support from Wyoming Republicans.

Sheridan County Republican Party Chairman Bryan Miller said party members have addressed the concernswith Eathorne and appreciatedhis candidness when talking about them.

Folks say, Oh OK, hes sincere, Miller said. Thats huge. People find him really sincere when they see him.

Taking Sides

The race between Moore and Eathorne was largely predicated on their perspectiveson how division within the party should be addressed moving forward.

Eathorne said he believes there is an ideological rift among Cowboy State Republicans between those who are hardline conservatives and those seen as not strictly following the party platform.

He also said he doesnt have too much issue with the rift and thatas chairman, hesalways allowedevery voice to be heard.

But thats not what happenedat the partys 2022 convention. At that event, members from the NatronaCounty and Laramie County parties had most of their delegates removed for various reasons.

Moore said his only focus would be to bring the party back together.

He told Cowboy State Daily after the vote that he congratulated Eathorne on the win, but told him thathe better heal the divide in the Wyoming GOP. Moore saidEathorne vowed to do so.

The candidates also differed greatly on the issue of dues each county party pays the state party. This money goes to support the state partys headquarters office in Cheyenne, which costs more than $115,000 a year to operate, including Executive Director Kathy Russells $55,000 salary.

Different Approaches

Before the vote,Moore promised tolead with a nonconfrontational style that is persuasive and inviting. He told Cowboy State Daily after the votes were in thatthe party has much bigger races coming up than Saturdays election.

This party better get its act together, he said.

Moore started his speech to the Central Committee membersby criticizing President Joe Bidens administration, saying Democrats in Wyoming are getting stronger every year.

Moore mentioned his work in the lamb industry and his past fundraising efforts, which includes raising $15 million for the Mountain States Lamb Cooperative.

When I said Ive got the leadership to run this party, its not just empty words, he said.

Mooresaid hetraveled the state visiting with different county members during his two-week campaignand that some members refused to meet with him, showing the firm grip of loyalty Eathorne has on some in the party.

Eathorne said he listens to the grassroots of the party and considers the party platform to be the standardof being a Republican.

He said he didnt enjoy the partys censure of former congresswoman Liz Cheney even though he sharply criticized heractions as vice chair of the Jan. 6 committeeand never publicly condemned the censure process. Eathorne brought a resolution to censure Cheney at the Republican National Committee meeting in early 2022.

I didnt enjoy that;however, it was coming up from the grassroots, he said.

Eathorne said its important for the state party to have relationships at the national leveland now thatthose have been built, and continue to grow,under his watch.

Eathorne said there will be a new focus placed on county commissioner and school board races.

As far as the 2024 presidential nomination process, he said the state party plans to train local county parties on the process they should initiate.

County Shares

Moore believes the state party exists to serve the county parties and thathe supports getting rid of county shares, or dues. He said he would make up for this roughly $115,000 with increased fundraising efforts.

Just as I helped raise millions of dollars to get off our sheep industry, I am committed to make fundraising my top priority, he said.

During the 2022 election cycle, the state party spent $16,500 on candidates statewide, a particularly low sumas its coffers were low at the time. The partys cash on hand as of Saturday was$55,273.

Eathorne put a positive spin on the state partys funding, saying itreceived $30,000 from major donors this year.

Moore said any moneycounty parties wantedto give to the state party would be done so voluntarily.

Money spent at the local level is the ideal way to spend that money, he said.

Miller found fault with this argument, saying it encourages big donors to have an outsized influence on the partys activities. He believes party funding should stem from county parties up to the state level.

Hes stating, we want the party to push things from top down, Miller said. We should not be funding the party from the state level.

Eathorne said the current county shares system works, but its ultimately up to those county groupstodecide.

He, like Miller, said if mandatory county shares were eliminated, the perception of a top-down approach from the state party could develop.

This is just a way to keep that grassroots money where the grassroots people can decide how that money is spent, he said.

