Throughout my lifetime, until very recently, liberals have been 1) reflexively anti-war, no matter how sound the justification for military action seemed to be; 2) always in favor “peace” negotiations, no matter how futile–just consider the entire history of the Middle East; and 3) pro-Russia, the first socialist nirvana.
But with regard to Ukraine, we have a realignment. It is mostly conservatives who urge caution, who worry about the prospect of a wider war or the use of nuclear weapons, and who want to urge a negotiated peace. Liberals, meanwhile, are burnishing their pro-war credentials and posturing like latter-day Curtis LeMays.
[The explanation here is that liberals are playing Follow the Leader with Biden. For how long, though? Progressives can’t sustain the political dissonance indefinitely. Some of the Left’s cheerleaders like Maddow might, but eventually the contradictions between progressivism’s distrust of military and still-present Wobblyism will undercut it. The same thing happened to George W. Bush in Iraq, eventually, creating a split on the Right between the neo-cons and more populist paleo-cons, nativists, and anti-globalists. — Ed]
Join the conversation as a VIP Member