Ukraine is becoming a litmus test for Republican candidates because of the bad-faith argument that if you think we must fund Ukraine in its war against Russia, you don't care about American poverty. This is wrong. The two issues are not connected.
First off, pouring money into poverty-ridden areas does not result in prosperity. That has nothing to do with Ukraine. "Government spending means prosperity" is a lie. Half the people now promoting that lie know it and have spoken out openly against it in the past. You can be skeptical of Ukrainian military aid while STILL being in favor of entitlement reform.
Second off, the notion that America has no interests in Ukraine is untrue. We have an interest in the Russian military being defanged so they do not invade surrounding nations, thus threatening global supply chains and strengthening American opponents. We have an interest in deterring China from invading Taiwan.
But we are now stuck in this weird binary strawman situation in which we are told that either we must fund Ukraine "until they win, as long as it takes," without defining winning or "as long as it takes"; or "we must stop the war in Ukraine" without defining what "stopping" looks like (does it mean withdrawing all aid, thus leading Russia to take Kyiv?).
What about the position that we have interests in Ukraine, that they do not match the Ukrainian interests entirely, and that we should fund Ukraine so as to prevent their takeover while pushing for a peace agreement that cedes certain territory to the Russians while granting security guarantees to the Ukrainians? All nuance is lost in politics pretty quickly. It's always much easier to malign your opponents as uncaring about their fellow Americans. But demagoguery comes at a pretty high societal cost.