Sweeter The Victory

Although Eathorne took 66% of the vote and won by a 32% margin, it was a substantial departure from his previous chairman elections. In 2021, he ran unopposed and in 2019 was elected by an even moreoverwhelming margin.

State Sen. Bob Ide, R-Casper, said it was a positive for Eathorne to be challenged. Ide said Eathorne was visibly fired up and pretty ecstatic when he spoke to him after the win.

Its always like the old saying, the harder the battle the sweeter the victory, Ide said.

Ide and Park County Republican Party precinct committeeman Bob Berry,who supportsEathorne, said its good tohave a contested race.

It refines them, Ide saidof those running for leadership positions. Without that challenger, theyre not put in that position.

A number of Moore supporters told Cowboy State Daily before the vote that if it was reasonably competitive, they would see it as a positive change in the party.

Vice Chair Race

Wyoming Republican Party Vice Chair David Holland also wasreelected by the same 49-25 margin.

Holland, a Crook County resident, was aligned with Eathorne onhis platform. He defeated Sweetwater County GOP Chairman Elizabeth Bingham.

Bingham, a homeschool parent, took a hardline conservative tone to her speech, calling the current public school curriculadictatorial and filled with leftist propaganda. Bingham said the threats of the Democratic Party are very real and devalue what it means to be a human being.

I want to help bring back a sense of excitement to do this work, she said. Make our message of freedom, free enterprise and free exercise, something we are all proud and excited to share with all our friends and neighbors in my county, and many of the large counties.

Bingham believes there is a fracture among Republicans around the state and thata new approach is needed tobridge the divide.

Bingham defines herself a party platform Republican, but said more listening should happen within the state party.

Holland said he has no plans to make everyone happy, drawing a small burst of approval from some in attendance.

I feel like my job, and if I had a gift, is going around encouraging people and helping them to achieve their goals, he said.

Holland voiceda sentiment expressed by many in the hardline conservative wing of the party, saying one either believes in the Republican platform or they dont. Theres nothing in between. The statement brought loud applause.

Holland said it wasnt until 1992 that the WyomingGOP took a pro-life stance. He said hes surprised that somepeople who say they are traditional Republicans want to take the party back, as he believes the party is already run by this group.

We have to be aware that were in a war for the soul of America right now, he said.

Bingham said the party needs to become more engaged with local elections such as races for county commissioner. Holland said he needs to become more engaged with all of the county parties around the state.

Id like to do it on a defined schedule and build up a lot more relationships and help these county parties be successful,

Holland acknowledged the Wyoming GOP has had issues with its finances, referencing a $52,000 campaign finance fine it incurredin 2021.

Bingham said this financial position cannot be solely blamed on lawsuits.

In the end,$52,000 is not whats brought our balances down so low, she said. We have a problem. We need to raise more money. I think thats the job of the vice chair.

Rice Reelected

Donna Rice was reelected secretary of the party. She was unopposed, and was first elected secretary in 2021.

Rice said she bringsanupbeat demeanor and positive outlook tothe Republican Party.

Ive been accused many times of having rose-colored glasses and Im perfectly happy with that, Rice said.

Rice said its not necessary for party members to agree on everything as long they help each other come to decisions.

The state GOP has become knownfor making strongly worded resolutions and censures in recent years. Rice said these statements have an impactand representthe partys voice.

There were eight state legislators and a handful of former state legislators at the elections on Saturday. Also in attendance was Secretary of State Chuck Gray, State Treasurer Curt Meier, Superintendent of Public Instruction Megan Degenfelder and State Auditor Kristi Racines.

