In the 03/03/25 edition of MSNBC’ s Rachel Maddow Show, host Maddow pointed out the striking resemblance between how the U.S. dealt with Hitler’s assault on Europe, and the way the Trump administration is dealing with Putin’s current assault on Ukraine in particular, and Europe generally.
Maddow pointed out that by July 1940, Great Britain was the only European country left standing after Hitler’s forces had practically run over every other European country.
Then U.S. President Roosevelt was doing everything in his power to assist the Brits against Hitler’s forces. But interestingly, there was no consensus in the U.S. that the we should be assisting the Brits, which is quite similar to what we hear today from some leading Republican voices re Ukraine.
One of the leading Republican voices against Roosevelt assisting the Brits, was a U.S. Senator from Minnesota, one Ernest Lundeen.
Senator Lundeen apparently argued that Britain did not deserve America’s aid because it was not “grateful enough” for America’s past assistance(World War I, etc). He also argued, much like Republicans are arguing today, that Britain and other European allies needed to dig into their own mineral resources and pay America for its assistance–again, the same argument we are hearing today from leading Republicans.
It later came out, however, that during the entire time Senator Lundeen had been making these otherwise reasonable arguments against aid to Britain (on fiscal grounds), he was actually being paid by Hitler’s Germany to make their case from his lofty perch as a U.S. Senator.
The $1 million question now is, who is Putin paying to make his case in the U.S. Congress or even from a loftier perch, which I’ll leave to your imagination? Only time will tell. Mm