The Odds of Surviving the Republican Party Keep Getting Worse
I’m publishing this series of articles to share and discuss my ruminations on coping with a troubled and messy world. You can “follow” me to never miss an article.
In an Op-Ed from February, Bret Stephens voices the opinion that when Historians look back on 2024, they won’t be preoccupied, if they barely remember it at all, what an elderly Democratic President could and couldn’t recall about the names of other World leaders or their countries[i]. Instead, “they will note that 26 Republicans chose to turn their backs on world leadership”.
Although Senate Republicans voted on a supplemental Foreign Aid Package, it’s highly doubtful that it pass muster in the House. Further, a number of Senators voted against it because it didn’t include Border-Security Measures.
Worse, the whole issue has been paired with appalling sentiments such as those made by Wisconsin’s Ron Johnson who asserted that “although Vladmir Putin is ‘an evil war criminal,’ Russia is certain to win the war, so funding Kyiv prolongs Ukrainian suffering” and thereby wastes American money. Ohio’s J.D. went further by stating that it “represents an attempt by the foreign policy blob/deep state to stop President Trump from pursuing his desired policy”.
To which Stephens had the understandable harsh response:
“What a mix of cruelty, defeatism, conspiracy-mongering and political servility.”
In closing, Stephens states that the point of helping Ukraine defend itself is not one of pure altruism. Instead, it’s in our direct self-interest in pursuit of a World that’s free from the unrestrained actions of despots.
Yes, The New York Times has a decidedly Liberal bias which I obviously share. Thus, every day, I am more and more disheartened by the news and the Op-Eds it publishes.
No wonder why many of our close friends are seriously contemplating leaving the country if Trump is re-elected. My family will not do so. We take comfort in the Liberal bubble in which we live. But our faith in the ability of our beautiful Country to survive hangs by a thread.
We will see whether our faith is justified by living in a Blue State. Or if it’s a pure fantasy.
[i] Bret Stephens, “The Isolationist Republican Party, Again,” The New York Times, Wednesday, February, 14, 2024, P A2o.
Ian I. Mitroff is credited as being one of the principal founders of the modern field of Crisis Management. He has a BS, MS, and a PhD in Engineering and the Philosophy of Social Systems Science from UC Berkeley. He Is Professor Emeritus from the Marshall School of Business and the Annenberg School of Communication at USC. Currently, he is a Senior Research Affiliate in the Center for Catastrophic Risk Management, UC Berkeley. He is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Academy of Management. He has published 41 books. His latest is: The Socially Responsible Organization: Lessons from Covid, Springer, New York, 2022.
Photo by Connor Dugan on Unsplash