Leo Wolfson can be reached at: Leo@CowboyStateDaily.com

More:
Frank Eathorne Wins Third Term As Wyoming Republican Party ... - Cowboy State Daily

Even if peace is somehow negotiated before the 2024 presidential election, it is certain that the Russia-Ukraine War will still be invoked by a Democratic campaign seeking to charge the GOP (the Republican Party) with being diplomatically irresponsible. This is because prominent Republicans in the Biden era have made anti-Ukraine sentiment a commonplace GOP stance, comparable to anti-lockdown agitation and rallying against Donald Trumps indictment. For a greater understanding of why Ukraine will form a dividing line in 2024, it is worth exploring recent partisan divisions and how potential presidential contenders like Ron DeSantis illustrate the GOPs divergence from a Jacksonian honor code embraced by earlier Republican figures.

Currently, multiple Republican representatives maintain positions on NATO expansion and Russian irredentism that are divorced from the worldview of pre-Trump Republican presidents. In an indication of how much the GOP has changed ideologically, they are also divorced from pre-Trump Republican populist icons. The isolationism of Lauren Boebert, who opposed US taxpayer aid to Ukraine at the beginning of this year, is dramatically removed from the diplomatic stances of 2008 era Sarah Palin, a figure commonly seen as a harbinger of Trumps unvarnished politics. Shortly following the Russian invasion of Georgia in August 2008, Palin advocated that Georgia and Russia should be admitted to NATO, a position diametrically opposed to the isolationism evidenced today. The reality that MAGA standard bearers Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene, along with sixteen other Republicans, voted against a resolution that supported Sweden and Finlands efforts to join NATO in 2022 show that the kind of firebrand populism previously attributed to Palin has transmuted into something far more isolationist in the Biden era.

In a reversal of previous Reaganite traditions, the GOP today contains a minority of members who have ended their partys reputation for support of the NATO alliance and its expansion to states fearing Russian encroachment. In April 2022, 63 Republican House members and 0 Democratic House members voted against a non-binding resolution affirming support for NATO as an alliance founded on democratic principles. This partisan divide, along with the one glimpsed in the previous House vote on the NATO admission of Finland and Sweden, was different from the split displayed during a 1998 Senate vote on approval for expansion of NATO membership in Eastern Europe. The necessary two thirds majority required for ratification passed thanks to a plurality of Republicans, who backed the measure by 45 to the Democrats 35, resulting in a lopsided 80-19 victory for approval. In the Biden era, it would be unthinkable for Republican affirmative votes to outweigh Democratic ones on any issue relating to NATO expansion or support.

Notably, members of the Squad, a group of four progressive House Democrats traditionally hostile to US military commitments, have been willing to aid Ukraine unlike the far-right of the GOP; the voting records of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and Ayanna Pressley all show affirmative votes for the Ukraine Democracy Defense Lend-Lease Act of 2022 and the Continuing Appropriations and Ukraine Supplemental Appropriations Act 2023. The support of the left flank of the Democratic Party on those votes left anti-Ukraine sentiment a cause of the GOP in the House of Representatives, as only Republicans voted against the two bills. Strikingly, GOP votes against Ukraine aid amassed from a meagre 10 Republican votes for the Ukraine Democracy Defense Lend-Lease Act of 2022 (voted on in the spring of 2022) to 201 for the Continuing Appropriations and Ukraine Supplemental Appropriations Act 2023 (voted on in the autumn of 2022).

Although the caveat should be made that Ukraine aid was combined with a $1.66 trillion dollar government funding bill in the latter act and thus combined with separate areas of domestic policy liable to be opposed by Republicans, opposition to Ukraine aid has proved prominent within the GOP voter base since the passage of that bill; a March 2023 poll provided by The Economist and YouGov showed that Republican voters significantly lagged behind Democrat ones in favouring financial and military aid to Ukraine. Only 38% of Republicans endorsed financial aid to Ukraine in contrast to 73% of Democrats, whilst assistance in the form of tanks and long-range missiles both had 19% gaps in partisan approval.

