By Greg Rushford
July 16, 2022
Foreign affairs specialists will have seen various headlines in recent years suggesting that some American Republicans — Putin admirers like Donald Trump and Tucker Carlson are usually the first national names to be mentioned — believe that Democrats like President Joe Biden are greater threats to U.S. national security than Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
And earlier this month, the Brookings Institution turned in an analysis of recent national polling data suggesting that more Democrats than Republicans are prepared to keep on providing military aid to help Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky defend his country from Putin’s bloody and unprovoked invasion.
We’ll get to that big-picture analysis. But first, a closer look at one small community in rural Virginia provides some insights into changing attitudes towards Russia that are playing out at grassroots levels of American politics.
Rappahannock County, Virginia, where I live, is nestled in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains some 70 miles west of Washington, D.C. Our county is roughly the same size as Singapore, where the comparison ends. Singapore has skyscrapers and 5.7 million people. Rappahannock has idyllic country roads, lovely mountain views — and only about 7,400 residents, the majority of whom vote Republican.
This is Trump country. While the former president did not carry Virginia overall in 2020 in his losing re-election bid, he easily beat Joe Biden here in Rappahannock, 54-44 percent. In the 2016 presidential contest here, Trump thoroughly trounced Hillary Clinton, 59-40 percent. No Democratic presidential contender has carried Rappahannock in this century. Barack Obama came the closest in 2008, losing narrowly to Republican John McCain, 51-49.
But when it comes to foreign affairs — notably concerning the importance of countering Vladimir Putin’s dreams to restore the Russian empire by force — it appears that Rappahannock County Republicans are no longer the party of John McCain. McCain stood against authoritarians like Russia’s Vladimir Putin (and Donald Trump).
Our local Republican congressman has voted against providing military aid to help Ukraine defend itself from the Russian invaders. A Rappahannock lawyer has been flying the Russian flag —and the top Republican in the county won’t comment on whether Republicans should cheer or boo that. (Another local resident has been displaying a sign in his front yard that says F*ck Biden. Again, our local Republican chairman — who is also a Baptist deacon who teaches Bible classes — declines comment on whether Republicans should keep their mouths shut when faced with such indecency.)
Even some prominent local Republicans who don’t admire Putin in the slightest — and consider him a dangerous threat — have said they believe that Joe Biden is the more immediate national security threat to America.
Still another current Republican candidate for Congress, a decorated Navy hero and a graduate of Annapolis, says that he is Joe Biden’s “worst nightmare” — but declines comment on whether he would be Putin’s.
That’s a mouthful. Let’s digest this more carefully, one grassroots bite at a time.
Waging culture wars on the Pentagon
Rep. Bob Good, the self-styled Biblical conservative who represents Rappahannock County in Virginia’s sprawling 5th congressional district, was one of 57 House Republicans who voted in May to deny the Biden administration’s request to provide an additional $40 billion in urgent military aid to Ukraine. Good was joined by such House members from the extreme-right wing of his party as Reps. Marjorie Taylor-Greene (GA), Lauren Boebert (CO), Matt Gaetz (FL), and Jim Jordan (OH). On the other side of the Hill, eleven Republican Senators from the nationalistic wing of the party also voted to pull the plug on Zelensky, including presidential wannabees Rand Paul (KY) and Josh Hawley (MO).
Good, an ardent America Firster, justified his anti-Ukraine vote by blaming “the Biden-Pelosi America-last agenda.” The Democrats, he said, “are ignoring the many crises plaguing our country, including family budget-busting inflation, supply chain shortages for baby formula and other essentials, surging violent crime in our cities, and millions of illegals trafficking across our Southern Border.”
Last week, Good voted — not for the first time — against the annual National Defense Authorization Act. NDAAs are at the core of congressional support for America’s national security fundamentals; without this legislation, the Defense Department could not function. The Pentagon could not support American troops and American weapons systems worldwide. This Fiscal 2023 NDAA bill that Good refused to support also authorizes more military support for Ukraine.
