The past year on the national scene was characterized as one test after another for Republicans — not just of their drive to retake control of Congress but of the value system that determined how far they would go to reach their goal. They were asked repeatedly to stand for something other than the pursuit of raw, populist political power. When Russia launched its brutal invasion of Ukraine, the Democratic Party leadership was resolute and unequivocal in support of Ukraine. The Republicans? Well, not so resolute.
When the House investigatory committee dug deeply into its investigation of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection, most Americans sided with Democratic leaders in their desire to identify how it happened and who was responsible. The Republican leadership wanted to talk about the weather, sports, books — anything else but the threat the insurrection posed to democracy.
No matter the subject, when it came time to take a stand in defense of a value worth fighting for, the GOP leadership chose the pursuit of political power over all else. It was a huge gamble that clearly didn’t yield anywhere close to the dividends Republicans had hoped for on Election Day. That’s because the American people have been fooled once by this brand of populist politics, and they refused to be fooled again. At least not this election cycle.
The biggest news starting out the year was Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to amass thousands of troops, tanks and weaponry on the border, then issue a series of vague demands that Ukrainian President Voldymyr Zelenskyy couldn’t possibly agree to. Then Putin unleashed his brutal onslaught, attacking schools, hospitals, refugee centers, churches — anything and everything. It was almost as if Putin was celebrating the concept of war crimes and openly defying the world to do anything about it. The list of mass graves, where captured Ukrainians appeared to have been executed and dumped in shallow pits, grew by the day.
It appeared that Zelenskyy’s government would fall within days as Russian troops battled ragtag Ukrainian soldiers and volunteers for control of the capital, Kiev. What happened next was astounding: The United States, Canada and European allies banded together to funnel all available weapons to Ukraine, then conduct a massive training effort to prepare seasoned Ukrainian troops on how to use sophisticated Western equipment — antiaircraft and antitank rockets, missile-defense systems, along with short- and medium-range surface to surface missiles.
Ukrainians refused to surrender and fought back hard against an overwhelmingly stronger enemy. They downed Russian jet fighters and attack helicopters. One missile attack led to the sinking of Russia’s flagship guided missile cruiser in the Black Sea. A well-timed bombing of a bridge linking occupied Crimea with the mainland brought traffic to a standstill and severely hampered Russia’s ability to resupply its forces in southern Ukraine. Russia was forced into a humiliating retreat. Putin’s soldiers began refusing to fight after running out of food and ammunition. A nationwide conscription campaign faltered when hundreds of thousands of Russian men chose to flee the country instead.
When President Joe Biden appealed to Congress for billions of dollars in aid to sustain Ukraine’s effort, Republicans at first joined Democrats in taking a firm stand against Russian aggression. But a few quickly peeled off. Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley took a resolute stand — against Biden. He tweeted in early February, just before Putin attacked: “If Russia invades Ukraine, the Biden Administration can blame one person above all: Joe Biden. He’s given Putin his own slush fund in Nord Stream 2 and failed to aid Ukraine when he could have.”
The irony there was that it was Donald Trump, not Biden, who balked at approving the arms Zelenskyy sought and instead tried to extort political cooperation in exchange for military aid. That earned Trump his first impeachment. When that lame attack didn’t work, Hawley tried a different approach by minimizing the significance of Russia’s invasion and asserting that Biden was ignoring the real threat posed by China. Europe deserved to be shrugged off as a “secondary theater,” Hawley wrote to Secretary of State Antony Blinken. China is where the administration needed to direct its military might, he said.
It was a silly argument that went nowhere. But amazingly, more and more of Hawley’s extreme-right Republican colleagues recognized that widespread public approval of Biden’s aid to Ukraine could give the unpopular president a boost in public opinion polls as election season approached. So the GOP criticism mounted, even to the point that House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy began threatening to organize a vote against additional aid to Ukraine, as if to say that Republicans were willing to affirm Russian atrocities and let Putin have his military victory just to deny any potential political advantage to Biden.
