If you’re anything like me (and I’ll bet you are), over the past month you’ve been feeling uneasy watching the zealots on the left and the squishes on the right unabashedly cheering for Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the events of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. After the political animosity of the last several years, something has seemed off, not quite right about pundits on the left and the right fervently cheering for the same side in anything let alone a war.
To be clear, I’m not questioning American support of the Ukrainian people. What I’m uneasy with is the blind support of the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, as if he’s some kind of democracy-loving modern-day “George Washington,” as FoxNews’ Tucker Carlson called him on a recent episode of Tucker Carlson Tonight. With just a small amount of research, it’s clear Zelenskyy is anything but a democratic leader.
In a true democracy, people are free to express any opinion at any time in public and in private. They can also speak out against their political leaders and work to remove them from office if they disapprove of the job they’re doing. The “democracy” in Ukraine is not at all free like that. Take, for example, the political parties in Ukraine, and one specifically called Opposition Platform for Life:
With 43 seats in parliament it is the largest opposition party in that country. Over the weekend the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, banned that party. Opposition Platform for Life is now prohibited from ‘all activity within Ukraine.’ So with a single command Zelenskyy made it impossible for anybody to run against him for president. He did this not just to Opposition Platform for Life but to ten other political parties that he believed were insufficiently loyal to him. They’re all illegal now.
Does that sound like the actions of a democratic leader? I think not. Were the pro-Russia political parties banned as well? Not likely. According to Carlson, there’s also “no evidence the opposition parties banned were aiding Russia in its war against Ukraine.” Zelenskyy simply took advantage of the chaos of war to get rid of his opposition and turn Ukraine into a one-party state. But did Zelenskyy stop there? Not at all.
Having banned his political opposition, Zelenskyy then seized control of all of Ukraine’s media outlets. Next, he “signed a decree that combine[d] all national television channels into a single platform” that, of course, he now completely controls. He described the seizure as a “unified information policy,” and it certainly is unified if you consider one-sided state-approved information unification. Does that sound like the actions of a democratic leader? No, not in the slightest.
This is why I’ve felt so uneasy supporting Zelenskyy as a hero of democracy. Is it heroic to stand up to Russia? Yes. Is it heroic for Zelenskyy to become the authoritarian bully he (and most of the world) accuses Vladimir Putin of being? No, it’s definitely not. So why on earth does the American left (and some on the right) so adamantly admire Zelenskyy? Do they not know he’s virtually a dictator? Do they not care that he is, or is something else in play here? The latter seems most probable.
While “it’s entirely natural to root for the Ukrainians to expel the invaders—and obviously we are rooting for them to expel Russia”—it isn’t natural to root for a dictator. We shouldn’t lie about the Ukrainian government. And the left and the MSM are definitely lying about it. Numerous political pundits like Dick Durbin (D-IL), Ben Sasse (R-NE), Michael McFaul, and David Frum have been very vocal in the MSM with their support for not just Ukraine, but Zelenskyy himself as a moral leader of democracy.
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