Those condemning Vladimir Putin’s incursion into Ukraine can point to all sorts of principles of diplomacy and invoke all sorts of abstract arguments.

Protecting territorial integrity is generally a great idea. It’s bad when countries invade others or try to peel off regions of other nations. But when you’re talking with China about “territorial integrity,” you know exactly what they’re thinking.

Remember when Beijing and its apologists all cowed NBA figures into agreement or silence on the protests in Hong Kong against incursions into civil liberties? Brooklyn Nets owner Joe Tsai assailed critics of the Communist regime’s overreaches with appeals to “territorial integrity”:

“1.4 billion Chinese citizens stand united when it comes to the territorial integrity of China and the country’s sovereignty over her homeland. This issue is non-negotiable.”

If you support dissidents in Taiwan, Hong Kong, or Tibet, you are violating China’s claims of “territorial integrity.”

That is, China can use our argument against Russia in its defense of its authoritarian behaviors.

And Russia, in turn, can use similarly liberal-sounding principles against us. “Self-governance” and “autonomy” are the very ideas Putin is leaning on, and some of his defenders, and some opponents of a U.S. response, point this out.

They make the argument that the Donbas region of Ukraine is mostly Russian-speaking and that the majority there does not want to be part of Ukraine.

This argument is similar to one made in favor of Taiwanese independence or the recognition of South Sudan or our own military intervention in defense of Kosovo in the 1990s. Joe Biden in the 2000s advocated for autonomy for Kurds in Iraq.

We could argue Putin is factually wrong, and we could debate history with him, his defenders, or his not-exactly defenders on the internet. But that would be stupid.

Putin is mostly just trolling us when he tries to use our own arguments against us, much like China is being disingenuous in using “territorial integrity” talk or woke campus racialist talk.

There’s actually a much simpler argument here about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Putin is a bad guy with bad designs. He wants to take over part or all of Ukraine to improve his own military position and assert his dominance. We don’t want him establishing dominance or improving his own position —because he is bad. So we should seek out responses that stop him from doing what he has begun to do and possibly reverse what he’s done.

I write the above as a noninterventionist. I believe U.S. military intervention in the last 20 years has done far more harm than good. I don’t know the proper response to Russia’s actions, but I know that defending them or whatabouting them is a moral error.

And there’s plenty of whataboutism these days. When our leaders talk of “territorial integrity” to criticize Putin, our critics scoff.

Did the United States respect the territorial integrity of Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Cuba, Serbia, the Vietcong, et cetera? How can the U.S. demand Russia respect “territorial integrity”?

Again, the proper response is unsophisticated, but obviously true: We are the good guys. Putin is the bad guy.

Republicans and conservatives, including those who are wary of war with Russia, should lead the way on this message. Some conservatives, for complicated reasons, are engaging in the sophisticated argument about whether Donetsk and Lugansk really are Ukrainian or Russian and which side is best respecting self-determination or territorial integrity.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Party establishment is condemning Putin unambiguously, which is proper, but is not doing it the right way. Instead, they’re appealing to these vague abstract arguments that sound like geopolitical principles.

Why get into these weeds? Maybe it’s because the Left lacks the confidence to say the important truth that Putin is the bad guy and the U.S. is the good guy.

If you believe that America is fundamentally a white supremacist nation, which is the official viewpoint of the liberal elite, can you say that we are the good guy?

If you believe the U.S. is the world’s leading climate criminal, can you say we are the good guy?

If you aren’t even sure humans are good, can you say any country is “the good guy?”

And if you’ve studied world history and American history in a public high school or an elite university, your education was largely about erroneously convincing you the U.S. is the bad guy.

Thus the Democratic establishment is relegated to making weak arguments based on principles it doesn’t believe in. That’s a home game for China and Russia.