When the nation and the world witness the sort of crude spectacle that was broadcast from the Oval Office last Friday, it should not be surprising that many Americans are embarrassed and upset at the behavior of the men holding the two highest offices in the land. This clearly premeditated verbal assault by President Trump and Vice President JD Vance on the president of Ukraine, suggesting that somehow a nation attacked by Russia may be guilty of gambling with causing World War III, was bound to unleash a reaction among Americans who want their nation to stand for democratic principles and the defense of freedom.
The number of Ukrainian soldiers killed in action in the Russian invasion is approaching 50,000, with far higher numbers of injured and thousands of civilian deaths adding to the toll. Zelenskyy is far more aware of the dire implications than Trump, who began at one point to discuss how many “cards” Ukraine had to play, as if it were a game, only to shout him down when Zelenskyy objected that “we are not playing cards,” that this is serious. There had already been some distracting nonsense about why Zelenskyy was not wearing a suit and tie during a visit to the White House. His chosen garb is very symbolic: It tells his people that he is a president with his sleeves rolled up in an all-hands-on-deck situation. Zelenskyy should not be expected to whisper his concerns in the midst of a five-alarm fire.
It did not take long for resistance by American citizens to materialize. I don’t know yet exactly how many protests have occurred in response to this unprecedented ambush of a heroic foreign leader, but they seem to have happened at least in New York, Boston, and Los Angeles this past weekend, along with protesters lining the streets in Vermont to send a message to the visiting Vance family as they headed for a ski resort. The protest “welcome” seems to have sent the family to an “undisclosed location” instead.
Add Chicago to that list. Living just a mile away from the Ukrainian Village neighborhood, a hotbed of support for Ukraine, I expected as much and have met many of the people. On Sunday afternoon, March 2, my wife and I took the Blue Line CTA train and a bus to a rally at the historic Water Tower, at the corner of Chicago Avenue and Michigan Avenue. We saw people on the train with Indivisible buttons and pro-Ukraine posters. When we transferred to the bus, the first bus standing next to the stairs leading from the subway was already full. It left, and as soon as another arrived, people filled it as well. Standing in the aisle, we talked with the people around us, including one older woman of Ukrainian descent who said she was outraged when watching the White House debacle on television two days earlier. She added that she had recently visited Germany, where some of her Ukrainian relatives now reside, and that people there were asking how Americans could be so unaware of history as to want to repeat the German experience of the 1930s.
Speakers address the crowd in front of Water Tower landmark in downtown Chicago.
Protesters spread the Ukrainian flag at rally
I am not sure most Americans are so blissfully unaware. If they were, the crowd of at least one thousand would not have been at the Water Tower park for the protest. In such mass protests, Americans seem particularly undaunted about expressing their free speech rights. They cheered heartily and repeatedly while listening to U.S. Senator Dick Durbin, who warned that the U.S. backing out of NATO would be a “disastrous development,” and U.S. Reps. Mike Quigley, who urged NATO membership for Ukraine, and Delia Ramirez, of Guatemalan American descent, as they excoriated the arrogance of Trump and Vance and praised the courage of the Ukrainian people. One speaker noted that Ukrainians were resisting the invasion of a nation four times their size. After about half an hour in the 26-degree cold, the crowd moved out of the park and southward along Michigan Avenue to Daley Plaza, chanting slogans and bearing protest signs.
I will not belabor the point. Millions of people have already seen the video of the farce in the Oval Office. Millions have read news stories. I will offer instead some instructive resources for those willing to educate themselves further on the historic and current context of the tragedy unfolding in Ukraine and encourage visits to libraries and bookstores by recommending the following:
- Borderland: A Journey through the History of Ukraine by Anna Reid (Basic Books, 1997, 2023)
- The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine by Serhii Plokhy (Basic Books, 2015, 2021)
- Invasion: The Inside Story of Russia’s Bloody War and Ukraine’s Fight for Survival by Luke Harding (Vintage, 2022)
I have personally read these three books, but one can easily discover many more with minimal online research. It would behoove us all to learn what we can and to engage with the Ukrainian American communities among us in order better to refute the disinformation that is widely circulated. Although I have not yet acquired it, The Folly of Realism by U.S. Rep. Alexander Vindman seems promising based on interviews I have seen. Vindman was a U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel until the Trump administration removed him from a National Security Council position during the first impeachment of President Trump over his 2019 telephone call with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Vindman was a witness during the impeachment hearings. He subsequently won a Congressional seat from Virginia.
We all have homework to sharpen our awareness and real work to do in challenging the fiasco that is unfolding daily. Let’s roll up our sleeves and arm ourselves with the truth and the courage to speak out.
Jim Schwab