In a recent Kyiv Post opinion piece, Maya Sobchuk attempted to review “Ukrainian voting habits” and then offer her “commentary on how those habits are terribly outdated.”
She may have bitten off a bit more than a short piece in the Kyiv Post could accommodate, but is to be credited for the effort. Sweeping statements and dubious conclusions are both the privilege and the domain of the young. In view of her self-description as “a young person that believes only in drastic systemic upheaval….” she is entitled to that privilege as well as a repartee.
Let me state at the outset that, although I consider myself a conservative Republican, I have no intention of being an apologist for Donald Trump. My preference – among all the politicians currently in or out of office – is Mitt Romney, though our choice (unfortunately) comes down to two flawed candidates. Let me also state that there is much in Maya’s op-ed on which we can agree.
As regards “Ukrainian voting habits” it’s interesting that Maya harks back to Woodrow Wilson to prove that Ukrainians voted Democrat at the time because (allegedly) Wilson’s party “voiced support for the liberation of Central and East European states.” Anyone with any knowledge of Ukraine’s independence movement of the Wilson era would know that the U.S. — unlike 17 other nations — refused to extend diplomatic recognition to Ukraine. In fact, a 2014 Bloomberg News article in the Denver Post () even faulted Wilson with Ukraine’s Crimean crisis because he was “committed to ‘self-determination’ for other parts of Eastern Europe, while keeping Ukraine tied to Moscow in the hope that a rebuilt Russian empire would reverse the Bolshevik takeover.” So there you have it … Ukraine’s first taste, 100 years ago, of the Democrat party’s and Wilson’s so-called “Progressive Movement.”
Ukraine’s second taste of progressivism was 15 years later when millions of Ukraine’s dead and dying were lying in the fields while Frankin Delano Roosevelt, that great patriarch of Democrat Party liberalism and progressivism, toasted “good uncle Joe” with the valuable imprimatur of U.S. diplomatic recognition. Eleven years later, at Yalta, FDR turned over Eastern and Central Europe to the “good uncle” while, two years after that, tens of thousands of Ukrainian men, women, and children were “repatriated,” with the help of American and British troops, to Stalin’s gulags, under another Democrat, Harry Truman.
After Truman, the Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower, as you correctly noted, established a Captive Nation’s Week – the very first time in a half-century of Democratic Party indifference, acquiescence, and/or complicity in the horrors inflicted on Ukraine. Ukraine was identified as an oppressed nation “until such time as freedom and independence shall have been achieved ……” It was under a Republican – not Democratic – administration that America came to see Ukraine’s plight.
What is remarkable, Maya, is that you then doted on a foolish comment (per your words: “a problematic moment” in a debate) by the relatively obscure and unelected Republican President Gerald Ford, but failed to even mention Ronald Reagan, the one historic, and transformative world leader who had the greatest impact on Ukraine’s freedom and destiny. As Ukraine’s liberator, he brought the Soviet empire to its knees without firing a shot. He, too, was a Republican who not only won the Ukrainian American vote, but carried 49 of the 50 states. Was this missing piece of history an oversight?
This brings us to the closing decade of the 20th century and the first two decades of the 21st century – your generation and its search for “drastic systemic upheaval” of the old and its replacement with the currently fashionable but century-old neo-progressivism of the Democrat party. Let us consider whether Ukrainian support for the Republican party is now “outdated”.
After Reagan there was the Republican George H.W Bush Sr. who very quickly solidified Ukraine’s independence in the diplomatic arena by extending U.S. diplomatic recognition to the infant state and appointing a Ukrainian American as the nation’s first ambassador. Then there was Bill Clinton, a scoundrel, who pressured Ukraine, under threat of diplomatic isolation and economic embargo, to surrender its primary deterrent against Russian aggression in exchange for an unenforceable 1994 Budapest Memorandum “affirming” U.S. support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. Some have referred to it as a “scam” perpetrated by a Democratic president.
After Clinton there was George W. Bush who placed his presidential reputation on the line in an unsuccessful effort to bring Ukraine into NATO, but did succeed in getting a commitment from America’s NATO allies for Ukraine’s future admission.
And, finally, the last Democratic president, Barrack Obama. We both agree that he was a wimp. But, even more than a wimp, he was deceptive and unscrupulous. One of his first acts as a senator was to visit Ukraine and persuade President Viktor Yushchenko to destroy much of Ukraine’s remaining stockpile of conventional weapons because – after all – Clinton’s scam provided Ukraine with all the security it needed. Then, as president, he persuaded President Viktor Yanukovych to terminate Ukraine’s remaining capability for nuclear research and fission because – after all – he, Obama, would honor Clinton’s scam. But when that moment came and thousands of people were killed and hundreds of thousands displaced, Obama sent Ukraine blankets, World War II surplus food packets, ambulances, and Joe Biden.
So there you have it, Maya.
You opined that Ukrainian support for the Republican Party was “outdated” and hypocritical. We drew two direct lines for each party– no zigs and no zags – going back to your starting point with Woodrow Wilson and ending with the Obama administration. We have shown how, in each and every instance, Democratic administrations were, at best, indifferent and untrustworthy, and, at worst, complicit in Ukraine’s repression and suffering. Republican administrations, on the other hand, have been Ukraine’s liberators and protectors.
As regards Trump and Joe Biden, I hope that the Kyiv Post will allow me to address the remainder of your concerns after the conventions. It is only fair to give both candidates the opportunity for their best shots before evaluating them. However, based on the information at hand, and after filtering out the rhetoric from the substance, I don’t think Trump disappoints both in his support for Ukraine and his pushback to Vladimir Putin.
