In 10 years, and two trillion into it, will Democrats still want to forego universal healthcare in America in lieu of funding the European war?

[Briscole]

There's a lot of fat cats getting rich off of the backs of American tax payers.

America can't afford to secure our own border, but we can afford to secure everyone else's border.

[nightdrot]

Actually, the Democrats want both. Besides, and this I say as a Republican, it is not as if the GOP is opposed to aid to Ukraine. Rather, both parties are divided due to the wave of populism that has overtaken the culture and with it a degree of isolationism.

As far as universal health care is concerned, do recall that even under President Obama, a popular figure and the nation's first racial minority Head of State, universal health care was beyond reach. Hence, Obamacare - a second best option and the best Mr. Obama could get out of Congress.

The truth is that the nation is of a divided mind on health care. It likes the benefits but hates the cost and thus, as a policy, has been stalemated. Suffice to add that the Ukraine War has very little impact on this one way or the other.

As far as Ukraine is concerned, international relations are played out against a backdrop of national interests, are more subtle, and tend to take longer to play out than Americans, with their limited historical knowledge, have the patience to endure. As Lord Palmerston said, "We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow."

Suffice to add that failure to do so could have serious strategic consequences for the USA. The problem being in this case that while the USA does not have a specific interest in Ukraine winning the war, it has serious interests in Ukraine not losing the war.

Ukraine's current significance to the USA is rather based on its impact on several NATO allies. This especially true of Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Romania and to a lesser extent Hungary. The loss of Ukraine to Russia, absent American security assurances to those aforementioned states, would undermine their strategic position and likely result in the collapse of NATO.

This is a non-ideological conflict. 1914, not 1939 or 1950, yet the nation is a creedal nation - a nation "dedicated to a proposition" - and won two ideological conflicts and, in winning the 1914 conflict turned it into an ideological affair. The result is that both parties are applying the wrong lessons.

Either they believe that the USA needs to be involved in the Ukraine War in the name of freedom, democracy and all the rest. Alternatively they see no ideological contest and therefore lapse into a 1930s-style isolationism. Staying aloof from a conflict that involves US interests, but in a nuanced way.

Bottom line, this is a bipartisan split rooted in America's political culture and history. First - as the national debt surely attests - Americans have a ferocious appetite for big government, but a negligible willingness to pay for it. This overlapping a proclivity to treat international affairs not as a conflict of interests but as a moral crusade.

Thus, the current divides. To repeat, divides afflicting both parties.

[Briscole]

Good points

[BigDog1989]

If ukraine falls, good luck to america surviving. Seriously, you need to look up "russias plan"

[Briscole]

Is that a yes or no?