Why do many Republicans seem to minimize Russian invasion of Ukraine? [closed]

Question

After Russia invaded Ukraine 2 months ago it has become increasingly clear how horrendous the invasion is, with bombing of civilian targets, executions of civilians (including children), rapes, plunder, leveling entire cities to the ground, etc. The effects extend beyond Ukraine: Poland is overwhelmed with millions of refugees, and at some point Russia threatened use of nuclear weapons, which could lead to WWIII, although they backpedaled on that later.

It would seem that such evens are beyond partisanship. Whatever your beef is with your disagreeable neighbor, if you both see a murder being committed in front of your houses you both call 911 with the same message. And when the cops arrive, and you see the neighbor you hate telling the cop what you both saw, you don't start contradicting him just for spite, you don't say to the cop: "Year, I saw a shooting, but come on, why are you paying attention to this? Somebody trespassed on my property last week, and I've heard a pizza was stolen from a store down the street, why don't you investigate that instead? Also, my brother told me that the shooter is a good buddy of his."

However, as soon as Biden woke up and started to act (which took a while), several conservative talk show hosts and social media channels started minimizing the war. "Why are we sending aid to Ukraine rather than securing our own borders?" - this kind of BS. Tucker Carlson in particular.

And this point of view, which is almost "let Russian fascists take over Europe, it's not our business", is not consistent with the traditional Republican views on American role in the World and on US military. US under Bush-senior didn't hesitate facing Saddam when Saddam invaded Kuwait in 90s; add numerous other examples. Traditional Republican viewpoint: "you see evil - you confront evil." But not this time; to spite Biden's administration, or for some other reasons I don't understand, the current viewpoint seems to be "you see evil - you notice that your political opponent sees the evil, so you pretend not to see that evil is evil."

Why is that happening? Pure partisanship or something else?

Answer 1

The GOP has not yet coalesced around a narrative for why they dislike the Ukrainian side of this conflict, despite having more than two months to think of one. Ideas that have been floated around so far have been:

1. Isolationism.
2. Utilizing existing Hunter Biden conspiracy theories or just general theories of corruption to tie President Biden to the Ukrainian regime.
3. A vaguely-defined fear that President Biden will remove border patrol agents/soldiers from our southern border to fight in Ukraine.
4. Russia is extremely powerful, and will economically punish the US for standing up to it.
5. Buying into Russian propaganda that the Ukrainian people 'deserve' to become a part of a reimagined Soviet bloc superstate.
6. Ukraine somehow provoked Russia, and therefore deserves the attack it received in return.
7. This is a ploy by the Left to reduce US oil consumption.
8. This is a ploy by the Left to cripple right-wing dissent by subjecting them to hyperinflation.
9. This is part of the gay agenda, punishing a country (Russia) for having traditional ideas about men, women and marriage.
10. The 'Ukrainian biological warfare labs' claim by Russia is true.
11. Obama had a hand in toppling the previous Ukrainian regime and hand-picked the current regime, so they must be bad.