Good’s basic frame of reference when addressing U.S. national security priorities seems to be rooted in his enthusiasm for fighting America’s culture wars. He is outraged that U.S. military leaders keep insisting upon the importance of vaccinating “our men and women in uniform.” He also believes the top brass are intent upon brainwashing — there is no softer way to put it — American troops through misguided “woke indoctrination” on racial issues. And Good is further outraged over Defense Department analyses that point to climate change as a serious national security threat.
Flying foreign flags
Driving along our country roads, one sees that Rappahannock County residents, as in many other rural communities across the United States, are displaying an impressive number of blue-and-yellow Ukrainian flags. Such indications of support come from local Republicans and Democrats who are united in their opposition to Russian aggression.
But conspicuously, along one of our charming roads where three scenic rivers converge, one well-known Rappahannock lawyer has been flying a Russian flag.
Lawyer David Konick has been anything but shy about publicly supporting Putin’s reasoning on why Russia has waged war on Ukraine. Hey, it’s a free country! Konick enjoys a reputation as a skilled advocate, and as a man who relishes taking no prisoners when debating with those who have differing views. Despite such acrimony, though, Konick brings a valuable insider’s perspective to the debate. (I enjoy reading his online postings, as they provoke thought, which is what free speech is supposed to do.)
Notwithstanding, the point here is that traditionally, the leaders of the party of Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan would have been quick to take sharp issue with Americans who would fly the Russian flag.
Not the Republican Party of Rappahannock County, it seems. It’s chairman, Terry Dixon, refused repeated requests to say which side he thinks good Republicans should be rooting for: Russia or Ukraine.
Dixon also ignored questions asking about the national security logic driving Rep. Good’s vote to deny that $40 billion in additional military aid to Ukraine.
Nor did the Baptist deacon respond to questions about the angry Rappahannock neighbor who has been displaying “F*ck Biden” and “Let’s Go Brandon” signs on a village thoroughfare close to several local churches, including his own. (The offensive signs, at least, do not appear to have been displayed on Sunday mornings.)
Who’s more dangerous to America, Putin or Biden?
Even more traditional prominent Rappahannock Republicans who clearly are no admirers of Vladimir Putin seem to have more important concerns.
“America has three extremely dangerous enemies: The Chinese Communist Party. Vladimir Putin, and Joe Biden,” according to an online posting by one of Rappahannock County’s most well-known Republican opinion leaders. But “right now, Joe Biden is doing the most damage to America and Americans,” she contends.
Those were the words of Demaris Miller, whose husband Jim served as Ronald Reagan’s director of the Office of Management and Budget. She holds a PhD in psychology — and clearly doesn’t think much of Joe Biden’s psychological makeup.
Miller and local lawyer David Konick — the neighbor who supports the Russian side of the security equation — have at times exchanged sharply differing views on Rappnet, our local online community discussion forum that is an excellent place to try to understand local Republican attitudes.
(I’ve been monitoring Rappnet, with the consent of its administrator, since shortly after the January 6, 2021, Trump riots on Capitol Hill. It can serve up some pretty raw local opinions from the backwoods, such as those from one conservative gentleman who dismissed Central American children desperately trying to cross the U.S.-Mexican southern border as “wetback slime kids.”)
Miller told me that despite the appearance of acrimony, she and lawyer Konick remain “very good friends” As for “the sparring between us,” she said in one e-mail, “it is not as acrimonious as it seems to those who do not really know us. There is no real rancor there.”
In Miller’s view, while Putin is a far greater danger to America, meanwhile President Biden has “gutted our National Defense while continuing the Obama policy of weaponizing the IRS and the Justice Department against those not loyal to the Democrat party.”
In another posting, Miller contended that “Joe Biden never cared about anyone except his own power, bank account, and the Biden Crime Syndicate that made it all possible.” Since Biden’s earliest days in the presidency, Miller has also voiced her opinion that the “senile” American president is controlled by “a secret cabal” in the White House. She stands behind those sentiments.
Hung Cao to the Rescue?
