This is interesting. Taft Republicanism is definitely making a comeback, although some of these characters are more “neo-Know-Nothings” than Taftians. My take on NATO is that the European countries are collectively wealthier and more densely populated than the USA. It should be their responsibility to provide for their own self-defense. This isn’t the Cold War with the USSR (which was twice the size of the Russian Federation) occupying half of Europe. The European Union is essentially a “United States of Europe” that subsists off of what amounts to “military welfare” from the USA.

By Peter Weber The Week

The House on Thursday evening passed a nonbinding resolution reaffirming its “unequivocal support for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) as an alliance founded on democratic principles,” and calling on President Biden “to use the voice and vote of the United States to establish a Center for Democratic Resilience within NATO headquarters,” to underscore the alliance’s “support for shared democratic values and committed to enhancing NATO’s capacity to strengthen democratic institutions within NATO member, partner, and aspirant countries.”

The resolution passed 362 to 63, with all 63 no votes coming from Republicans, as Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr. (D-N.J.) noted on Twitter.

Weakening or destroying NATO is believed to be one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s top goals, and Pascrell called the vote evidence the GOP “truly is Putin’s Party.” Retired Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling, a former U.S. Army commander in Europe, softened that allegation, suggesting that “perhaps this divisiveness in the U.S. government remains one of Putin’s strategic goals that hasn’t yet been defeated.”

William Saletan, writing at The Bulwark, argues that even if the end result of GOP efforts to block U.S. and NATO actions against Russia’s Ukraine invasion are “a gift to Vladimir Putin,” the stated motives are a little more complicated. Since Russia attacked Ukraine, 21 Republicans “have opposed, or at least sought to constrain, aid to Ukraine or sanctions on Russia,” having “swallowed a cocktail of isolationism, defeatism, partisan paranoia, and Russian disinformation,” he writes, and he summarized what he sees as “the main pillars of their reasoning” on Twitter.

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