Exacerbating the border crisis and sacrificing Ukraine to help Trump

Exacerbating the border crisis and sacrificing Ukraine to help Trump

For Donald Trump and his supporters, electoral success comes before resolving two of the United States' greatest crises.

Democrats and a large portion of Republicans agree on securing the resources to handle the influx of migrants at the southern border and help Ukraine resist the Russian invasion, but the blatant partisanship of Donald Trump and his allies will likely derail everything and turn these crises into tragic catastrophes.

From Ukraine to the southern border

In Ukraine, resistance to the Russian invasion is dangerously stalled due to a lack of equipment and ammunition. Vladimir Putin knows full well that time is on his side and all he has to do is wait for Donald Trump to come to power in Washington to impose his terms on a disarmed Ukraine.

However, supplying Zelensky's troops is a good deal for the Americans, helping to weaken their main strategic adversary without endangering their own military.

In Washington, Republicans say they want to help Ukraine, but in return are demanding a massive increase in resources on the southern border.

They are not wrong to demand this increase, but it is becoming increasingly clear that they prefer to make political capital out of exacerbating the problem rather than giving the Biden administration the tools to mitigate it.

Prolong the problem

The problems at the southern border are not new and both parties share responsibility for the millions of unprocessed refugee applications and for the inadequacy of measures to intercept dangerous drugs at the border.

The irony is that the Biden administration is currently proposing the largest infusion of federal funding in a long time to address both problems simultaneously, but Republicans in Congress are refusing to support it.

For what? Simply because Donald Trump has expressed his intention during the campaign to point out the Biden administration's failure on this issue, and he has openly warned elected Republicans not to do anything to help the Biden administration strengthen the border to help.

Cynicism and tragedy

The height of cynicism is that Trump does not even hide the fact that he is the source of this blockage. On the contrary, he brags about it.

Meanwhile, Trumpists are calling for Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to be fired for his inability to contain the crisis, an inability he himself attributes to Republicans' repeated refusal to increase his budgets.

This circus won't solve anything. As Donald Trump raises the specter of a border crisis that he claims he can solve alone, the border crisis will only get worse.

While a majority of political forces in Washington still support the Ukrainian cause, the main danger is that the subservience of elected Republicans to Trump's electoral bids will tragically lead to the worst scenario of defeat in Ukraine imaginable.