For me, as for many, the last month and a half has been a pretty traumatic experience. Not because I’m shocked, but because my worst fears have been realized far faster than I’d even contemplated. My pre-election post hasn’t aged too well because I assigned a mere 5% probability to the “decisive Trump victory” scenario, but my fears about what would happen if he did win are unfortunately already proving true, and we’re not even 2 months into this term. I wrote of a Trump victory:
If the result is an inhumane and disruptive deportation regime that divides families (or doesn’t) and accidentally includes legal residents and even citizens, we should not be surprised. If the result is a systematic undermining of our legal system as he pardons convicted criminals, fires Federal prosecutors pursuing him for past lawless behavior (unlike Biden who kept the prosecutor pursuing his own son) and conducts even more blatantly illegal activity thanks to his newfound immunity, we should not be surprised. If he brings about higher prices through tariffs and the removal of people who build our houses, harvest our crops and do countless other difficult jobs, we should not be surprised. If he ushers in an era of flagrant crony capitalism in which economic policy favors his most ardent political supporters, we should not be surprised. If he sides with Putin in handing over Ukranian territory, undermines NATO, and reverses America’s longstanding tradition of standing with democratic allies, we should not be surprised.
He has been open about all of this. If Americans elect him to do what he’s been plainly telling them he will do, they will have no excuses if that’s what he does.
Much of this has already been borne out, but nothing more clearly than that last point about international affairs. Trump and Vance’s shameful treatment of Zelensky last week was the culmination of something that was already becoming clear: America is not only abandoning our longtime allies; we’re siding with the bad guys.
It’s possible to read Trump’s initial comments in this exchange as more naive than malicious. He seems genuine in his desire to be a “peacemaker,” but his willingness to believe Russian talking points about what prompted the war, his baseless claims that Russia wouldn’t have invaded if he was in office (because of how weak Biden was), and his refusal to commit to provide security because he trusts Putin not to violate the terms of a peace deal “with him,” all speak to someone deluded by his own dealmaking ability and surrounded by individuals like J.D. Vance who have never believed in Ukraine’s cause.
It’s clear that Trump does not acknowledge Russia as the villain and is mainly interested in what the U.S. can get out of any deal that is made (he’s really excited about all that “raw earth” [sic] we’ll get to “take”). His continued insistence that Russia will respect a deal made with him shows how easily he’s being played by Putin, against whose skills in manipulation someone as insecure as Trump is no match. Vance’s pathetically belligerent response to an absolutely fair and clear point about Putin’s failure to honor past agreements finally triggered Trump into stating that Zelensky “allowed” himself to be in the position of an invaded nation, whose children have been kidnapped and cities destroyed by a lawless thug across their border. It was a painful exchange to watch - two small and ignorant bullies ganging up on a wartime president just trying to do all he can to help his country survive.
If you question whether Trump and Vance’s behavior was actually pro-Russian, consider the response in Russia. Per Fox News:
"The Russian media, which is almost exclusively controlled by Putin’s government, is having a field day with what happened today between Zelenskyy and President Trump and JD Vance," Rebekah Koffler, a strategic military intelligence analyst, former senior official at the Defense Intelligence Agency and author of "Putin’s Playbook," told Fox News Digital.
It’s also worth noting the comments from some Trump-friendly Americans (though depressingly few). Here’s Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski:
This week started with administration officials refusing to acknowledge that Russia started the war in Ukraine. It ends with a tense, shocking conversation in the Oval Office and whispers from the White House that they may try to end all U.S. support for Ukraine. I know foreign policy is not for the faint of heart, but right now, I am sick to my stomach as the administration appears to be walking away from our allies and embracing Putin, a threat to democracy and U.S. values around the world.
And the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board:
It is bewildering to see Mr. Trump’s allies defending this debacle as some show of American strength. The U.S. interest in Ukraine is shutting down Mr. Putin’s imperial project of reassembling a lost Soviet empire without U.S. soldiers ever having to fire a shot. That core interest hasn’t changed, but berating Ukraine in front of the entire world will make it harder to achieve.
