Glory to Ukraine!
Glory to the defenders of Ukraine and all of modern civilization!
- Latest news briefing
- Thomas Friedman: “Trump is the most un-American president I can remember. No other president has done more—and continues to do more—to destroy the institutions and alliances formed after World War II and maintained by his predecessors.”
- Americans are facing an existential choice. Pre-election forecasts.
▶ First, briefly about the latest news:
● On Saturday, correspondents from CNN, MS NOW, and Politico were not allowed into the White House. At Trump’s direction, their White House accreditations were annulled. It can be expected that all three media outlets will file a lawsuit, and the court will have no choice but to oblige the White House to restore the journalists’ accreditation. The gross violation by the president of the First Amendment to the Constitution, which proclaims complete and unrestricted freedom of speech, protected against any encroachments on it, is absolutely evident here.
● Trump signed the Graham Sanctions Act. The law came into effect. However, the only really effective, non-political provision of this law is that it covers all sanctions imposed against Russia under Biden’s executive order 14024 of April 15, 2021. These are sanctions against hundreds of Russian companies, hundreds of legal entities, and hundreds of individuals. Now the president will not be able to lift these sanctions without Congress’s consent. However, the law’s validity period is limited to five years.
● At present, the 47th president’s meeting schedule in New York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly does not include a meeting with Ukrainian President Zelensky. One can see a negative meaning in this, but also a positive one. If there is no meeting, it means the 47th will not pressure Ukraine to agree to Russian demands of withdrawal from the Donetsk region, meaning capitulation. And meeting plans often change.
But Trump’s attitude towards Ukraine is unlikely to change. It has been and will remain for him a factor hindering his relations with Putin and preventing him from obtaining the 12 trillion that Putin promised him in Russia.
▶ In exactly 45 days, on November 3, Congressional elections will take place in the USA. The entire House of Representatives, elected for two years, will be re-elected. Additionally, 35 out of 100 senators, elected for six years, will also be re-elected.
These elections, how they unfold, whether they will be free, and their outcomes will determine whether the USA can remain a democracy or if the establishment of an authoritarian, proto-fascist regime in the country, which the 47th president and his supporting Republicans strive for, will become irreversible.
A victory for the Democrats even just in the House of Representatives will mean the restoration of the checks and balances system that stopped working – reestablishing strict control over the executive branch, investigating all violations of laws by the president and executive power, investigating unprecedented presidential corruption, and creating a legislative obstacle to establishing an authoritarian regime.
A win for the Republicans will not only leave the president and the executive power unchecked but will signal the 47th president to pursue further actions aimed at establishing an authoritarian regime in the country.
Therefore, the current choice is not between different ways of living within established democratic norms and fundamental values. It is a choice between preserving liberal democracy and its elimination.
Here’s what three-time Pulitzer Prize winner Thomas Friedman wrote in The New York Times on September 8:
“Trump is the most un-American president in my memory. No president has done more – and continues to do more – to destroy the institutions and alliances that were built after World War II and supported by his predecessors.
It involves NATO, the UN, the World Health Organization, the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the US Agency for International Development, NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement), our close ties with Canada and Mexico, as well as military alliances with South Korea and Japan – and these are just some examples. Collectively, these ties and institutions have ensured the prosperity of both the USA and the world for many generations, as well as the peaceful coexistence of great powers.
However, Trump and his accomplices are systematically dismantling this system, guided by the principle of ‘America First,’ but ultimately dooming the country to isolation and, eventually, decline.
I am particularly disgusted by how Trump panders to the Russian dictator Vladimir Putin – a man who not only tries to destroy Ukraine as a sovereign state but also undermines the foundations of NATO and the European Union, two of the most essential pillars of Western security and prosperity. Recently, Putin proudly declared that he is assisting Iran in the war against the US in the Persian Gulf, actively supplying Tehran with ‘necessary’ equipment and essential goods. Putin continues to spit in America’s face, and Trump tells Americans: ‘Listen, guys, it’s just raining.’
Trump has never given an honest assessment of the war in Ukraine. We are witnessing how Putin is trying to destroy an important European democracy. Why? What is the reason for this unwavering “male friendship” of Trump’s with Putin? The answer has always been in plain sight: Unlike any of his predecessors, Trump does not regard democracy as a fundamental value. He prefers the company of people like Putin and Kim Jong Un.
The reason for this is obvious. According to a recent report by my colleague from the Times, Eric Lipton, based on data on financial assets published on June 30, “In the history of the United States, there has never been a president like Donald J. Trump, who in the first year of his tenure obtained approximately $1.4 billion in new revenues from cryptocurrency companies that directly benefited from his presidential actions.”
If Trump’s party wins in November, his multifaceted attempts to undermine democratic institutions and the rule of law in America will almost certainly reach an entirely new level.
In other words, if successful in the midterm elections, Trump will feel more confident and powerful than ever—and this is happening at a time when he is clearly declining both mentally and physically; when we are at the epicenter of possibly the greatest technological transformation in human history (the emergence of self-improving agents and AI robots); when climate change—which he denies—is making the weather increasingly hot and unstable; when he has managed to alienate practically all of America’s allies in the world, including Canada; when he is bogged down in a conflict with Iran, depleting our military resources and led by a clown, Pete Hegseth—a man who has probably fired or blocked the promotion of more U.S. generals than he has destroyed Iranians; when China is capturing the global electric vehicle market, and the president is trying to seize Venezuela’s oil.
