The Senate passed a $95.3 billion foreign aid bill for Ukraine, Israel and the island of Taiwan, stripped of border security provisions, last Tuesday. Twenty-two GOP Senators voted in favor of the legislation, with 27 vehemently opposing it.
Having conducted an analysis of the votes, DC-based think tank the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft concluded on February 19 that there is "an interesting generational divide" within the Republican caucus.
Indeed, "each of the five oldest Republicans in the Senate — and nine of the ten oldest — voted in favor of the supplemental spending package. Conversely, the six youngest senators, and 12 of the 14 youngest, opposed it," the think tank pointed out.
Senators have also noticed the generational gap: "Nearly every Republican Senator under the age of 55 voted NO on this America Last bill," tweeted Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.), 48.
"Youthful naivety is bliss, the wisdom of age may save the West," argued Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), 63. "Reagan may be dead, but his doctrine saved the world during less dangerous times than these."
For his part, Sen. J.D. Vance, 39, drew attention to the fact that "the fruits of [the older] generation in American leadership is: quagmire in Afghanistan, war in Iraq under false pretenses." According to him, younger Americans are fed up with that foreign policy.
According to the QI, "equally striking" was the breakdown of votes among GOP senators based on when they assumed their current positions in the upper chamber. Thus, of the 49 incumbent Republican senators, 30 were elected before Donald Trump was picked as the GOP's presidential candidate in 2016. Over half of those 30 voted in favor of the aid bill. When it comes to the 19 senators who assumed office in 2017 and later, just four of them supported the legislation; the rest resolutely opposed it.
The think tank suggested that the difference in votes could partially be attributable to Trump's unorthodox foreign policy approach, dubbed at the time "isolationist," whereas the Republican Party establishment hardened during the Cold War era and Global War on Terror and adopted a hawkish approach including to Russia.
Still, the QI presumed that the vote cannot be explained solely by ideology, given that Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) ultimately voted against the package, despite his vocal support for Ukraine and Israel. Graham, 68, has held his seat in the upper chamber since 2003. Explaining his move, the senator bemoaned the lack of border security provisions in the $9 bill and even echoed Trump’s argument that aid to Ukraine should be a "loan."
However, Graham's recent move appears to be a mere political maneuver: on Sunday, he signaled support for the House's $66 billion national security package proposed by a bipartisan group of representatives on February 16.
The Defending Borders, Defending Democracies Act was proposed by the so-called bipartisan moderate Problem Solvers Caucus. Axios assumed last Friday that the bill would face opposition from the House MAGA Republicans as its border provisions aren't as tough as what conservative representatives are seeking. Likewise, attempts to ram a multi-billion Ukraine package could be nixed by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and like-minded GOP members of Congress in the lower chamber.