The Trump-Biden World War III Bill

The Once and Perhaps Future President Goes Full Swamp Creature

“Besides, such gifts changed into tributes, and, freely given at the beginning, later became compulsory. They were considered acquired rights, and when an emperor refused them to some peoples, or wanted to give less, they became his mortal enemies.” - Montesquieu, [Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and Their Decline, XVIII]

Trump and Johnson, very proud of themselves after agreeing to give away the store.

On Saturday, April 20th, in a particularly malicious session of the US House of Representatives, our august political class passed what could fairly be called the Trump-Biden World War III Bill. They gave our money- well, credit- to three different foreign countries, all of which serve little purpose to “US interests” but as trip-wires for broader conflict. The once and perhaps future President Trump had met with House Speaker Mike Johnson around ten days earlier to discuss how to best sell out the American people and seek to ensure that war comes. On top of this, in preparation for putting us through an unnecessary major conflict, they also passed the legislation to ban TikTok and pushed through warrantless surveillance of any American who may happen to speak to a foreigner. As if that wasn’t enough, the TikTok legislation also authorizes stealing Russian assets which remain in the US and various other measures designed to antagonize the countries which they want us to believe are our enemies. In short, they want to get our country into a meaningless and devastating war, limit our ability to complain about it, and spy on us without warrants if we do- and they got their way. Perhaps the only question is if the war is inspiring the tyranny, or the tyranny is inspiring the war. If we had more cultured rulers I would think perhaps they learned something from this Shakespeare passage,

“For how can tyrants safely govern home /
Unless abroad they purchase great alliance?”
- Queen Margaret [Richard Duke of York, 3.3.69-70]

Regarding purchasing alliances, in a show of impressive political acumen, Johnson realized that by taking the unusual step of breaking up the votes in the House but sending them to the Senate as one bill, he could capitalize on the fact that while Ukraine funding is unpopular with Republicans only a tiny minority of the House tend to be consistently antiwar. Thus while a majority of the Republican Caucus voted against Ukraine aid, and some Democrats and Republicans voted against aid to Israel and/or Taiwan, overall, the enormous $96 billion in spending passed easily. Crucial to this effort was Donald Trump, who despite his occasional rhetoric and the media’s belief that he “hates Ukraine,” pushed through everything that Joe Biden and the Democrats could have possibly wanted. Trump and Johnson are both Israel Firsters- in Johnson’s case because he is a religious nutjob- so everyone would expect the support of Israel. Further, they are both China hawks, and “only” giving Taiwan, which isn’t in an active conflict, $8 billion in taxpayer money is more or less routine. However, both Trump and Johnson have expressed opposition to Ukraine aid in the past, so this part is the bigger story, as well as the most dangerous part and the largest amount of spending. We see now that they are fully swamp creatures who have gone all in on the awful policy of [figuratively] draining the [already empty] treasury to use Ukraine as a proxy against Russia.

Of course, Trump’s supporters, and opponents for that matter, continue to delude themselves into believing that the opposite is true. Instead they blame, or reservedly praise, Johnson, despite overwhelming evidence that key aspects of this plan were formulated with Trump and had his approval. Meanwhile, the corporate media is in universal agreement that this enormous and irresponsible spending designed to prevent world peace is the bare minimum of Mike Johnson “doing his job.” It is all bad for all of us. The independent journalist Michael Tracey has been following all of this tirelessly on his Twitter account, and frankly has done such a good job that I initially didn’t know what I could contribute. He has made me see that I deluded myself by giving Trump a D- when I rated the Republican candidates on foreign policy, instead of a clearly well-deserved F. This is especially true as that D- was wholly due to Trump’s Ukraine policy. Though I’m not a Trump voter or MAGA commentator of any sort, I still feel the need to show the error in my ways, lest I end up being like these hacks:

I should note that it is sheer luck that I happened to catch Jack Posobiec making a weak, sad face when I paused this to take the screencap.

I feel all the more like an idiot being as I already once hoped that the 2022 mid-term would spell the end of Ukraine funding, which most obviously didn’t happen though the indecisive election made it take this long to get a huge bill through. With Trump it seems we will get the same or worse Ukraine policies than we would have with DeSantis, with the added bonus that Donald Trump loves the covid vaccine and will never acknowledge he was wrong to shut down society. Admittedly, Trump is somewhat less ghoulish than many others in that he talks about ending the war and not about bleeding Russia for its own sake, but that is largely meaningless. The only possible justification that I see remaining for preferring Trump over Joe Biden in 2024 is simply to not let their 8 years of ridiculous persecutions and bullshit legal trials triumph [and admittedly I find this compelling enough that I still prefer Trump over Biden in 2024, though not in such a way that I will do anything to try and bring about that result.]

