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Not sure if this belongs here or in SQS, but it could either be a small question I don't understand or a discussion depending on whether or not people disagree about the answer.
Why did support for Ukraine split along the left/right the way it did (at least in the U.S.), when typically one would expect it to go the other way. That is, the right is usually more pro-military, pro-military intervention, and patriotic defending of one's homeland. Even though the right tends to be more focused on domestic issues and oppose foreign aid, military support tends to be the exeption. Although there was bipartisan support of the Iraq war (at least in the aftermath of 9/11) the Republicans were more strongly in favor of it and stayed in favor of it for longer. If Russia had threatened to invade the U.S. the Republicans would have been not only gung-ho about repelling them but also about retaliating and obliterating them in revenge so that none would dare try ever again. So you would think they would sympathize with Ukrainians as similarly patriotic defenders of their home turf, while the left would be all peace and let's try to get along and diplomatically convince the invaders to stop without violence, or something like that.
But that's not what happened. Why?
Is it just because the left has been harping on about Putin for years so hopped on the anti-Russia train too quickly and the right felt compelled to instinctively oppose them? If China had invaded Ukraine (for some mysterious reason) would the right be pro-Ukraine and the left opposing intervention because they don't want to piss off China (and accusing Ukraine of being nazis as an excuse)? That is, is there something specific to Ukraine/Russia that caused this divide here specifically, or am I misunderstanding the position of each side regarding military intervention in general (or has it changed in the past few decades and my beliefs used to be accurate but no longer are)?
There are few principled peace-lovers on either side. Now that progressives are in charge, they push their wars and conservatives are for peace. When Republicans were dominant in the George W. Bush years, it was the opposite.
Many in the French Revolution were for abolishing the death penalty. It wasn't long before these same idealists were drowning priests in the Vendée. The Soviet congress actually did abolish the death penalty in 1917 before reversing course three months later.
The principled idealists are always in the minority against the bloodthirsty majority for whom there are no bad tactics, only bad targets.
But then the question becomes “why is this particular war Theirs?” A priori, I would expect the Cold Warriors and the Reaganites to be all pro-Ukraine. I think @Skibboleth has the right of it, and it crystallized around Biden’s stance. Once he signal-boosted the neoliberal stance, his opponents could score points by playing the opposite. Up until that point, either side could have adopted the war.
I generally like this line of reasoning. After all, Trump had first dibs on whether to make Covid right-coded or left-coded. He chose the wrong side, the Democrats went Covid-maximalist, and Trump lost the election as a result.
I don't think the same logic applies here. Republicans couldn't have owned the Ukraine issue. For one, a Democrat is commander in chief. But even more importantly, the Democrats have been making anti-Russia their thing ever since the bogus Russian election interference claims in 2016.
As the opposition party, it's tough to make headway by jumping on the bandwagon led by your opponents. Ukraine was always going to belong to the Democrats.
You could be right. I agree that once the Democrats were flagposting, there was next to no benefit for Republicans to play along. And Biden's position as CiC meant he got to make the decision.
But the anti-Russia messaging during the Trump presidency is exactly why I think it could have caught on. Especially because it was so underwhelming. Dems R the Real Russians--or, more tactfully, accusing them of being all bark and no bite. If that narrative got enough traction, helped along by the neocons who'd been blue-balled for the last four years, I could see the Democrats crystallizing against it, leading to an eventual Biden decision of non-intervention.
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