"America First" MAGA tough guys are modern-day Chamberlains

For years, foreign policy hawks invoked the icon of appeasement, Neville Chamberlain, to emasculate their more dovish liberal opponents. Today, the macho men on the right are arguing that an illegal incursion by an authoritarian regime into a European nation-state isn’t our business. It’s Chamberlain’s folly delivered with a confident Churchillian swagger.

But why is this happening now? There are multiple reasons, including either grudging or explicit admiration for Vladimir Putin, whose dictatorial strongman persona exhibits many of the stereotypical attributes of masculinity.

Among the “America First” isolationist right, there’s also the argument that Putin is fighting for Christian values, while our “woke” U.S. military is the “armed wing of the Democratic Party,” part of a leftist cabal indoctrinating our young people into godless Marxism…

Again, I’m not suggesting that Ukraine’s border is an existential threat to America. But the notion of favoring Vladimir Putin, who is cynically using the Russian Orthodox Church for political purposes, over your own country, is absurd. Looking the other way at an authoritarian aggression will only invite more aggression.