Quid De Cogitatione?
Glenn Rose
The outcome of the Feb. 28 White House meeting between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy, president of a beleaguered Ukraine resisting a three-year-old invasion by Vladimir Putin’s Russia, was no surprise to me.
A friend of mine was very optimistic about that meeting, which was highlighted as featuring the signing of the “Ukraine-United States Mineral Resources Agreement.” Trump had insisted on a resource agreement as a condition of continued aid for Ukraine. This would seal continued U.S. support.
I was skeptical. Trump has a history of always angling for the best deal for himself. He has demonstrated a cozy relationship with Putin. I was doubtful that Trump would do anything that might displease Putin. I even mused that I wouldn’t be surprised if Trump lured Zelenskyy to the United States so that he could arrest Zelenskyy and extradite him to Russia.
Trump’s greeting, a crack about Zelenskyy’s casual dress, was a prelude to the bullying choreographed to put him on the defensive.
(Zelenskyy patriotically chooses to wear tee-shirts and sweaters manufactured in Ukraine that are emblazoned with the Ukrainian trident.)
A reporter from one of Trump’s sycophantic “news” networks took Trump’s remark as the cue to ridicule Zelenskyy’s choice of dress.
Would Trump insult the head of state from an Arab country for wearing flowing robes to a White House meeting and then allow a member of the press to do so, too?
Suppose the Pope met Trump for a summit? His garb is certainly not a suit and tie!
This meeting was not about any deal over minerals. Zelenskyy was lured into to this meeting to be badgered into creating a pretext for scuttling an agreement Trump had no intention of signing. It would give him an excuse to end any support to Ukraine.
The game plan was for the Vance-Trump pair to tag-team Zelenskyy and give him no opportunity to rebut the assault.
Zelenskyy had resisted Trump’s solicitation for dirt on the Biden family during Trump’s first administration. Trump never lets a rebuff, defeat, or perceived insult go unpunished.
American diplomacy is now dominated by baiting and bullying friends and allies.
Some will say “politics is a mean and dirty business.”
No, it’s not! Politics only becomes mean and dirty when “politicians” are mean and dirty.
When a politician works only for his or her gain – whether lust for money, power, or fame – the effort becomes, not the needs of the country and the people, but the desires of the person at the helm and the henchmen who work to sustain that “politician” in power.
Our founders recognized the dangers of rule-by-one and gave this country and its citizens the protection of rule-by-law. They invented a government that balanced power between three equal branches, legislative, executive, and judicial.
We now have a man in the most powerful position in the world – economically, morally, and militarily – ruling by personal whim and prejudice. Even now he is wreaking his revenge on law enforcement personnel who investigated him, health experts who contradicted him, and any person who dares to disagree with him.
Equally dangerous: He now ignores judges who rule against him.
Judges are the first line of defense for “rule-of-law.” Without their independence there will be no checks on the corruptible.
Because of the chaos in 1933 Germany (much of it caused by Adolph Hitler’s brown shirts) the Enabling Act was passed by the Reichstag to give Chancellor Hitler unfettered power to do whatever he wished with no checks and balances.
Trump is not waiting for such an act by our Congress, although there is certainly a large number of his toadies there willing to do so.
The demise of liberty in any country is the implementation of rule-by-one.
We are already experiencing the fruits of Trump’s abandonment of Ukraine and the high ground our country has held for over a century as the defender of freedom and the unselfish source of humanitarian assistance.
This abandonment of striving for reconciliation and doing the right thing has come to our community with the Virginia Military Institute board of visitors refusing to keep Major General Cedric Wins as superintendent at the Institute. Offering no legitimate reason for this action creates the image of reverse D.E.I. “If you’re in a position of power and not Caucasian, you got there by nefarious means and don’t deserve it.”
We can’t retake that high ground by reasoning that “God places everyone in their positions of authority,” requiring us to accept all the rulings that these “surrogates” make. That is blasphemy when one remembers many of those in “positions of authority” during the last century, Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Jim Jones, Idi Amin, to name a few. To blame them on God maligns the image of a wise and loving being.
Donald Trump, by his own boastings and court records, has a failing score of 60% on keeping the 10 Commandments, only 50% if taking the Lord’s name in vain includes putting one’s hand on a bible and pledging, “I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States” and then ignoring, subverting, and attacking that Constitution.
Some people should take a look at the First Commandment. Sounds like they may be worshipping some other god.