A retired U.S. Navy Captain named Hung Cao is running in the forthcoming November mid-term elections to become Rappahannock County’s next Republican congressman. (Thanks to redistricting aimed at eliminating the undemocratic consequences of Bob Good’s 5th District, where the odds have been heavily gerrymanderd in favor of Republican candidates, Rappahannock has been moved to Virginia’s 10th congressional district. The tenth district includes some heavily populated suburban areas now represented by a Democrat, Jennifer Wexton, who lives in one of those adjacent counties. It looks to be a tight race.)
Cao is a recently retired U.S. Navy captain who says he was motivated to get into politics after watching President Biden’s bungled withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Cao certainly has a most admirable life story. His family escaped from South Vietnam shortly before the communist takeover in April 1975. Armed with nothing other than his native intelligence and a driven desire to succeed in his new country, Cao went on to graduate from the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis. A Navy diver, he served with distinction in special-forces operations during a 25-year career — earning a chest-full of combat ribbons. His is the classic American immigrant success story.
Healing divisions, or exploiting them?
Cao — who declined to be interviewed for this article — has said that if elected, he would work to heal America’s divisions, as his hero Ronald Reagan once did. But the shrill tone of Cao’s campaign literature suggests otherwise.
Basically, Cao has been running against imaginary Democrats who don’t love their country. “My father was on the Communist Party’s kill list, but America welcomed him with open arms,” Cao declared in one recent fundraising pitch. “I am forever in debt to America, and I won’t let the country I owe my life to go down the same path as the communist horror I left behind.”
Cao did not respond to my written questions concerning whether he agreed with congressional Republicans like Bob Good who have voted to pull the plug on additional military assistance to Ukraine.
The closest answer to that question I was able to find in an extensive public record search was this ambiguous statement Cao recently posted on Twitter: “Biden economic advisor says American families should continue suffering with high gas prices to protect the liberal world order. Are you kidding me?”
To be sure, rising inflation is nothing to kid about, especially here in rural America where it can cost workmen well over a hundred dollars just to fill the tanks of their trucks. And nobody denies that the higher energy costs that are driving that inflation are part of the price for American support of Ukraine’s defense.
So far, as Brookings analyst Shibley Telhami wrote on July 5, most Americans are willing to pay that price, if that’s what it takes to draw the line against Russian aggression against its European neighbors.
But Telhami pointed to recent national polling that indicates there is a growing political divide. “There are substantial differences in the degree of preparedness to pay a price for supporting Ukraine between Democrats and Republicans, and the gap between the two is slowly growing, with Democrats expressing much greater willingness to pay a price,” the Brookings scholar wrote.
“While 78 percent of Democrats are prepared to see higher energy costs, only 44 percent of Republicans say the same; while 72 percent of Democrats are prepared to pay with higher inflation, only 39 percent of Republicans say the same.”
Democrats who support Ukraine
For readers who will be wondering where the Democrats stand on supporting Ukraine, there isn’t much news to report. The incumbent Democratic congresswoman from the 10th district, Jennifer Wexton, has voted consistently to support military assistance for Ukraine. Her stance does not seem to have been controversial in her district’s Democratic circles. (Despite Hung Cao’s fundraising appeals, Wexton does not hate America. Readers will just have to trust me on this!)
In the congressional district next door, Democrat Abagail Spanberger, a respected former CIA officer, is considered to be one of her party’s bright lights when it comes to national security.
The political problem for congressional moderates like Wexton and Spanberger is that the forthcoming congressional elections are hardly shaping up as favorable to socially liberal candidates who don’t offer red meat to angry constituents.
Back to the Political Future?
In the olden days before America became so bitterly divided, two of Rappahannock’s most well-known residents were James Kilpatrick and Eugene McCarthy. Republican Kilpatrick was a very conservative newspaper columnist. Democrat McCarthy was a very liberal U.S. senator from Minnesota who in the 1960s challenged President Lyndon Johnson for his (mis)conduct during the Vietnam War.
But the two political opposites became fast friends and drinking buddies who told war stories over whiskey. And each could write beautifully.
Those days of political civility, alas, are long gone.
Surely, from his desk in the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin — a man who has spared no efforts to exploit divisions in American society as he plots to restore Russia’s lost empire — must be smiling.