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People are often wrong about fundamental things. Here is one that matters, which I offer up for your consideration.
Karl Marx famously proclaimed – in espousing communism – that the inexorable forces of history render individuals irrelevant. Which they plainly are not.
George Washington did not create our Republic. But he personally constructed many of its key foundations. Abraham Lincoln did not hold the United States together by himself. Yet without him, the trajectory of the world changes. Winston Churchill did not save western civilization on his own. Yet were he not Britain’s Prime Minister, western civilization would almost certainly have fallen a mere 85 years ago. That is, within the living memory of some of our fellow citizens.
Vladimir Putin is another pivotal individual who has personally and profoundly impacted our present and – in yet unknowable ways – our future. Previously an unremarkable KGB operative, Putin, in the right place at the wrong time, was handed power by another pivotal figure – Boris Yeltsin. Who, as president of the Russian Federation during its first critical years, was an active alcoholic.
Mr. Putin claims that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is to liberate territory from fascism (allegedly personified by Volodymyr Zelensky – a Jewish “Nazi”) and save it from western expansionism. All of which is deliberate nonsense.
A more accurate assessment of Mr. Putin’s war is provided by the Oxford Dictionary. It defines “genocide” as “the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group.” To which I would add “regardless of what they do. For genocide has no causal element. The offense is merely existing.” Mr. Putin has repeatedly asserted that the nation of Ukraine simply does not exist, except as an obstacle to reconstituting Czarist Russia.
Mr. Trump unashamedly supports Putin even as Putin’s political enemies fall down stairs, are poisoned, and shot out of the sky. While president, Trump explicitly endorsed Putin’s veracity over those of our own intelligence services. He later praised Putin as a genius for invading Ukraine and, hundreds of thousands deaths later, has invited Putin to invade other countries that are not paying their way under NATO.
What makes Trump a man who is changing the world is not his base stupidity, intellectual laziness, moral emptiness, unmistakable mental deterioration, and obvious physical collapse (as a very flabby, increasingly haggard, near octogenarian). Rather, it is his destruction of America’s two-party system and, through it, our ability to function as a nation on the world stage.
Because with no actual Republican party, all that is left are the Democrats, who – on the merits – are deservedly considered out of step by a majority of Americans on a majority of issues. Worse, a deeply dysfunctional Congress has allowed Trump to singlehandedly hasten the deaths of many real people; that is, Ukrainian fathers, husbands, mothers, and wives, who are being denied the ammunition they need to stay alive. Worse still, Trump is doing so for the basest of reasons. It is not about policy. If brought to a vote, Ukrainian aid is widely supported in Congress across the aisle. It is about sowing chaos, which is Trump’s best hope for re-election.
Of course, Trump is not doing this alone. He has the help of the stupid (like Van Drew, who can at least rest on his low intellect as an excuse) and the spineless (like Kean, Jr., whose cowardice is inexcusable). That is, Trump is once again being enabled by a decided segment of Republican members of Congress.
With what outcome? As Anne Applebaum recently observed, this degree of malfeasance is already now stripping the United States in real time of its greatest competitive advantage; the alliances that keep us relatively safer and our economy pre-eminent.
Trump is creating (and actively working towards) a world in which our word is empty, our economy will falter, and our enemies (China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea) will kill many more people much more often. In the incredibly dangerous nuclear tinder box that we live in but understandably prefer not to think about, Trump may well be pointing us towards Armageddon. Because – you understand – Trump is a “winner,” and he wants to win this November.
How is that working for us now? How will that work for our children in the very near future?
This article began with the observation that Marx was wrong. Our lives are actually not determined by the immutable forces of history. They are determined by individuals, which includes us. Individually.
We cannot fix this overnight. But here is a place to start. Let’s try to save some lives. Contact your members of Congress and tell them to provide Ukraine with the aid package that is being shamefully obstructed. Surely, we can do that much. And we can do it today.
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