The fake-populist argument against providing arms to resist Putin’s imperialist invasion

Because “Authoritarian imperialists should be allowed to conquer whatever territory they want without resistance” is not a very attractive argument, people taking this position with respect to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine need to change the subject. One of the most popular cons is to make the (false on multiple levels) implied claim that if the US did not provide aid to Ukraine this would lead to a major expansion of the American welfare state:

The video, on TikTok, is but one of the countless posts across social media that convey the same underlying message: By helping Ukraine defend itself from bloody subjugation by Russia, the U.S. is depriving its own citizens of critical aid. This pernicious narrative has spread in part thanks to fringe yet popular media and political figures who already had a history of littering the discourse with Kremlinesque talking points, and who now have weaponized and monetized the perception that the U.S. has been too generous to Ukraine and too stingy to its own people.

Among them is Glenn Greenwald, whose Substack has more than 300,000 subscribers and whose online talk show, System Update, draws hundreds of thousands of views. In December, on Tucker Carlson’s since-canceled Fox News show, Greenwald said, “I’ve been asking since February, in what conceivable way will the lives of American citizens be materially improved? How will you or your family’s lives be protected or fostered by sending tens of billions of dollars, now in excess of $100 billion, for the war in Ukraine?”

Jimmy Dore, whose YouTube show has more than 1.2 million followers, was a featured speaker at February’s Rage Against the War Machine rally in Washington. There, he criticized the “over $100 billion” sent to Kyiv, telling the crowd, “We could have spent that money saving lives with universal health care, but instead we spend that money taking lives overseas, which is our specialty.”

And then there’s Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the anti-vaxxer running a long-shot challenge to President Biden for the Democratic Party nomination. In his campaign announcement speech, Kennedy contrasted the “$113 billion committed to the Ukraine” with the “57 percent of Americans [who] can’t put their hand on $1,000 if they have an emergency,” “one-quarter of Americans [who] go to bed hungry,” and homeless veterans.

All three figures are peddling a false dichotomy and perverting the traditional guns-versus-butter debate, but their message resonates with millions because it plays into genuine anger and frustration over economic inequality as well as concern and distaste for foreign entanglements, particularly in the wake of the Iraq War and misadventures in Libya, Syria, and Afghanistan. It’s especially salient in the context of polls indicating that Americans’ bipartisan support for aid to Ukraine, while still strong, has softened considerably, and amid a presidential campaign whose outcome could play a pivotal role in Ukraine’s ability to procure aid from the U.S., its strongest backer by far.

But are Greenwald and others merely interested in promoting anti-imperialism while advocating for America’s downtrodden, or are they bad-faith propagandizers for a psychopathic dictator? The evidence is unfavorable to them.

The fact that most of these people are big fans of Ron DeSantis, who is strongly opposed to even taking the Medicaid expansion, should make it pretty clear what’s going on here, and it’s not about providing material need to Americans who need it.

…important update in comments:

It is a monstrous contumely to imply that Glenn Greenwald is a “big fan” of Ron DeSantis. He is a principled admirer of Mr. DeSantis’s zealous, clear-eyed commitment to a model of vigorous free speech and open intellectual inquiry in our nation’s schools that places itself in a fearless adversarial stance to the mental soporifics propounded by Scott Lemieux and his fellow travelers in the witless woke mob who seek to reduce complex issues like the transsexual menace into a simplistic Manichean drama; he is a staunch supporter of Mr. DeSantis’s brave vision for a new multi-ideological coalition of economic populists, socio-cultural traditionalists, pure Aryan Herrenvolk, and brave critics of the excesses of the Deep State that proudly and defiantly positions itself as an exciting new ethical alternative to the entrenched corruption of America’s two-party duopoly; he is looking forward to the day when Mr. DeSantis is able to put his brilliant ideas into glorious practice; but he is in no way, shape, or form a “big fan” and it is a reprehensible lie to describe him as such.