America’s Response to Putin’s Aggression

Although we must rigorously avoid threatening or being drawn into armed conflict with a nuclear-armed country run by a deranged dictator, we should accept the need to take additional measures and accept sacrifices on a scale that would be required in a major war. That means joining with our European allies in banning Russian oil and gas and making up the shortfall by producing more ourselves and using less of it, instituting a much more progressive tax system, accepting large numbers of Ukrainian refugees, working with our NATO allies to bolster frontline defenses; providing a great deal of humanitarian aid, and taking other important measures I don’t have the expertise to specify here. Sadly, one of our two major political parities has no agenda other than to undermine the Biden Administration and is itself largely committed to authoritarianism and all that goes with it.