John,
The war is intensifying, and the devastating costs are now on display for the world to see. Young men and women who have never even held a gun before are taking to the streets to pick up arms and put their lives on the line to fight for their homeland.
In my eyes, there are no more noble warriors than these.
As I write this, I’m inspired and incredibly depressed at the same time, because as someone who has spent most of his life at war, I know what the fate of many of these newly-minted warriors will be. Tragically, many of them won’t survive against a dominant world power like the Russian military.
Despite those grim odds, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy – a 44-year-old rookie politician – has done an incredible job leading his country in these trying times. Now we are getting reports that Russia wants to assassinate him, along with his wife and young children … a barbaric plan that has no place in our modern world society, but one that shows you the sick mentality we’re dealing with when it comes to Vladimir Putin.
Now, Zelenskyy could have done what the President of Afghanistan did and fill suitcases up with money and flee the country at the first sign of danger, but he chose to stay and fight and risk his life right alongside his people. That’s a noble leader, the kind of man I would like to shake hands with one day. My military days are behind me, but Zelenskyy is showing himself to be the kind of general that I know can move mountains.
Meanwhile, across the border in Moscow, St Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, and Perm – just to name a few cities – thousands of Russian protesters, young and old alike, are risking their lives to take to the streets and send a powerful message to Putin and his thugs: They are saying NO to WAR!
The people of Ukraine need to hear this, they need to see this, they need to know the Russian people are with them. Vladimir Putin needs to know that his people are turning on him! Nothing terrifies a dictator more than that. Powerful empires have fallen, once brash-and-ruthless dictators have scurried into the sewers to hide when their people turned on them.
Think of Saddam Hussein and Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi and how their lives ended. I know Putin is more powerful than both of those thugs combined, but that is only because Russia is more powerful than Iraq and Libya, and what makes Russia more powerful is its people and resources, not Vladimir Putin.
I believe now is the time for the US to launch a cyber-influential campaign aimed directly at the Russian people. Putin plays dirty and uses bots and troll farms to brainwash our citizens, let's give him a taste of his own medicine. The difference is, we don't need bots, we have people, and we don't need to spread lies, we just have to blast them with the truth.
Now, let me just shift focus a bit to what’s going on here at home: Russian bots and trolls have taken to the web, and they are on the offensive.
CPAC and the even more odious AFPAC are happening right now, and I know my team is doing an excellent job informing you about the filth being spread there. Well, that filth is being actively amplified by the Russia’s cyberwarfare operations.
Hmm, I wonder why that is? Is it just because of the love and mutual admiration Putin and Donald Trump have for one another? Or could it be even more nefarious than that? (Personally, I wonder how many of the speakers at both conferences won’t be able to afford a plane ticket home now that Putin’s bank accounts have been frozen.)
The Republican leadership has lost control of their own party to traitors and radicals, and they don't know what to do. Well, here’s my advice: CLOSE UP SHOP. LEAVE. Start a new party for all I care, but the Republican party as we once knew it is now the party of traitors, domestic terrorists, and authoritarian thugs. There’s no coming back from that.
I don't care how much infighting there is among them. As long as they choose to identify with today’s GQP, they’re all on the side of oppression, whether it be in the United States or across the globe.
As for us, we cannot let this opportunity go by without showing the American people exactly what it means to be a Republican in 2022 – who they represent, who they cheer on, and perhaps most importantly, who they oppose. The Republican party stands for fascism, dictatorship, and authoritarianism, and we Democrats stand with the people.
If you stand with the people, now is the time to back it up. Let’s fight back – I want to send a thunderingly loud message to the party of Putin and Trump that we will crush them in 2022.
At this stage of the game, the way to do that is to show strong commitment with record-breaking fundraising, so let’s smash those records today!
