Why Trump Supporters Will Never Change on Impeachment

Donald Trump’s supporters will almost certainly not change their stance on impeachment, despite the fact that strong evidence continues to grow in support of the allegation that Trump used the power of his office for personal gain.

The testimony of a number of highly respected witnesses corroborates the the intelligence community whistleblower whose complaint was the catalyst for the Trump impeachment inquiry. A number of the witnesses have served honorably under both political parties, and stress that they are loyal to the country, not to a president or political party. Yet Trump’s supporters will have none of that.

It’s not just because Trump’s supporters are loyal (often irrationally so). It’s not because they see Trump as an honorable, or even innocent, man. It’s in large part because many of Trump’s supporters seem unable to fully connect the dots between Trump’s alleged conditioning of military aid to Ukraine, and the importance to the U.S. of Ukraine’s position in the world (and its relationship with the U.S.).

Many Trump supporters, taking their cue from GOP lawmakers, now acknowledge that Trump may well have required that Ukraine investigate one of Trump’s political rivals (Joe Biden) and Biden’s son, Hunter, in exchange for (already allocated) military aid. (“Do us a favor, though,” said Trump.) And, parroting Trump, they maintain that what Trump did was not wrong.

But the idea that the impeachment inquiry is nothing more than folly goes beyond simply the belief that Trump did nothing wrong.

Many Trump supporters feel we shouldn’t be helping Ukraine, anyway. Other countries, according to Trump and, consequently, his supporters,  are far behind the U.S. in their aid to Ukraine, and should step up. Let Ukraine help themselves, they say, or let other countries help them for a change. We should be focusing on America and Americans.

That mindset, however, shows an ignorance of the strategic diplomatic balance required not only to support Ukraine in its fight to remain free from Russia, but also to help maintain the balance of freedom and national security for other countries, including, yes, the United States.

The U.S. cannot afford to be an island. It’s in our best interests, not just those of Ukraine, for the U.S. to continue to offer its support, and to avoid dangling support in front of Ukraine on condition of a “favor” in return.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, the U.S. has consistently provided aid to Ukraine, in part because Ukraine is a key Russia-bordering country. Pro-Western political and military links in Ukraine are vital to the U.S, as well as to the well- being of the Western world, in general.

“Our efforts have been designed to promote stability, to protect the integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine, and to help it reform,” said former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine John E. Herbst, now director of the Eurasia Center at the Atlantic Council.

And according to Ned Price, a member of the National Security Council during the Obama administration, “(Military aid to Ukraine) is to send a signal that Russia cannot violate one of the key tenets of international affairs, and that is that big countries cannot bully small countries. Our aid has been an integral part of a deterrence against Putin’s worst ambitions.”

The idea put forth by Trump that other countries are not doing their part to provide foreign aid to Ukraine is false. Since 2014, European countries have provided approximately two-thirds of all of the aid given to Ukraine. The E.U. has sent more than $16.5 billion in loans and grants to support Ukraine’s reform process, and Germany and Britain, on their own, have each offered millions of dollars in assistance. Japan, too, gave $3.1 billion to Ukraine in the early 1990s to establish diplomatic relations.

To Donald Trump’s supporters, withholding aid from a foreign country is, in part, what “America First” means. Global security, to them, may mean eliminating our perceived enemies, but it doesn’t consider strategic protection and global relationship-fostering. And, to Donald Trump’s supporters, loyalty to country means loyalty to Trump, who preaches that not only do we not need to nurture relationships with other countries to Make America Great Again, other countries don’t need us, either.

Why U.S. Aid Is So Important To Ukraine | NBC News Now
NBC News  [2019-10-14]

Camerota asks voter how she would vote if Trump shot someone. Hear her response | CNN  [2019-11-06]

The Difference Between What Donald Trump Did and What Joe Biden Did

Ever since a whistleblower came forward with the allegation of a quid pro quo between Donald Trump and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Trump’s supporters have scrambled. According to the whistleblower’s account, Trump pressured Zelenskiy to investigate his political opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden, and his son, Hunter Biden, as a condition for releasing needed military aid funds that had already been allocated to Ukraine. 

At first, Trump’s supporters quickly denied that there was a quid pro quo. Then, when it became apparent that denial was a lie, they tried to rationalize Trump’s actions with the idea that quid pro quo situations happen “all the time” between the U.S. and foreign governments. Now that the whistleblower’s story has been widely corroborated by a number of credible witnesses who found Trump’s actions “troubling,” Trump’s supporters are desperately trying to divert attention away from possible wrongdoing by equating Trump’s actions with those of Joe Biden when Biden had worked to help remove a corrupt Ukrainian prosecutor.

On the November 10, 2019 broadcast of NBC’s Meet the Press, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), echoed the current GOP talking points when he said, “I think, really, what’s going to happen is people are going to say, ‘Oh, they’re impeaching President Trump for exactly the same thing that Joe Biden did.’

“He threatened the aid, if they didn’t fire someone. And supposedly, the president did, if they didn’t investigate someone. So it sounds exactly like what Joe Biden did. And if they weren’t going to impeach Joe Biden, they look like, you know, hypocrites, in a way, for going only after President Trump and having not a word to say about what Joe Biden did…It’s exactly the same scenario.”

But it isn’t.

Rand Paul was referring to the idea that (then vice president) Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, was a paid board member of the Ukrainian gas company, Burisma, during the time that then Vice President Joe Biden was working to have a Ukrainian prosecutor removed in order to, as Paul, and other Trump supporters put it, stop the prosecutor from investigating Hunter Biden’s company. This is, at best, a stretching of certain facts. 

Later in the show, Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.), said, “…That has nothing to do, absolutely nothing to do with the actions of the United States president in extorting Ukraine in a way that damaged our national security.”

Joe Biden was not trying to fire a Ukrainian prosecutor to keep him from investigating his son’s company. He was trying to follow through, with the support of U.S. allies, on removing a prosecutor who was failing to investigate Ukrainian corruption, and who many agreed was himself corrupt. Contrary to damaging national security, Biden’s efforts were to strengthen security for Ukraine, as well as its allies. 

At the same time that some of Trump’s supporters have conceded that there may have been a quid pro quo, they’re also quick to try to say that Trump’s first interest was to fight corruption in Ukraine. With a president who, according to the Washington Post, has made more than 14,500 false or misleading claims during his presidency as of October 14, 2019, this is hard to imagine. What’s more, at the time Trump had decided to conditionally withhold military aid from Ukraine, the U.S. Departments of Defense and State had both certified that Ukraine had made great progress in decreasing corruption, and recommended the U.S. proceed with the aid to Ukraine. 

In resorting to “what-aboutism” as a defense against the whistleblower’s complaint and all of the testimony that backs it up, Trump’s supporters appear to be aware that they have little else to present as an argument. 

Full Himes: ‘We’ve Got To Get Off This Quid Pro Quo Thing’ | Meet The Press | NBC News [2019-11-10]

Biden defends son’s dealings in Ukraine while attacking Trump | Fox News
[2019-10-28]