Former Democrat Representative Cori Bush told journalist Michael Tracey that she and some other Democrats voted for more armed aid to Ukraine because the Biden Administration presented it as a way of preventing American soldiers from possibly being deployed to fight Russia if Ukraine was defeated. She then added that her district’s servicemembers are “mostly black and brown and marginalized folks”, which is why she considered this to be a means to save “black and brown bodies” from being killed.
Her insight adds a twist to what some observers thought about the Democrats’ reasons for supporting these bills since it was hitherto taken for granted that they were either driven by ideological motivations or had corrupt connections to arms companies. It turns out that some members like Bush truly believed that they were serving their communities by doing whatever they could to keep them out of harm’s way after fearing that they might be deployed to fight Russia if these aid bills didn’t pass.
This took on a racial dimension in Bush’s case given her constituency’s demographics, however, the district that she represented is 42% white and 68% of the active-duty members identify with that race. She therefore ignored the likelihood that she also represented some white servicemembers and only cared about saving the “black and brown bodies” in her district. This isn’t surprising seeing as how she was part of “The Squad” whose members are known for promoting perceived racial minority interests.
The Biden Administration’s fearmongering about a hot Russian-US war over Ukraine accordingly paired with Bush’s impression of her district’s servicemembers being “mostly black and brown and marginalized folks” to get her to vote for more armed aid to Ukraine in order to save” black and brown bodies”. Considering the popularity of racial identity politics among the Democrats, it might therefore have also been the case that other representatives from that party were motivated by similar interests.
The Biden Administration and its surrogates pushed “Squad”-inspired narratives over the past four years so it’s very possible that some of them implied or claimed in discretion that “black and brown bodies” might be at risk in the future if these bills didn’t pass, Ukraine was defeated, and the US then had to directly intervene per Article 5 to protect NATO members if Russia later invaded one of them. Bush’s concerns might thus have been much more engineered and widespread than personal and local.
The takeaway is that the Biden Administration appears to have cleverly manipulated the Democrats’ prioritization of perceived racial minority interests so as to ensure support for its proxy war plans against Russia by scaring them into thinking that “black and brown bodies” would die if Ukraine was defeated. This doesn’t excuse Bush and the others from voting for these bills, which led to untold “Ukrainian bodies” being killed, but it nevertheless explains it in terms of some party members’ perceptions.