A year ago, I heard one of our former presidents note in a private conversation: we can survive a second Trump term if our institutions of power maintain their integrity. Well, unfortunately, that didn’t happen. Who today would dare to assert that the Department of Justice, turned into the president’s personal legal weapon, has maintained its integrity? Or that the Department of Health and Human Services, the Pentagon, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), now led by a talentless Trump-appointed puppet acting as both state censor and propaganda minister, have not been harmed?
▶ The long election campaign enters a decisive phase. The party primaries are over. The candidates of the two main parties, who have reached the final stage, now appeal to voters, competing with each other.
Traditionally, neither the Democrats nor the Republicans have a unified party platform for the midterm elections. In 435 majority districts and in various states of a large country spanning five time zones, people may be interested in quite different issues, and even perceive the same issues differently. But there are, of course, common issues that concern everyone today: rising prices, inflation, primarily the increase in fuel and energy prices, food prices, the rising cost of health insurance and loss of medical coverage, the rising cost of housing. It is on these issues, on the president’s and Republicans’ inability to solve them, and on how their actions have significantly worsened these problems, that Democrats focus their attention.
At Trump’s insistence, Republicans held a two-day pre-election convention in Dallas two weeks ago. Traditionally, party conventions are held in the year of presidential elections. They nominate presidential candidates and approve presidential and party platforms. In the year of midterm elections, conventions have not been held in modern history.
The recent Republican convention was dedicated to praises for the 47th president and was his benefit event. At Trump’s prompting, Republicans formulated their main pre-election theses. Democrats are communists, socialists, Marxists who want to destroy America. Therefore, allowing them to win the elections is absolutely unacceptable.
It must be said that I’ve often heard such slogans from people with far-right views in the American South, where I lived for more than ten years. “Democrats are communists, like Lenin, Stalin, and Fidel Castro” – I heard this phrase from ordinary American right-wingers 20 years ago. Now the same words are repeated by Trump and other Republicans, hoping this will deter voters from voting for Democrats.
However, it seems that this propaganda won’t affect the majority of voters. Most voters are neither Democrats nor Republicans. In the USA, they are called “independents.” Most voters are not committed to any ideology. They have their own understanding of their economic situation and the changes that candidates from one party or another can bring.
And Republican candidates for Congress appear in a very unfavorable light to many of these voters.
The majority of these nonpartisan voters voted for Trump in 2024. He promised them to lower prices on gasoline, in supermarkets, on electricity, and to stop US participation in foreign wars. Almost two years have passed since then. Gasoline is now one and a half times more expensive than in the fall of 2024, diesel prices are at a historical high, supermarket prices have increased on everything, and electricity prices are rising at a record pace. More than a million people have lost health insurance, and for the rest, it has become more expensive. The 47th started a war with Iran and cannot find a way out of this war. His explanations that Ukraine is to blame for the high diesel prices are not accepted by people, who understand well that the high fuel price is a result of Trump starting a war with Iran, getting bogged down in it, and not being able to find a way out. The president’s approval rating, the lowest in history among second-term presidents, shows that only about a third of voters remain his supporters.
These public sentiments are reflected in poll results. According to various polls, 6-7% more people intend to vote for Democrats in the Congressional elections than for Republicans. For the U.S., this is a very large gap, equating to 5-7 million votes. In this scenario, a Democratic victory in the House of Representatives seems very likely.
A year ago, it was hard to imagine that Democrats could win the Senate elections. Republicans currently hold a 53-47 majority in the Senate. This means Democrats would need to take 4 seats from Republicans without losing any to gain a majority. However, now such an outcome seems quite possible.
Democrats are very likely to take Senate seats from Republicans in North Carolina (where former Democratic governor Roy Cooper leads in polls by 5-6%) and in Ohio (where former senator Sherrod Brown leads in polls by 4-5%).
For the first time since 1988, a Democrat might win an election in Texas. Democrat James Talarico consistently leads in most polls by 1-4% over Texas Attorney General Paxton.
Democrats have good chances in Maine, where their candidate Troy Jackson is currently neck and neck with Senator Susan Collins, who is trying to get re-elected to the Senate for the seventh time.
Former Congresswoman Mary Peltola has real chances in Alaska, running evenly with the incumbent Republican Senator Sullivan.
In Iowa, where farmers are unhappy with their economic situation caused by fuel price hikes and Trump’s trade wars, Democrat Josh Turek has quite real chances against Republican opponent Ashley Hinson. According to polls, they are running evenly.
The political fall in America will be very heated. Too much is at stake. The fate of the country depends on how the voters will vote. They can stop the country’s fall into the abyss. Or make it irreversible.
There are 854 days left until the end of the story called “Fear: Trump in the White House” © (the title of the book by Bob Woodward, published in 2018).
Thank you to everyone who read this. Take care of yourself and your loved ones. Take care of each other, help each other. Health to all.
Ultimately, what happens in the world depends on us. Whether we fight evil, do Good, remain mere observers, passively waiting and believing that someone somewhere will decide something for us, or fight evil and do everything possible for Good to prevail.
We must not let evil prevail. The victory of evil would mean the end of the world we live in. We cannot allow this. Especially now.
Ukrainian Friends, I embrace and love you all. Please take care of each other, I ask you sincerely.
Ukraine is and always will be.
And evil will be defeated and punished. This is certain.
