Stoking the passion that is their excuse for pandering — the nihilism of a febrile minority in their party — a majority of House Republicans voted last Saturday to endanger civilization. Hoping to enhance their political security in their mostly safe seats, and for the infantile satisfaction of populist naughtiness (insulting a mostly fictitious “establishment”), they voted to assure Vladimir Putin’s attempt to erase a European nation.
The Republican Party was founded as a noble rejection of the most consequential bad thing Congress has ever done: the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act, which authorized territories to vote slavery up or down, thereby valuing popular sovereignty more than liberty. On Saturday, the House voted 311-112 for $61 billion for Ukraine, with 112 ignoble House Republicans voting to condemn Ukraine to death, starved of such military basics as artillery shells. How many of the 112 know or care that more than half the $61 billion will fund restocking U.S. munitions inventories, as well as Ukraine’s purchases of U.S. weapons?
George Will’s email address is [email protected].
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