The U.S. president’s treatment of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Feb. 28 was appalling. After three years of courageously leading the Ukrainian people through a brutal war against Putin’s neo-imperial Russia, Zelensky endured an outrageous lecture on the importance of peace from a president who openly favors the Kremlin. The “leader of the free world” raised his voice at Zelensky and chastised him for “hating” Putin after the Russian despot invaded Ukraine in a war that has killed over 100,000 Ukrainians.

Trump’s concessions to tyranny recall Munich 1938. “I think he’ll keep his word,” said the U.S. president of the murderous Russian dictator. Yevgeny Prigozhin, former Wagner group leader, would surely agree if he hadn’t died in a mysterious 2023 plane crash. Putin – like Hitler before him – views diplomacy as a one-way street. He will violate any agreement lacking ironclad U.S. security guarantees of remaining Ukrainian territory. Yet Trump and JD Vance demeaned Zelensky for raising this objection, much to Moscow’s delight. “The insolent pig finally got a proper slap down in the Oval Office,” cackled Putin henchman Medvedev from Musk’s X-hellscape.

Trump’s bullying, similar in style to Hitler’s March 1939 intimidation of Czechoslovak President Emil Hácha, emboldens our adversaries. It suggests that the cause of human freedom is for sale. It isn’t. Stand with Ukraine. Confront Russian fascism. Challenge Trump’s falsehoods. And hold sacred the revolutionary maxim of our founders: “Disobedience to tyranny is loyalty to God.”

Brandon Gauthier

Concord