Sharon Astyk on What Volodymyr Zelensky Revealed Yesterday in the Oval Office

That we fail to live up to our human commonalities, to the better angels of our nature, is tragic and usually evil. That we dehumanize others is horrifying. Because we are supposed to know better. We DO know better, and we are less than we can be when we fail to see that those universal values apply to all. Except, some people truly do not have the capacity to know better.

Yesterday, in the oval office, Zelensky, with intention, exposed not just the petty, slimy, venal failures of America, but the failure of those who lead America not just to care for humans but to comprehend universal human assumptions. Everyone around the world saw it. They saw that Americans consciously chose (I know it wasn’t all of America, but in the sad shitty ways we have to choose) people who do not understand or acknowledge the existence of these fundamentally human things.

Let’s be clear. Every American president has committed war crimes and caused inexpressible harm – no one gets through the office without mass murder, and some are worse than others. Every American president became monstrous.

It is horrifying when someone who knows what it is to love their child or their country betrays that – signals that some group or other country’s population suffering is not the same as their own, as Biden did in Gaza, as the Bushes did in Iraq, as Reagan did to AIDS victims, as Clinton did to Black people. That is when people do evil. Being a president of a country, means that you by definition have put the interests of some people ahead of others, and it enables that evil.

But recognition of universality is also how you can sometimes leverage humanity for justice. It is appalling and horrifying that one has to have a gay or disabled kid, or have someone spell out that your babies don't matter to you more than the babies being bombed or starved.

It is a different kind of horrifying when you realize that the folks running your country do not understand what it is to be human AT ALL. That fundamentally it is they who are utterly dehumanized, who lack even the most basic underlying shared assumptions, that there is nothing to leverage, because the idea that people have inherent worth or that there are things worth more than your own individual life and comfort and wealth are simply alien ravings from a different species.

Trump, Vance etc. are not making arguments about changing the structure of American and European relations and focusing on American self-interest over multilateral interest. They are not dividing humans into beloved and sacrificeable. These are terrible things to do, and they are things that humans do when they descend into evil.

Trump, Vance and Hegseth are another thing – they are showing us that they either consciously reject or, more likely, are unaware of universal human capacities and passions. You can't appeal to their love for their own children (or spouse, in Vance’s case, as he’s already praised racism against her), or call upon the things they would sacrifice for, even if they are not the same things that Zelensky values, to provide a commonality, a shared acknowledgement of humanity.

On some level, of course, this isn’t a shock. We knew that fascism depends on a fundamental dehumanizing of almost everyone, we knew that Donald Trump has more in common with Lord Farquard than people who were prepared to die for their principles or their nation.

But what Zelensky did yesterday was make something fully public that we’ve heard said, but not seen in the same way – the fact that while their vices are fully human and on full display, there is no human ground on which to build an appeal to.

– Sharon Astyk
Excerpted from “Trump, Vance and Zelensky:
What The Hell Happened and How We Got Here”
Ko-Fi.com
March 1, 2025

Related Off-site Links:
Diplomacy Dies on Live TV as Trump and Vance Gang Up to Bully Ukraine Leader – David Smith (The Guardian, March 1, 2025).
“Thuggery From Trump and Vance”: World Reacts to Oval Office Meltdown With Zelenskyy – Jessica Corbett (Common Dreams, February 28, 2025).
Zelenskyy Leaves White House Without Signing Minerals Deal After Oval Office Blowup – Will Weissert, Zeke Miller and Aamer Madhani (AP News, February 28, 2025).
Some Hard Truths About the Trump-Zelenskyy-Vance Blow-Up – Anatol Lieven and George Beebe (Responsible Statecraft, February 28, 2025).
Zelenskyy Embraced by British Prime Minister a Day After White House Blowout – Brian Melley (AP News, March 1, 2025).
15 Rumors We’ve Fact-checked About Zelensky – Izz Scott LaMagdeleine (Snopes, March 1, 2025).

UPDATES: United Kingdom’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer Says Europe Is at “Crossroads in History” as Leaders Agree to Steps to Ukraine Peace – Brian Melley and Emma Burrows (AP News, March 2, 2025).
Lech Wałęsa Condemns Trump Treatment of Zelensky, Likening It to Communist Interrogation – Notes From Poland (March 3, 2025).

For more Wild Reed coverage of the crisis in Ukraine, see the following chronologically-orderd posts:
• A “Post-Cold War Train Wreck Long In the Making”
• Yanis Varoufakis: Quote of the Day – February 24, 2022
• A Prayer for Ukraine
• Jeff Cohen: Quote of the Day – February 28, 2022
• Something to Think About – March 4, 2022
• William Hartung: Quote of the Day – May 24, 2022
• Phyllis Bennis On the Need For a Ceasefire in Ukraine
• “Our Anti-Imperialism Must Be Consistent”
• Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies: Quote of the Day – December 28, 2022
• Reed Brody: Quote of the Day – February 6, 2023
• Three Progressive Voices on the War in Ukraine

See also:
• It’s Not Just Trump: Ralph Nader on the “Lawlessness” of Other U.S. Presidents