It’s farfetched to think, I suppose, but I wish Biden in his SOTU message had called out the coalition that elected him for its failure to deliver vocal and public support for the democratic and progressive elements of his political/legislative agenda – especially voting rights and Build Back Better. Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Johnson were transformative presidents but only because they had a transformative movement supporting and nudging them and their agendas. Biden so far doesn’t and that explains a lot.

The challenge at this moment isn’t to uncover hypocrises – where you were when the U.S. invaded “fill in the country” – among people opposing Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, but rather to encourage and join them in struggle. It looks like the invasion is taking a deadlier and more dangerous turn, making worldwide opposition all the more important. More than a few on the left here – and the communist movement worldwide – are prisoners of old understandings, old logics, and old reflexive positions – and thus are on both sides of this bloody clash. But such a position is becoming more and more difficult to defend as Putin’s invasion of the Ukraine leaves in its wake more and more dislocation, destruction, and death.

I like this column by Rev. Jesse Jackson. My only quibble is that Putin saw the expansion of NATO eastward less as a danger and more as an opportunity to pursue his dream of reconstituting the Russian Empire of old. And the takeover – violent if necessary – of Ukraine was central to that vision. In his mind, Ukraine was never a sovereign state. It was always subservient and subordinate to Russia. It had no legitimate claim to independence, which explains Putin’s visceral hatred of Lenin. In his time, Lenin insisted on the right of oppressed nations of the Russian empire to independent statehood if they so chose. In ordering the invasion of Ukraine Putin, therefore, was only correcting historical wrongs, that is, restoring Russia to its former and rightful glory.

Targeted sanctions against Putin and Russia’s oligarchy make perfect sense, but I would hope that the main accent of the Biden administration is on diplomacy, restraint and negotiation. Of course, as long as the Russian army is bombing and killing the people of Ukraine that is difficult.

What is surprising is that some on the left have bought – hook, line and sinker – into Putin’s every rationale for invading Ukraine.