BUCK: We’ll talk to you about the latest in Ukraine and U.S. involvement, Western involvement. What are we going to do with our allies and how is this likely to continue? What’s going to be happening here in the days ahead? You have a Russian demand this morning for the surrender of Mariupol, which is a city on… It’s a port city, I believe on the Sea of Azov, which is connected to the Black Sea, and this would be a land bridge — if they were able to secure this — between two other important areas for the Russian invasion here in Eastern Ukraine.
It would connect, effectively, the Donbas region to Crimea. It would be a connecting city between those two areas. It would also effectively block and bar Ukraine from water access, or come pretty close to it. The Ukrainian government has said, no. They will not concede the city of Mariupol on the Sea of Azov, to Russian forces, even though they’re getting pounded with missiles. The Russian assault continues on.
Now, we try to focus on what this means for us here at home as much as possible and take an America-first perspective on our foreign policy in general. This was fascinating to me. This, I thought, wasn’t surprising, but it was worth noting to all of you. I understand it’s data for Canada. I would love to see — and my guess is you probably will see — similar polling here in the states.
But this was done through the Toronto Star and some polling agency. I think it’s EKOS. “How Should Canada Respond to the Ukraine Invasion?” They break it down by vaccinated versus unvaccinated, and this is for respondents… The “vaccinated,” mind you, is three or more shots. So, Clay, I wouldn’t count. If you just get one J&J shot, I think you’re considered unvaccinated now.
For the vaccinated folks, you’re unvaxxed if you just got the J&J. Let me throw some numbers at you, Clay, because this is pretty clear what we see happening here. “Imposing tougher economic sanctions on Russia,” the vaccinated, 86% say, yes. “Seizing assets of oligarchs,” 85% of vaccinated, yes. “Cut off oil shipments from Russia,” 81%.
Now, this isn’t a perfect snapshot of a very complicated issue. But it does seem to indicate, Clay, for people who are willing to listen to the machinery of state media and the apparatus, there’s a correlation between, “I will double mask; I will get eight shots if I’m told,” and, “We need to do everything including send troops into Ukraine to stop this invasion, because that’s what our media is telling us needs to happen right now,” or that we at least have some moral obligation to do more.
CLAY: Yeah, and this to me is part and parcel of the bigger picture here, Buck, which is not being able to analyze risk rationally, because there’s a great story out in the Wall Street Journal today where they break down everything surrounding the idea of kids ages 5 to 11 getting vaccinated. And basically, the data doesn’t support it at all. But this idea of the fear of covid — what I’ve called for a long time the fear porn — is so all-encompassing, that they’re unable to analyze it.
And I feel like this is the same way. An emotional response to Ukraine is, in some way, justifying what is an irrational risk. In other words, your own individual risk from covid, you are wildly overrating. The world’s risk of nuclear war, you are radically underrating. And ultimately what it to me reflects is a failure of your own risk analysis to make rational decisions, probably because you’re being overrun by emotion as opposed to logic.
BUCK: There’s even a correlation. Now the no-fly zone, that is the most extreme military measure from the U.S. and Canadian side that people have been talking about in a serious way. You’re not hearing people say, “We should land the Marines and send in 82nd Airborne,” but no-fly zone, they’ve talked about.
There’s a correlation here, a causal correlation here. The more vaccines that one has received correlates with more extreme positions for intervention in Ukraine. So if you’ve received three or more doses, so you’re boosted, maybe boosted-plus, 59% on this poll say a no-fly zone is a good idea. Two doses, only 34%. Vaccine refusers, 18%.
Every time he got furious he’d handwrite letters explaining exactly why he was furious. He would put it in his desk drawer in the White House and wait for a day to decide whether or not to send it. He said most of the time he never sent the letters. I love the quote from Benjamin Franklin: “Passion governs and she never governs wisely.” In the social media age, we allow emotion to dictate almost every American policy action, it feels like now.
BUCK: Yes. People take positions now that the government — and in the case of Canada, it’s truly state media, which I think is interesting. In our country, it’s de facto state media. I’m not just even talking NPR. You see the relationship between the legacy corporate media and the Democrat Party and the Biden administration and how cozy and colluding it all is.
When you have 95% of news and journalism supporting one political party, you might as well have state media, because that’s what you’re up against. The people that want to go along with this generally, I find, are those who want to be a part of the herd and they also want the validation from the information and political machinery around them of they’re a good person.
“The Russians are so awful. Putin is a monster! It doesn’t matter if it means we have U.S. planes shot down, that there would be U.S. soldiers put in harm’s way, that perhaps there would be open war with Russia. It makes me feel good to hold the position.” And that is the way that I think a lot of decision-making goes these days in politics. It is also very much pushed by social media, and it’s who controls the information flow. We see who gets to ban people for saying “a man is a man.” It’s not Republicans. It’s not conservatives who get to do that.
CLAY: And also, I would say, Buck, as our world is accelerating, it’s easier to judge by what occurs on social media. And sometimes that can lead to awful decisions. (chuckling) And from a humor perspective, we talked about the NCAA tournament going on, Rex Chapman, who is a far left-wing loon, is now a part of the NCAA tournament coverage and he’s awful at it.
And the reason why he got that job is because Turner executives and CNN executives liked the fact that he was sharing left-wing tweets all the time. And so this Ukraine strategy is driven by the same strategy that motivated BLM, that motivated the idea that you have to go get your covid shot. By the way, Buck, coming out of the weekend in Ukraine, are you even more confident that we are headed towards a negotiated settlement and that the likelihood here is that Russia is going to get a substantial piece of Ukraine in order to end this war?
BUCK: From week two, maybe even week one of this fight, I’ve been saying Russia is going to seize… They’re going to consolidate in the east. They’re going to consolidate Crimea and connect them and decide that they get. By the way, where some of the pockets of Russian, primarily Russian-speaking Ukrainians live, and they’re going to say, “This is now Russian Federation territory or Russian Federation protectorate.”
This is how this thing ends. Even with a no-fly zone, which would be crazy, this thing doesn’t end with Ukraine booting out the evil Russian invaders and taking back all their lost territory. That’s just not realistic. So now it’s how quickly. Right now on CNN, the headline is “Zelensky open to Putin talks but warns of World War III if they fail.” I would like it if the guy would stop talking about World War III.
CLAY: I also wonder as I’m watching him, Buck, to what extent is Russia still trying to kill him. Because I think that’s the one that could really throw things for an emotional wrench here. The reason I bring that up is because so much of the world right now defines Ukraine through Zelensky. And if he is killed and murdered by Russia, I think that’s going to put things on a different emotional pivot, because he’s the personification of this war.
And the people who are responding emotionally are going to respond even more emotionally to his death, if it ends up happening. I think it would be the worst thing that could happen, not only certainly for that death, but just in terms of the acceleration.
BUCK: I think the Russians and Putin would view this first through the lens of, “Does it make more likely that we get a settlement that we, meaning the Russian Federation, wants, if this guy is alive or dead?” If it’s easier if he’s alive… Because I keep saying this: Once the bullets stop and there’s some kind of ceasefire, negotiated agreement, Russian oil, all this stuff will be…
Within six months, maybe sooner, people are going to say, “Yeah, Russia is bad but we have to do business with them,” and Putin knows that. That’s what’s going to happen. So is it easier to get to that state with or without Zelensky? I think in Putin’s calculation — which, I don’t know how he views that, but I think that’s what governs how much they’re trying to specifically go after Zelensky to take him out as a target or not. If taking him out means this thing ends faster, Putin would do it in a heartbeat.
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