The idea that Trump is somehow antiwar has been persistent, though it was never true. It’s accurate to say that Trump was somewhat more inward looking than the mainstream internationalists, and in 2016 he was certainly the less warmongering candidate compared to Hillary Clinton, though that would practically have been true of Genghis Khan if he had been her opponent. The difference was perhaps more than anything that it was relieving that Trump at least had this “transactional” approach to foreign policy you hear about [as if there should ever be another kind] and that he seemed to care if foreign conflicts served concrete national interests, as he views them. It is fair to say that his campaign policy in 2016 was one of rapprochement with Russia- again at least relative to Clinton- and that at the time he was a wildcard. It’s notable that he seems to have a degree of genuine fear about nuclear war and cares about preserving the legacy of his enormous estate, which requires the continuance of civilization. There were some reasons to be optimistic about Trump in 2016, and many reasons to dread Trump less than a Clinton Presidency. That said, many of us, myself included, were perhaps too intoxicated by the joy we got from the liberal tears to actually rationally assess the situation.

The important thing here is that while in 2016 we may as well have been prognosticating from the guts of birds as predicting what Trump might do as President based on his erratic statements, idiosyncratic thought patterns, and mercurial egotism, that is no longer true. Donald Trump was President for four years: sensible men cannot live on hope that Trump will be a different President than he has proven to be. This is especially true given that the man is nearly incapable of admitting fault and is past the season of his life where he is likely to experience personal growth. Regarding learning from what has happened instead of basing our decisions on irrational hope, if you will forgive the indulgence, I would like to bring your attention to the words of Patrick Henry in his famous speech, “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death”, lightly modified for this occasion:

“I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided; and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past. And judging by the past, I wish to know what there has been in the conduct of [Donald Trump] for the last ten years, to justify those hopes with which gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves…? Is it that insidious smile with which our petition has been lately received? Trust it not, sir; it will prove a snare to your feet. Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss.”

Betrayed with a kiss his Ukraine-skeptical supporters have been, even if they continue to deny it. I will give Trump that in his first four years he was in most regards better on foreign policy than any of his recent predecessors- an extremely low bar! He does believe in diplomacy, or his version of it at least, more so than most of our political class. This is perhaps an area where his narcissism is put to productive use, as he wants to show the whole world his skill at “The Art of the Deal.” At the same time, he reversed the two key diplomatic achievements of the Obama Administration, the JCPOA deal on Iran and moves towards ending the ancient Cuba policy, both of which were rare overwhelmingly good policies from a bad President. The JCPOA pullout was particularly short-sighted as US troops have come under attack across the Middle East in these past months and the deal was our primary leverage over Iran to keep their alleged proxies on a leash. It needs to be added that this of course showed the world that our domestic politics make the United States a faithless partner [one of the valid mainstream criticisms of Trump, though commonly employed to insist we continue harmful policies.]

It is also true that though Trump’s bombing campaign against the Islamic State was brutal and showed a complete disregard for the lives of civilians, he was primarily trying to wrap up problems which he inherited and bring the situation to a conclusion instead of running a permanent [relatively] low-intensity campaign. Further, it’s true that Trump was the first President in some time to not open up any major new theater of conflict, but that is a shallow comfort giving his policy of drastically increasing aid to Ukraine, including the provision of weapons, lead to such a result [I hate the euphemism “lethal aid,” but that is the common parlance.] We can be sure that unless Fortune has different plans for our country, Trump would do nothing but increase conflict with Russia, whether or not a true world war breaks out before the end of 2028.

There is a common paradox in politics that is epitomized with the expression “Only Nixon could go to China.” The idea [which has its detractors] is that Nixon was such a fervent anti-communist that only Richard Nixon could go to China without being accused of being a communist by Richard Nixon. It is generally the case that in an area where a politician is seen as a hardliner he is in the best position to compromise or make reforms. A relatively benign example of this is Trump’s promotion of the FIRST STEP Act to reduce mass incarceration, which would have been an enormous political liability for any Democrat, because the modern Democrat Party has a reputation for being “soft on crime.” The converse side of this is that there is a tendency for politicians to be the most recklessly aggressive where they are seen as weak, such as how there is a common belief that a woman wouldn’t have the “balls” to take a country into war and despite claims that if women were in charge there would be fewer wars, any woman leader seems to feel she has something to prove and behaves like Hillary Clinton or Kaja Kallas. Admittedly, this all shows that strategic voting is a crap shoot, at least up to the point where you see how someone rules, though it provides a fairly strong argument for moderation as a political virtue and for selecting a politician for wisdom instead of a demagogue or ideologue whose rhetoric you happen to agree with.

