Part of our core mission? Exposing the Left's blatant hypocrisy. Help us continue the fight and support the 2024 Year-End Campaign now.

March 17, 2023

Postmodern Campaign Times

The party’s voters have put their candidates in a difficult position.

A hallmark of postmodernity is everyone has their own truth now. “My truth” is espoused by people who say “I feel” instead of “I think.” They do not care what is true, but want their truth reflected by others. Those who come closest build trust. Postmodernity precludes grace because postmodernity is built on emotions.

Thus we arrive at Campaign 2024. A poll of Republican voters by CNN found that a majority of voters want a candidate who agrees with them more than they want a candidate who can beat President Joe Biden. To beat Biden, a candidate has to build a large coalition. To agree with a voter, a candidate can alienate others and risk losing a general election. Within the GOP, in the post-Trump era, voters are battling for the future of the party at the expense of winning.

Some want a return to the pre-Trump era of the Republican Party. Others want to go in a more populist direction. Still others only want Donald Trump. The party’s voters have put their candidates in a difficult position. The goal should be to win a general election, not just a primary. Now, the candidates are forced to stake out positions that alienate them from portions of the public in order to affirm the views of others in the party and, in so doing, cost them the general election.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis finds himself in that position at the moment. Most other candidates will get there. DeSantis, when previously asked about Ukraine, said he did not want to give the Ukrainians a blank check. Now, in a written statement to Fox News’s Tucker Carlson, DeSantis said the following.

“While the U.S. has many vital national interests — securing our borders, addressing the crisis of readiness within our military, achieving energy security and independence, and checking the economic, cultural, and military power of the Chinese Communist Party — becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia is not one of them. The Biden administration’s virtual ‘blank check’ funding of this conflict for ‘as long as it takes,’ without any defined objectives or accountability, distracts from our country’s most pressing challenges.

"Without question, peace should be the objective. The U.S. should not provide assistance that could require the deployment of American troops or enable Ukraine to engage in offensive operations beyond its borders. F-16s and long-range missiles should therefore be off the table. These moves would risk explicitly drawing the United States into the conflict and drawing us closer to a hot war between the world’s two largest nuclear powers. That risk is unacceptable.

"A policy of ‘regime change’ in Russia (no doubt popular among the DC foreign policy interventionists) would greatly increase the stakes of the conflict, making the use of nuclear weapons more likely. Such a policy would neither stop the death and destruction of the war, nor produce a pro-American, Madisonian constitutionalist in the Kremlin. History indicates that Putin’s successor, in this hypothetical, would likely be even more ruthless. The costs to achieve such a dubious outcome could become astronomical.”

Nowhere in the statement did DeSantis say he wants to stop helping Ukraine. He explicitly said he opposes American troops on the ground, F-16s and “long-range missiles” that could allow Ukraine to “engage in offensive operations beyond its borders.” That is Biden’s position.

But DeSantis had the audacity to call it a “territorial dispute,” which is technically true, and claim it is not a “vital national interest” to the United States, with which I disagree. In an extended part of the statement, he makes clear he opposes an alliance between Russia and China, and he does not want to fund Ukraine at the expense of other policies, something that can easily be avoided by, well, funding those other policies.

DeSantis, in other words, did not say he wants to stop funding the Ukrainians. But because he did not embrace the language of existential crisis, even while not opposing funding, he has not articulated pro-Ukraine advocates’ truth, so he must be condemned. It is not just the “stolen election” Republicans who would rather be right than win. Nuance is not allowed where people’s personal truths and emotions are dominant in discourse.

COPYRIGHT 2023 CREATORS.COM

Who We Are

The Patriot Post is a highly acclaimed weekday digest of news analysis, policy and opinion written from the heartland — as opposed to the MSM’s ubiquitous Beltway echo chambers — for grassroots leaders nationwide. More

What We Offer

On the Web

We provide solid conservative perspective on the most important issues, including analysis, opinion columns, headline summaries, memes, cartoons and much more.

Via Email

Choose our full-length Digest or our quick-reading Snapshot for a summary of important news. We also offer Cartoons & Memes on Monday and Alexander’s column on Wednesday.

Our Mission

The Patriot Post is steadfast in our mission to extend the endowment of Liberty to the next generation by advocating for individual rights and responsibilities, supporting the restoration of constitutional limits on government and the judiciary, and promoting free enterprise, national defense and traditional American values. We are a rock-solid conservative touchstone for the expanding ranks of grassroots Americans Patriots from all walks of life. Our mission and operation budgets are not financed by any political or special interest groups, and to protect our editorial integrity, we accept no advertising. We are sustained solely by you. Please support The Patriot Fund today!


The Patriot Post and Patriot Foundation Trust, in keeping with our Military Mission of Service to our uniformed service members and veterans, are proud to support and promote the National Medal of Honor Heritage Center, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, both the Honoring the Sacrifice and Warrior Freedom Service Dogs aiding wounded veterans, the Tunnel to Towers Foundation, the National Veterans Entrepreneurship Program, the Folds of Honor outreach, and Officer Christian Fellowship, the Air University Foundation, and Naval War College Foundation, and the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation. "Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for his friends." (John 15:13)

★ PUBLIUS ★

“Our cause is noble; it is the cause of mankind!” —George Washington

Please join us in prayer for our nation — that righteous leaders would rise and prevail and we would be united as Americans. Pray also for the protection of our Military Patriots, Veterans, First Responders, and their families. Please lift up your Patriot team and our mission to support and defend our Republic's Founding Principle of Liberty, that the fires of freedom would be ignited in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.

The Patriot Post is protected speech, as enumerated in the First Amendment and enforced by the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, in accordance with the endowed and unalienable Rights of All Mankind.

Copyright © 2024 The Patriot Post. All Rights Reserved.

The Patriot Post does not support Internet Explorer. We recommend installing the latest version of Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome.