Pearls of Wisdom? - More of the Same! by Askold S. Lozynskyj

A friend of mine from Canada alerted me to yet another display of egregious ignorance by a Republican elected official, this time, as high as a Senator.

His name is Tom Tuberville and this is what he said: “He (Putin) didn’t want Ukraine. He didn’t want Europe. Hell, he’s got enough land of his own. He just wants to make sure he does not have US weapons in Ukraine.”

And so I replied casually, perhaps jokingly, to my friend, “Hey, he is a football coach, probably has been hit in the head many times without a helmet.

“Frankly, elected officials at the Senate level should be required to take an IQ test before being permitted to run for such a high office.”

One of the Republican party’s senior representatives Senator Lindsey Graham attempted damage control, by suggesting that the position of the Senator from Alabama was an outlier within the Party.

I suspect that rational people in America and the world remember the Helsinki press conference in the Summer of 2018 with then President Donald J. Trump and President Vladimir Putin at the podiums.

President Trump was asked about Russian interference in the U.S. 2016 elections, asserted unequivocally that he asked Putin whether this was true, Putin denied it, and then Trump’s acquiesced, “I do not see why that is not so.”

Senator Tuberville is a creation of Donald Trump. He may be an embarrassment, but this is the Republican Party today.

Still, this is only part of the problem. The “extreme right” as often referred to in today’s political jargon is a danger not only within the United States, but in Europe as well.

The common denominator is often migration and at the very least appeasement towards Russia and Putin and in many instances an affinity. Why is that? Thugs support each other.

Adolf Hitler supported Mussolini and Franco and vice versa. Frankly, Stalin and Hitler were allies in 1939 pursuant to the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. Had the Germans not betrayed the Soviets who knows how long the alliance would have lasted before Hitler precipitated his own demise.

Donald Trump is in that same category. He is an narcissistic autocrat by training, in this case as a businessman and television celebrity. He has no political or intellectual skills. And yes, global domination is a regional concept so the autocracy of others abroad can be accepted. Trump does not wish to rule the world. He does not even know it.

Recently I wrote an article on a similar theme and sent it by email to almost one thousand addresses. Inadvertently, I exposed the emails of my addressees. There was an immediate reaction not to what I had written, but to the exposure of email addresses. I soon realized that the reason for the volcanic disapproval by some was that I had exposed them as Trump supporters. I call them Trumsheviks in the vein of Bolsheviks.

I ended the brouhaha by apologizing without remorse, and suggesting that each individual and, in particular, those who were apoplectic about my denouement, take some time to make of list of what they had done for Ukraine, particularly, over the last two war years. Not surprisingly, that concluded the uproar.

Ukraine and Ukrainians are today in great peril. The war has turned a bit recently and it appears that the city of Kharkiv is safe, America is delivering as promised and so is Europe. Ukraine is making incredible strikes even on Russian territory. However, a long term war, which, this one undoubtedly will prove to be, like anything else of some duration has its ebbs and flows. Long term, Ukraine can overcome the Putins and the Russians for the moment, but it cannot survive a betrayal or lack of support of the West or that of its own diaspora.

Tommy Tuberville may be an Alabama football coach, something less than a rocket scientist, but there is not excuse for many members of the Ukrainian diaspora. My admonishment and simultaneous opprobrium rests on the fact that these Ukrainian trumpsheviks are stubborn in their allegiances.

The Republicans today are like Tommy Tuberville and not like Abraham Lincoln, Dwight D. Eisenhower or Ronald Reagan, who decried isolationism in his speech forty years ago in Normandy on D-day. I have to say, wake up.

Finally, I should like to address the bulk of the Ukrainian diaspora community which traditionally sits on the fence, attends often cultural events or even political discussions, which serve to feed a feeling of being involved.

Every person in the diaspora has a role to play. No role consists of verbal support. Tangible support is mandatory.

We are all very fortunate, by the grace of God, to live at a time when we matter.