COMMENTARY: Trivializing Russia's Ukraine invasion as a "territorial dispute" tells MAGA Latinos that Putin is a benign influence in the Americas, too.
Good news, MAGAtinos (MAGA Latinos) 鈥� you don鈥檛 have to worry about Russia anymore!
That鈥檚 because the two Republican leaders you exalt as demigods 鈥� former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis 鈥� say you don鈥檛.
This week Trump 鈥� who notched almost half of Florida鈥檚 Latino vote in 2020, a remarkable share for a GOP presidential candidate 鈥攁nd his erstwhile acolyte DeSantis 鈥� whose re-election landslide last November swept the state鈥檚 Latino vote by an even more astonishing 15-point margin 鈥� are both insisting that Russia鈥檚 barbaric invasion of Ukraine is nothing more than a little 鈥渢erritorial dispute鈥� that the U.S. has no business butting into.
Opposing Russia is 鈥渘ot 鈥� a vital American strategic interest,鈥� said 2024 presidential re-candidate Trump. He was echoed by probable 2024 presidential candidate DeSantis, who asserted that 鈥渂ecoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia is not鈥� a U.S. priority.
There you go, MAGAtinos 鈥� your Problema de Putin is solved!
READ MORE: As the Americas 鈥� and Americans 鈥� fall for Putin, it's time for dark Disney diplomacy
All those fears and anxieties about Russia propping up the disastrously dictatorial governments of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua? They were so overblown, guys. All that gnashing of teeth over military cooperation between those regimes and Russia鈥檚 Stalin-wannabe tyrant? Don鈥檛 you feel now like you were just obsessing over nonsense?
You were, according to Donald and Ronald. By downplaying 鈥� make that unconscionably trivializing 鈥� the bloody blitzkrieg in Ukraine that Vladimir Putin launched a year ago, Trump and DeSantis are essentially minimalizing his threat anywhere in the world. That includes this hemisphere and all the socialista places, real or imagined, whose love affair with Russia keeps Cubans, Venezuelans, Colombians and other exile communities here awake at night.
Now they can get some REM sleep.
If Russia's monstrous rape of Ukraine shouldn鈥檛 make the world's democracies shudder, then neither should we fret about Putin slithering onto our hemispheric street.
Take all those Cuba-and-Russia preocupaciones. It was only last week the Miami Herald editorial page told us the U.S. is right to keep the communist island on its list of state sponsors of terrorism. The Herald's chief argument: the 鈥済rowing indications that Cuba and Russia are getting cozy again 鈥� with Russia again helping Cuba with its food shortages and heaven-knows-what-else.鈥�
I respectfully disagree with the 贬别谤补濒诲鈥檚 premise: receiving aid from another government, even one as sinister as Putin鈥檚, doesn鈥檛 make a regime, even one as odious as Cuba鈥檚, a state sponsor of terrorism. Nonetheless, I understand, if not share, the fears about Russia鈥檚 toxic influence in the Americas that weigh on Cubans and so many others in South Florida.
Geopolitical specter
But! It turns out those fears were unfounded. If Russia鈥檚 monstrous rape of Ukraine is just a 鈥渢erritorial dispute鈥� that shouldn鈥檛 make democracies across the globe shudder, then neither should we fret about Putin slithering onto our hemispheric street.
All those Venezuelan deals with Russian military contractors like the Wagner Group that help President-dictator Nicol谩s Maduro鈥檚 security forces keep him in iron-fisted power? Or the red carpet Nicaraguan dictator Daniel Ortega recently rolled out for Russia鈥檚 military to deploy in his country?
If Trump and DeSantis are right 鈥� if Putin鈥檚 just engaging in an unfortunate turf spat in Ukraine 鈥� then these are not the dark dalliances the 鈥渨oke鈥� U.S. media and political establishment have been telling South Florida鈥檚 Latinos they are. Russia is a benign player after all.
And MAGAtinos here have one fewer geopolitical specter to haunt them.
Those Latino voters of course won鈥檛 question the fact that Trump and DeSantis are throwing one of their community's key foreign policy concerns under the bus so they can woo white, isolationist MAGA voters, many of whom admire Putin. MAGAtinos didn鈥檛 question DeSantis last year when, as a love letter to American xenophobes, he flew a group of desperate Venezuelan migrants to Martha鈥檚 Vineyard for a punitive political stunt.
Not even the objections of conservative Florida Senator and Cuban-American Marco Rubio 鈥� who disagreed with Trump and DeSantis and likened Russia鈥檚 Ukraine attack to the U.S. invading Canada 鈥� will likely persuade MAGAtinos that their Russia stress is still warranted.
I respectfully agree with the Senator. But if a lot of Rubio鈥檚 fellow South Florida Latinos don鈥檛 take him seriously in this instance, it might be because Rubio himself once scolded the media and political establishment for criticizing then President Trump鈥檚 bromance with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.
If Kim could get a pass, MAGAtinos will now reason, why not Putin?