The de facto spokesman for all things MAGA, Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson, took a resolute stand — in support of Putin, that is. When Zelenskyy took a secret flight out of his country for the first time since the war started so he could meet Biden in Washington and address a joint session of Congress on Dec. 21, some Republicans showed again where their priorities were: Reps. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Matt Gaetz of Florida and other hard-right extremists refused to clap for Zelenskyy as he entered the House chamber and sat on their hands during his speech. Hawley once again shamed himself and his state by not even showing up. The former president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., tweeted about Ukraine’s request for more military aid that Zelenskyy was an “ungrateful international welfare queen.”
That was one of the year-long tests of Republican values. When challenged to stand resolutely for what’s right over what was politically most advantageous, Hawley, McCarthy and others opted clearly for the latter.
Another test came when primary elections rolled around. Donald Trump barged around the country promoting not the most qualified or worthy candidates but rather the candidates who had either demonstrated the greatest loyalty to him or who were most capable of defeating Republicans who hadn’t loudly supported Trump in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 insurrection. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell issued a vague warning about how “candidate quality” would ultimately determine whether Republicans prevailed on Nov. 8. He was drowned out by the likes of McCarthy, Hawley, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and, of course, Trump himself.
That’s how ridiculous candidates won GOP primaries, like Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania’s Senate race, Herschel Walker in Georgia’s Senate race, and Kari Lake in Arizona’s gubernatorial race. Although Trump-endorsed candidates overall fared well, largely because he chose already popular GOP incumbents over challengers, he went down in flames in races that most mattered. As a result, Democrats wound up defying the odds and boosting their control in the Senate. They lost the House but by such tiny margins that McCarthy still lacks the minimum votes he needs to be elected speaker in January.
Republicans could have listened to McConnell and opted for candidate quality over kowtowing to Trump and his choices. But nobody dared challenge Trump, and the party paid a heavy price for it at the polls.
Before the primaries, Republicans couldn’t have been more gung-ho in campaigning to overturn Roe v. Wade and roll back abortion rights. To their shock, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority obliged, and suddenly Republicans realized their position was overwhelmingly unpopular among voters — even Republicans. That proved to be part of the election liabilities that cost them in November.
The nation continued to reel from one mass shooting after another. The most deadly one occurred at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas. The National Rifle Association adage about the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun proved to be utter nonsense in the case of Uvalde. The supposed good guys with guns — who far outnumbered the single, crazed teenager holed up inside with a semiautomatic rifle — dithered and fretted for more than an hour as the gunman carried out his killing spree. When it was done, 19 students and two teachers were dead, and 17 others were wounded.
Republicans, including Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, reacted with horror. But when challenged to actually do something about the easy availability of semi-automatic firearms in the hands of young, deranged people, Republicans responded with a resounding Hell No! That included Missouri Republican leaders after the Oct. 24 mass shooting at Central Visual and Performing Arts High School in St. Louis. When tested on their commitment to preserve life — especially young lives — versus their quest for raw political power by kowtowing to a small minority of gun owners, the GOP opted for the latter.
Against that backdrop, it seemed that Democrats on the national scene needed only to stay the course, lay low and watch the Republican self-destruct. But they didn’t help their own cause by appearing to ignore the exploding immigration problem at the southern U.S. border. Republicans correctly seized upon the spectacle of Biden’s inaction by offering free bus and plane rides to newly arrived immigrants. Thousands took advantage of the offer, suddenly creating huge immigration problems for local governments in the District of Columbia, New York and Chicago.
It wasn’t so much a test of values for Biden but rather of competency. He has yet to devise a solution to one of the most complex and persistent problems facing the country — a problem that none of his Republican or Democratic predecessors have been able to solve since the Reagan administration’s amnesty program that legalized the status of nearly 3 million undocumented immigrants.
No wonder American voters wound up splitting the difference between the parties on Nov. 8. They didn’t want to reward a party of hypocrites, but they didn’t want to give a mandate to Democrats’ immigration dithering, either. As a result, the national political stalemate seems certain to persist for 2023 and beyond.
