Perhaps some of you are aware about Ukraine. Aren’t they engaged in a war? A smaller country invaded by an archenemy superpower of the United States? Weren’t we supplying arms for them to fight their defensive war since they were attacked in 2022? Or was it 2014? Isn’t there something like 40,000 Ukrainian civilians (including many children) who have been killed? Many thousands more wounded. Haven’t an estimated 70,000 Ukrainian soldiers been killed trying to defend their country from an invading army of Russians and North Koreans? It’s all so far away and, well, what does it have to do with us, anyway?
Oh yeah, that’s right. The main wars we hear about are Trump’s waging war on immigrants and waging war on selected Republican minority cities generally. Never mind Netanyahu waging an American financed total war on a mostly defenseless province. America First, of course.
Why should you care? Why Ukraine?
You likely don’t care if you are a Trump led believer in Authoritarian rule, whether inadvertent or not. Even if you just like the idea of a government led by a single strong-arm male leader, in a single party government, who unabashedly carries out a “America First” agenda. Ukraine is probably not on your radar. You’re also likely a person who cares little for history, except for mythical nostalgia.
For the remainder of Americans, you should care about Ukraine…you should care a lot. Let me suggest a simple grade school level analogy:
Democracy is like a car with a driver and filled with passengers all trying to tell the driver how to drive and where to go. The driver will likely proceed but be all over the road due to the confusion. It’s hectic, with competitive disagreement, always unpleasant for some who believe they’re going in the wrong direction. In order to avoid catastrophe and get to the next destination the road needs restrictive signs and guardrails, and the passengers need to find some consensus. It also needs a proper way to change drivers. Still, it’s a messy way to travel…yet the safest for everyone aboard. Why?
If you install a driver, gag the passengers, and remove the signs and guardrails the car has gone Auto…as in Autocratic. It’s possible the driver might travel the road for a while without incident, which some of the passengers are hoping for, actually expect, or even prefer.
History has shown time and again that catastrophe is enviable for the long haul at best. Instead the car eventually wanders off the road, sometimes at breakneck speeds, going places passengers never expected nor wanted to go. It requires more restraints on those panicking travelers who distrust the driver. The driver’s likely to throw out his most obstinate passengers, which the remaining passengers are told is the result of a lack of faith and loyalty to the driver and the direction he is driving. There are no disagreements, no controversy, and no questions of truth. There is only loyalty and faith…until the car hits a tree…or a wall.
In 2014 the Ukrainian people chose to remove their gags and restraints and threw their driver (Viktor Yanukovych) out the door. They accomplished this by an extraordinary mass commitment to Democracy with little violence (see the documentary “Winter On Fire”- Netflix). Their clear majority desire was to align with other European Democracies. Unshackled, they began the arduous tasks of putting up their own signs and guardrails.
Immediately (2014) Putin, fearing a surge toward Democracy growing in the region, began attacks against Ukraine with Russian troops out of uniform, which included the criminal annexation of the Crimea. Seeing that wasn’t working to overthrow Democracy in Ukraine, he began his full invasion of Ukraine with Russian troops and lately with North Korean mercenaries. He has engaged in total war, which targets civilian populations. It continues during every minute of your day, despite that the news would rather focus on the war against Immigrants, the crime that never touches the vast majority of Americans, the sexploits of Shawn Diddy Combs, and such.
Conservative Americans often view Trump/Republican governance like it was a religion, with the same level of exclusivity they apply to their faith. They believe they revere American Democracy even as they are willing to surrender the signs and guardrails in order alleviate their fear of the “scourge” of Liberalism, “DEI”, imaginary armies of immigrants, “Deep State”, and loss of majority control of government and religious influence.
Liberal Americans by contrast too often view their humanitarian values and desire for change with little regard for human nature, especially as it relates to the fiscal side of the ledger. Their reaction to combat in kind is hate for hate. Polarization is complete. I’m not sure there is a domestic answer to the dilemma unless it comes in a progressive form from the Republican side of the aisle. I’m not holding my breath.
The better answer might be international.
The reality is that the World is fighting a proxy war in Ukraine, pitting Democracy against Autocracy, unity verses polarization. The outcome of this war will be profound and may set a precedent for years to come. If Ukraine can end this war with Democratic sovereignty over the vast majority of their country, with safeguards against Russian aggression, and an immediate path to inclusion in the EU, it may become the model for the rest of the Western World to support the continuation of Representative Democracy and the rule of Law.
It is possible that Trump with his boundless clinical narcissism, and (thus) his sycophants, might inadvertently see a successful outcome for Ukraine in Trump’s best interest (e.g. his repulsive campaign for a Nobel Peace Prize) and actually join the rest of Europe to support Ukraine. Again, I’m not holding my breath…but I am holding out hope that the US can hold onto free elections long enough to match Ukraine’s struggle for what we used to hold dear these past two centuries.
