The ultimate cost of freedom at Normandy

Marking the 80th anniversary of the allied “D-Day” invasion, President Joe Biden joined the leaders of America’s World War II allies (France, Britain, Canada and others) in Normandy, France yesterday, to deliver a powerful message to the world’s dictators and “bullies” (see video here). Describing World War II as being about “democracy” versus “dictators,” and likewise “the battle between freedom and tyranny,” Biden then said that, after defeating tyranny in World War II, “we established NATO, the greatest military alliance in the history of the world.” Biden then took on Russia‘s invasion and war against Ukraine, comparing it directly to World War II:

The struggle between dictatorship and freedom is unending. Here in Europe, we see one stark example. Ukraine has been invaded by a tyrant bent on domination. Ukrainians are fighting with extraordinary courage, suffering great losses, but never backing down…. The United States and NATO, and a coalition of more than 50 countries, standing strong with Ukraine. We will not walk away. Because if we do, Ukraine will be subjugated, and it will not end there. Ukraine’s neighbors will be threatened. All of Europe will be threatened. And make no mistake: the autocrats of the world are watching closely to see what happens in Ukraine, to see if we let this illegal aggression go unchecked. We cannot let that happen. To surrender to bullies, to bow down to dictators, is simply unthinkable.

Younger activists, a major Republican fear

Republicans have a predictable pattern: even with government nearly evenly divided, they get drunk with power, use their votes to overreach with extreme policies, and wind up alienating voters in the next election. In June 2022, for example, the U.S. Supreme Court, with three new right wing Republican justices courtesy of Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell, voted along party lines to take away the right to abortion that had been established in the Court’s Roe v. Wade decision nearly 50 years earlier. This decision set off a firestorm among voters, especially younger voters, who showed up to the voting booths in droves five months later and gave the Democrats considerably better results (retaining control and actually winning a one-seat majority in the U.S, Senate, barely losing control of the House, and gaining state governorships and state legislature majorities) in an off-year election where the party in power usually does much worse.

Republicans, however, did not learn the lesson from the 2022 elections, i.e., that their extremism scared away voters. Instead, the GOP has charged ahead with even more extremist actions that could hurt them in 2024. These include: