"We fear for the quo pro quid."

 For weeks people said Putin would never do it. Would-be clever people on Twitter got easy likes for posting eye-rolling emojis and sarcastic comments along the lines of: "Oh yeah, that invasion which is totally going to happen any day now." Think tank analysts whose hot takes seemed to align eerily closely with Russian strategic interests said that it was really "the blob" that was preparing for war (using the derisive term for the often-justly-derided U.S. foreign policy establishment), rather than Putin, and was ginning up the conflict through their excessive media alarmism. 

Sure, Putin was building up troops on Ukraine's border. Sure, he was issuing bellicose encyclicals on the subject of the alleged historic and spiritual unity of the Russian and Ukrainian peoples. But it was all a stunt. An elaborate feint. A bluff to gain leverage. 

In other words, the "take him seriously but not literally" brigade was back in force, except now applying their usual pseudo-logic to Putin instead of Trump. "Oh, sure, he said all that; but he didn't mean it. It's just part of his strategy. You take it all so literally." 

But now Putin has actually done it. And he did it in a much more monstrously overt and idiotic way than even the most pessimistic would have expected. I for one thought that there might be some more elaborate pretext inolved. Some more insidious disinformation campaign; some staged "frontier incident" requiring an exchange of fire "on both sides." But nothing of the sort. Instead, Putin shouted a lot of bluster about "defending the people of Donbas" without even pretending to offer evidence, pseudo- or otherwise, and ordered his troops to attack a sovereign nation in a blatant act of criminal aggression. 

You might think that this would be enough to silence Team "Take him seriously not literally," at least for a time—but fat chance. Instead, they've just moved the goal posts again, as they always did with Trump as well (remember all the people who said, "look, Trump's not going to try to overturn the results of the election when he loses;" and then after Jan 6 promptly switched, like the Manchurian Candidate responding to a hidden signal, or a good Stalinist circa 1939 swallowing the new party line, to the entirely opposite tack; now they said: "he did do that, and it was right and proper of him, because the election was fake!")

Likewise, the new line for the Putin apologists is: "sure, he invaded; but Ukraine deserved it. Is it really such a big deal?" Tucker Carlson was on the airwaves questioning why we should oppose Putin's actions at all, adding—in a typically bizarre MAGA non sequitur—that Putin wasn't the one who shipped U.S. jobs overseas. Trump himself of course said plainly that he likes what he sees in Putin's invasion, and went on right-wing radio to promote exactly the Russian propaganda line: Putin's army is a "peacekeeping force," he said, even as it surrounds and pummels Ukraine across nearly every one of the country's borders. 

For more such weighty foreign policy analysis from the former president, Laura Ingraham then invited Trump on to her show—a surprise appearance for which, according to the New York Times, she had to bump her previously-scheduled guest, the one-and-only Glenn Greenwald. I guess this is how ersatz "leftist" Greenwald moonlights in his second career as full-time Trump and Putin stooge. The only question is which of the two—Glenn or the Donald—would have delivered more effective pro-Putin apologetics and propaganda for Ingraham's receptive audience. 

These craven displays should be more than enough to remind us—if we had somehow forgotten it—that the groundwork has already long since been laid to effectively prevent the U.S. public from enduring any possible collective sacrifice on behalf of the principle of Ukrainian sovereignty. Ours is not the era in which the supposedly United States appears united enough on anything to accept minor costs in exchange for a larger good. We weren't willing to wear masks to save our own lives from a respiratory disease. What makes us think that we will be able to tolerate higher gas prices for the sake of other people's lives?

Biden, to his credit, has tried to be honest about this. He has made an effort to get people used to the idea that U.S. sanctions will impose costs not only on Putin and his cronies; they will also make life incrementally harder for people in this country (not to mention ordinary people in Russia, who are innocent in all this and largely oppose Putin's reckless actions). We will pay more at the pump. Stocks are already sliding as financial restrictions on Russian oligarchs are poised to take effect, promising to impact global markets in unknown ways. 

And as soon as people start to experience these setbacks and hardships, there will Trump and Tucker Carlson be, ready to declare: "See! Putin's not your enemy. It's these Democrats! They're the ones trying to bleed you dry. What did Putin ever do to you? Who cares about Ukraine? Let Ukraine hang! Why should we care. Not our problem! Did Putin raise your gas prices? Did Putin steal your jobs and give them to immigrants? Did Putin put a dent in your stock portfolio? Not likely! It was Joe!" And a frighteningly large number of people, though far from all or even a majority, will be ready to believe them. 

And so the nation's other major party—the one that for years told us that they were the only party that truly had the guts to defend U.S. strategic interests and champion the cause of "freedom" around the world—will be prepared to run the next election on a pledge to cozy up to Putin and let him trample over the rights of people in Ukraine and other neighboring countries.

I am reminded of the blistering poem that E.E. Cummings penned on the occasion of the United States' failure to aid Hungary during its 1956 uprising against the Soviet Union. He conjures the image of a cowardly international bloc headed by the U.S. first encouraging the Hungarians to fight, but then leaving them to be butchered and steamrolled by Soviet tanks as soon as the question of the West's own self-interest became involved: "be quiet little hungary," they say, "and do as you are bid/a good kind bear is angary/we fear for the quo pro quid."

Substitute Ukraine for Hungary here and you have the Tucker Carlson position. Why should we do anything about Russian aggression, he asks. What has it got to do with us? Is Ukraine the side your bread is buttered on? And, if Trump or one of his epigoni were to win the 2024 election, such presumably will be their attitude as well, clearing the path for still further Putin crimes. "so rah-rah-rah democracy/let's all be as thankful as hell/and bury the statue of liberty/(because it begins to smell)."