It Was an Ambush
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
The silver lining though is that one of the worst misdeeds was averted. The nominal purpose of this was to make Zelensky kiss the ring/feet. And to sign over mineral rights (for no concrete promises or assurances of support).
Ukraine avoided selling their mineral rights. They failed to suck up before doing so, and by virtue of a little bit of intolerable truth-telling (while being incessantly talked over) avoided selling out the nation to buy a fake worthless useless prospect of maybe having short term support continue.
(Tom Nichols definitely comes to mind as S-tier "awful person you know makes a good point". Incredibly blow hard, full of himself in high degree & actively censoring the world around him / blocking views he doesn't agree with. But at least as far as the premise goes, yes. He is correct here.)
Also worth emphasizing that Zelensky has shown enormous gratitude again and again to America. There's dozens upon dozens of tweets of thanks. The premise that he's ungrateful seems simply untrue.
But for anyone holding on to the idea that America is the "leader of the free world", that is most definitely no longer the case. For the EU foreign minister to state "we need a new leader" is a major shift.
This is one of those events that will be in the history books, to be sure.
When that happens, the US will face inflation similar to Germany in the 1920s and 30s.
Putin must be howling with laughter.
Now the question is, will they put up the cash.
What I think helps is that Europe must have realized it can no longer rely on the US, at all. So aiding Ukraine is what they would be doing anyway. Build up defence, find funding. It's just whether it is the Ukrainians or Europeans at the sharp end.
It's both untrue and unfair. Americans do care, the current administration doesn't. Even among Republicans those who are opposed to helping Ukraine are in minority.
The point of an election is to give a leader a mandate (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandate_(politics)) to rule...
From a theoretical perspective, if a president wins by 1 vote, how much of a mandate to rule do they actually have?
Our governments founding document specifically mentions the consent of the governed. I consent to tax policies and housing policies I disagree with, but I don't consent to a government that doesn't seem to have any ruling philosophy other than might makes right. I definitely don't consent to a government that threatens allies in a way that irreparably damages the negotiating ability of future presidents, and I don't consent to rule by a person who wishes to make my future votes meaningless.
If you vote for someone that violates rule of law, it contradicts the system of voting itself.
I don't disagree we "elected" him, just that election is a very black and white view of politics. We elected him, but he does not have mandate to do what he is doing.
(Absent, say, Europe committing more men or material.)
The US, absent anything else, needs to choose between direct military intervention, continuing sending over material (which is unpalatable long term), or cutting Ukraine loose. Again, none of that should be a surprise--if it _is_, you should get your head examined.
The problem today is that these conversations were had out in public, and in so doing we got to see the top two rungs of the US executive branch act excessively cruel on the one hand and like somebody completely ignorant of the stakes on the other--the "it'll make great TV" being perhaps the icing on the cake. Even worse, it'll probably work, because Zelensky seems to care more about his country than his ego.
Even to the extent that I agree with some of the realpolitick, I cannot abide by the odious behavior adjacent it. Kissinger was evil, but not impishly cruel.
(I also would caution people not to buy into the "Russia owns Trump" narrative when the more depressing--but probably accurate--explanation is simply that he wants the "Look at me, I ended a war I didn't even fight in!" merit badge.)
The silence of the broad American society, though, is deafening.
As the American left says: "Silence is complicity".
This redneck has no empathy whatsoever and it's not fit to lick Zelenskyy boots.
What he should read is Vonnegut and especially a chapter from Cat's Cradle "Why Americans are hated". I've always thought that Vonnegut was too pesimistic about the US. Now I think he was too optimistic.
Trump 2.0, DOGE, and J.D. Vance were created and molded by the Silicon Valley investor class. Worth looking up the term "blowback" when it comes back to bite American techbros.
Considering that Trump is elected by American people, when I refer to Trump below I am referring to American people.
Trump has destroyed the rule based world and pushing the world to a more primeval one, like the one before world war 2. This will have long term consequences. This is a world where China and China Communist Party will adapt better than the US. If both sides play without allies, US is probably not an opponent of China. We should be able to see this play out in the next decades. China may not take over the US but the playground should be levelled faster than expected, and China does have another decades to play, there are still tens of millions Chinese entering adult age each year, and many of them are engineers.