Republicans' Monstrous Cruelty Toward President Zelensky
Republicans’ Monstrous Cruelty Toward President Zelensky
Before Trump celebrated Putin’s invasion, he tried to blackmail Ukraine into making up lies about Joe Biden.
BY RYAN COOPER, Prospect
MARCH 2, 2022
https://prospect.org/world/republicans-monstrous-cruelty-toward-president-zelensky/
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has become an international celebrity overnight on the strength of his wartime leadership. An actor who literally played the president in a goofy comedy and once played the piano on TV with an, uh, unusual body part has turned out to be equal parts master diplomat and staggeringly courageous war leader. Unlike many wartime politicians who flee at the first sign of danger, he has doggedly refused to leave Ukraine—part of a virtuoso political performance that has boosted morale within the country and helped sway the world to his side. Ukrainian expatriates are pouring back into the country to volunteer, and a five-minute video call with Zelensky reportedly tipped the balance among Western European leaders toward assisting him.
So let’s take a trip down memory lane to recall the appalling ways American conservatives have abused Zelensky and his country. Less than a week ago, Republicans were openly celebrating what they thought was going to be an easy Russian victory. And years before that, President Donald Trump tried to hold Ukrainian national security hostage in a scheme to extort Zelensky into inventing a smear story about Joe Biden. It was all unspeakably callous.
More from Ryan Cooper
Right before the invasion, Trump, as usual, heaped praise on Vladimir Putin—explicitly for conquering a foreign country. “He’s taking over a country for $2 worth of sanctions. I’d say that’s pretty smart.” Immediately after the tanks rolled, he said, “This is genius … how smart is that? Here’s a guy who’s very savvy.” Fox News host Laura Ingraham mocked Zelensky’s desperate attempts to head off an invasion: “We had kind of a really pathetic display from the Ukrainian President Zelensky, earlier today … in Russian, he was essentially imploring Vladimir Putin not to invade his country … now, we basically have the Ukrainian ambassador to the United Nations looking like a defeated man.” Tucker Carlson called Ukraine “a pure client state of the United States State Department,” and implied that there was no reason to dislike Putin, asking: “Has Putin ever called me a racist? Has he threatened to get me fired for disagreeing with him? Has he shipped every middle-class job in my town to Russia?”
What we see here is that the American conservative movement is composed of cruel bullies—like the numerous right-wing radio hosts who used to mock people who died of AIDS. Trump caught on with the Republican base in large part because he gleefully insulted out-groups like disabled folks, Mexicans, and Muslims, and got away with it. And there is nothing a bully likes more than watching a helpless victim who can’t fight back get beaten to a pulp. Conservatives love Putin not only because he has created the kind of ethnonationalist autocracy with a fake democratic facade that they want to build in the U.S., but also because he is murderously vicious toward weaker nations like Georgia, Syria, and now Ukraine.
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