Fcuk what an Orange week…

If you are Ukrainian, pro-Ukrainian or just pro-democracy or even just pro-thinking, this week was as bad as they come.

BY MICHAEL ANDERSEN

As Winston Churchill once remarked “The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.” (I don’t even think that he specifically was referring to American voters 😉)

(And yes yes – my dear U.S. Democrat friends – I know that not all Americans voted for The Big Orange One; but it is a fact that 77 million did. That is a lot of ….)

Churchill could be excused for being annoyed with the British voters, seeing as they voted him out of office as soon as it was clear that the Allies had won the war in Europe (July 1945), no gratefulness there.

It looks like the same thing will happen in Ukraine soon: President Volodymyr Zelensky has been absolutely pivotal for Ukraine’s survival and cohesion in the face of the Russian invasion; who can forget Zelensky’s Churchill-like answer to the U.S. offer of extracting him to safety during the first days of the invasion when it looked like Kyiv was about to fall to the Russians - “I need ammo not a ride”?

Nevertheless, the U.S. President and the Russian dictator are now in ugly unison pressuring Zelensky to stage elections – which he almost certainly will lose by a landslide, all polls agree. Despite the fact that a significant majority of Ukrainians are convinced that it is better to let Zelensky lead the country till peace has been achieved. An amazing maturity in a population fighting for its survival.

This week it has - for real, as the young say - been made clear that the U.S. and Europe are different; Trump takes the side of the Russian invader, while we Europeans actually think that invading your neighbor is not on.

But if we differ in content from Trump, Musk, the Trumpists and Muskrats, on style the contrast is as striking; Trump describes Putin as “a genius” for invading Ukraine, a “cool dude”, Zelensky as “no angle” and there was, of course, the “drill, baby, drill” in his Inauguration speech. To most Europeans, the vocabulary of the U.S. President seems like half John Wayne half 5-year-old boy.

Churchill also had something to say about that:

"The British and Americans are two peoples separated by a common language."

But, why should Americans care about European security? Maybe it is time for a radical re-evaluation? If you were a taxpayer in Texas why should you pay more for the security of Europe than most Europeans do themselves? Will the second coming of the Trump man that we Europeans finally wake up and take responsibility for our own security? We are looking at that in the coming weeks.

There is, of course, an argument – somewhat more complicated, dependent on people actually knowing world history and that kind of ‘stuff’ – that says that security for the U.S. (even Texas!) is directly tied to the security of Europe. It is this line of thinking that has kept the U.S. invested in European security since the Second World War. But if the average Texan can be persuaded to vote for Donald Trump, I fear that such a line of argument would be stretching his attention span.

This past week, we published a few very critical pieces. But - I do want to stress - constructed in this terribly old-fashioned way, you know, with facts and data. As Patrick Moynihan, an American scholar and giant Democratic politician, said:

“You are entitled to your own opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts.”

I have a pretty good idea what Moynihan would think of the Donald, Elon and Vlad show.

Getting silly-upset as I watched Trump celebrate the Russian dictator, I penned a piece comparing Putin to a rapist attacking Ukraine, with Trump as the corrupt police man condoning the Russian invasion. I was grateful, even moved, that many Ukrainians (men and women) wrote to me that the ugly rape analogy was well-chosen: “That is exactly how it feels,“ wrote Lera, an IT teacher from Sumy in Ukraine who recently lot her neighbor (and flat) to a Russian bomb that killed 11 people, “we are being raped, everybody knows the Russian guy that did it, but nobody cares.”

Of course, these days you also receive ‘responses’ like this one:

Every day I promise myself to learn to ignore such fools. Well, starting from tomorrow…. 😉

In any case, maybe it is good and necessary to get thee small daily irritants and reminders about the power manipulation has in our politics and thus our world.

As Hanna Arendt said:

"This constant lying is not aimed at making the people believe a lie, but at ensuring that no one believes anything anymore. A people that can no longer distinguish between truth and lies cannot distinguish between right and wrong. And such a people, deprived of the power to think and judge, is, without knowing and willing it, completely subjected to the rule of lies. With such a people, you can do whatever you want."

Somehow 😉 I doubt that Belarus’ forever-dictator Alekander Lukashenko has read much Arendt, but he certainly does his best to kill off the Belarusians’ ability to distinguish between truth and lies. Professor David Marples analysed Luka’s recent mock elections for us. In his piece, Marples also looked at the tough tough work of the opposition.

After this horrific week, let’s end on a note that is only half-sour - I did a wonderful interview with Nia Gladenkaya, a young, strong, clever and unbelievably principled and courageous Belarusian who left behind a solid job in corporate law to go fight in Ukraine for freedom (and for Belarus) .

With the saddest words, Nia - a Belarusian in the Ukrainian army - summed up this horrible, Orange week:

“Ukrainians still believe the world cares. Despite the fatigue, despite the shifting headlines, they still believe help is coming. That those who stood with them in 2022 will not abandon them in 2025. And I try to hope they are right. Because if the world lets Ukraine fall, it will not just be a betrayal: it will be a prelude to something far worse. Ukraine still believes in you. The question is: do you still believe in Ukraine?”

Well, I am sure that next week will be better ….