(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
 . . . . . . . . . .



Vice President Harris takes less than a minute to throw Ron DeSantis's isolationism into the trash [1]

['Daily Kos Staff', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags']

Date: 2023-03-16  

Colbert asked Vice President Harris what she thought of DeSantis’ position that it “is not in America's strategic interest to side with the Ukrainians and offer them the material aid they need to defend themselves against an invading power.”

Harris’ reply was succinct, and to the point. “So as vice president, I have now met with over 100 world leaders, presidents, prime ministers, chancellors and kings. And when you have had the experience of meeting and understanding the significance, again, of international rules and norms, and the importance of the United States of America, standing firm and clear about the significance of sovereignty, and territorial integrity, moral integrity, the significance of standing firm against any nation that would try to take by force another nation. If you really understand the issues, you probably would not make statements like that.”

As of this moment, DeSantis and Trump’s position on Vladimir Putin is that the Russian oligarch is a pussycat who only respects strong men like Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis—two men who are notorious for separating immigrant families for political gain. Now whether or not DeSantis is making these isolationist overtures to align himself closer to Donald Trump’s positions on the matter in order to shorten the distance of the punches Trump is going to hit him with remains to be seen. He clearly believes it is his best bet at weathering the political storm that’s coming.

It isn’t a bad plan. It isn’t a good plan. It’s a calculated plan with zero calories in it. Zero calories makes it a standard Republican policy idea these days. But at the heart of it, isolationism as practiced in American history is never about pacifism and it is never about what’s good for America writ large: It’s what conservatives use as a populist platform because they have no plan to do anything about the conditions of the Americans they supposedly represent.

Instead, isolationism is used as an “America First” sound bite and catch-all phrase—like “woke.” Progressives’ best defense is to make that very clear. The right and its grift-o-crats in media will now angle isolationism as proof that the Democratic Party and other liberals are really just hypocritical hawks. Of course, this is not the truth either. Republicans, while weeping about how the Biden administration is weak and forced Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine, are at the very same time suggesting we send troops into Mexico to annex a little more of the border between our two countries. Republicans, while wringing their hands about how we are starting a new cold war with Russia, are stoking the fears of war with China.

While there are hawks in the Democratic Party, the majority of liberals and left-leaning folks believe that working to create a more peaceful world is the ultimate goal. This goal is not served by America invading random countries to support their fossil fuel interests or to foment disquiet in entire regions where we would rather see a lack of unity for our material interests. It isn’t created by invading countries on made-up charges of yellow-cake uranium.

Pretending you want to use taxpayer resources to help out Americans when you have voted against any such thing at every point in the past 50 years? That’s how real chicken hawks talk.

Thought I’d put this here. Probably unrelated.

x 20 years ago today... pic.twitter.com/ECc7jxXDpj — The Intel Crab (@IntelCrab) March 16, 2023

RELATED STORIES:

Prepare for Trump's 2024 GOP rivals to defend him against indictment. The base demands it

The Ron DeSantis wind-up doll is about to walk into a right-wing wall

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/3/16/2158604/-Vice-President-Harris-takes-less-than-a-minute-to-throw-Ron-DeSantis-s-isolationism-into-the-trash

Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/