In Trump’s case it was clear that he generally thought improved relations with Russia would be a good thing. However, the Democrats and his enemies from across the media and government couldn’t acknowledge the fact that Trump’s victory was the result of their own awful governance, and of course instead wove their insane BlueAnon RussiaGate conspiracy. A consistently wise and disciplined political leader had an easy out regarding these spurious accusations. All Trump had to say is as follows:

“I campaigned on better relations with Russia. In pursuit of this policy my staff was instructed to form productive, legal contacts with their Russian counterparts. Campaign laws are complicated, and it’s possible that some laws were inadvertently violated, but I know of no intentional lawbreaking by anyone involved with my campaign.”

He further had the argument, “Look, I was the candidate who wanted better relations with Russia, if you have found indications that Russia preferred me to win, that demonstrates that they want better relations. This is a good thing.” [There is no evidence of that regardless.] Unfortunately, Trump didn’t have me as an advisor, and instead that hack Jeff Sessions investigated and then recused himself for once having spoken to the Russian Ambassador in his capacity as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The whole thing was crazy, and allowed by Trump’s poor leadership and general instinct to stonewall. Thus, while years were spent promoting a hatred of Russia that consumed the country Trump spent the whole time trying to act tough and show that he was really harder on Russia than anyone else. It was of course in this context that began the policy of flooding weapons into Ukraine, though we know the CIA was there making mischief years earlier. Trump even got impeached over his involvement with Ukraine, but of course Trump being Trump, he never learns anything.

Knowing what we know now, it is probably the case that we would have relatively better relations with Russia if Clinton had been elected in 2016. Despite her hawkishness and general malice, we wouldn’t have been subject to a vast movement to cast Russia as the source of all evils within our society. As said above, since she is a known Russia hawk, she wouldn’t be pressured into behaving like one, and would have at least some chance of being Nixon going to China. Similarly, we can now assume that in practical terms Trump was probably the worst 2024 Republican candidate on the Ukraine aid policy:

Tracey is likely correct that neither DeSantis nor Haley could have gotten away with this monstrosity, but Trump’s supporters hardly seem to care, and instead will choose to pretend that they don’t know Trump’s very clear stance here and instead just blame Mike Johnson for moving forward with a plan he formulated with Trump. For all of this, it seems that no matter what happens, including Trump giving his full backing to a more than $60 billion aid package, we live in times where truth doesn’t matter, and few will learn anything from this:

For just one example, look at Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who certainly is an idiot, but happens to be really good on opposing Ukraine funding:

He may have spoken to Hakeem Jeffries, but he made this plan with Trump, who she supports and refuses to criticize. It would be fair for her to say that she still thinks overall he is worth supporting despite her disagreement on this issue, but it’s another thing entirely to try to obfuscate the fact that this may as well be called the Trump-Biden World War III Bill. Even Thomas Massie, who is usually an admirable statesman and no sort of shill is framing this as if it was completely at the direction of Johnson:

Besides the show of support of standing with Johnson at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s big contribution to this mess is the idea that the Ukraine aid should be packaged as a “loan.” You can watch Trump’s explanation here, including a bizarre, very Trumpian, digression about that bad golf photo of him you often see:

This is a serious “stable genius” moment: Trump wants to give Ukraine a loan they only have to pay back if they win, an idea that he explains he got from sometimes sponsoring promising golfers who only have to pay him back if their career takes off. The world could be destroyed in nuclear war and this guy is getting his ideas from occasionally gambling on early-career athletes. The problem with this of course is that Ukraine was already a beggar state that couldn’t pay it’s bills before the war and Russia has never expressed an interest in ending Ukraine as a sovereign state. What this means is that, though I hate to make predictions, there is in the neighborhood of a 100% chance that this conflict ends with Ukraine still existing as an at least nominally sovereign state but unable to pay back the loan, though perhaps they could pay a token amount that it is considered to keep the loan current. The reality is that all this being formulated as a loan accomplishes- besides as an obvious ploy for Republican congressman to tell their dumbest constituents about- is that the debt technically constitutes an “asset” on the USG’s books, but of course carrying bad debt is not an asset. Allegedly they could “pay” some of it back with money the US intends to steal from Russia, which is also just a technicality that fools no one.

