What did I miss?
If you spent the last few weeks committing to a silent retreat in the woods, I suppose you won’t be reading this post. But if you were, I would suggest you only stick to it for now. And maybe Running Point, the new Netflix sitcom that will most likely not have you think about the Middle East; or Ukraine; or Greenland. Careful, though: if you do go on Netflix, be sure to avoid Robert de Niro’s Zero Day, it’s a bummer.
The point is, unsurprisingly, the past couple of weeks were chockfull of disturbing news and events, the biggest arguably being that astoundingly cringy exchange in the Oval office between US President Donald Trump, US Vice President JD Vance and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on February 28th. As we (almost) all know, what started out as a somewhat cordial discussion with Trump and Vance intent on getting that new minerals deal with Ukraine signed, all the while having Zelenskyy kiss their feet for it, ended in a bit of a shouting match after Vance insisted on rewriting history a little too blatantly for Zelenskyy to ignore. The rest happened as expected: Trump had to act as the tough guy he presents himself to be and that deal never got signed. It might in the future, while Zelenskyy is now looking elsewhere for additional support, namely in Europe. Which, after decades of division, finally looks like it could stand behind such a worthy cause.
There are many interpretations as to what happened that day, and we will perhaps have a better understanding of the exact sequence of events once Trump staffers talk and/or related documents are made public. In the meantime, at the risk of sounding a bit like an amateur therapist, I would venture to suggest the turning point occurred with Vance’s insistance in trying to stand out in this meeting, as he has consistently endeavored to do since this presidency started, readily overshadowed not only by his boss, which is not exactly surprising, but also by said boss’ self-proclaimed tech support guy. Which has to be a source of humiliation, whether you like it or not. And so Vance decided to seize this historic opportunity to public humiliate a commended wartime president on live television, because he knew it was risk free. For him.
I may be a positive and optimistic fellow at heart, I will admit that exchange was painful to watch, mostly because I have somehow managed to retain something ancient philosophers called morals. And it took me a couple of days to make sense of such a cowardly, hazardous and reprehensible attitude coming from the heart of the supposed “free world”. It has been a couple of days and I am now ready to get back to my usual positive self, more so than before in fact:
This episode reminded me that one should never fall complacent to any given political situation. The incredibly favorable context Western democracies experienced over the past decades is just that, incredibly favorable. One should never assume luck is a given;
A major upside in this situation, as noted above, is that Europe may be looking to up its geopolitical game and consequently strengthen its alliance — United Kingdom included — in a move that has effectively been without precedent. That it took such an earthquake of an event to make it happen may be sad to some, I choose to focus on the fact that it did;
I still firmly believe that this, too, shall pass. All reasonably educated and moderate political observers know that Trump is only promoting such flawed political positions as tariffs, his immigration policy or this Ukrainian “deal” as a smokescreen to hide his real goal of cutting taxes for large corporations and wealthy individuals. He may be xenophobic, racist and/or sexist at heart, but he wouldn’t bother sharing any of that to the world if he didn’t stand to directly gain in the process. The guy’s only real job, if any, is selling property. The thing is, leading the free world requires more than that, and he will simply not be able to navigate this ocean of lies, untruths and fabrications forever. Eventually, his base will start abandoning him, realizing that he literally never helped them, and his rich supporters will come to rediscover the virtues of DEI as they start embracing their long hidden feminine side. For those who don’t end up in jail, that is.
Donald Trump knows all of this: he knows lies can only get you so far. And he is probably shocked that he reached the grand old age of 78 suffering virtually no adverse consequences. He now bets on the fact that the wind of change will come after he already has one, if not two feet in the grave. And that is entirely plausible: if he does get sued again after leaving office, the appeals system should easily take him all the way to advanced Alzheimer’s; or massive coronary complications; or both. And while he may not pay the price for any of this, what matters is that he will be gone, along with his politics.