Such polling demonstrates the Republican Partys divergence from a previously stereotypical conviction in the importance of military alliances and reverence for martial valour. In a 2020 article for American Studies in Scandinavia, I examined how Trumps isolationist reorientation of the GOP was overinterpreted as stemming from what the International Relations historian Walter Mead originally defined in a 1999 The National Interest article as the Jacksonian. What Mead outlined as the Jacksonian tradition encompassed a pugnacity and nationalism along with a strong affinity for the military, bravery in combat and the fulfilling of military commitments to other states, shibboleths not always highlighted by the campaign stances and attitudes of Trump. The same asymmetry between conservatism and the Jacksonian is detectable in the firebrand Republicans who have carried most antipathy towards Western support for Ukraine.

Meads understanding of the Jacksonian (a term derived from Andrew Jackson, the populist veteran president who occupied the Oval Office from 1829 to 1837), stressed a political force that under certain circumstances demands war, supports the use of force and urges political leaders to stop wasting time with negotiations. Whereas earlier generations of hawkish Republicans supported US military commitments to South Vietnam and South Korea and the cause of victory at all costs, the hard right of the Biden era have declined to support an outright defeat of Russia. Senator JD Vances stance that the United States should seek a peaceful resolution to the conflict (a position voiced in January 2023) is contrary to the Jacksonian distrust of negotiation, embodied in the politicians who advocated negotiations with the Soviet enemy and who were labeled appeasers.

I would further argue that the scepticism towards Ukraine aid purveyed by House Republicans such as Texass Chip Roy constitutes a deviation from what Mead described as the Jacksonian honor code. In his 1999 article, Mead outlined a conviction that once the United States extends a security guarantee or makes a promise, we are required to honor that promise come what may; today, representatives like Marjorie Taylor Greene complain of American support to Zelensky and wish that the US would betray previous commitments to supporting the territorial integrity of Ukraine and obligations enshrined as early as the 1994 Budapest Memorandum. If one element of the Jacksonian entails the continued honoring of military commitments to allies, the hard right of the GOP have worked hard to make Meads label less applicable to their brand of politics.

One noticeable symptom of the GOPs drift from the Jacksonian is an increased disdain for the national military establishment, a trend which has accelerated during Bidens presidency. Mead noted in 1999 that Jacksonians viewed military expenditure as one of the best things governments can do and the Defense Department as providing a service to the middle class. In the Biden era, potential GOP presidential contenders like Florida governor Ron DeSantis lambast the federal military establishment and propose a new civilian military force operational in the Sunshine State. Accusations of wokeness have been levelled at the Pentagon by Republican House representatives such as Floridas Michael Waltz, who has critiqued the teaching of critical race theory at service academies. The Republicans who lambasted a progressive military establishment have also critiqued the volume of Ukraine aid given by the United States and the USs general involvement in the conflict; Floridas Waltz has bemoaned the burden sharing of the US compared to European allies while the more famous DeSantis dismissed Ukraine support as not vital earlier this year.

The anti-Ukraine aid positions of Trump and DeSantis, the two Republicans most dominant in polling for the 2024 Republican nomination, almost certainly mean that the 2024 election will accentuate party polarisation on Ukraine. A contest between Biden and either Trump or DeSantis will additionally involve an inversion of the campaign mudslinging employed throughout the Cold War era; in 1984, Reagan warned that his Democratic opponent would sell out the cause of freedom abroad, an accusation more likely to be wielded at Republicans vis-a-vis Ukraine today. Given the divided nature of contemporary US politics, there is no amount of moral authority Biden could gain on Ukraine to equal the 49-state landslide Reagan achieved in 1984.

If a Biden platform based on continued support for NATO and a free Ukraine proves victorious, however, the president could claim to have harnessed the honor code integral to the Jacksonian and pre-Trump Republican presidents. Such a realignment would further challenge those who ascribe the Jacksonian paradigm to the post-Trump GOP and who contradict the reality that the hard rights reaction to Ukraines invasion precludes a natural relationship between the military solidarity of Meads idea and contemporary Republicanism.

Follow this link:
Opinion Ukraine and the Republican Party's Drift from the 'Honor ... - E-International Relations