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One of the most bizarre aspects of the all-consuming Russia frenzy is the Democrats fixation on changes to the RNC platform concerning U.S. arming of Ukraine. The controversy began in July when the Washington Post reported that the Trump campaign worked behind the scenes last week to make sure the new Republican platform wont call for giving weapons to Ukraine to fight Russian and rebel forces.

Ever since then, Democrats have used this language change as evidence that Trump and his key advisers have sinister connections to Russians and corruptly do their bidding at the expense of American interests. Democratic Senator Ben Cardin, the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, spoke for many in his party when he lambasted the RNC change in a July letter to the New York Times, castigating it as dangerous thinking that shows Trump is controlled, or at least manipulated, by the Kremlin. Democrats resurrected this line of attack this weekend when Trump advisers acknowledged that campaign officials were behind the platform change.

This attempt to equate Trumpsopposition toarming Ukraine with some sort of treasonous allegiance to Putin masks a rather critical fact: namely, that the refusal to arm Ukraine with lethal weapons was one of Barack Obamas most steadfastly held policies. The original Post article that reported the RNC platform change noted this explicitly:

Of course, Trump is not the only politician to oppose sending lethal weapons to Ukraine. President Obama decided not to authorize it, despite recommendations to do so from his top Europe officials in the State Department and the military.

Early media reports about this controversy from outlets such as NPR also noted the irony at the heart of this debate: namely,that arming Ukraine was the long-time desireof hawks in the GOP such as John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio, but the Obama White House categorically resisted those pressures:

Republicans in Congress have approved providing arms to the Ukrainian government but the White House has resisted, saying that it would only encourage more bloodshed.

Its a rare Obama administration policy that the Trump campaign seems to agree with.

Indeed, the GOP ultimately joined with the hawkish wing of the Democratic Party to demand that Obama provide Ukraine with lethal weapons to fight Russia, but Obama steadfastly refused. As the New York Times reported in March, 2015, President Obama is coming under increasing pressure from both parties and more officials inside his own government to send arms to the country. But he remains unconvinced that they would help. When Obama kept refusing, leaders of the two partiesthreatened to enact legislation forcing Obama to arm Ukraine.

The general Russia approachthat Democrats now routinely depict as treasonous avoiding confrontation with and even accommodating Russian interests, not just in Ukraine but also in Syria was one of the defining traits of Obamas foreign policy. This fact shouldnt be overstated: Obama engaged in provocative acts such asmoves to further expand NATO, non-lethal aid to Ukraine, and deployingmissile defense weaponry in Romania. But he rejected most calls to confront Russia. Thatis one of the primary reasons the foreign policy elite which, recall, Obama came into office denouncing and vowing to repudiate was so dissatisfied with his presidency.

A new, long article by Politico foreign affairs correspondent Susan Glasser on the war being waged against Trump by Washingtons foreign policy elite makes this point very potently.Say what you will about Politico, but one thing they are very adept at doing is giving voice to cowardly Washington insidersby accommodating their cowardice and thusroutinely granting them anonymity toexpress themselves. As journalistically dubious as it is to shield the worlds most powerful people with anonymity, this practice sometimes ends up revealing what careerist denizens of Washington power really think but are too scared to say. Glassers article, which largely consists of conveying the views ofanonymous high-level Obama officials, contains this remarkable passage:

In other words, Democrats are now waging war on, and are depicting as treasonous, one of Barack Obamas central and most steadfastly held foreign policy positions, one that he clung to despite attacks from leading members of both parties as well as the DCNational Security Community.Thats not Noam Chomskydrawing that comparison; its an Obama appointee.

The destructive bipartisan Foreign Policy Community was furious with Obama for not confronting Russia more, and is now furious with Trump for the same reason (though they certainly loath and fear Trump for other reasons, including the threat they believe he poses to U.S. imperial management through a combination of ineptitude, instability, toxic PR, naked rather than prettified savagery, and ideology; Glasser writes: Everything Ive worked for for two decades is being destroyed, a senior Republican told me).

All of thisdemonstrates how fundamental a shift has taken place as a result of the Democrats election-related fixation on The Grave Russian Threat. To see how severe the shift is, just look at this new polling data from CNN this morning that shows Republicans and Democrats doing a complete reversal on Russia in the span of eight months:

The Democrats obsession with Russia has not just led them to want investigations into allegations of hacking and (thus far evidence-free) suspicionsof Trump campaign collusion investigations which everyone should want. Its done far more than that: its turned them into increasingly maniacal and militaristic hawks dangerous ones when it comes to confronting the only nation witha larger nuclear stockpile than the U.S., an arsenal accompanied by a sense of fear, if not outright encirclement, from NATO expansion.

Put another way, establishment Democrats with a largely political impetus but now as a matter of conviction have completely abandoned Obamas accommodationist approach to Russia and have fully embracedthe belligerent, hawkish mentality of John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Bill Kristol, the CIA and Evan McMullin. It should thus come as nosurprise that a bill proposed by supreme warmonger Lindsey Graham to bar Trump from removing sanctions against Russia has more Democratic co-sponsors than Republican ones.

This iswhy its so notable that Democrats, in the name of resistance, have aligned with neocons, CIA operatives and former Bush officials: not because coalitions should be avoided with the ideologically impure, but because it reveals much about the political and policy mindset theyve adopted in the name of stopping Trump. Theyre not resisting Trump from the left or with populist appeals by, for instance, devoting themselves toprotection ofWall Street and environmental regulations under attack, or supporting the revocation of jobs-killing free trade agreements,ordemandingthat Yemini civilians not be massacred.

Instead, theyre attacking him on the grounds of insufficient nationalism, militarism, and aggression: equating a desire to avoid confrontation with Moscow as a form of treason (just like they did when they were the leading Cold Warriors). This iswhy theyre finding such common cause with the nations most bloodthirsty militarists not becauseits an alliance of convenience but rather one of shared convictions (indeed, long before Trump, neocons were planning a re-alignment with Democrats under a Clinton presidency). And the most ironic and over-looked aspect of this whole volatile spectacle is how much Democratshave to repudiate and demonize one of Obamas core foreign policy legacies while pretending that theyre not doing that.

Read more from the original source:
Democrats Now Demonize the Same Russia Policies that Obama Long Championed - The Intercept