The feeling I keep coming back to after each of these shocking developments - our dismantling of the sources of our soft power, the loss of our moral compass and embrace of cruelty, our surrender of world leadership, and now our open hostility to the plight of a like-minded nation struggling for survival against a dictatorship - is loss. It’s difficult to overstate how significant a change we and the world are experiencing, and the speed with which it has happened means this may only be the beginning. And we’ve seen in this video the extent to which the problem extends beyond Trump himself, who was if anything less scary than his vice president (effectively neutering the hope of impeachment) and who has rendered “responsible” Republicans like Rubio utterly impotent.
These are scary times. I’ve tried to maintain perspective by reminding myself that WWII and the Cold War were scarier, until I consider why it is we survived them. We had strong, courageous and wise leaders who understood the nature of the threat they faced and the importance of fighting for the values of freedom and democracy. Vance and Rubio talk a good game about values like freedom of speech, and yet it’s clear that they lack the spine to fight for them against the nations that truly disrespect them. Their realpolitik sees them talking tough against allies that are already 95% in alignment with our values, while defending adversaries who utterly trample them.
This is what keeps me up at night (literally, it’s 3am as I write this). I like to try to find silver linings, the hope to cling to in situations such as these, but it’s difficult right now. We are voluntarily destroying the very reputation, commitment, trustworthiness, investment and consistency that made America such a formidable force against threats like fascism and communism in the past. The result will be destabilizing - a gift to leaders like Putin and Xi who must not believe their good fortune. They’ve achieved geopolitical goals in the last few weeks that previously they must not have thought possible, all without lifting a finger. Taiwan cannot look at our treatment of Ukraine and conclude that we have their back. And smaller nations the world over must be scrambling to figure out how they can hold belligerent neighbors at bay when America abandons its commitment to the inviolability of national borders.
It’s hard to overstate the strategic folly of these developments, and I truly do worry about the long-term ramifications. We’ve taken the peace and prosperity of the last few decades for granted and through our decadence and obsession with trivialities have invited a crisis. The consequences may not be obvious overnight, and I do want to acknowledge that there are other nations, not least in Europe, whose leaders seem to be stepping up. But if any other country abandoned classical liberalism like America is, the consequences would not be nearly as serious. America has been the world’s “indispensable nation,” uniquely able to influence world affairs in ways that have mostly promoted peace and prosperity. It’s frightening to consider how WWII and the Cold War would have ended up with America’s current leaders in power.
All of which is to say, this is not the first or largest crisis we have ever faced, but for the first time since the Civil War, the crisis is of our own making.
So what hope is there? For one, it’s not great that the stability of the world has been so dependent on a single nation. For Europe to take more responsibility for its own security would be good for them in the long run and a boost to defense investment may prove a boon to their sluggish economy in the near term as well. And it’d be great to see other strong democracies step up in global leadership, too. I hope America will return to this role eventually, but even if we do, we’ll all be better off if our allies are stronger and not so dependent on us always taking the lead. And it’d frankly be good for America to not take its own importance and influence for granted.
As for the U.S., as a Christian I know that even God’s chosen nation (Israel, that is) had to experience tragedy and hardship in order to “reset” their trajectory through repentance and a return to virtue. I also believe that many, probably most, of those who voted for this did not do so knowingly and are still ultimately committed to the basic values that this nation was founded on and will not abandon them overnight. It feels as though the forces of chaos and cowardice have already won, but in truth I think the reality will take time to sink in. The good thing about how fast this is happening, is that it might actually break through this time. So much of what we’ve seen on the right over the last decade has been akin to the proverbial frog in boiling water. It has happened gradually, with each new outrage only a little worse than the previous and able to be rationalized. But it took time for right-wing media to convince many Americans to memory-hole January 6, and that was a discrete event that didn’t affect most of them directly. While some of the effects of this administration’s actions will take a while to set in, many will be more immediate.
It’s going to get worse before it gets better, but the only way it’ll get better is if we don’t give up hope. As the saying goes, the United States can always be relied upon to do the right thing - having first exhausted all possible alternatives.