Despite all the denialists, Mike Johnson himself said that he and Trump are in “100% agreement on all the big agenda items.” Further, Trump’s great friend, the noted effeminate psychopath Lindsey Graham, is enthusiastic about Trump’s participation in getting us here, most of all with the transparent loan scam:

[I also got this from Tracey]

Writing on the Contra Substack, Pedro Gonzales has provided a clear narrative of how this all came to pass, certainly less meandering than mine here:

How Trump Saved Ukraine Aid

One way or another, the Ukraine aid and all the other bills were passed, to enormous applause. Here are the traitors we call our government waving a foreign nation’s flag on the floor of our most powerful legislative chamber:

Amazingly, the House Sergeant-at-Arms, who serves under the direction of the Speaker, is trying to fine Thomas Massie $500 a day for sharing this video, as it is against the rules to take video of the House floor [which they can’t prove he did,] yet apparently waving foreign flags is allowed. Our government literally hates us and is mocking the American people with this blatant display of disloyalty to our own country. In one of the most bizarre bits of political theater I have seen in some time, this Congressman Bill Keating, who looks like he plays a goofy and confused elderly politician on a sitcom, handed Zelensky the vote tally.

This is obviously publicly available information that Zelensky had immediately. Someone said to me, “don’t read too much into it, this is symbolic, and Zelensky is a showman,” but symbolic of what? Why does he need this information? Is the implication that Zelensky has the ability to reward and harm America’s federal politicians based on where they fall on this list? I mean, given Ukraine’s corruption and organized crime he probably does, but this is clearly meant to be some sort of touching moment. To me it just looks like our political class humiliating us because they enjoy doing so [they do.] Regardless, we must give credit where it is due that while there was no opposition from the Democrats, the Republicans at least have a small group who, for their faults, did oppose this madness:

That said, of them only 14 voted against the final package. From here, there was no more meaningful opposition [though some voted against the package in the Senate,] since of course this was everything the Democrats in the Senate and Joe Biden wanted- war, censorship, and spying all in one day. Rand Paul claimed this would have trouble clearing the Senate, which it did not:

[Rand Paul was unfortunately unable to be present for the vote due to a death in the family, but clearly the nature of situation was as such that at best he could have delayed for a time with little hope of preventing the bill’s passage.]

The Uniparty, which Donald Trump is clearly a key member of, is thrilled. The extent to which the media is in unison on this matter is sickening. Even in what is meant to pass for straight news the corporate media is editorializing this to make it clear that no informed well-meaning person could possibly hold another view. There was so much unity of opinion about the greatness of this measure that the media felt compelled to admonish their readers to not praise Johnson, since giving away $96 billion in hopes of kickstarting WWIII is their bare minimum. Here are some choice headlines:

Slate: “Mike Johnson finally got Ukraine aid done—but he’s no hero”
NYMag: “Passing Ukraine Aid Doesn’t Make Johnson a Bipartisan Hero”
The New York Times: “Mike Johnson, Like Pence, Does What Passes for Brave in Today’s GOP: His Job.”

The first two are at least somewhat from the opinion section, but the one from The New York Times is described as “reporting.” As far as clear opinion pieces go, famed hack George Will, who Cosmo Kramer once correctly described as not being “all that bright,” wrote an absurd screed in The Washington Post titled, “So, 112 ignoble, infantile Republicans voted to endanger civilization.” In Will’s view the border between Russia and Ukraine changing is somehow a greater danger to civilization than WWIII. Will blathers that those who opposed devoting over $60 billion US dollars of taxpayer money to Ukraine did so, “for the infantile satisfaction of populist naughtiness (insulting a mostly fictitious “establishment”), they voted to assure Vladimir Putin’s attempt to erase a European nation.” Right, the “establishment” is “mostly fictitious.” I don’t even know what that claim means, being as every country in human history has had an “establishment.” Also, once again, there is no evidence that Russia has ever had “erasing” Ukraine as a goal. Then there is the chauvinistic sentiment that it is somehow worse if this happens to a European nation than if Thailand conquered Myanmar. The Russians are of course Asiatic hordes whereas the noble Ukrainians have embraced the Europe of a finance-based economy, NGOs, and celebrating sexual deviancy. Or at least they hope to once the war is over. He goes on to say, “Dwight Eisenhower’s baton of Republican internationalism was passed, via Ronald Reagan, to Mitch McConnell. They are the three most important Republicans of the past 100 years.”

