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World saving Ukraine
President Volodymyr Zelensky desperately pleaded with Congress for continued U.S. aid to assist Ukraine in its third year battling to survive Russia’s military invasion the world feared would destroy Ukrainian democracy within weeks.
Instead of honoring Ukraine for its successful resistance and all the horrors it has endured, congressional Republicans sent Zelensky away with nothing but cruel insults telling him their political opposition to aiding Ukraine was none of his business.
“‘Here’s the problem, it’s got nothing to do with you,’” South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham said he personally told Zelensky. “I said ‘You’ve done everything anybody could possibly ask of you.’”
Border Shutdown Trumps Ukraine
Graham said Republicans oppose U.S. aid for Ukraine to bargain on what they now consider a far more important issue—hutting down the Mexican border to stop the flow of nonwhite immigrants and refugees into their own country.
Both issues—ending U.S. aid for Ukraine and the racist closing of the border—reflect the unholy alliance of Donald Trump, MAGA Republicans and Vladimir Putin to destroy U.S. democracy’s traditional values of equal rights and free and fair elections.
It was obscene to tell Zelensky whose country has suffered hundreds of thousands of casualties dead or wounded from a steady rain of missiles in Putin’s war on European democracy, thanks a lot, but Republicans have moved on. Abolishing military and humanitarian aid for your country has nothing to do with you.
It's an election year and Republicans are more concerned about electing Trump to close down their own democracy. They’re busy telling voters Trump’s lies about lawless caravans of invaders from South America coming to rape and murder them.
Warning to the World
Zelensky had a much more realistic warning for Americans. “When the free world hesitates, that’s when dictators celebrate,” he said. “If there’s anyone inspired by unresolved issues on Capitol Hill, it is just Putin and his sick clique.”
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No one has to tell Zelensky that Trump is the grand dragon of Putin’s sick clique in America. Trump’s first impeachment was for withholding $400 million in U.S. military aid to protect Ukraine from Russia in 2019. Trump tried to extort Zelensky into announcing a phony Ukrainian criminal investigation into Biden to politically sabotage his 2020 campaign against Trump.
When Zelensky refused to lie for Trump, he was added to Trump’s voluminous enemies list. Trump’s hatred of Zelensky multiplied exponentially a year ago when both Republicans and Democrats hailed Zelensky as democracy’s hero the last time he visited Washington. Zelensky’s speech to a joint session of Congress was interrupted 18 times with standing ovations and enthusiastic cheers.
The day after Zelensky’s speech, 18 Republican Senators joined all 50 Democrats in passing Biden’s budget priorities for 2023 including $45 billion in military and humanitarian aid for Ukraine.
Trump has now succeeded in killing that bipartisan support for democracy in Ukraine. His hard-core supporters have given him such a commanding lead to win the Republican nomination few other elected Republicans dare to speak up anymore in support of democracy in either America or Ukraine.
Destroy Democracy?
Trump has made destruction of American democracy into a big joke drawing laughs from the same crowds who have always led funny chants about locking up all of Trump’s political opponents. He’s ready to do it now.
Trump’s crowds hate the same things about democracy that Trump does—that Democrats keep winning elections to restore women’s rights to control their own bodies and lives and that votes by Black and Brown people in bad neighborhoods count just the same as votes by White people in nice neighborhoods.
Trump no longer hides his admiration for Putin’s refusal to be controlled by wimpy democratic values or the rule of law. Over the weekend in a campaign rally in Durham, New Hampshire, Trump proudly cited Putin’s attack on the U.S. prosecution of Trump for violently attempting to overthrow Biden’s election: “It shows the rottenness of the American political system, which cannot pretend to teach others about democracy,” Trump said, quoting Putin. No, it shows just the opposite. It shows democracy is working.
In the same speech, Trump said of the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and hundreds of other supporters who were jailed for violently attacking Congress on January 6 to try to prevent it from certifying Biden’s election: “I don’t call them prisoners, I call them hostages.”
In a vicious post on his Truth Social hate site, Trump reposted an internet attack calling for all those imprisoned for the violent January 6 insurrection to be freed and the Capitol Police who fought them to be incarcerated.
American democracy isn’t a rotten political system no matter what Trump and Putin say. The most shocking part about Trump planning to shut down his criminal prosecution for trying to overthrow democracy if he’s elected is Republicans know he will do it.
The only Americans who can stop it are those who support democracy.
