Yesterday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky arrived in the US for a White House meeting with President Biden. And to address the joint houses of Congress. Ukraine has found its Churchill, and the majority of Americans applaud. Politicians and pundits spanning the political spectrum have offered accolades for Zelensky´s wartime performance. And Congress gave him a standing ovation.
But while most Americans showed a generosity of spirit, there are the small-minded, sniggering nose-pickers whose fragile egos cannot risk acknowledging greatness. As to do so would show how contemptible they are in comparison. In Congress, Lauren Boebert and Matt Gaetz refused to stand for Zelensky. Why? Who knows? MT Greene did not even bother to show up. She was not missed.
And Donald Trump Jr. provides a perfect example of how soul-shriveling weakness reacts to the bright light of achievement. After Zelensky repeatedly thanked Americans for their generosity, he asked that America keep it up. This caused the second-rate grifter to tweet that Zelensky
¨is basically an ungrateful international welfare queen.¨
That Zelensky is doing everything he can to keep his country free is lost on Trump. True patriotism is an unknown quality to this lapel-flag philosopher. Junior thinks he is being clever. But he has never received high marks for self-awareness. He once criticized Hunter Biden by accusing him of nepotism and leveraging his father to make money. Saying, "When you're the father and your son's entire career is dependent on that, they own you."
Trump is so dumb he either missed the irony or believes his current position has nothing to do with his father. I do not know which is the case — or which is worse.
Unlike Junior, Zelensky´s arrival in Washington was entirely due to his own efforts. Even before he became Ukraine’s sixth President, Volodymyr had carved out a successful career independent of his father.
He was born on January 25, 1978, in the Soviet Socialist Republic of Ukraine. His parents were Russian-speaking Jewish academics who had lost family during the Holocaust. Zelensky earned a law degree before entering the entertainment business.
However, he was most notable for his starring role in Servant of the People, in which he played the president of Ukraine. In the series, Zelensky's character was a high-school history teacher in his 30s who won the presidential election after a viral video showed him ranting against government corruption in Ukraine. It was one of television´s greatest-ever examples of fiction begetting fact.
And he did not just tackle corruption domestically. Zelensky thwarted corruption by the rulers of other countries. When Trump held up $400 million in aid to Ukraine in an attempt to blackmail him for dirt on Hunter and Joe Biden, Zelensky did not submit to the pressure. he just assured Trump that he would appoint honest people to positions of power — which did Trump no favors. And he never got his Biden dirt.
While Zelensky could have retired a successful man by his mid-40s, history had one significant card to play. The peace-time President of a country partly occupied by Russia became the wartime leader of a country invaded by Russia. The experts gave him a few days. But when the Americans offered him safe passage out of Kyiv, Zelensky replied with the legendary ¨I need ammunition, not a ride¨ — add that to the list including, ¨full speed ahead, damn the torpedos¨and ¨I have not yet begun to fight¨
Less than a month before Zelensky´s birth, on December 31, 1977, Donald J Trump Jr. was born in New York to Donald Trump Sr., a property developer trading on his father´s money and connections, and his model wife Ivana. They divorced when he was 13. And Junior´s relationship with his father has veered from fraught to obsequious ever since.
As a petulant young man, he spent a year after college living as a drunken ski-bum in Colorado before he ran out of spirit and slunk back to New York and a position under his father´s thumb in the family business. And whatever decency he possessed was ground out of him as he lacked the moral fiber to be noble or his own man.
So while a son of Ukraine realizes America´s ambition of grinding down its existential enemy without a drop of American blood being spilled — at a fraction of the cost of two pointless wars in Western Asia — an American son of a bitch throws cheap red meat at MAGA morons in a desperate attempt to feel like he counts for something.
When the Ukraine War passes into legend, Ukrainians will revere Zelensky as a national icon and the Western World will esteem him as an example of greatness. Trump Jr., on the other hand, will be remembered as just one in a long list of his father´s failures.
Straight up and to the point. Well written, and true. Thank you.