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Confronted with the reality of her party’s servility toward Russian President Vladimir Putin, Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene blew her top on Wednesday.
Greene was asked to respond to former British Prime Minister David Cameron’s warning that people who appease Putin are comparable to those who sought to appease German dictator Adolf Hitler in the lead-up to World War II.
On Wednesday, Cameron published an op-ed in The Hill that called on Ukraine’s allies to continue supporting Ukraine’s defense against the Russian invasion. House Speaker Mike Johnson is currently bending to the Russophilic wing of his party by stalling a vote on a Senate-approved bill that would authorize $60 billion in aid for Ukraine. Cameron’s op-ed warned that such moves could prove catastrophic.
He wrote:
I want us all — U.S., U.K., European and other allies — to support Ukraine in fighting against completely unjustified aggression. It is hard to think of a clearer case of one country being invaded by another without the slightest justification. I believe our joint history shows the folly of giving in to tyrants in Europe who believe in redrawing boundaries by force. I do not want us to show the weakness displayed against Hitler in the 1930s. He came back for more, costing us far more lives to stop his aggression.
A reporter from Sky News referenced the article and asked Greene to comment on whether she’s an “appeaser for Putin.” To which she gave a rather acerbic response.
“I think that’s rude name-calling and I don’t appreciate that type of language,” she said, claiming Cameron should worry about “his own country.” Then came the kicker: “Frankly, he can kiss my ass.”
(So much for rudeness.)
I’d note that Cameron is worrying about his country by warning about Russia’s potential expansion and what that could mean for Europe (it was Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain who became the poster boy for appeasement, after all). And Cameron is completely right to draw connections between those who capitulated to Hitler’s aggression and those who won’t stand against Putin’s power grab today.
Trump’s “America First” movement is an isolationist one that functionally cedes power to authoritarians and abandons the United States’ obligations to foreign allies — and it is the motivating force driving the GOP’s approach to Putin. It’s notable that the movement borrows its name from the America First movement of the 1930s and ’40s, which ... sought to appease Hitler, even if it meant letting him take control of Europe.
Greene apparently doesn’t like people highlighting these obvious and historically accurate comparisons (if she is even aware of them), and her outburst was certainly a spectacle. When it comes to playing the role of the ugly, ignorant American, Greene is like Meryl Streep: You can trust her to put on a perfect performance every time.
But her theatrics are a distraction. The main takeaway here is that in Vladimir Putin, the world faces an authoritarian strongman intent on expanding his power. And Republicans like Greene see no problem with letting him do so.