Volodymir Zelenskyy has finally done what no American politician has dared. Trump, who has a traitorous heart, turns men against themselves for fear they should cross him. The Ukrainian president refused to betray his cause for the pleasure of “the king.” Time will dictate the consequences, but we can be assured that in telling Trump to go to hell, the repercussions will include no half-measures. His Majesty will vengefully consider the unthinkable. No doubt, Zelenskyy was aware of the danger attached to meeting with Trump. Trump, no doubt, would never think a man so laden down with his nation’s future at stake would dare to stir his ire. Now, Zelenskyy's rebuff has taken Ukraine and the rest of the world to the precipice. It is a place the world has avoided since the time we first crossed that line. Our modern history that began with a madman threatening humanity reprises the dread. The era began and ended in madness, and then the world took stock and stepped back.
It has taken another madman, this time an American president, to show the world what it had wrought-- and what is at stake:
“Since Auschwitz, we know what man is capable of. And since Hiroshima, we know what is at stake.”
— Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning
Time can be both forgiving and damning. It shouldn’t be forgetful. The above quote from Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning is preceded by a brief but relevant sentence that, like his remembrance, is alarmingly simple:
“So, let us be alert--alert in a twofold sense.”
The wages of madness are death and destruction. No one needs to remind Ukrainians of that as they battle two psychopaths.
As a nation, really as members of the human community, we are now an audience for Frankl’s message. I’ve read and reread “Search for Meaning” — usually skipping through chapters looking for a phrase or truth that could help me make sense of difficult moments. While the existential moment that sparked Frankl’s search may seem unrelated, the moment the world finds itself resonates with those darker moments in our past. Those moments are connected by parallel strains in our Human DNA representing both the best and worst of our species.
In a political world suddenly turned transactional by our president, we now hear echoes of the era Frankl so meticulously chronicles. As I have written earlier, the current world order is eerily reminiscent of pre-World War II Europe, an era in which a vacuum of leadership in Europe opened the floodgates for war. A naive explanation, both then and now, would be to ascribe blame to a single source— blame Hitler, condemn Trump. More appropriately, the forces behind the rise of anti-democratic autocratic regimes are far more complex. This is not to excuse the role played by leaders who rush to fill the vacuum. They are, in a very real sense, men of their times, albeit evil ones. Those who helped sweep Nazis into power are not unlike those that have paved the way for Trump’s MAGA turn. Old grievances, economic and cultural disagreements, and a failure of political leadership helped fan the flames of war. Hitler took advantage of the aged German president, Paul Von Hindenburg, who appointed him Chancellor before Hindenburg died in 1934. Hitler used the Nazi Party as a vehicle to power, just as Trump has used the GOP:
December – Von Papen resigned. Hindenburg appointed Kurt Von Schleicher, an army general, as Chancellor. Von Schleicher tried to split the Nazis by asking a leading Nazi called Gregor Strasser to be his Vice Chancellor. Hitler forced Strasser to decline.
January – Von Papen and Hindenburg turned to Hitler, appointing him as Chancellor with Von Papen as Vice Chancellor. They believed they could control Hitler and get him to do what they wanted.
— BBC, “How Hitler became Chancellor 1932-1933”
History sometimes rhymes in discordant notes. The important point here and the relationship to Frankl’s work lay in the realization that power is as much surrendered as taken by force.
As a nation, we all bear a responsibility for what has happened to our democracy, and we have a more critical burden to take it back before it is too late. The time is now as Ukraine’s democratically elected president and the leader of an aggressed nation was expected to sell out to Putin, the aggressor, and his friendly American autocrat, in their coalition of the shameless.
The lessons of our recent history apply here. Just as popular support can be manufactured to seize political power, the same course is needed to undo the harm caused over the past seven years in which Republicans have undermined our democracy. We now realize that the opposition, both Democratic and leaders of the GOP, have been ineffectual in curbing the populist message that has overtaken the country and the Western democracies. Attributing blame at this point is not helpful. The current resistance is simply not equipped to make the necessary adjustments to reorder our politics.
In these times, partisanship needs tempering. After today, the world is looking for a coalition of the sane to take us back from the brink of war, from a cabal of rich and greedy men who find meaning in the suffering of others. Frankl turns our questioning of life’s meaning on its head as he suggests that life seeks meaning from us— that we are the ones who create the meaning for our lives:
It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life—daily and hourly.” (emphasis mine)— Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning
It is as if we have been caught up in a Rip Van Winkle moment— asleep for a generation in which sudden change has made our world unrecognizable. It has been nearly 20 years since Barrack Obama, borrowing from the poet June Jordan, restated Frankl’s observation, asking who will stand in the breach when the time comes:
“You see, the challenges we face will not be solved with one meeting in one night. It will not be resolved on even a Super Duper Tuesday. Change will not come if we wait for some other person or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.“
— Barack Obama, February 5, 2008
Volodymir Zelenskyy answered that question for his people as he left the White House with his dignity and his nation’s best interests intact. He received the final clarity he needed before turning to his European allies for support. He knows what Trump could never fathom, what European leaders have known since Auschwitz and Hiroshima. They all understand what Trump and Putin are capable of— and what is at stake.
