The Art of the Kneel

In the weeks leading up to the election, this is how Kamala Harris described Trump’s view on Putin and Ukraine. “He talks about, oh, he can end it on day one. You know what that is? It’s about surrender.” In the past week, we’ve seen something that is in some ways even more aggressive than a surrender; an all out attack on our allies and the post WWII world order. In the course of week, Trump has blamed Ukraine for the war, parroted Putin talking points, referred to Zelensky as a dictator, held peace talks with Russia (but without Ukraine or Europe), and sent his VP to Munich to tell Germans and other Europeans to be more amenable to the far right.

+ Zelensky argued Trump was caught in a web of disinformation while Trump responded that, “Think of it, a modestly successful comedian, Volodymyr Zelensky, talked the United States of America into spending $350 Billion Dollars, to go into a War that couldn’t be won, that never had to start, but a War that he, without the U.S. and “TRUMP,” will never be able to settle.” Our most important global alliances have been turned into a particularly unhinged Trump rally.

+ “It is a week that has upended traditional alliances, left Europe and Ukraine scrambling to respond, raised fears for European security and put Russia where it wants to be: at the top table of global politics, without having made any concessions to get there.” BBC: How Putin and Trump shook up the world in a week.

+ 4 thoughts on Trump’s new world order from foreign relations expert Richard Haass. “We are moving away from the world with the United States in tandem with its allies — allies of 75, 80 years in many cases would work together in terms of building all sorts of organizations and principles to govern international relations.” Great news for China, great news for Putin, bad news for our allies.