Biden's Ukraine Trip Boosts Presidency

President Joe Biden has been flexing his political muscles lately despite the criticism that comes from Republicans no matter what the president does. The so-called scandal following the Chinese balloon and other objects shot down by the military has only given the president a little more pep in his political step because the sightings are now relegated to the “old news” department. Republicans who now control the House have not exactly gotten off to the start that they were bragging about how varying investigations would “expose” the truth about President Biden and his son Hunter. However, the weekend trip that Biden took to Ukraine, even as war is still raging, has really irked many Republicans and right-wing media, as the president went to give further support to Ukraine’s Zelensky with increased military aid. Republicans complain that Biden should be on the southern borders of this nation, stopping a wave of illegal immigrants from crossing the border. That may be part of their criticism, but Republicans know that Biden is the first U.S. president to go to a war zone where there is no presence of U.S. soldiers to “protect” him. That may have shown the world that Biden’s trip was a “show of strength” to a nation that is not a member of NATO. Republicans will crow about America being the “leader of democracy”, it seems only to allies, despite the fact that the one individual who sent in Russian soldiers was the guy whom ex-president Donald Trump couldn’t find a bad word to say about, Mr. Putin. Thousands of Ukraine people, not American soldiers, have died, as Russia can’t seem to take total control of a conflict that has raged on for a year. There are some who have said that Russia is not the superpower that it has claimed to be but that of a third-rate world power.

A lot of anger is directed at Russian president Vladimir Putin, with many saying that the Russian leader grossly miscalculated how the invasion would end. Not only has Russia lost thousands of soldiers and lost some advanced military equipment, but it also has few allies who are willing to come to its aid. China may be an exception now that China, with its improving military presence and the capacity/ability to produce arms, is posing just as significant a threat to the U.S. as Russia. Right now, President Biden is commanding the world stage, as the only thing that Russia can counter is to suspend any more movement within the Start Treaty between the two nations over the application of nuclear weapons. Republicans will try to come up with ways to curtail aid to Ukraine, which Mr. Biden and Democrats would have to agree with, is a non-starter to limiting aid to Ukraine. China is a bigger threat to other world nations because so many of them trade with China, as Americans may have more “made in China” labels in their homes than “made in America".

For some reason, Donald Trump has been quiet, but not Ron DeSantis. The undeclared frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential election downplayed a Russian threat, saying, “The threat of Russia going into NATO countries and steamrolling, that has not come to happening”. DeSantis said that Russia “has shown themselves to be a third-rate military power”. Not everyone is happy with President Biden’s Ukraine policy, as some are saying that the president “must level” with the public, telling the nation what the endgame is. As mentioned earlier, no American soldiers are dying. America prides itself as the leader of the free world, which means you can’t lead from behind. There are those who think that this nation should be isolated from world conflicts unless we are directly involved, as being attacked. Some perhaps wanted the U.S. to send in warships somewhere around China “as a show of force” because of the balloon that was shot down. The Ukraine people, under the current circumstances, would love to experience a “balloon” problem.

Nonetheless, President Biden made the call to go to Ukraine, knowing that he would receive criticism. That is what effective leadership amounts to; the only thing is that most of the criticism is coming from his own backyard. A “proph