The following is the opinion and analysis of the writer:
At a concert at Catalina Foothills High School Saturday night, the audience spontaneously rose to its feet for the Ukrainian national anthem. It was not on the program but was added at the last moment to open the concert, in a statement of solidarity with the Ukrainian people as they battle Russian tanks and missiles with rifles.
It is a haunting and beautiful melody, and by its end some of the members of the audience and orchestra, none of whom spoke Ukrainian, were weeping. The orchestra then played Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons,” an artistic triumph of Western civilization — the antithesis of the brutal Russian invasion of its peaceful neighbor at the behest of a gang of thugs and bullies in the Kremlin.
What a remarkable world in which concertgoers in Tucson, Arizona, care about foreign peoples half a world away — and rightly so. Shame on Putin and his cronies for betraying the Russian people. Shame on those countries around the world — India, which as a democracy ought to know better; China, whose hypocrisy knows no bounds; Brazil, whose leader appears simply unbalanced — who will not stand against this brutal and unwarranted aggression.
People are also reading…
But most of all, here at home, shame on those who purport to be Republicans, yet cozy up to the new Stalin in Moscow, indeed even see him as a role model. How repugnant. This is not who Republicans are. Nor do I think that Putin is “savvy.” I think he is a war criminal in a cheap suit.
I am a Republican from the tip of my fingers to the end of my toes. Mine is the party of Abraham Lincoln, who freed the slaves, and Teddy Roosevelt, who broke the trusts. My first vote was for Richard Nixon, who was my parents’ congressman. I worked for Ronald Reagan, who would spin in his grave at what some in our party are saying. I served in the Naval Reserve and at the Defense Department. My family knew John McCain and Mitt Romney. I have never voted for a Democrat in my life and I never will.
But I have no use — I have contempt — for those purporting to be Republicans who are serving as apologists for Putin and Russia, and who cozy up to evil. They should be ashamed for their abdication of America’s values of freedom, liberty and democracy, and for their embrace of bullies around the world.
Americans — of any party — defend freedom. Americans — on both sides of the aisle — support democracy. Americans — Republicans and Democrats — stand up to bullies.
If you will not, if you do not share those values, if you want to abdicate our moral responsibility to fight the Putins of this world — get the heck out of my party.
Richard Sybert
Richard Sybert is a resident of Tucson. He served as special assistant to the U.S. secretary of defense during the Reagan administration and as California’s director of planning and research in the 1990s.