There has been no shortage of moments in the last few weeks that have made me cringe. Watching an American president let an unelected broligarch in a t-shirt raid the executive branch with a laptop and a cadre of twinks was one thing. Talk of shuttering the Education Department another. I turned the TV off when he announced his desire to turn the Gaza Strip into Vegas. “The man is fucking nuts,” is what I said to my partner as I tossed the remote.
We all have our own lists. We all have our own moments that make us want to scream. In general, though, I have actively stepped away from the noise. When pushed, I come down on the side of the process: even though I don’t think he should have been even given the chance to run, he was elected by the American people. I had a vote. I cast it. So did everyone else. The electoral college is mind-boggling, but the popular vote was clear. Now, it wasn’t as close a contest as the myth-making will tell us and future generations, but he did win.
I come from a family of Trump supporters. We have spent the last ten years debating, yelling, laughing, drinking — mostly around Sunday dinner. I am used to being the only liberal at the table. I railed against the Iraq War. I argued forcefully for gay marriage. I pushed for gun control in the face of unspeakable acts of homeland terror. Then, of course, I ate humble pie when my hero Obama’s drone strikes killed civilians in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia. I wasn’t unfamiliar with defending the left when Trump descended the escalator, nor with conceding when I needed to.
But these years have tested me and my family — all of ours — in ways that have been heartbreaking. I’ve gotten burned. So I generally try to be unexpectedly reasonable when I engage now. This journey is long and has stages. At this point, finding solutions to the nation’s most pressing problems is where I usually head in a head-to-head with relatives or strangers. What is the solution? I don’t give a shit anymore which team you’re on. How do we fix it?
My line this week, though, is the president’s call with Putin — further, his inability to understand, or even say, that Ukraine is integral to peace talks. Why on Earth is the school principal yuckin’ it up with the bully without even calling into his office the kid who got the black eye? It’s ridiculous to even have to type it: Um, Zelensky and his nation are rather key players here. The facts are the facts. Ukraine is and was a sovereign nation. Russia invaded.
We are the United States of America. We cannot, under any circumstances, simply accept what Secretary Pete Kegseth said on Wednesday: “We must start by recognizing that returning to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders is an unrealistic objective.” Huh? That’s where we’re starting? That’s how the US is opening the conversation? What are you talking about? What do you think Russia and Ukraine have been fighting over? This has been a border dispute since its inception.
Ukraine’s sovereignty is not a matter of opinion. In 1991, Ukraine declared independence from the USSR, after 90% of Ukrainians voted in favor of the split in a national referendum. As a result, Ukraine inherited its Soviet-era borders, which became its internationally recognized borders. In 1994, Ukraine agreed to give up its nuclear weapons in exchange for security assurances from Russia, the US, and the UK. The Budapest Memorandum affirmed Ukraine’s territorial integrity. Then in 1997, in a treaty with Russia called the Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation, and Partnership, Russia recognized Ukraine’s borders, including Crimea as part of Ukraine.
To side with Putin — to even invite him to the table before Zelensky sits at it — is an act of betrayal. It’s abhorrent. We have not only betrayed Zelensky and the people of Ukraine (upwards of 50,000 of whom have already died), but we have betrayed our own people. Because even if this administration wants to make policy of its own and do things differently post-Biden, the events of this week are at their very core un-American. We do not acquiesce to the aggressor. We stand for independence, freedom, democracy, and international world order — a world order that we have dominated since 1946. We stand with our allies and with our shared values. We are the embodiment of the independent state.
So, fine if you want our NATO allies to pay their invoices. Fine if you want to step in and play the hero. Or want to take mineral rights. Fine if you even want to somehow warm relations with a longtime enemy. But you do not cave on supporting a state’s sovereignty in the face of violent aggression.
Look, I will leave the international chess game to experts. My opinion is that of a citizen watching this debacle unfold in real time. All the president’s men can bend themselves into pretzels to rationalize the constant nonsense. They can smugly smirk as he floods the zone. They can twist the truth daily as they stress-test our constitution. They have and they will continue to do so. But this, for me, is a bridge too far. On Ukraine, the Trump administration speaks in my name and in yours, even if I did not vote for him. As the right loves to throw back to the left, “He is your president, no matter what.”
He is. That’s why it is so deeply disturbing that he would betray Ukraine. And the values we hold dear as Americans.
Julio Vincent Gambuto is the author of Please Unsubscribe, Thanks! —the “Pick of the Month” from Barnes & Noble this past August. From Avid Reader Press at Simon & Schuster, the book is now available in the U.S. and the U.K. in hardcover, e-book and audiobook. It was nominated in 2024 up against Michelle Obama, Sheryl Lee Ralph, and Mehdi Hasan for an Audie Award for Best Business/Personal Development Audiobook, from the Audio Publishers Association. New York Times bestselling author and modern sage Oliver Burkeman calls the book, “Simultaneously hilarious and deadly serious.” n Medium, JVG is the author of the essay, Prepare for the Ultimate Gaslighting, which started a worldwide conversation, circling the globe to 21 million readers in 98 countries. He lives in New York City. Learn more at www.juliovincent.com.