The stunning realignment of world powers unfolding is largely due to social issues, not economic or geopolitical ones. Europe and NATO are run by liberals who want to embrace the transgender ideology and hold gay pride parades, while Russia has said “nyet” to that while enacting pro-life laws instead.
The liberal hatred of Russia predates the war in Ukraine, and many of the thousand-strong anti-JD Vance protesters who lined narrow, snow-covered Vermont roads on Saturday were motivated by social issues. Some waved LGBTQ flags while others were part of transgender activism, both of which Russia prohibits and would exclude from territory it annexes.
In 2020, Russians amended their Constitution to ensure that marriage remains only “the union of a man and a woman,” and in 2022, Russia broadened its ban on “LGBT propaganda” to include adults. Transgender treatment is not allowed in Russia, while transgender adults cannot adopt children.
On November 30, 2023, the Supreme Court of Russia held that the “international public LGBT movement” is “extremist.” Displaying the LGBTQ rainbow flag in Russia can result in fines and imprisonment.
Pandering to liberals’ hatred of Russia’s social policies, Obama refused to attend its Winter Olympics in 2014 and spoke disparagingly of the country. In December 2016 Obama insulted Russia as a “smaller” and “weaker country,” which fails to “produce anything that anybody wants to buy except oil and gas and arms.”
Democrats falsely insisted that Trump’s presidential victory over Hillary Clinton was due to Russia, and Democrats used their fiction to disrupt two years of Trump’s first administration. Ukrainian president Zelensky, who refuses to allow an election to replace him, campaigned in Pennsylvania for Democrat Kamala Harris against Trump last fall.
The Left cannot accept any victory by Russia. When Vice President JD Vance told Zelensky at the White House that his regime was “going around and forcing conscripts to the front lines because you have manpower problems,” Zelensky did not deny it.
Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-IN) is the only member of Congress born in Ukraine. She recently described Zelensky’s government as “worthless”. She observed that “the American people want to see what we’re getting in return” for the hundreds of billions of dollars we’ve sent there.
We should stop arming Ukraine to fight for NATO’s liberal social agenda. On Sunday, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) wisely declared, “If NATO’s moving on without the U.S., we should move on without NATO. Time to leave.”
This echoes what Phyllis Schlafly said against NATO in 2016 when she wrote that NATO repudiates George Washington’s advice “to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world.” Phyllis repeatedly warned against our entanglement through NATO in foreign wars in 1996, 1998, and 1999 during the wars of NATO aggression in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Serbia.
It is not the moral duty of the United States to intervene in every foreign war. As Trump says, the Ukraine-Russia war would have been over quickly if the United States had not propped Zelensky up with aid that thereby prolonged it.
On Monday, Trump correctly halted the delivery of military aid by the U.S. to Ukraine after Zelensky harmfully declared that peace with Russia is “still very, very far away.” “This is the worst statement that Zelensky could have made, and America will not put up with it for much longer!” the president responded on TruthSocial.
There was more than $1 billion in arms and ammunition scheduled for delivery to Ukraine. Trump was right to withhold that, at least until Zelensky makes a good-faith effort toward ending a war that has killed or wounded more than a million people.
“We should spend less time worrying about Putin and more time worrying about migrant rape gangs, drug lords, murderers, and people from mental institutions entering our Country - So that we don’t end up like Europe!” Trump tweeted on Sunday.
Russia is more like conservative states in the U.S. on social issues than Europe, and Zelensky is, as Russian laws reject the trans agenda and abortion-on-demand as many states here do. Yet on Friday, Zelensky warned Trump that our country “will feel it in the future” as the next victim of Russia if we decline to continue fighting it in Ukraine.
That warning of our American president by a foreign official was both unjustified and insulting, and Trump properly admonished Zelensky for it. “Don’t tell us what we’re going to feel. We’re trying to solve a problem,” Trump responded.
Trump continued, “You’re in no position to dictate that. Remember this, you’re in no position to dictate what we’re going to feel. We’re going to feel good. We’re gonna feel very good and very strong,” and Trump’s right due to his strong leadership.
John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.
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