Joe ‘don’t know much about history’ Biden, as the song says, is increasing US involvement in the no-win war in Ukraine, imitating how similar escalation without winning in Vietnam ended the political career of Democratic President Lyndon Johnson (LBJ) in 1968. By unexpectedly visiting Kiev on Monday and promising increased American financial support for the corrupt regime on Russia’s border, Biden is directly provoking the powerful Russian bear.
Russian President Putin has already responded by suspending Russia’s participation in the New START nuclear weapons treaty, which is the only remaining major nuclear treaty between Russia and the USA. Putin’s linking of nuclear weapons to Biden’s actions is a chilling reminder of the growing risk reckless intervention in this hopeless conflict.
Biden threatens the United States even more than LBJ did because Russia has far more military firepower than North Vietnam ever did. Russia has long-range missiles that can easily reach unprotected American targets, as does its recent ally China, which reportedly sent a high-level delegation to Moscow on Tuesday to strengthen ties between the former antagonists.
Congress did not authorize this war and the American people were never asked to approve it. Public support for sending U.S. weapons to Ukraine has dropped from 60% last year to less than 50% last week, according to a recent poll from the AP-NORC Public Affairs Research Center.
Some NBC News Poll last month showed that just 41% of Americans approved of Biden’s approach to the war. Young voters are more opposed to this entanglement and are a key swing demographic.
One of the few Republicans who did well in a swing state last November was the one who spoke out against America’s continued involvement in the war. JD Vance won his campaign in Ohio, where there are many Ukrainian immigrants, in a near landslide.
Democrats should take a history lesson on how the Vietnam War issue brought down LBJ in 1968, when he was at the height of his political power and less than 60 years venerable. He seemed invincible in his reelection bid against a feeble Republican opponent, the twice-defeated retread of Richard Nixon, who was humiliated by a five-point loss to the governor of his home state of California.
But then the unfunded, little-known senator-poet from Minnesota, Gene McCarthy, not the anti-communist Joe McCarthy of Wisconsin, challenged LBJ in New Hampshire’s first presidential primary. Resistance to LBJ’s pro-war stance enabled McCarthy to embarrass the incumbent by denying him a majority.
LBJ withdrew from the race at the end of the month, and his running mate, Hubert Humphrey, was ultimately the Democratic nominee after a tight race that became tight this fall. Then, as now, adolescent voters were less pro-war than Democratic politicians, and Nixon appealed to adolescent voters by promising to end American involvement in Vietnam.
Today’s polls show that only a tiny percentage of voters are undecided which of the two main parties they will support in the next election. Republicans would do well, as Nixon did in 1968 and J.D. Vance last year, to focus on adolescent voters who do not support continued war.
The two ends of the political spectrum, the right and the left, are aligning with the middle on the escalation of the war in Ukraine. Moderate Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who relies on globalist support to stay in power as Senate Republican leader, is harming our country and his party by siding with Biden on Ukraine.
While Mitch McConnell is working with his octogenarian Joe Biden to push the wrong war at the wrong timeyounger conservative Republicans in both houses of Congress are speaking out strongly against him. “They can keep him,” said Republican Matt Gaetz (FL), outraged that Biden would choose a war on the other side of the world over the crisis at our southern border and the toxic train wreck in Ohio.
As freshman Senator Eric Schmitt (R-MO), who was elected with Trump’s support, tweeted: “If you want to understand why so many Americans are frustrated right now: Biden is in Ukraine before Ohio.”
But globalists profiting from endless wars in distant lands expect to win this issue in the Swamp. McConnell’s continued support for the war will give Biden less to worry about in his presidential re-election campaign if Democrats nominate him again.
On Saturday, at the globalist Munich Security Conference in Germany, where Kamala Harris made a fool of herself last year, the British Prime Minister recklessly promised to provide long-range weapons that would enable Ukraine to attack targets in Russia. Europeans should be told not to expect US lend a hand if Russia or China retaliate against them.
John and Andy Schlafly are the sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924–2016) and run the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles writing and policy work.
