Last Friday, we saw some pretty interesting television in the final 15 minutes of the Volodymyr Zelenskyy press conference with President Donald, Vice President JD Vance, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. The visceral reactions, on social media, are revealing.
Trump haters are using this as a political wedge and posting “I stand with Ukraine” stickers or talking about how “embarrassed” they are to be an American. The poor souls, affected with Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS), have convinced themselves that anyone who disagrees with them must be Russian sympathizers.
Alternatively, MAGA-at-all-costs cultists are convinced that anyone who criticizes Trump on this issue isn’t a “real American”.
Let’s start here. If you haven’t watched the FULL 50-minute press conference, stop reading this and watch it here. I watched it this morning, twice. The first time I was just annoyed with Zelenskyy, but the second time I watched wondering what the Trump Administration did that produced the result we saw.I came to three possible conclusions:
1. The Trump Administration screwed up by not rehearsing the “script” with Zelenskyy before reporters came in. Clearly, they didn’t know what might happen. If that’s true, they are naive.
OR…
2. The Administration thought that Zelenskyy might try to back out of this deal for the third time and they had a contingency plan in place — Vance was the contingency plan. It looks like Vance really “blew up” (or exposed) the deal and I am wondering if it was planned to expose Zelenskyy.
OR…
3. Zelenskyy had been negotiating for unsecured loans with Europe while telling Trump he would do a mineral deal. Trump suspected that and wanted to let Zelenskyy blow up the deal on camera to expose his double dealing.
I don’t think Zelenskyy wanted the mineral deal, so he backed away three times while he shopped for a European sugar daddy. But my opinion isn’t as important as Americans’ reactions to the deal.
The media are calling what happened “unprecedented” and Democrats are parroting a talking point that Trump is either unstable or ineffective — both are forgetting that Zelenskyy really is a punk. He pushed President Biden to lose his temper and scream at him a little over two years ago. Nonetheless, politicians gotta politick so that doesn’t surprise me. What DOES surprise me is the bifurcated reaction of the American people and frankly, I am worried that our “cold civil war” is getting warmer and warmer.
When I lived back in San Diego and was much more involved in politics, I used to worry about “the 60%”. I always knew that 20% of the people agreed with everything I said and 20% would disagree with everything I said. Successful influencing then was focusing on the middle 60%.
After watching the responses from The TDS cult and The MAGA-at-all-costs cult, I realized that the polarized few were becoming the majority. In other words, there are fewer Americans to influence because both “sides” are irrevocably immovable in their positions.
Reconsider my three takes on the Trump-Zelenskyy press conference. Now insert “Kamala Harris” for Trump and rethink your positions. Mine would be:
1. Unprepared Option — I thought this might happen, but she is new and we are stuck with her for four years; she had better get her s*** together.
2. Back Out of Deal for a Third Time Option — It sucks that it ended this way but I am glad we know that Zelenskyy isn’t an honest broker.
3. Double Dealing Option — Zelenskyy is a punk who embarrassed my President.
I always thought I was part of the “60%,” but it’s clear now that the percentage of Americans who think as “Americans First” rather than “Cultists First” has shrunk to 20-30% — that’s dangerous. COVID exacerbated the divide between us by giving license to people to think of the other side as “life threatening.” We stopped thinking about Americans as “political opponents” and started thinking of them as “evil.” We call each other “fascist” without really understanding the definition of the word. We cheer for America to lose if “our choice” for President doesn’t get the credit.
For what it’s worth, I think Putin is a very clever, experienced, tool of Russian oligarchs who should not have invaded Ukraine. I understand the geopolitics which cause him to be mistrustful of American Presidents and NATO, but starting a war was a bad idea for him. He sees President Trump as someone who can get him out of a bad war.
I think Zelenskyy is a half clever, inexperienced, tool of Ukrainian oligarchs. He is being coached by people who want the war to continue rather than to stop the killing fields in his country. I don’t think he wants to end this bad war unless he has Putin’s head on a pike.
If the latter is true, and you are cheering for Trump to lose simply because you don’t like him, you just might be a cultist.
Comments 1
With a BA in political science degree, as a retired Marine Officer and currently a contractor for Navy at a school for senior officers, I’d like to opine that there are no good guys in the Ukraine/Russia conflict. Trump and his administration are correct…it’s time to end the slaughter.