Absolute absurdity. But speaking of Mitch McConnell, perhaps the most disturbing article from the lot is from The Wall Street Journal, titled, “Mitch McConnell Wants Military Buildup After Big Win on Ukraine Aid” with the uplifting subtitle, “Senate minority leader is pushing to boost military spending to confront China, Iran and Russia as he prepares to leave post.” These people are insane, and are also dimwitted and incompetent, which makes them all the more dangerous. The most terrifying quote is, “This is a skirmish in a larger war,” demonstrating that our political class has already decided World War III is inevitable- perhaps already ongoing. As I have explained, it most certainly is not inevitable, these maniacs are just not trying to stop it. Though I am always trying to tell people that Ronald Reagan is dead, to 82 year old McConnell he is still the god of better days. McConnell is quoted as saying, “Where we go from here is to try to impress upon the administration as well to increase defense spending. I mean that’s what Reagan taught us—you get peace through strength. And our current budget doesn’t reflect that.” We are 34 trillion dollars in debt, but sure, we will just increase military spending to make sure our dominance goes out with a catastrophic collapse instead of us easing comfortably into a different but still powerful position in the world. Some idiot named Dan Sullivan who is now Alaska’s Senator is a relative spring chicken at 59 and seems to bring up the vanguard of the Reagan obsessives, saying, “This idea that somehow the peace through strength, the Reagan wing of the Republican Party has been vanquished? It’s ridiculous, right? It’s still the dominant component. Still. Hell yeah.” It seems the days where oratory was considered one of the most important traits in a statesman are long since past. What fresh hell are we in for if this is who is replacing the geriatrics? Don’t worry though, just believe Biden that it was “a good day for world peace.”

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that things went this way, imagining anything else was wishful thinking. The war party almost always wins, though of course that is no reason to stop trying. It is curious in some ways because Johnson was an opponent of Ukraine aid, but his explanation for changing his position is more depressing than not knowing why he made this decision. He says that due to the new and better intelligence briefings he receives:

“I really do believe the intel. I think that Vladimir Putin would continue to march through Europe if he were allowed. I think he might go to the Baltics next. I think he might have a showdown with Poland or one of our NATO allies.”

This dude is actually retarded if he believes this. It is a blatant lie that the war in Ukraine is about Russia’s expansionistic nature and not specifically relating to issues with Ukraine. I wonder if the CIA mentioned in those briefings that they were in Ukraine intentionally antagonizing Russia since 2014, or if he is aware that anti-Russian animus is the main organizing principle of post-Maidan Ukraine.

Donald Trump and Johnson may have learned, or finally admitted, to love Ukraine, but Ukraine will never love them. The reality is that Ukraine’s ruling faction are, for lack of a better word, complete shitlibs who will always hate any populist or religious politician, and they have a stranglehold on the parts of the country that remain under Kiev’s control which will not change if Ukraine should ever choose to have an election. No matter how much Trump and Johnson cuck themselves and our country it will only ever be met with betrayal by Ukraine’s ruling faction. In the meantime it is clear that Trump and Johnson intend to cuck us as much as possible, while we get the usual: war, debt, and oppression, this time in service of a shithole country whose corruption is ruining ours.

Commonly what I do around here is write what I think of as a sort of advice column for states, not that I expect anyone to follow it or anyone in power to make the right decisions, but just as an intellectual exercise for those interested in human affairs. In this instance things do seem almost entirely hopeless: the policies to avoid WWIII are simple but putting anyone in power who would choose to not have the war is nearly impossible. I am again with Tracey in saying that the best I feel I can do is document for posterity that, as with the lead up to every major conflict, at least some men recognized the insanity around us:

I can still understand the desire to support Trump in opposition to our Pharisee class [which is separate from our political class] which has spent 8 years trying to prosecute him. But clearly, on foreign policy, the most important part of selecting a President, Trump is a full-fledged member of the Uniparty. Perhaps the only thing left to save us is if catastrophic financial collapse can come before this larger war the McConnells of the world say we are already in starts in earnest.

Note: This article was updated shortly after publication to reflect the fact that I learned the reason for Senator Paul’s absence, which I had not previously been able to discover from publicly available information. My condolences to his family.

Thank you for reading! The Wayward Rabbler is written by Brad Pearce. If you enjoyed this content please subscribe and share. My main articles will always be free but paid subscriptions help me a huge amount. I also have a tip jar at Ko-Fi. I am now writing regularly for The Libertarian Institute. My Facebook page is The Wayward Rabbler. You can see my shitposting and serious commentary on Twitter @WaywardRabbler.